Valentin Ivanovich Rassadin

The Institute of Mongolian, Buddhist and Tibetan Studies, Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, linguistics department

On the Problems of Revitalization and Preservation of Languages of Some Numerically Small Turkic Peoples of Southern Siberia
(Using the Example of Tofalar and Soyot Languages)

The territory of Southern Siberia and adjacent Northern Mongolia for a long time have been occupied by different ethnic groups among which Turkic tribes became distinct at earlier periods. Their descendants formed different modern Turkic peoples still living here including Tuvinians, Khakass, Shors, Northern and Southern Altai ethnic groups, Tofalars, Oka Soyots, Chulym Turks on the Russian side, and Tsengel Tuvinians, Kök-Monchaks, Tsaatan Uighurs, Uighur Uryankhays on the Mongolian side. Notably, all peoples mentioned above, except for rather numerous peoples such as Tuvinians, Khakas, Shors and Altaians which have had their literary languages for a long time are, in fact, quite numerically small peoples which have never practiced writing in their native languages. However, in recent years the situation changed, exclusively in relation to Tofalar and Soyot languages for which written languages were created – for Tofalar in 1986, and for Soyot in 2001, so that these languages stopped to be non-literate. For already 15 years Tofalar language has been taught in Tofalar schools, while Soyot language is being prepared for teaching. Languages of other numerically small Turkic peoples of Southern Siberia and Mongolia left without writing and teaching at school are in a critical situation and coming to the brink of extinction. Positioned only in a limited family sphere of oral communication, they cannot compete with official languages: with Russian in Russia, and with Mongolian in Mongolia. If no urgent measures for their protection are undertaken on behalf of the state then in the nearest future these languages can be irrevocably lost with the representatives of older generation passing away as it almost happened to the language of Oka Soyots.

In the present report we will attempt to briefly describe the history and the present day situation with the revitalization and preservation of Tofalar and Soyot languages. These are very close languages of genetically related Turkic peoples which have populated Eastern Sayan region from the ancient times and have led a similar way of life of nomadic hunters and reindeer herders up to the present day. They have always been in contact with each other due to the overlapping area of their population. Besides, since the middle XVII century Tofalars have been influenced by Russians, although remaining in contact with neighboring Buryats. Soyots have also been in permanent contact with Mongols and Buryats and they even were almost completely Buryatified by the end of the XX century. Linguistic situation of Tofalars and Soyots has been different. As compared to the moment of sedentarization of nomadic reindeer herding Tofalars and Soyots in the 1930s characterized by so called “capitation” (universal) command of native languages, the situation started changing in the period of sedentary life. In their villages Tofalars found themselves dispersed among Russian-speaking population, and they also were instructed in Russian for the first 10 years of school studies due to the lack of written Tofalar language. This led to the situation when Russian language started to supplant Tofalar language even in the sphere of family communication as a result of increased number of interethnic marriages. Soyots faced an analogical situation with the main role played by Buryat language instead of Russian language, and the process of their “Buryatification” was rapidly developing. Since Tofalars were Russified less intensively, in contrast to the speed of Buryatification of Soyots, Tofalar language was better preserved in everyday life as compared to Soyot language. This fact allowed to stop the loss of Tofalar language in the 1980s and to achieve its revitalization through scientific studies, creation of the written language, school textbooks and its introduction as a subject in Tofalar elementary schools. In connection with government contracts with Goskomsever (the State Committee of the North) and Ministry of Education which meant state support, positive affects were quickly achieved. At present it can stated that Tofalar language has been helped out of the critical situation. However, due to the liquidation of Goskomsever (the State Committee of the North) and to the fact that Tofalars were turned adrift in the conditions of market economy and universal commercialization, the process of preservation of their just recently revitalized language can stop due to the lack of funding on behalf of the state, and the language may once again face endangerment.

Modern Tofalars represent the most numerically small Turkic speaking people of Russia. According to 1989 census, they numbered 731 people. At the present moment they lead sedentary life in three villages – Alygdzher, Nerkha and Verkhnyaya Gutara on the territory of three village administrations: Tofalarskaya, Nerkhinskaya and Verkhnegutarinskaya belonging to Nizhneudinskiy district of Irkutsk Province, Russian Federation. According to N.A. Baskakov’s classification, Tofalar language along with Tuvinian language is included in Uighur and Tukyuy subgroup of Uighur and Oguz group of Turkic languages (Baskakov, 1969, P. 323; Zhukovskaya and others, 2002, P.182).

