Arin language

Classification

It is classified as belonging to the Arinic branch, being its only attested language. The closest known relative of Arin, Pumpokol, has been suggested to be similar to the language of the ruling elite of the Xiongnu, as well as that of the Jie ruling class of the Later Zhao dynasty.

Geographical distribution

Hydronyms associated with Arin have the suffixes -set, -igai, -lat, -zat, -zet and -sat (meaning "river") and -kul'/-kul (meaning "water"). These hydronyms, along with Khanty folklore telling of an eastern people known as the ar-jäx "Ar people", indicate that Arin may have once been spread out as far west as the Ob.

Phonology

One notable aspect of the Arin phonology is the correspondence of words starting with the word-initial k- and words in other Yeniseian languages that start with a bare vowel. For example, the Arin word kul (meaning 'water') corresponds to the Ket word uˑl’ and the Kott word ûl. This feature of Arin allows for far more accurate reconstructing of the Proto-Yeniseian language by historical linguistics, for instance, the Proto-Yeniseian term for "water" is reconstructed as *xuɬ, where the initial *x- could not be inferred if not for Arin attestation.

Vowels

The vowel system in Arin is as follows:

1. The sound , transcribed as ö, is only attested in the words ögga 'six', qoa-ögga 'sixteen', ögťuːŋ 'sixty', and utqʼöːnoŋ 'ear', and potentially also in pon’a (also recorded as pun) 'duck'.

Consonants

Consonants in parentheses are sparsely attested or unattested.

1. is only assumed from other Yeniseian languages and is only a prosodic device of tone.

There are 11 palatal-nonpalatal consonant oppositions.

Lexicon

Etymological analysis suggests that speakers of the Arin language, as with other members of the Yeniseian people, were bilingual in Siberian Turkic languages; for example, the Arin word teminkur (meaning "ore") has been suggested to stem from the Old Turkic compound word *tämir qān (meaning "iron blood"). There are over 400 lexica for the Arin language, recorded in the 18th century.

General

Body parts

Family members

Numerals

References

References

1. "Исчезающие народы/языки: Аринцы, Аринский (Arin) {{!}} СМДО КубГУ".
2. (2025-06-16). "Linguistic Evidence Suggests that Xiōng-nú and Huns Spoke the Same Paleo-Siberian Language". Transactions of the Philological Society.
3. "The ASJP Database - Wordlist Arin".
4. "Аринский язык // «Историческая энциклопедия Сибири» (2009)".
5. (14 April 2008). "A 10,000-year-old word puzzle". The Globe and Mail.
6. Vajda, Edward. (19 February 2024). "8 The Yeniseian language family". De Gruyter.
7. Vovin, Alexander. (2000). "Did the Xiong-nu Speak a Yeniseian Language?". Central Asiatic Journal.
8. (2016). "Who were the *Kjet and What Language did they Speak?". Journal Asiatique.
9. (22 December 2023). "The Development of Arin kul 'water' ~ Kott ûl, Ket ¹u·l', Yugh ¹ur and Its Typological Background". International Journal of Eurasian Linguistics.
10. Werner, Heinrich. (2005). "Die Jenissej-Sprachen des 18. Jahrhunderts". Harrassowitz.
11. (2015). "On the Yeniseian Arin word teminkur 'ore'". Words and Dictionaries: A Festschrift for Professor Stanisław Stachowski on the Occasion of His 85th Birthday.
12. Pallas, Peter Simon. (1786). "Linguarum totius orbis vocabularia comparativa". Schnoor.
13. Pallas, Peter Simon. (1789). "Linguarum Totius Orbis Vocabularia Comparativa, Pars 2".