E-mail: zhanna-yusha@yandex.ru
Tel.: +7 (383) 330-14-52
8, Nikolaeva str., Novosibirsk, 630090, Russian Federation
PhD (Philology), senior researcher, Department of Folklore of Peoples of Siberia, Institute
of Philology, Siberian branch, Russian Academy of Sciences
This paper is financially supported by the grant of the Russian Fund for Humanities, project No. 15-04-00206a “Specifics of the non-fairy-tale oral prose of the Tuvinians of China: Studies and texts”.
This article analyzes present ethno-linguistic situation, which is typical for Chinese Tuvinians, in conditions of another ethnic environment and multilingualism. The native language of Chinese Tuvinians is Tuvan, which is considered as one of the modern foreign dialects of the Tuvan language. Until today their native language exists in oral form without a national literacy.
Four zones of distribution of the Tuvan language are identified by the degree of functioning of Tuvan speech, which depends on region of residence, economic-cultural type and age of spea- kers. The paper demonstrates the existing educational system for Tuvinian children, who study in Mongolian and Kazakh schools. In a multi-language environment Tuvinians become natu- rally poly-lingual. Besides native language Tuvinian children are sufficiently proficient in other languages (Mongolian and Kazakh) and thus admit linguistic transformation in their native speech, which demonstrate traces of linguistic interference with neighboring languages. Influence of the Kazakh language on the vocabulary and morphology of Tuvan language is demonstrated. Borrowings from Mongolian, Chinese and Russian languages are noted, especially for usage of toponyms in Tuvan, Mongolian, Kazakh and Chinese. Impact of mobile phones and Internet on the contemporary life of the Tuvinians is described. During recent years along with development of ethno-tourism to the region favor of the Chinese language for international communication is growing among Tuvinians. Relevance of this work is determined by unexplored status of tra- ditional culture and language of the Chinese Tuvinians in the domestic and world scholarship for humanities.
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