Tofalars’ ethnonym - Tofá, in pre-revolutionary time they were called Karagas. Historically, they were characterized by clan organization and were divided into five exogamous clans – hааsh, sary-hааsh, chogdy, kara-chogdy, cheptey. All nomadic and hunting territories were distributed among clans. Although, quite early back in the XVII-th century Tofalars were converted in Christianity they continued practicing shamanism.

As aboriginals of this region Tofalars led nomadic hunting and reindeer herding way of life until the end of the 1920s. Their main dwelling was a conical chum made of larch tree poles and covered with birch bark in warm seasons, and with elk and reindeer skins covers – in cold seasons.

Populating permanent villages after the transition to sedentary life, Tofalars mastered economic activities new for them: stalled keeping of cattle and pigs, stalled keeping of peasant species of horses and using them for pulling carts (telegas) and sledges, for industrial storage of hay and firewood, growing potatoes and other vegetables on personal plots. They learned to prepare different diary products out of cow milk, mastered yeast bread baking. At the same time some of their traditional activities were preserved: reindeer herding transformed in distant-pasture shift-based herding, spring hunt of red deer for dags with the help of solonetz method, autumn hunt of on-heat red deer with a special decoy pipe, hunting bears in dens in autumn, hunting forest animals and waterfowl, catching fish with the help of fish-weir during spawning season in autumn. Collecting cedar nuts in autumn is one of remaining traces of gathering activity. All these types of economic activities both new and traditional ones were underlying the economic basis of Tofalar kolkhozes until 1962 and that of koopzhverpromkhoz (cooperative animal husbandry economy) after 1963. Many of these activities are still practiced in individual economies of modern Tofalars and are adopted by local Russian population living in Tofalar villages.

At present the Tofalars are being integrated into a post-Soviet society with developing market relations, new Tofalar society characterized by revived interest to traditional, more rational land use approaches, to traditional individual economic activity, is being formed, interest to national spiritual culture, to the native language now taught in Tofalar schools is growing.

Since only little scientific information has been available about Soyot language and about Soyots themselves let me provide more detailed description of them.

As it was noted in the “Red Book of Languages of Peoples of Russia” (Zhukovskaya and others, 2002, P. 164), modern Soyot language is a Turkic language belonging to Uighur and Tukyuy subgroup of Uighur and Oguz group of Turkic languages similarly to Tuvinian and Tofalar languages. Modern Soyots are a numerically small people of Russia represented by their compact communities living on the territory of Okinskiy district and, partially, of Tunkinskiy district of the Republic of Buryatia, Russian Federation. Until 1993 they were not officially distinguished among Buryatian population of the region although earlier in the 1920s, according B.E. Petri records, there were 500 Soyots recognizing themselves as a separate people distinct from Buryats. During an ethnographic expedition to Soyots in 1926 B.E. Petri found them occupied with various economic activities and leading different ways of life. Soyots who settled in Tunka and left reindeer herding due to inappropriate geographical conditions started adopting economic and cultural type of Tunka Buryats and quite soon ethnically assimilated with them. Reindeer herding Soyots resettled to Oka River valley and Ilchir location in the dividing mountain range in the upper reaches of Irkut River where high quality pastures with reindeer moss and favorable hunting conditions were situated. Here they continued their traditional hunting and reindeer herding way of life similar to that led by their neighboring Sayan hunters and reindeer herders – Russian Tofalars, Mongolian Uighurs and Tsaatans and Todzhu Tuvinians with whom Soyots have traditionally been in contact and from whom they used to buy reindeer when necessary. In his expedition report B.E. Petri (1927) noted that reindeer herding Soyots still continue to follow their seasonal nomadic routs in taiga with their reindeer which they ride, subsist on hunting fur animals and ungulates, preserve their traditional dwellings – chums, their culture and language related to Uryankhay Soyon language.

