Siberian branch
Tofalars (Tofa)
A small Siberian Turk people of the Eastern Sayan, traditionally reindeer herders and taiga hunters.
Tofa / Tofalar
The Tofalars, formerly known in Russian sources as the Karagas, live in the mountain taiga of the Eastern Sayan in Irkutsk Oblast. Their language is closest to Tuvan, and they are the eastern neighbours of the Tuvans.
Traditionally the Tofalars were nomadic reindeer herders and hunters, using reindeer for riding, transport and milk and hunting sable and other fur animals. Under Russian rule they paid tribute in furs. In the late 1920s and early 1930s Soviet policy settled them in permanent villages — today Alygdzher, Nerkha and Verkhnyaya Gutara — and collectivised their herds and hunting grounds.
Tofa is one of the most endangered Turk languages. Linguists have documented its detailed vocabulary for reindeer and the taiga, and a Cyrillic-based alphabet was devised in the late 1980s by the linguist Valentin Rassadin.
- Language
- Tofa, a Siberian Turk language closely related to Tuvan, today spoken by very few people
- Branch
- Siberian
- Homeland
- Tofalaria, on the northern slopes of the Eastern Sayan mountains in the Nizhneudinsk district of Irkutsk Oblast (Russia)
- Also living in
- Other parts of Irkutsk Oblast
Key dates
1857
M. A. Castrén publishes a grammar of Karagas (Tofa), establishing it as a Turk language.
Late 1920s – early 1930s
The Tofalars are settled in permanent villages and their reindeer herds collectivised.
1989
The first Tofa primer is published in Irkutsk, using an alphabet devised by Valentin Rassadin.
Heritage
- Reindeer herding and a rich specialist vocabulary for reindeer
- Taiga hunting traditions of the Eastern Sayan
- Oral tales and the endangered Tofa language, taught in village schools
Sources
- K. D. Harrison, When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World’s Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge (Oxford University Press, 2007)
- M. Kolga, I. Tõnurist, L. Vaba and J. Viikberg, The Red Book of the Peoples of the Russian Empire (NGO Red Book, Tallinn, 2001), “The Tofalars”