The Kalmyk (Kalmuck, Calmouk, Oyirad) language of the Kalmyks is spoken in Kalmykia ( Russian Federation), Western China and Western Mongolia. There are about 160,000 speakers in every country. The Republic of Kalmykia (Russian: Респу́блика Калмы́кия; Kalmyk: Хальм Тангч) is a federal subject of the Russian Federation (a republic). ... The Republic of Kalmykia (Kalmyk: Хальмг Таңһч; Russian: ) is a federal subject of the Russian Federation (a republic). ...

Kalmyk belongs to the Western subgroup of the Mongolic languages. It also has some elements in common with the Uralic and Turkic languages, sometimes speculated to be a member of the disputed Altaic or Ural-Altaic language family. This reflects Kalmyk’s origin as the common language of the Oyirads, a union of four Kalmyk tribes that absorbed some Ugric and Turkic tribes during their expansion westward. The Mongolic languages are a group of thirteen languages spoken in Central Asia. ... Geographical distribution of Samoyedic, Finnic, Ugric and Yukaghir languages The Uralic languages form a language family of about 30 languages spoken by approximately 20 million people. ... The Turkic languages are a group of related languages that are spoken by a variety of peoples distributed across a vast area from Eastern Europe to Siberia and Western China with estimated 100-130 million native speakers. ... Altaic is a putative language family which would include 60 languages spoken by about 250 million people, mostly in and around central Asia. ... The Ural-Altaic language family was a grouping of languages which was once widely accepted by linguists, but has since been generally rejected. ... The Kalmyks (kalm. ...

The literary tradition of Kalmyk reaches back into the 17th century, when it was first furnished with a script called Todo Bichig (Clear Script). In 1924 this script was replaced by a Cyrillic script, which was abandoned in 1930 in favor of a Latin script. The Latin script in turn was replaced by another Cyrillic script in 1938. These script reforms effectively disrupted the literary tradition. A to-do list in project management or software development is a list of tasks that are planned to be completed or features to be added. ...

Kalmyk suffered greatly during the Soviet period. Half of all Kalmyk speakers died during Russian Civil War. Stalin’s ethnic cleansings have also significantly reduced number of Kalmyk people. Till now Kalmyk population in Russia did not reach level of 1913. State motto (Russian): Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь! (Transliterated: Proletarii vsekh stran, soedinyaytes!) (Translated: Workers of the world, unite!) Capital Moscow Official language None; Russian (de facto) Government Federation of Socialist republics/ Communist state Area  - Total  - % water Largest on the planet 22,402,200 km² ?% Population  - Total  - Density 3rd before collapse 293,047,571 (July... Iosif (usually anglicized as Joseph) Vissarionovich Stalin (Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин), original name Ioseb Jughashvili (Georgian: იოსებ ჯუღაშვილი; see Other names section) (December 21, 1879[1] – March 5, 1953) was a Bolshevik revolutionary and leader of the Soviet Union. ... Media:Example. ...

Russian was made Kalmykia’s primary official language. In 1963, the last Kalmyk-language classes were closed and Russian became the language of education for Kalmyk children.

As a result of these policies, many Kalmyks do not speak their own language. Kalmyk linguists, in collaboration with the Kalmyk government, are working to improve the situation. Starting in 1993, school education in Kalmyk has been restored. Still, there remains much work to do.

Writing system

Kalmyk language has been written in a variety of alphabets over the years. Since 11th century Kalmyks used Uyghur script. The Uyghur (Chinese: [historical]: 回紇; [modern]: 維吾爾) are a Turkic-speaking ethnic group living in northwestern China mainly in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, where they are the largest ethnic group together with Han Chinese, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, and Russia. ...

The official Kalmyk alphabet named Todo Bichig (Clear Script) was created in the 17th century by greatest Kalmyk buddist monk Zaya Pandit. The Todo Bichig was used by Kalmyks in Russia until 1924, when it was replaced by the Cyrillic alphabet, but Kalmyks in China has always beeng using it. In Mongolia Kalmyk (Oyirad) language has no official status and does not exist in written form. The Cyrillic alphabet (or azbuka, from the old name of the first letters) is an alphabet used to write six natural Slavic languages (Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Serbian, and Ukrainian) and many other languages of the former Soviet Union, Asia and Eastern Europe. ...

The modified Cyrillic alphabet used for Kalmyk language is as follows:

The International Phonetic Alphabet. ... The International Phonetic Alphabet. ...

See also

• Languages of the Caucasus

The languages of the Caucasus are a large and extremely varied array of languages spoken by more than ten million people in the Caucasus region of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. ...

External links

• Rosetta Project entry for Kalmyk
• Summary from the Ethnologue
• Article on language policy and history in Kalmykia
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