In our opinion, since Ilhchir reindeer herding Soyots led their nomadic life separated by a significant territorial distance from other groups of Soyots, while the latter began to merge with Buryats long time ago through adopting their animal husbandry, way of life with its own every day life peculiarities and Burytian language, the authorities had an impression that all Soyots were Buryatified and merged with Buryats a long time ago, and there was no need to distinguish them among Buryats.

In the 1930s Soyot reindeer herding started declining due to significant murrain of reindeer herds. The herds could not be enlarged by reindeer purchased from Todzhu Tuvinians and Tsaatans as it used to be the case, by the prohibition of the new authorities since at that time Tuva was a foreign state and brining reindeer in from there was equaled to smuggling; reindeer bought by Soyots in Tuva were simply confiscated. Moreover, in the 1930s the process of kolkhoz formation and sedentarization of nomadic numerically small peoples of Siberia was rapidly developing. This resulted in collectivization of reindeer and sedentarization of Soyots in villages Sorok, Khurga, Bokson, and also in Orlik and at numerous small-scale animal husbandry farms. Soyots had to retrieve to animal husbandry of the local Buryatian type breeding yaks (sarlyks), khaynyks, cows, horses and, to some extent, ship while adopting from Buryats their way of life. Reindeer herd was preserved in kolkhozes for transportation purposes and provision of hunters during winter hunting season in mountainous taiga. However, in 1963, by the decree of the Government of BASSR (Buryatian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic) reindeer herding in Oka was liquidated as allegedly unprofitable branch of animal husbandry. Moreover, in a short time Gospromkhoz alienating the best hunting grounds was created on the territory of former clan lands of Soyots. Soyots had no space and no place to hunt any longer. With the loss of reindeer herding traditional way of life of Soyots also became a thing of the past. Along with the old men, Soyot Turkic language and national culture passed away. The name of the people became forgotten.

The history of Soyots has been understudied. In scientific literature we come across some separate remarks about their origin. Ethnographer L.R. Pavlinskaya from St. Petersburg (2002, P. 41-51) who conducted a thorough study of modern Soyots suggested a hypothesis of their ethnogenesis influenced by Sayan Samodiys (Samoed) tribes which formed a basis later superimposed by an ancient Turkic ethnos which Turkified this Samodiys (Samoed) substrate in terms of language. To put it in other words by its origin Soyots are Sayan Samodiys (Samoeds) exposed to Turkification during ancient Turkic period approximately in VII-VIII centuries A.D. or, probably, earlier.

According to evidence of old residents of Okinskiy district being both Soyots and Buryats, relatively recently, approximately 350-400 years ago Soyots representing clans Irkit, Khaasuut and Onkhot moved from the vicinities of Khabsugul Lake, Mongolia where they led nomadic life on the territories of Darkhat Somons Khankha and Uuri, and also from the area of Rinchinlkhumbe Mountain considered to be a sacred protecting mountain. After crossing Mongolian borders Soyots started settling in Tunka and, partially, in Zakamenka. However, since there are almost no places favorable for reindeer herding there a part of Soyots which adopted animal husbandry settled in Tunka and Zakamenka merging with local Buryats. As for reindeer herders, they moved to Oka, to the mountain range dividing Oka River and Irkut River, in the region lacking reindeer moss and food. This is the way Soyots came to Oka.

In Darkhat region of Mongolia, situated to the west from Khubsugul Lake there are still Turkic-language reindeer herders living whom Mongols called Tsaatan (literally, a reindeer herder), and also Uigar that is Uighur, and sometimes Uigar Tsaatan, Tsaatan Uigar (literally, “reindeer herding Uighurs”). Tsaatan-Uighurs per se call themselves by name myъha (Tukha), which is very close to Tofalar ethnonym – Tofa, compare, for instance, with Tuvinians’ name – Tyva-Dyva. Besides, Oka Buryats, along with Uryankhad (literally, “Uryankhay”) use expression Uigar Khelten that is “Uighur speaking” to name Tuvinians and Tofalars. It speaks for the fact that memory of Buryat people associates the present Turkic ethnic groups with ancient Uighurs. Clan composition of Tsaatans and also of other reindeer herding groups of Darkhats originated from Sayan Turkic reindeer herders, also includes Irkit, Khaasuut, Onkhot clans. Obviously, modern Oka Soyots trace their origin from these Sayan Turkic reindeer herders.

