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A note on r and l in Dolgan and Yakut（ドルガン語とヤクート語の r と l に関する覚え書き）

Setsu FUJISHIRO
藤代

節

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A note on r and l in Dolgan and Yakut
Setsu FUJISHIRO(VHWVX#WUNREHFFQDFMS)
Keywords: Dolgan, Yakut (Sakha), r and l, Taymyr, language formation
This note is dedicated to the late Prof. Dr Shōgaito Masahiro, who always
encouraged us to keep on studying Eurasian languages. Professor Shōgaito was a manof kindness and gentleness, full of wit and humour, as well as a great scholar. He often
made fun of me, saying “All the teachers of Russian class are thinking yourpronunciation of Russian is strange; why do you pronounce dva два ‘two’ as dova, or
drevne-russkij древне-русский ‘old-Russian’ as dorevne-russkij?!” “Oh, Professor, it isfrom a natural tendency to insert an epenthetic vowel as often seen in Japanese!” I
myself then asked Professor Shōgaito, “I am not sure, but I heard that a long time ago,
there was a scholar who wrote river as liver—maybe you know very well who hewas?!”
Four years have passed since Professor Shōgaito-sensei left us. My gratitude toProfessor never decreases as does my deep sorrow.

1. Dolgan
The Dolgan language is a small Turkic language spoken in Taymyr, in the far northernpart of the Krasnoyarsk region, and in Anabar area, in Sakha-Yakutia, the RussianFederation. The number of speakers was about 5,000 in the 2002 census, but in the 2010
census it was much lower, at about 1,000. This language formed in recent
centuries—the 18th or 19th in Taymyr, where people of Evenki, Yakut, Nganasan andRussian extraction formed a community and selected the Yakut language as theircommon language. The form of Yakut spoken in this emergent ‘Dolgan’ community or
ethnic group1 developed into the today’s Dolgan language.

 According to the data from Dolgikh (1963: 128), the estimated proportion of the Dolgan community96
Linguistically, Dolgan is a dialect of Yakut; thus, it might also be called the
Taymyr dialect of the Yakut language. It differs not so radically from standard Yakut, infact, mainly in lexicon with some minor differences in grammar and phonetics.
In this paper, I will discuss the occurrence of r and l in words recorded in the
Yakut Dictionary, edited by E.K. Pekarskij (1858-1934) and published in 1907-1930,
and in the Dolgan–Russian Card Dictionary, compiled by K.M. Rychkov (1882-1923)
in the first decade in the 20th century (unpublished, see below). These two dictionaries
contain words mostly collected in the latter half of the 19th century and the first decadesof the 20th century. In my opinion, these materials were recorded as the recorders heard
them, thus, in phonetic transcription.

2. r and l in Yakut words in Pekarskij’s Dictionary
Pekarskij’s Dictionary contains about 25,000 entries, including about 6,520 variations ofwords according to Okoneshnikov (1982: 54). Among these variations, we often see
words that include variants of r and/or l, for example, дураал (duraal), дураан (duraan)= дураар (duraar) «спокойный, нетропливый, равнодушный» ‘calm, quiet, slow,
indifferent’; дураар (duraar) = дураал (duraal), дураан (duraan) «медлительный,косный» ‘slow, inert’, мычалыи (v.) (mychalyi) = мычарыи (v.) (mycharyi)«улыбаться» ’smile’, сандалы (sandaly) = сандары (sandary) «светлый, сияющий»‘bright, shining’. There are about 150–200 entries2 with variants.
Pekarskij’s Dictionary in 13 volumes was under publication for a long period,
from 1907–1930. In the first volume there is a list of the resources from which materials
for Dictionary entries was drawn, and not a few entries have indications of theirmaterials as well. At the end of the last volume of the Dictionary, published in 1930
after the October Revolution, Pekarskij again presented this list of materials along withadditional ones, most of which had been gained after the October Revolution. A Yakutalphabet based on the Latin alphabet had been developed in the mid-1920s, based ontrials by Yakut linguist S. N. Novgorodov and others. Until that time, most writtenmaterials in Yakut had been produced by non-specialists, people from European Russia— merchants, officers, officials, political exiles, priests and so on. They recorded thewords they heard the “natives” use in their own idiosyncratic ways of phonetictranscription; E. K. Pekarskij, as a specialist, used the so-called Kazan Alphabet, based
was as follows, though Dolgikh submitted tentatively: Tungusic (Evenki) people 50-52%, Yakut 30-33%,
Russian 15% and Samoyed (Nganasan) 3-4%.
 In Pekarskij’s Dictionary, variants with r or l are sometimes independent entries referring to other r or lvariants, and sometimes under one headword with one of the variants as their representative.

