Viktor Mandzhiev, Tsaatan Dialect

Abstract

Viktor talks about some phonetic peculiarities of the Tsaatan dialect. He says: Today the language of the Tsaatans became similar to common Kalmyk, although in the past they had their distinct dialect. Instead of ‘ts’ they said ‘ch’. For example, they said ‘chaatan’ instead of ‘tsaatan’, ‘chasn’ (snow) instead of ‘tsasn’, ‘chevr’ (clean) instead of ‘tsevr’. Also, instead of ‘z’ they said ‘y’ as in ‘yagsn’ (fish) instead of ‘zagsn’ or ‘yam’ (road) instead of ‘zam’.