National and cultural revival of numerically small peoples which started in the 1990s in Russia affected Soyots. Studies held in those years by different scientists showed that still many Soyots remembered not only their belonging to a separate people of Soyot in general but also kept in memory their affiliation to one of three Soyot clans – Khaasuut, Onkhot, Irkit. They also preserved many features of their every day life and spiritual culture including not only legends, tales, songs but also shamanic calls, although all those were also preserved in Buryatian language. For instance, performing shamanic prayer to mountain-protector of Burin-Khanu location which old men called Ulug-Dag (that is “Great Mountain”) in Soyot, they appealed to it with the following words: «Уйгар хэлэтэн, урса гэртэн, үйhэн забитан, сагаа унаатан, сана хүлэгтэн бидэ hойоодууд» (literally, «We are Soyots having Uighur language, having chums as a dwelling, having birch bark canoes, reindeer as a transportation means, and sledges as fast horses”). Here is Soyots’ concept of their past traditional way of life of a Turkic-speaking nomadic taiga hunting and reindeer herding people. The movement for rehabilitation of rights of Soyots as an independent numerically small Northern people which started in the Republic of Buryatia in 1992 and continued on different levels through the 1990s, on March, 24 2000 resulted in Decree #255 of the Government of Russia including Soyots of Buryatia in the universal list of indigenous numerically small peoples of Russian Federation. In this document the total number of Soyots in 1999 equaled 1973 people. According to 2001 data, number of Soyots equaled 2002 people. On the level of the Government of the Republic of Buryatia measures on revitalization of Soyot traditional hunting and reindeer herding economy and national culture, including language were developed and are being undertaken.

In 1993 Soyot national village council (at present – administration) with the center in Sorok village was established; the same year Association of Soyots of Okinskiy district, RB (Republic of Buryatia) was created and officially registered in the Ministry of Justice, RB. In pursuance of the act on revitalization of reindeer herding in 1994 60 reindeer were brought in to Oka from neighboring Tofalaria, and Tofalar herders started helping Oka people to recollect reindeer herding skills. By present reindeer got acclimatized and their herd started growing.

Measures on revitalization of spiritual culture and language are being taken. Regularly, in Sorok village national Soyot holiday Zhogtaar (“Meeting”) which in 2004 was renamed in Ulug-Dag (“Great Mountain” in honor of mountain-protector Burin-Khan) was held.

Modern Soyot language which was remembered by several old men just recently and which we managed to witness in the 1970’s and even to hear in the early 1990’s during our trips to Oka, according to its structure, is a typical Turkic language, closest to Tofalar language of Russia and to the language of Tsaatans-Uighurs and Uighurs-Uryankhays of Mongolia. We have been studying Tofalar language since 1964, and the two latter – since 1989 when we made their first records in communities of these peoples. From the very beginning of the record of Tsaatan and Uighur-Uryankhay languages their close connection both to each other and to Tofalar and Soyot languages was revealed while significant distinctions from Tuvinian language were registered in spite of the fact that all of them belong to the same Sayan subgroup of Siberian Turkic languages. According to the classification of Turkic languages widely spread in domestic Turkology and suggested by N.A. Baskakov (Baskakov, 1969, P.323), Tuvinian and Tofalar languages belong to Uighur-Tukyuy subgroup of Uighur Oguz group of Turkic languages. The present subgroup is amplified by languages of Uighurs-Tsaatans and Uighur-Uryankhays, and also by Soyot language.