97
on Russian, an adaptation of one devised by O. Bötling (See Barashkov (1953,
Chap.III)).
In the studies on Yakut phonetics, r ~ l variation has attracted much interest, butwhat motivated this variation to occur remains under question (See D’jachkovskij(1977: 167)). We cannot attribute it to a single cause, nor to any definite phonetic
conditions, except for some apparent cases of dissimilation or metathesis, for example,сырыт- (syryt-) ‘go, do’ has a finite form сылдьар (syld’ar) ‘he/she/it goes, does’,ыарыы- (yaryy-) ‘feel sick’ has a finite form ыалыдьар (yalyd’ar), and буруор (buruor)
has a l-variant булуор (buluor) «сумерки, полувет» ‘twilight, dusk’. Pekarskij had
special support compiling and editing the Dictionary from scholars of the Russian
Academy, especially experts in Altaic languages, as well as scholars in oriental studies:
V. V. Radlov, B. Ja. Vladimirtsov, K.G. Zaleman, V. V. Bartol’d, A. N. Samojlovich, N.
F. Katanov and others. They helped Pekarskij in his edition of the Dictionary generally
and also from an etymological point of view, providing etymons, which fact suggeststhat the etymological sources do not give any clear insight into the reason for r ~ lvariation either. As for the alternation r ~ l in Yakut stems, D’jachkovskij (1977: 89)
tentatively proposed influence from one of the Tungusic languages in close contact with
Yakut, namely the Evenki language, which often mixes r and l, and provided examples
such as ири:р- (iri:r-) ~ ири:л- (iri:l-) «сойти с ума» ‘go mad’, иргэ (irge) ~ илгэ (ilge)«мозг, ум» ‘brain, mind’, арча- (archa-) ~ алча- (alcha-) «встретить» ‘meet’, чурги
(churgi) ~ чулги (chulgi) «капля» ‘drops’. As D’jachkovskij (1977) mentions,according to Vasilevich (1948: 164, 232, 332), such r ~ l variants are found in many
dialects of Evenki. D’jachkovskij (1977: 154-156) also refers to the metathesis of r andl in words originating from the Mongolian language, with examples such as арал (aral)~ алар (alar) «бычий хомутъ» ‘cow’s collar’, чилгэр (chilger) ~ чиргэл (chirgel)«здоровый, твердый, свежий, ...» ‘healthy, firm, fresh’.
In the Turkic language group, however, consonants r and l are in principle clearly
distinguished. Also, most of the recorders of Yakut, whether trained or untrained, were
Russian speakers, who could also distinguish r and l precisely. So, we see here that there
is a possibility that at least at the time when these materials were collected, r and l werein fact in free variation in at least some areas among Yakut-speaking people.
The norm of use of the Yakut alphabet based on the Russian alphabet wasestablished by 1939, but after Pekarskij’s Dictionary it took many years for a solid new
dictionary of Yakut to appear in 1972 by Sleptsov et al. In it, though there remain
exceptionally traces of r ~ l free variants such as чилгэр (chilger) ~ чиргэл (chirgel), as
for most of r ~ l variants, both forms are not adopted, namely only one form, r-variant

