Kott language

Extinct Yeniseian language of Siberia

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Kott
Kot, Kottish
kottuen
Native to	Russia
Ethnicity	Kott, Asan
Extinct	early 19th century
Language family	Dené–Yeniseian? Yeniseian Southern Yeniseian Kott
Dialects	Kott A Kott B Kyshtym^[1] Assan (status unclear)^[1]
Language codes
ISO 639-3	`zko`
Linguist List	`zko.html`
Glottolog	`kott1239`
Map of pre-contact Yeniseian languages.

The Kott (Kot) language (Russian: Коттский язык) is an extinct Yeniseian language that was formerly spoken in central Siberia by the banks of the Mana River, a tributary of the Yenisei river. It became extinct in the 1850s. Kott was closely related to Ket, still spoken farther north along the Yenisei river. Assan, a close relative, is sometimes considered a dialect of Kott.^[2]

Geography

Kott was spoken to the southeast of Krasnoyarsk, in the Biryusa and Kan river basins. However, hydronyms indicate a much wider area in the past, ranging from the Uda and Chuna rivers in the east to the Tom in the west.^[3]

Etymology

The term kott may be derived from Buryat qota 'town', applied to neighbouring non-pastoral peoples, including the last few Kotts.^[4]

Documentation

One of the earliest written records of Kott is in 1791, with the publication of Peter Simon Pallas's Сравнительный словарь всѣхъ языковъ и нарѣчій, по азбучному порядку расположенный, a comparative dictionary of variuos world languages and dialects. In 1858, Matthias Castrén published the grammar and dictionary (Versuch einer jenissei-ostjakischen und kottischen Sprachlehre), which included material on the Kott and Ket (Yenisei-Ostyak) languages, recording two different dialects of Kott.^[1] There also exists two books written by Heinrich Werner [ru; de] about the Kott language, namely Коттский язык (Kottskij jazyk), which includes a 110-page Russian-Kott glossary,^[5] and Abriß der kottischen Grammatik.^[2]

Phonology

Vowels

In multisyllabic words, vowel length is phonemic.

Vowels in Kott^[2]
	Front	Central	Back
Close	i [i]	(ɨ [ɨ])¹	u [u]
Close-mid	e [e]		o [o]
Open-mid	ɛ [ɛ]		ɔ [ɔ]
Open	ä [æ]	a [a]

[ɨ] is only attested in a few words dated to the 18th century, and can be considered an allophone of [i].^[2]

Vajda 2024 gives a different vowel system for Kott, based off of Castrén 1858.^[4]

Vowels of 19th-century Kott
	Front		Central		Back
	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close	i [i]	î [iː]			u [u]	û [uː]
Mid	e [e]	ê [eː]			o [o]	ô [oː]
Open			a [a]	â [aː]

Consonants

Consonants according to Werner 1990^[5]
			Labial	Dental	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal	Laryngeal
Occlusive	voiceless	plain	p [p]	t [t]	tʼ [tʲ]	k [k]	q [q]		ʔ [ʔ]
	voiceless	aspirated	pʰ [pʰ]	tʰ [tʰ]
	voiced		b [b]	d [d]	dʼ [dʲ]	g [g]	G [ɢ]
Fricative	voiceless		f [f]	s [s] š [ʃ]		x [x]	X [χ]	ħ [ħ]	h [h]
Fricative	voiced						R [ʀ]
Affricate	voiceless				č [t͡ʃ]
Affricate	voiced				dž [d͡ʒ]
Nasal			m [m]	n [n]	nʼ [nʲ]	ŋ [ŋ]
Approximant					j [j]
Lateral				l [l] lʼ [lʲ]
Trill				r [r]

Consonants in Kott according to Werner 1997^[2]
			Labial	Dental	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Laryngeal/ Pharyngeal
Plosive	voiceless	plain	p [p]	t [t]		tʼ [tʲ]	k [k]	q [q]	ʔ [ʔ]
	voiceless	aspirated	pʰ [pʰ]	tʰ [tʰ]
	voiced		b [b]	d [d]		dʼ [dʲ]	g [g]	G [ɢ]
Fricative	voiceless		f [f]	s [s]	š [ʃ]	j [j]	x [x]	χ [χ]	h [h]
Fricative	voiced
Affricate						č [t͡ʃ]
Lateral				l [l]	lʼ [lʲ]
Trill				r [r]
Nasal			m [m]	n [n]		nʼ [nʲ]	ŋ [ŋ]

Influence from Turkic

Kott had been influenced by Turkic languages, and had borrowed some words from Turkic languages. For example Kott baktîr- ‘to praise’ comes from Proto-Turkic *paktïr (based on phonetics, likely loaned from Kumandin or Shor), or Kott kolá ‘copper, brass’ comes from Proto-Turkic *kola (of which the source is not phonetically identifiable).^[6] At the time of its extinction, it was also loaning words from Russian.

Grammar

Kott has special end markings to indicate that the noun being described is a hydronym which are -šet/čet.^[2]^[1]

Kott typically uses SVO word order, and is agglutinative.

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d 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.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Werner, Heinrich (1997). Abriß der kottischen Grammatik [Kott Grammar Outline] (in German). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. p. 13. ISBN 3-447-03971-X.
^ "КОТТСКИЙ ЯЗЫК • Большая российская энциклопедия - электронная версия". old.bigenc.ru. Retrieved 2024-06-30.
^ ^a ^b Vajda, Edward (2024-02-19), Vajda, Edward (ed.), "8 The Yeniseian language family", 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
^ ^a ^b Verner, G. K. (Г. К. Вернер) (1990). Kottsky yazyk Коттский язык [Kott Language] (in Russian). Rostov-na-Donu: Izdatel'stvo rostovskogo universiteta. ISBN 5-7507-0357-6.
^ Khabtagaeva, Bayarma (2015). "Some Remarks on Turkic Elements of Mongolic Origin in Yeniseian". Studia Etymologica Cracoviensia. 20 (2): 111–126. doi:10.4467/20843836SE.15.008.2794.