On Some Graphophonetic Features of Old Kalmyk, Mid Eighteenth to Early Nineteenth Centuries: Analyzing Kalmyk Wordlists by G. F. Müller (1760–1762) and B. Bergman (1804–1805)

Introduction. Lexicographic sources in Old Kalmyk are of particular importance for studies of Kalmyk historical phonetics. Such earliest sources include a variety of dictionaries and wordlists compiled by German scholars engaged in the research of Imperial Russia’s peoples — including Kalmyks — and languages between the mid-eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The definite linguistic value is that those are records of colloquial language made by ‘external’ observers unfamiliar with oral-to-writing rules inherent to Oirat (Old Kalmyk) Script. If compared to written texts from the same period usually characterized by classical/literary language forms, such records would reflect the then Kalmyk phonetic features in a more accurate manner. Goals. The paper attempts an analysis into grapho-phonetic peculiarities inherent to the Kalmyk language throughout the mid-eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries. Materials and methods. The study focuses on Kalmyk wordlists compiled by G. Doerfer (Ältere Westeuropäische Quellen zür Kalmückischen Sprachgeschichte, 1965) from G. F. Müller’s Sammlung Russischer Geschichte (1760–1762) and B. Bergman’s Nomadische Streifereien unter den Kalmȕken in den Jahren 1802 und 1803 (1804–1805). The wordlists have been formatted to MS Excel, each entry to contain the authors’ spelling, German/Russian translations, and a modern literary form — to be further uploaded onto the LingvoDoc platform for comparative analysis with Proto-Mongolic and contemporary standard Kalmyk patterns. Results. The insight into the Old Kalmyk graphophonetic system articulated in G. F. Müller and B. Bergman’s publications makes it possible to conclude as follows. All the involved dictionaries and wordlists (including ones by P. S. Pallas and J. H. Klaproth) contain some archaic features of Old Kalmyk (from the examined period) that coincide with Proto-Mongolic forms (o — std. Kalm. ɵ, ai — a, u — ү), and innovative ones (e — std. Kalm. ɵ (Proto-Mongolic *ö), ä — e, ü — ө, o — у) that differ from both Proto-Mongolic and modern Kalmyk. It can be assumed that these were characteristic of Old Kalmyk in the mid-eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries at large — and not just for individual dialects. As for the consonant system, the correspondence k / c — std. Kalm. х is present only in G. F. Müller’s materials, where one can also find double spelling patterns for some lexemes with [k] and [ch] (e.g., kogur / chojor, kori / chori). This may indicate the archaic feature started to vanish in the 1760s and virtually disappeared by the early nineteenth century, since in materials of B. Bergman and J. H. Klaproth the correspondence can be traced only in spelling patterns of the verbal affix -kö. The correspondences tz — std. Kalm. ч and sch — ч have been discovered in both G. F. Müller and B. Bergman’s wordlists, which attests to these be viewed as phonetic features of Old Kalmyk from the period under consideration. Some correspondences identified in the examined wordlists (b — std. Kalm. в, e — ɵ, o — ɵ, i — ү, ö — ү, o / oo — у) are found in modern Buzava and Dorbet dialects, as well as in Orenburg and Ural subdialects.

1. Bayanova А. Т., Kukanova V. V., Butaeva A. O., Goryaeva B. B. Kalmyk Fairy Tales as Recorded by G. Ramstedt: Peculiarities of the Conversational Style. Oriental Studies. 2016. Vol. 9. No. 3. Pp. 129–139. (In Russ.) DOI: 10.22162/2075-7794-2016-25-3-129-139

2. Bembeev E. V. The comparative analysis of the “early” lexicographic monuments of the old-written Kalmyk language in the light of the development of the parsing program. Vestnik of Tuvan State University. Pedagogical Sciences. 2015. No. 4. Pp. 107–115. (In Russ.)

3. Bembeev E. V., Kukanova V. V. Digital Kalmyk lexicographic databases. In: Topical Issues of Contemporary Mongolian and Altaic Studies. Jubilee conference proceedings (Elista, 10‒13 November 2014). Elista: Gorodovikov Kalmyk State University, 2014. Pp. 210–216. (In Russ.)

4. Bobrovnikov A. A. Grammar of Kalmyk Mongolian. Kazan: Imperial Kazan University, 1849. 400 p. (In Russ.)

5. Vladimirtsov B. Ya. Khalkha and Classical Mongolian: A Comparative Grammar. Leningrad: Leningrad Oriental Institute, 1929. 436 p. (In Russ.)