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or l-variant remains in modern Yakut. We can infer that the entries in Pekarskij’s
Dictionary with phonetic variants are out of use, at least in the standard or literarylanguage after its establishment. For example, a pair of r ~ l variants илгэх (ilgekh) ~иргэх (irgekh) «самец» ‘male animal’ has only the latter form in the dictionary in 1972.
Similarly, in Pekarskij’s Dictionary, we find some entries for borrowings from Russianwith distorted l-variants, for example, from күлүк (külük) ~ күрүк (kürük) «крюкъ»‘hook’ < Rus. крюк (krjuk); however, only the latter was selected for the entry күрүүк
(kürüük) in the 1972 dictionary. The same was the case for артыал (artyal) ~ алтыал
(altyal) ‘member of an artel’ > Rus. artel’ ‘artel (worker’s or peasant’s cooperative)’.
Such borrowings were thus “corrected” in use of Yakut on the basis of the Russian.
The standard Yakut language is based on the dialect in the central part of theYakut-speaking area (Korkina et al. (1982: 22), Sleptsov (1995: 297)); its usages may
therefore have influenced the matter. However, in this paper we would like to leave theoccurrence of r ~ l variants at the time of Pekarskij’s understood as a case of freevariants.

3. r and l in Dolgan words in Rychkov’s Card Dictionary
As explained above, Dolgan was formed based on the Yakut language in the 18th and19th centuries. Dolgan had no writing system for a rather long time, probably partly
because when the Soviet government began to work on an education system for Dolgan
people, the government regarded Yakut, with which Dolgan was in close contact and towhich it is similar enough, to be sufficient to serve Dolgan speakers as a literary or
standard language. In the 1970s, Ogdo Aksjonova, a Dolgan poet, and her colleagues
began to create an indigenous Dolgan alphabet and in 1981, the first Dolgan reader for
primary school was officially published. During about half a century after the October
Revolution, namely under the Soviet structure of educational system, without its literarylanguage but with Yakut standard as its substitute, Dolgan had “developed” and changed
its “appearance”, modelling itself after the Yakut norm. Nowadays, we may say that
Dolgan has nothing radical to differentiate itself from Yakut. This is also the case with r~ l variants: in modern Dolgan, there is no r ~ l variation; every word with r or l has its
constituents fixed as in modern Yakut.
The linguistic data on Dolgan before speakers of the language experienced
learning of literary Yakut can be perceived in Pekarskij’s entries which reflect V. N.
Vasil’ev’s field reports and those of other researchers at the time of, or before Pekarskij.
In Pekarskij’s Dictionary, we find more than 300 entries drawn from studies by V. N.
Vasil’ev, N. Pr. Kostrov, P. E. Ostrovskij, and P. I. Tret’jakov, who left the reports on

99
their expeditions to Dolgans in Taymyr. Besides these researchers, we should note K.M.
Rychkov, an ethnologist and a contractor-researcher who collected linguistic materials
mainly on Tungus (Evenki) in the first decade of the 20th century in Taymyr. For us it isinteresting to see that Vasilevich (1948: 158-159), as well as her own fieldwork
materials on the Ilimpiiskij dialect of Evenki in 1930s, referred to the materials of
Rychkov and Vasil’ev on the dialect of the Evenki language. Taking into account that in
the process of the formation of the Dolgan language many Evenki people changed theirlanguage to Yakut, the occurrence of r ~ l variants in Ilimpiiskij dialect may reflect theiroccurrence in Turkic.
Let us consider some Dolgan words cited in Pekarskij’s Dictionary. Among about
300 words which we regard as Dolgan materials, we have one from Vasil’ev’s marked
as (Вас.)3, indicating the source in Pekarskij’s; харгыи (xargyi), халгыи (xalgyi) =хоргуи (xorgui) (clm. 3354) «голодать, отощать» ‘starve, become thin’; харгыйан ёл(xargyjan jol) «умирать отъ голода» ‘die of starvation’; халгыйан сиэ (xalgyjan sie)«есть отъ голода» ‘eat greedily’. Among the Dolgan words in Pekarskij’s, we found
few with r ~ l variants, as if Dolgan had only exceptional r ~ l variants or they were
found only sporadically. .
However, we have another important source of Dolgan material at the beginningof the 20th century: Rychkov’s Dolgan–Russian Card Dictionary, with 1534 words(cards). Among these, we cite here a few examples of r ~ l variation:(a) илибэр (iliber) «въ руке» ’in (my) hand’ирита hок (irita hok) «рук нет, безрукий» ‘he/she/it does not have a hand; armless’(b) талариныр (talarinyr) «валяться» ‘lie about, roll’таралыната (taralynata) «валялся» ‘he lay about, he rolled’(c) тили (tili) «шкура» ‘skin, hide’тыри (tyri) «пашина, пыжь, кожа, кора» ‘fur of young deer, skin, leather’(d) тэhэл (tegel) «долганъ» ‘Dolgan’
Regarding (a), the modern standard form in Dolgan is iliiber, or ilii ‘hand’, -ber

