Oroqen /ˈɒrətʃɛn, ˈɒroʊ-/ ORR-ə-chen, ORR-oh- ( Oroqen Urkun; ɔrɔtʃeen ulguur; also known as Orochon, Oronchon, Olunchun, Elunchun or Ulunchun) is a Northern Tungusic language spoken in the People's Republic of China. Dialects are Gankui and Heilongjiang. Gankui is the standard dialect.[1] It is spoken by the Oroqen people of Inner Mongolia (predominantly the Oroqin Autonomous Banner) and Heilongjiang in Northeast China.[2]
Since the 1980s, Oroqen-language materials were produced by teachers in Oroqen-speaking areas. They based the language's orthography either on IPA or Pinyin. A majority of Oroqen speakers use Chinese as a literary language and some also speak Daur.
Geographic distribution
Oroqen is spoken in the following counties of China:[1]
Sample text
Listed below are some Oroqen sentences.[3] They are transcribed in Oroqen Fonetic Alphabet.
| Arian has three elder brothers. | Arian ilan axtʃi. |
| The children are all come in. | Kʊxɑː səl ku əmtʃə. |
| Arian's elder brother is coming. | Arian axninin əmtʃə. |
| I'm a student. | Pi pite turan. |
| You're taller than me | ʃi mintu gʊkta. |
| The house is neat and tidy. | Ər dʒuː tʃaldaː le |
| Arian untied the rope | Arian uʃixəmʊə puditʃə |
| How many children do you have? | ʃi ati kʊxa tʃi piʃiniʔ |
| Arian took off his clothes |
Arian kantaxʊə purmə ədədʒə. |
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Alveolar | Post- alveolar |
Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| Plosive/ Affricate |
voiceless | p | t | t͡ʃ | k | |
| voiced | b | d | d͡ʒ | ɡ | ||
| Fricative | ɸ | ʃ | x ~ [ɣ] ~ [h] | |||
| Rhotic | r | |||||
| Approximant | l | j | w | |||
- Allophones of /x/ are heard as [ɣ], [h].
- A bilabial /ɸ/ can also be heard as a labio-dental [f].
- A rhotic trill /r/ tends to sound as a tap [ɾ], when occurring word-finally.
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | i iː | y | u uː | |
| Near-high | ɪ ɪː | ʊ ʊː | ||
| High-mid | eː | ə əː | o oː | |
| Low-mid | ɛː | ɔ ɔː | ||
| Low | ɑ ɑː | |||
Notes
- ^ a b c Oroqen at Ethnologue (25th ed., 2022)
- ^ "Did you know Oroqen is severely endangered?". Endangered Languages. Retrieved 2023-04-18.
- ^ "WOLD -". wold.clld.org. Retrieved 2023-08-01.
- ^ Hu, Zengyi (1986). Elunchun-yu jianzhi [Concise grammar of Oroqen]. Beijing: National Minorities Publ. pp. 3–19.
External links
- Oroqen Vocabulary List (from the World Loanword Database)
- Oroqen Swadesh vocabulary list of basic words (from Wiktionary's Swadesh list appendix)
- Oroqen alphabet from Omniglot
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