Pumpokol language

Pumpokol
Gebéŋ-aj, Gebèng-ai
Native toRussia
RegionYenisei
EthnicityPumpokols
Extinct1740
Language codes
ISO 639-3xpm
Glottologpump1237
The historical, pre-contact range of Pumpokol.

Pumpokol (Pumpokol: gebeŋ-aj) is an extinct Yeniseian language, formerly spoken by the Pumpokol people (Gebéŋ). It has been extinct since the first half of the 18th century. It is poorly attested, and some of the vocabulary has been identified as being Yugh, not Pumpokol.

Pumpokol seems to share some features with the ancient Xiongnu and Jie languages, and according to Alexander Vovin, Edward Vajda, and Étienne de la Vaissière, is closely related to them.

Sources

Current knowledge of the Pumpokol language derives primarily from the records of German travelers D. G. Messerschmidt and G. F. Müller, published by Peter Simon Pallas in his Linguarum totius orbis vocabularia comparativa (1786). Additionally, Eugene Helimski published further 18th-century manuscript wordlists of Pumpokol and Kott in 1986.

Classification

It has traditionally been viewed as being grouped with Arin in an Arin-Pumpokol subfamily of Southern Yeniseian, but Vajda (2024) challenges this, stating that "Arin, Pumpokol and Kott-Assan display no shared innovations to support them as an opposite "'Southern Yeniseian' branch" of Yeniseian, reflecting only their geographical position rather than a genealogical grouping. According to O. Tailleur, it should be considered a dialect of the Ket language, as most materials labeled 'Pumpokol' are in reality of Ketic affiliation, not Pumpokol. Furthermore, the term 'Pumpokol' was originally geographic, referring to the name of a town and a former district (volost), originating from Khanty: pum-poxəl "grassy village". Pumpokols and Yughs frequently mixed with each other in the Pumpokol volost. This may be the reason for the mislabeling of these words.

Phonology

Pumpokol is notable among the Yeniseian languages in that the phoneme /s/ is often replaced by /t/. This idiosyncrasy of Pumpokol seems to be shared with the language of the Jie, suggesting that Jie is more closely related to Pumpokol than other Yeniseian languages. For example the Jie word kot 'catch' seems to be a cognate with the Ket word qos, having the same sound change.

Moreover, this aforementioned characteristic of Pumpokol has been used by Vajda to demonstrate that Yeniseian-derived hydronyms in northern Mongolia (the southernmost known extent of Yeniseian influence), -tat, -dat, -tet, -det, -tom, -dɨt are exclusively Pumpokolic. Since the Jie, as a tribe of the Xiongnu, are likely to have come from the same area, rather than further north, this finding lends credence to the possibility that Jie is a Pumpokolic language.

Vowels

The reconstructed vowels of Pumpokol are as follows, based on G. F. Müller's materials:

Front Central Back
Close i [i] ɨ [ɨ] u [u]
Close-mid e [e] o [o]
Open-mid ɛ [ɛ] ɔ [ɔ]
Open a [a]

Consonants

According to G. F. Müller's notes, the consonants of Pumpokol are as follows:

Labial Dental Palatal Velar Uvular Laryngeal/
Pharyngeal
Plosive voiceless p [p] t [t] (tʼ [tʲ]) k [k] q [q] (ʔ [ʔ])1
voiced b [b] d [d] (dʼ [dʲ]) g [g] (gʼ [gʲ])
Fricative voiceless f [f] s [s] x [χ], xʼ [χʲ] -h- [h]?2
voiced (v [v]) (z [z]) (ž [ʒ])
Affricate (pf [pf] pʰ [pʰ]) c [t͡s] č [t͡ʃ] (dž [d͡ʒ])
Nasal m [m] n [n] (nʼ [nʲ]) ŋ [ŋ]
Lateral l [l] (lʼ [lʲ])
Approximant j [j]
Trill r [r]
  1. [ʔ] only occurs as a prosodic device of tone, as in other Yeniseian languages.
  2. Pumpokol word-initial [h] only sometimes corresponds to Arin [k], and is not present in other Yeniseian languages.

The phonemes ⟨č⟩, ⟨dʼ⟩, and ⟨dž⟩ are allophones of ⟨č⟩, ⟨k⟩ and ⟨g⟩ are allophones of ⟨k⟩, and ⟨x⟩, ⟨q⟩ and ⟨xʼ⟩ are allophones of ⟨χ⟩. Thus, the phonemes in brackets are not really phonologically relevant.