6. Doleeva A. O., Kukanova V. V. Kalmyk Dictionary by Yu. G. Klaproth: Graphic and Phonetic Analysis of the Graphemes A and Ä. Oriental Studies. 2023; 17(4): 644–663. (In Russ.). DOI: 10.22162/2619-0990-2023-73-3-644-663

7. Kara D. Books of Mongolian Nomads: The Seven Centuries of Mongolian Writing. Moscow: Nauka, 1972. 229 p. (In Russ.)

8. Kichikov A. Sh. The Dorbet Dialect: A Study in Phonetics and Morphology. Elista: Kalmgosizdat, 1963. 86 p. (In Russ.)

9. Kotwicz W. L. A Grammar of Spoken Kalmyk. Second edition. Řevnice: Kalmyk Commission of Cultural Workers, 1929. 418 p. (In Russ.)

10. Kukanova V. V. On the Kalmyk National Corpus. In: Topical Issues of Dialect Studies in Russia. Conference proceedings (Ufa, 13–14 September 2013). Ufa: Institute of History, Language and Literature (USC RAS), 2013. Pp. 209‒212. (In Russ.)

11. Kukanova V. V., Bembeev E. V., Mulaeva N. M., Ochirova N. Ch. National Corpora of the Kalmyk Language: Architecture and prospects of usage. Oriental Studies. 2012. Vol. 5. No. 3. Pp. 138–150. (In Russ.)

12. Kukanova V. V., Bembeev E. V., Muzraeva D. N. On the question of UNICODE encoding of “Todo Script” graphics system and creating of a database of texts on Old-Kalmyk language. Bulletin of Kalmyk University. 2013. No. 3. Pp. 65–75. (In Russ.)

13. Kukanova V. V., Bembeev E. V. More on digital Kalmyk dictionaries. In: Baranov V. A., Varfolomeev A. G. (eds.) El’ Manuscript-2012: Information Technologies and Written Heritage. Conference proceedings (Petrozavodsk, 3–8 September 2012). Petrozavodsk, Izhevsk: Petrozavodsk State University, 2012. Pp. 146–149. (In Russ.)

14. Mandzhieva I. B., Kukanova V. V. Kalmyk word list in Linguarum Totius Orbis Vocabularia Comparativa by P. S. Pallas: A graphophonetic analysis of vowels. Oriental Studies. 2023. Vol. 16. No. 6. Pp. 1637–1661. (In Russ.) DOI: 10.22162/2619-0990-2023-70-6-1637-1661

15. Mirzaeva S. V., Doleeva A. O. LingvoDoc platform to process dictionaries of Old Kalmyk: Preliminary results reviewed. Oriental Studies. 2022. Vol. 15. No. 5. Pp. 1159–1172. (In Russ.) DOI: 10.22162/2619-0990-2022-63-5-1159-1172

16. Mitruev B. L. B. Bergman and his work on the Kalmyks and Kalmyk culture. Bulletin of the Kalmyk Scientific Center of the RAS. 2020. No. 4. Pp. 149–175. (In Russ.) DOI: 10.22162/2587-6503- 2020-4-16-149-175

17. Mulaeva N. M. Parmen Smirnov’s Russian-Kalmyk dictionary as a source to investigate Kalmyk vocabulary. In: Kalmyk Impacts to the Strengthening of Russian Statehood. Jubilee conference proceedings (Elista, 29 November 2012). Elista: Kalmyk Humanities Research Institute (RAS), 2012. Pp. 187–191. (In Russ.)

18. Ochirov N. Journey to Aleksandrovsky and Bagatsokhurovsky uluses of Astrakhan Kalmyks. In: Ochirov N. Selected Works. Elista: Dzhangar, 2002. Pp. 54–64. (In Russ.)

19. Pavlov D. A. Phonetics and Graphics of Modern Kalmyk. Elista: Kalmykia Book Publ., 1968. 237 p. (In Russ.)

20. Pavlov D. A. Standard Kalmyk: Issues of History and Structure. Second edition. Elista: Gorodovikov Kalmyk State University, 2000. 285 p. (In Russ.)

21. Suseeva D. A. Eighteenth-Century Kalmyk Grammatical Structure: Morphonology and Morphology (Analyzing Letters by Kalmyk Rulers and Their Contemporaries). Elista: Kalmyk Humanities Research Institute (RAS), 2011. 200 p. (In Russ.)

22. Ubushaev N. N. Phonetics of Torghut Kalmyk. Elista: Kalmykia Book Publ., 1979. 196 p. (In Russ.)

23. Ubushaev N. N. Kalmyk Dialect System. Elista: Dzhangar, 2006. 256 p. (In Russ.)

24. Doerfer G. Ältere Westeuropäische Quellen zur Kalmückischen Sprachgeschichte (Witsen 1692 bis Zwick 1827) [Asiatische Forschungen 18]. Bonn, Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz, 1965. 253 p. (In Germ.)

25. Müller G. F. Sammlung Russischer Geschichte. Vol. 3. St. Petersburg: Imperial Academy of Sciences, 1758. 612 p.

26. Nugteren H. Mongolic Phonology and the Qinghai-Gansu Languages. Thesis. Utrecht: LOT, 2011. 563 p. (In Eng.)

27.