Chinese Borrowings In The Oirat-Kalmykian Language Continuum: Animalistic And Legal Vocabulary

Abstract

The paper deals with one of the most poorly studied layers of borrowed lexicon of the modern Kalmykian language – Chinese words. Modern Kalmyk language is one of the languages of Mongolian language group, one of the language successors of Oirat language. Two types of borrowed lexicon can be distinguished in it, depending on the path of its penetration: lexicon, borrowed directly, as a result of contacts of Kalmyks and their ancestors-oyrates with other peoples, as well as those lexical units that penetrated into the Kalmyk language through the recipient languages: Türkic, Ugrian, Tungus and others. Chinese borrowings penetrated into the Kalmyk language back in the period of the general history of Mongols and Kalmyks. Chinese words entered the Mongolian languages in different ways and at different times, but the main period of intensive borrowing of Chinese words can be considered the era of the Mongolian Yuan dynasty in China. Linguistic and cultural contacts between Chinese and Oirats ended when the latter migrated from Central Asia to the Northern Caspian. The list of Sino-Chinese of the Kalmykian language, previously numbering about two dozen words, has been considerably expanded. The article also attempts to determine the ways of borrowing Chinese words in the literary Kalmykian language for the first time. The comprehensive description of Sino-isms in Oirat and Kalmyk literary languages will allow to study more deeply the etymology of many lexemes of the Kalmyk language, features of phonetic adaptation of borrowings, the degree of their mastery in the recipient language.