Comparative study of Turkic languages of Sayan region including Soyot language demonstrated that all of them – Tuvinian language of Russia and Mongolia, Tofalar and Soyot languages of Russia, Tsaatan and Uighur and Uryankhay language of Mogolia, Kök-Monchak language of Mongolia and China are united in a single Sayan subgroup of Siberian Turkic languages which, according to N.A. Baskakov, is called Uighur-Tukyuy. This subgroup itself is divided in two clear areas: 1) steppe – with languages of Tuvinians and Kök-Monchaks, and 2) taiga where Tofalar, Soyot, Tsaatan and Uighur and Uryankhay languages belong. Todzhu dialect of Tuvinian language has a number of features associated with taiga area. Native speakers of taiga area are mostly reindeer herders and hunters (except for Uighurs-Uryankhays of Mongolia which have had the same economic type as Mongols pursuing animal husbandry for a long time) which are unified, along with the common language, by a similar type of nomadic hunting and reindeer herding economy and original material culture which facilitated their adaptation to nomadic life in mountainous taiga environment.

The relation of Soyot and Tofalar languages is proved not only by our personal impressions obtained during the examination of Soyot language, Tsaatan and Uighur and Uryankhay languages but also by a number of evidences by scientists which had an opportunity to study Soyots. For instance, according to the statement of B.S. Dugarov who studied the ethnogenesis of Oka Buryats and Soyots, M.A. Kastren during his visit to Tunka Soyots in the XIX century wrote that they spoke: “…the same Turkic dialect as Karagases (that is Tofalars – B.R.) do” (Dugarov, 1983, P. 99). The active use of their Turkic language by Soyots back in the XVIII century was mentioned by G.D. Sanzheev who in the late 1920s studied Darkhats and the population of Darkhat region referring to the evidence of Anton Fredrik Bushing, a German geographer of the XVIII-th century who in his book “Description of the Land” (published in Hamburg in 1787) asserted that Tunka Soyots have the same language as Karagases (that is Tofalars – B.R.) of Nizhneudinskiy Uezd (district) (Sanzheev, 1930, P. 13-14). Professor of Irkutsk State University B.E. Petri who in 1926 on the instructions of the Committee of the North hold a special ethnographic expedition on the studies of economy, every day life and culture of Soyots wrote about their language as still remembered by old men and extremely close to Urynkhay and Soyots language (Petri, 1927, P. 19). By the way, Soyots, Soyons and Uryankhays were terms used in old Russian literature until the 1920s to call Tuvinians who were not distinguished from Tsaatans and Tofalars.

At present the issue of the rights of peoples to the national culture and language was raised to its full potential. The problem of revitalization and preservation of cultures and languages of numerically small peoples of Russia, especially numerically small peoples of Siberia and the North has become urgent and vitally important again. While in the first years of the Soviet rule national cultures and languages of these peoples were still living and widely used, and the main problem was the provision of written languages, the present situation has changed to such extent that not only languages but also peoples should be protected and revitalized. In the Republic of Buryatia such problem faces not only Evenks but also Soyots – a numerically small nation officially recognized just recently whose aim is revitalization of the native language, national culture and economy. Sharing their feelings and supporting their struggle for revitalization completely we think that should not neglect any opportunity to help them in this matter. Skeptics assure us that it is allegedly too late and that all Soyots were completely “Buryatified”. However, we believe in the opposite. Just recently those skeptics themselves asserted that the issue of revitalization of such a small people as Soyots should not have been raised at all since they simply don’t exist now and all of the them became Buryats. But in practice, it was illustrated that the struggle to the revival of a people is unlimited. Soyots achieved recognition as an independent people and inclusion in the list of numerically small peoples of Russia. Real progress is being made in the cause of revival of their traditional economy connected with reindeer herding which they held until the 1960s. Therefore, we should hope that the will and the struggle of the people also for the revitalization of their language will overcome the scepsis of individual researchers and politicians.

We think that all opportunities of revitalization of Soyot language are there. First of all the people is eager to revive its native language. Since Soyot language is a Turkic language closest to the language of Tofalars and Tsaatans, its revitalization requires consideration of experience of the creation of writing for Tofalar language and Tofalar and Tsaatan linguistic material itself. Tsaatan language is non-literate; there are only experience of documentation of some scientific materials in Tsaatan language by Mongolian colleagues and our attempts to apply letters of Tofalar alphabet for its record in 1989. By the way, that attempt was successful enough, since in the aspect of sounding Tsaatan language has the same system as Tofalar language. This system is also represented in Soyot language. Therefore, we think it’s possible for Soyot language to use the same alphabet developed by us for Tofalar language as well as the same orthographic principles.