Sibilant phonemes are absent in words of native Yeniseian origin.

Vocabulary

Selected Pumpokol words are presented here, sourced from Werner 2005.

Word Meaning Comment
ab father
am mother
ak to lie down
hóxon forest, tree
eg egg cf. Ket ɛˀj
fala son
falla boy, son
hixem Sun
xaj mountain
kut horse
meža measure Russian loan
píkola daughter, girl
hukút house, village Literally "together-tent"
Pumpokol words in Pallas 1789
Russian gloss богнебовечерлесдеревоземляполеснегводадухвино свинья труд здоров они
English translation God sky, heaven evening forest tree earth field snow water spirit wine pig work healthy they
Pumpokol translation ечечбичиди, бисьакьоксыбингембагьтыгь, бечьульбей бино фохириць ирдлег етыкеть буегь

Numerals

Pumpokol numerals
No. Numerals (Werner 2005) Numerals (Pallas 1789)
1 xúta ху́та
2 hínɛaŋ ~ hínɛa нинеангь
3 dóŋa донга
4 ciaŋ ци́ангь
5 héjlaŋ хе́нлангь
6 aɡɡiaŋ ~ áɡiang аггьянгь
7 ónʼaŋ оньянгь
8 hinbasiaŋ г̧инбассїангь
9 xúta-xamóssa-xaíaŋ ху́та-ямосса-хайянгь
10 xaiáŋ (xajáŋ) хайянгь
11 xúta-iga-xaiáŋ
12 hínɛa-xaiáŋ
20 hédiaŋ
30 doŋbaksɨn
40 situdi
50 xeiltudi
60 altudi
70 óntudi
80 hinbassitudi
90 xatósaxa
100 útamsa утанса
200 hin-útamsa
300 doŋ-útamsa
400 ci-útamsa
500 xeil-útamsa
600 ag-útamsa
700 on-útamsa
800 hintassi-útamsa
900 xatóssa-xága-útamsa
1000 xa-útamsa ха-утанса

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Werner, Heinrich (2005). Die Jenissej-Sprachen des 18. Jahrhunderts. Veröffentlichungen der Societas Uralo-Altaica. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. ISBN 978-3-447-05239-9.
  2. ↑ "The ASJP Database - Wordlist Pumpokol". asjp.clld.org. Retrieved 2024-08-04.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Vajda, Edward (2024-02-19), "8 The Yeniseian language family", in Vajda, Edward (ed.), The Languages and Linguistics of Northern Asia, De Gruyter, pp. 365–480, doi:10.1515/9783110556216-008, ISBN 978-3-11-055621-6, retrieved 2024-06-26
  4. ↑ Fortescue, Michael D.; Vajda, Edward J. (2022). Mid-holocene language connections between Asia and North America. Brill's studies in the indigenous languages of the Americas. Leiden; Boston: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-43681-7.
  5. 1 2 Georg, Stefan; Georg, Stefan (2007). Introduction, phonology, morphology. A descriptive grammar of Ket (Yenisei-Ostyak) / Stefan Georg. Folkestone: Global Oriental. ISBN 978-1-901903-58-4.
  6. ↑ Vovin, Alexander (2000). "Did the Xiong-nu speak a Yeniseian language?". Central Asiatic Journal. 44 (1): 87–104. JSTOR 41928223.
  7. 1 2 3 Vovin, Alexander; Vajda, Edward; de la Vaissière, Etienne (2016). "Who Were the *Kjet (羯) and What Language Did They Speak?". Journal Asiatique. 304 (1): 125–144. doi:10.2143/JA.304.1.3146838.
  8. ↑ Batashev, Mikhail S. (June 2013). "Ethnic History of Indigenous Peoples of the Yeniseysky Uyezd in the 17 Century and Their Fortunes". Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences.
  9. ↑ "Пумпокольский язык | Библиотека сибирского краеведения". bsk.nios.ru. Retrieved 2024-10-27.
  10. ↑ Pallas, Peter Simon (1786). Linguarum totius orbis vocabularia comparativa (in Russian). Schnoor.
  11. ↑ Pallas, Peter Simon (1789). Linguarum Totius Orbis Vocabularia Comparativa, Pars 2. pp. 484–485.