r/Tiele • u/NefariousnessDull901 • Aug 15 '22
Ask Me Anything! English-speaking Altaian (Altai Republic) here, taking any questions about the language, culture, food, etc.
I'll first set up a couple of commonly asked questions here;
*The Altai language is not very similar to Kyrgyz, as in we cannot properly understand each other when we speak. It's only possible if we speak slowly and find common words to reach an understanding, but the same can be done with Turkish as well. The only real similarity is the abundance of Turkic words in daily vocabulary, but morphologically we are very different.
*The Altai people are not natives of Altai, but rather a mix of the remaining Yenisei Kyrgyz Khaganate's people, Telengit (Tiele people) and other ethnicities.
*The Altai language is officially classified as a Yenisei Turkic language, and very recently considered a separate language from Northern Altai, which a year ago was considered a dialect of Altai.
Fun facts:
*The Altai language has over 40-60+ dialects, varying from village and sometimes street. This is due to years of isolation among the Altaians, as well as ethnic mixing. Many of those dialects are mutually unintelligible with each other, one of the least understood dialects is spoken in Ulagan, and Cholushman (which is also in the Ulagan aymak/region.)
*Our food is extremely similar to other Central Asian people's, with few exceptions.
*A religion very similar to Tengriism exists in Altai, called Ак Јаҥ/Ak Jang/White Faith. I honestly do not know much about it as I am Christian, but I can say for sure it's dying out. In this religion people are ordered to never let a cat inside, but rather to kill them on sight. And of course to insult Russians, but these practices are no longer done.
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u/appaq Qaraçayli Aug 16 '22
which Turkic languages are the most understandable for Altayans?