Language of Soyots is well developed and adequately represents the type of their traditional economic activity, every day life and culture. In the 1970s during the dialectological expedition to Okinskiy district approximately 5 thousand Soyot words and the basics of the grammar of Soyot language were recorded by us from Soyot old men; sound system of the language was clarified. In 2001 at the request of the Government of the Republic of Buryatia, the administration of Okinskiy district and the Association of Soyot people, writing system for Soyot language was developed, orthographic rules were worked out and “Soyot-Buryat-Russian dictionary” published in 2003 was compiled (Rassadin 2003). It included all Soyot vocabulary collected and translated by us both into Russian and Buryatian with the use of the dialectal vocabulary of Oka Buryats. At present we are working on the compilation of Soyot ABC-book and other school textbooks. In the period from January to May 2005 a teacher of Soyot language for the elementary school was trained at 4-month courses in connection with the fact that Okinskiy district administration and the governmental agencies of the Republic of Buryatia made a decision on introduction of Soyot language as a subject in elementary schools where Soyots are taught.

Thus, in relation to Soyot language which was almost forgotten, which almost came out of use and approached the brink of extinction the following should be noted. Collaborative efforts of scientists, the Soyot public, the Association of Soyot people, the corresponding bodies of the Government of the Republic of Buryatia resulted not only in the stopped process of obliviscence and disappearance of Soyot language but also in its revival, creation of the written language, development of orthography, specially trained teachers and started compilation of school textbooks and manuals, some of which, by the way, are already being prepared for publication by “Drofa” publishing company, along with a new variant of Tofalar ABC-book and other manuals in Tofalar language already published by this company. We think that similar to Tofalar language Soyot language managed to pass the dangerous stage of disappearance and obliviscence of a language, the language was revitalized and all prerequisites for its further preservation and development were created. The science played its role in this matter. Now it is the turn of the Soyot public and governmental bodies of the Republic of Buryatia and Russian Federation to make their contribution in the cause of state support of the preservation and development of this language.

Bibliography

1. Baskakov 1969 – Baskakov N.A. Vvedenie v Izuchenie Tyurkskikh Yazykov (Introduction in the Study of Turkic Languages). Мoscow, 1969.
2. Dugarov 1983 – Dugarov B.S. O Proiskhozhdenii Okinskikh Buryat (On the Origin of Oka Buryats). In Etnicheskie i Istoriko-Kulturnye Svyazi Mongolskikh Narodov. Ulan-Ude, 1983.P. 90-101.
3. Zhukovskaya and others 2002 – Zhukovskaya N.L., Oreshkina M.V., Rassadin V.I. Soyotskiy Yazyk (Soyot Language). In Yazyki Narodov Rossii. Krasnaya Kniga. (Entsiklopedicheskiy Slovar-Spravochnik). Moscow: Academia, 2002. P.164-170.
4. Pavlinskaya 2002 - Pavlinskaya L.R. Kochevniki Golubykh Gor. (Sudba Traditsionnoy Kultury Narodov Vostochnykh Sayan v Kontekste Vzaimodeystviya s Sovremennostyu) (The Nomads of the Blue Mountains. (The Fate of Traditional Culture of Peoples of the Eastern Sayan Mountains in the Context of Interaction with the Modernity)). St. Petersburg: publishing house «Evropeyskiy dom», 2002
5. Petri 1927 – Petri B.E. Etnographicheskie Issledovaniya Sredi Malykh Narodov v Vostochnykh Sayanakh (Predvaritelnye Dannye) (Ethnographic Studies among Small Peoples of the Eastern Sayans (Preliminary Data)). Irkutsk, 1927.

6. Rassadin 2003 – Rassadin V.I. Soyot-Buryat-Russian Dictionary. Ulan-Ude, 2003.
7. Sanzheev 1930 - Sanzheev G.D. Darkhaty. Etnografichskiy Otchet o Poezdke v Mongoliyu v 1937 (Darkhats. Ethnographic Report on the Trip to Mongolia in 1927). Leningrad, 1930.

Translated into English by O.A. Povoroznyuk

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