The Tubalar Language in Historical Perspective: A Critical Review of Sources
DOI: 10.23951/2307-6119-2026-4-18-30
Tubalar is an endangered Turkic variety belonging to the northern subgroup of the Gorno-Altai group. It was officially recognized as a distinct language in 2000, having previously been classified as part of Altai. The earliest records of Tubalar texts were made by V.V. Radlov in the 1850s and early 1860s. This article compares data on Tubalar and its dialects recorded by different researchers for the early 1960s, the mid-twentieth century, and the first two decades of the twenty-first century. It identifies Tubalar examples in published sources, establishes the ordering of rules (including nasalization rules) from both diachronic and synchronic perspectives, and identifies reflexes, such as those of *-g, that characterize Northern Altai languages. It also assesses the relationship between the material in V. V. Radlov’s dictionary and other available data. The study evaluates the reliability of these sources, clarifies the language’s genealogical classification, and proposes a hypothesis about its possible future in light of current Tubalar language activism.
Keywords: Tubalar language, Tubalars, endangered language variety, fieldwork, nasalization rules, linguistic reflexes
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Issue: 4, 2026
Series of issue: Issue 4
Rubric: LINGUISTICS
Pages: 18 — 30
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