3(Вас.) is a mark in Pekarskij’s Dicitonary to present the entry word or example or phrase to give an
illustration of usage is found in the material by V. N. Vasil’ev (Васильев), so as other sources are also
marked as Kostr., Ostr. and so on..
4
The Card Dictionary by Rychkov is not published but is preserved at the Archive of Orientalists in theInstitute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, under number
49-6. According to the letters from K.M. Rychkov to his instructor, professor V. L. Kotvich in St.
Petersburg University dated on the 5th and the 9th December in 1911 (the numbers of the documents in
IOM RAN – 49-12-28 and 30 respectively), the Dictionary was compiled in the period from 1908-1911.
(See Fujishiro (2011: 195-196).)5
Rychkov used the letter h for voiced velar and uvular fricatives or stops, [g], [γ], [ɦ], [ŋ], [h]. In mostcases, the letter corresponds to г in Modern Dolgan.

100‘(affix of dative case, 1sg.) in my …’ and iliite huok, or ilii, -te ‘(possessive, 3sg.)
his/her/its’, huok ‘no, not’. ilii ‘hand’ is of course an item of essential body lexicon andalmost certainly very frequently used. What then motivated the occurrence an r-variantof ilii, that is, iri(i) ? We can infer that before the entry of Yakut and Russian languages
into Taymyr, Evenki or partly Nganasan was used, and provided a linguistic substrate;
however, it also distinguishes r and l clearly, though according to Vasilevich (1948), notalways. In any case, judging from the modern Evenki language, it does not vary r ~ lfreely as seen in Dolgan and Yakut did, and in addition we should note that Rychkov,
though an eminent researcher in the region, was not a linguist or a Yakut speaker, so it isreasonable to regard his Dolgan transcriptions with caution. As for (b), we can regard
the forms as a case of metathesis. A more striking situation is seen in (c), since the l ~ rvariants here seems to be reinterpreted by the Dolgans at that time, as if a minimal pair,though the meanings are close. In modern Dolgan, the word corresponding to tili is avery common word, тирии (tirii) «шкура» ‘skin, hide’, while the l-variant is out of use.
In (d) tegel, we see the proper noun of ethnic community, Dolgan. Ubrjatova(1985: 10–11) referring to Dolgikh (1963), A. A. Popov  and Ogdo Aksjonova  ,mentions that the Dolgan people called themselves тыа киhитэ (tya kihite), дулгаан
(dulgaan), hаха (hakha), and other names. The form tya kihite consists of tya ‘forest’,kihi ‘man’, -te “(possessive, 3sg.)” and conveys “people of forest”. The form reminds usof the Evenki affix -gir, which follows proper name of ethnic group and forms theproper noun for the ethnicity ‘people of …’ as in Chapo-gir ‘the Chapo clan’, Panka-gir‘the Panka clan’, Baja-gir ‘the Baja clan’ (See Vasilevich (1958: 751)). Rychkov’s tealso corresponds to tya, since the diphthong [ya] in modern Dolgan often corresponds to[e] in Rychkov as also in modern pronunciation, which assures the possibility ofanalysing the word something like tyager as te “forest” along with the subsequent affix
originating from Evenki -gir, with -gir pronounced as -gil for some reason. In Evenki,
affix -gir is very productive, so it is very likely that the Dolgan people as well as people
around Dolgan at that time used tegir or something like it as their ethnic name, though
the difference in vowels e and i is not solved. Futhermore it is also strange that Rychkov,
who was very familiar with Evenki and much interested in the dialects of Tungusic
people, such as Chapogir and Pankagir, recorded the name with -gil. If we suppose hisrecorded data reflect a phonetic transcription, then it may be that tegir could besubstituted by tegil among Dolgan speakers at that time.



