Fuyu Kyrgyz language


Fuyu Kyrgyz, also known as Manchurian Kirghiz, is the easternmost Turkic language. Despite its name, it is not a variety of Kyrgyz but is closer to Khakas. The people originated in the Yenisei region of Siberia but were relocated into Dzungaria by the Dzungars.
In 1761, after the Dzungars were defeated by the Qing, a group of Yenisei Kirghiz were deported to the Nonni river basin in Manchuria/Northeast China. The Kyrgyz in Manchuria became known as the Fuyu Kyrgyz, but many have become merged into the Mongol and Chinese population. Chinese and Oirat replaced Oirat and Kirghiz during Manchukuo as the dual languages of the Nonni-based Kyrgyz.
The Fuyu Kyrgyz language is now spoken in northeastern China's Heilongjiang province, in and around Fuyu County, Qiqihar by a small number of passive speakers who are classified as Kyrgyz nationality.

Sounds

Although a complete phonemic analysis of Girgis has not been done, Hu and Imart have made numerous observations about the sound system in their tentative description of the language. They describe Girgis as having the short vowels noted as "a, ï, i, o, ö, u, ü" which correspond roughly to IPA, with minimal rounding and tendency towards centralization. Vowel length is phonemic and occurs as a result of consonant-deletion. Each short vowel has an equivalent long vowel, with the addition of. Girgis displays vowel harmony as well as consonant harmony. The consonant sounds in Girgis, including allophone variants, are. Girgis does not display a phonemic difference between the stop set and ; these stops can also be aspirated to in Chinese loanwords.

Speakers

In 1980, Fuyu Girgis was spoken by a majority of adults in a community of around a hundred homes. However, many adults in the area have switched to speaking a local variety of Mongolian, and children have switched to Chinese as taught in the education system.