Nogai language
From Free net encyclopedia
Nogai (also Nogay or Nogai Tatar), is a language spoken in southwestern Russia. Three distinct dialects are recognized: Qara-Nogay (Black or Northern Nogay), spoken in Dagestan; Nogai Proper, in Stavropol; and Aqnogay (White or Western Nogay), by the Kuban River, its tributaries in Karachay-Cherkessia, and in the Mineralnye Vody District. Qara-Nogay and Nogai Proper are very close linguistically, while Aqnogay shows more differences.
Nogai is generally classified into the Aralo-Caspian branch of Northwestern Turkic, or Kipchak languages. This family also includes Crimean Tatar, Karakalpak in Uzbekistan, Kazakh in Kazakhstan, and Kirgiz in Kyrgyzstan.
History
The Nogai, descended from the peoples of the Golden Horde, take their name and that of their language from the grandson of Genghis Khan, Nogai Khan, who ruled the nomadic people west of the Danube toward the end of the 13th century.
Originally, the Nogai written language was based on the Arabic alphabet. In 1928, the Latin alphabet was introduced. This orthographic system was compiled by the Nogay academic A. Dzhanibekov (Canibek), following principles adopted for all Turkic languages.
In 1938, a transition to the Russian alphabet began. The orthography based on the Latin alphabet had allegedly been an impediment to learning Russian.
The rise of the Soviet Union and the establishment of autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics (ASSRs) in the 1950s separated Nogai speakers into small enclaves in the Dagestan ASSR, the Chechen-Ingush ASSR and the Stavropol District. At the same time, the teaching of Russian took precedence over teaching native languages, and resultingly the number of speakers began to decline. Recent estimates place the number of Nogai speakers at about 80,000.
In 1973, two small Nogai-language newspapers were being published, one in Karachay-Cherkessia and another in the Dagestan Autonomous SSR, but because of poor communications these papers did not reach Nogai villages.
Nogai is now part of the school curriculum from the 1st to the 10th year in the Nogai District of Dagestan. It is also taught at the Karachayevo-Cherkess Pedagogical School and the national branch of the Pedagogical Institute.