Dagur language
| Daurian | |
|---|---|
| Native to | China, Mongolia |
| Region | Inner Mongolia, Hailar District; Heilongjiang Province, Qiqihar Prefecture; Xinjiang, Tacheng Prefecture |
|
Native speakers
|
96,000 in China (1999) |
|
Mongolic
|
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | daur1238 |
The Daur /ˈdaʊər/ or Daghur language is a Mongolic language primarily spoken by members of the Daur ethnic group.
Daur is a Mongolic language consisting of four dialects: Amur Daur in the vicinity of Heihe, the Nonni Daur on the west side of the Nonni River from south of Qiqihaer up to the Morin Dawa Daur Autonomous Banner, Hailar Daur to the south-east of Hailar and far off in Xinjiang in the vicinity of Tacheng. There is no written standard in use, although a Pinyin-based orthography has been devised; instead the Daur make use of Mongolian or Chinese, as most speakers know these languages as well. During the time of the Qing dynasty, Daur has been written with the Manchu alphabet.
Daur phonology is peculiar in that some of its dialects have developed a set of labialized consonants (e.g. /sʷar/ 'flea' vs. /sar/ 'moon'), while it shares palatalized consonants with most Mongolian dialects that have not been developed in the other Mongolic languages. It also has /f/, which is, however, limited to loan words. Word-final short vowels were lost and historically short vowels in non-initial syllables have lost phoneme status. Daur is the only Mongolic language to share this development with Mongolian (i.e. Mongolian proper, Oirat, Buryat). Due to the merger of /ɔ/ and /ʊ/ with /o/ and /u/, vowel harmony was lost.
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