Андрей Александрович Попов (Andrej Aleksandrovich Popov) (1902–1960), ethnographer.
Огдо Аксёнова, Евдокия Егоровна Аксёнова (Ogdo Aksjonova, Evdokija Egorovna Aksjonova)(1936–1995), Dolgan poet, one of the authors of the first Dolgan Elementary Book.
8
The meaning might be not just “forest” but rather “not-tundra, southern-to-tundra area”.
6
7

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4. Unsolved motivation behind the occurrence of the r ~ l words

Nor do we have any solution for the motive of occurrence of r ~ l variation; then, let us
look at other languages surrounding the Dolgan community which might haveparticipated in the formation of Dolgan. In the Samoyedic group, Nenets and Nganasan
have both r and l, which their speakers distinguish as phonemes. One more language wefind around Dolgan is the language of Ket, formerly called Yenisei Ostyak once
regarded as an isolated language but now as the sole remaining representative of the
Yeniseian languages along with the extinct language Yug. The Ket language is almost
dead now and has been little studied compared to Yakut. Verner (2001) gives examplesof Russian borrowings in Ket: hal’es < Rus. парус (parus) ‘sail’, sambal’ < Rus.
самовар (samovar) ‘samovar’, where it is natural that Russian r is borrowed as l, since
Ket does not have r sound. There is no record of Ket-speakers participating in Dolgan
formation; Rychkov left nothing recorded about languages other than Evenki, Russian,and Yakut in the territory of the right bank of Yenisei River. If we analyse r ~ l variants
not only in Yakutia but also in other northern parts of Eurasia, it might help provide us
with a picture of the linguistic situation before written records are available.

Abbreviations

Pekarskij’s Dictionary = Пекарский (1907–1930)
clm. = column

Transliterations

Rychkov & Pekarskij=Russian or Dolgan= Latin alphabet, - indicates “not used”.
a=а=a
б=б=b
w=в=v
г (h)=г~ӈ =g~ŋ д=д=d
џ=дь, ж=d'
i=и=i
j=й=j
к=к=k
l, л=л=l
м=м=m
н=н=n
ӈ=ӈ=ŋ
о=о=o
ö=ө=ö п=п=p
р=р=r
s=с=s
х, h=h~г=h
т=т=t
у=у=u ӱ=ү=ü
ф=ф=f
ч=ч=chш=ш=shы=ы=y
е=э=e -=ё=jo-=e=jeз=з=z
х=х=x~kh-=щ=shch-=ь=' ъ=ъ=е=э=e-=ю=ju-=я=jaConventional spelling in English for the place names are used, regardless of thetransliteration above. For example, Taymyr, Yakutia.

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Vserossijskaja perepic' naselenija 2010 g. (Всероссийская перепись населения 2010
г.) (http://www.gks.ru/free_doc/new_site/perepis2010/croc/perepis_itogi1612.htm)

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ドルガン語とヤクート語のｒとｌに関する覚え書き
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藤代 節
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ペカルスキーのヤクート語辞書 (1907-1930) には、現在のヤクート標準語と見なされる語彙の他に多くの方言語彙や音のバリアントをもつ語彙が見出し語としてあるいは参考語彙として記されている。これらのバリアントの中にｒとｌをあたかも自由交替形式のように持つ語彙がある。このｒとｌの生起については、かつても説明が試みられたが十分に説明されていない。一方、ペカルス
キーの辞書編纂時期とほぼ同時代 (20 世紀初頭) のドルガン語を記録したルィ
チコフ辞書にも現代ドルガン語彙とはｒとｌの生起を異にする語彙がみられる。
本稿は、これらについて紹介し、ペカルスキーやルチコフの辞書編纂の時代即
ちヤクート語やドルガン語の規範となる標準語が成立していなかった時期の言語記録から、周囲の異系統言語との接触の痕跡を探る試みを書きとどめたものである。