Haixi Deedmongol

Language	Deedmongol
Depositor	Benjamin Brosig
Affiliation	Nazarbayev University
Location	China
Collection ID	0823
Funding Body	Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Swiss National Science Foundation
Collection Status	Forthcoming
Landing Page Handle	http://hdl.handle.net/2196/951878a1-79a0-4186-b77c-75a57884d3d8

 

Summary of the collection

This deposit is the result of efforts, mostly funded by Hong Kong Polytechnic University, to compile a Deedmongol (Qinghai Oirat) corpus from which its evidentiality system could be described. The materials were collected between 2015-2017 in the course of four short journeys to Haixi, Qinghai. The data was collected by Benjamin Brosig, with support of multiple Deedmongols during different phases of the project as organizers, recorded speakers, and transcribers. Most of the data comes as audio (51 hours, supported by photos), but a subset (14 hours) is also available as videos. The materials range from free conversation to picture description and retelling tasks, and from strongly influenced by Standard Southern Mongolian to the near absence of such influence. 2 hours of these materials are time-aligned and transcribed (but not translated) in PRAAT, along with renderings into Mongolian script. These are supplemented by 3,5 hours of extensively corrected time-aligned transcriptions of pre-existing transcriptions. To round this up, the corpus contains transcribed letters of Deedmongol nobles from the early 17th century.

 

Group represented

The speakers of Deedmongol are ethnic Oirats, mostly Khoshut, though different groups of Oirats and Khalkha-Chakhar speakers have entered the Köknuur region at different times. They are largely pastoralists that live in the valleys and high mountain pastures of the north-eastern region of the Tibetan plateau.

 

Language information

The language spoken is called Deedmongol ‘High Mongolian’, i.e. Mongolian spoken in the high mountains. It can also be referred to as Qinghai Oirat, namely the Oirat Mongolian spoken in the Qinghai and Gansu provinces of China = Köknuur region (Mongolian) = Amdo region (Tibetan). It is actively spoken in Haixi Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, the region west of Lake Qinghai, and in Subei Prefecture of Gansu Province north of Haixi. Within Haixi, regions with notable populations of Deedmongol speakers include the counties Dulan ‘warm’ and Ulan ‘red’ as well as the so-called cities Golmud ‘rivers’ and Delkhii ‘world’ = Delingha. Historically, Deedmongol would probably once have been spoken in a somewhat wider region, including territories east and south of Lake Qinghai. A remnant of these is the moribund Henan Oirat dialect which was documented, in its final stages and with a strongly tibetanized grammar, by Matyas Balogh (see collection 0297 at ELAR). Deedmongol might have up to 35,000 speakers (as of 2017). The Deedmongol dialect is part of the Oirat branch of Central Mongolic within the Mongolic language family. Other notable Oirat dialects include Alasha in western Inner Mongolia, Altai Oirat in western Mongolia, Xinjiang Oirat spoken in several separate regions of Xinjiang Province, and Kalmyk Oirat in Kalmykia, Russia. Other Central Mongolic varieties include Khalkha-Chakhar (often simply called “Mongolian”), Buryat, and Khorchin-Kharchin. Historically, the Oirats in Köknuur were in contact with (and indeed originated from) the Oirats of Xinjiang, some of who moved there in the early 17th century. In the 19th and early 20th century, the Deedmongols would have been in loose contact with Alasha and with Mongghul, a language from the Southern Mongolic branch of Mongolic. All Deedmongol speakers live, and have always lived since their ethnic group came into existence, in the vicinity of speakers of Amdo Tibetan dialects. During the time period recorded, there were Mongolian schools that would teach in Standard Southern Mongolian (Written Mongolian: barimjiy-a abiy-a), a standard variety based on Chakhar, and this influences the speech of some of the recorded speakers who learnt it in school or university.

 

Collection contents

The corpus consists of 51 hours 9 minutes and 51 seconds of Deedmongol materials collected by Brosig in 2015-2016 during three field trips. It consists of audio recordings of free conversation [8:04:51], interviews and other types of conversation [1:45:48], two instantiations of the family problems picture task (San Roque et al. 2012) [1:53:22], and excerpts from three school lessons [1:25:00] during 4 days in Ulan and Caka in April 2015, free conversation [21:48:02], conversation and autobiographical narration of old people [5:26:00], interviews and other conversation [3:02:55] and task-related conversation, mostly autobiographic narrating and retelling [5:42:36] in the style of Mushin (2001), during 5 days in Dulan in December 2015, and free conversation among young herders [2:01:35] during 1 day in the countryside close to Dulan in October 2016. During the first trip, Brosig additionally made mobile phone recordings of the picture-ordering task within the family problems picture task [00:26:12], and during the second trip, he video-taped several conversations [11:38:48]. During a distinct trip during three days of August 2017, without parallel audio recording, he recorded several videos of mostly public events [02:01:16] during a centrally organized Mongolian naadam celebration in Caka. Except for the video recordings during the Mongolian naadam, nearly all recordings are from speakers from Ulan and Dulan. Among the data collected from the first two trips, Brosig selected 9 hours for transcription, and B. Zoljargal prepared time-aligned testgrid files for these. In the end, only about 2 hours were actually transcribed (Brosig, Benjamin & Suruna & Bayama & Möngkedelger & Oyunčečeg. 2017. Corpus of spoken Deedmongol Oirat. FLAC & textgrid files). The second transcriptions relate to a collection of monologues [3:33:29] that were edited by D. Bagatur (2016) and transcribed by Toli, Bayartu, Liyang Qai and Uriqan in an paper book with attached CD. Since the number of errors contained in these transcriptions made it very difficult to use them, Brosig and B. Zoljargal OCR-ed, time-aligned and corrected these recordings for PRAAT (Brosig, Benjamin & Baasanjav Zoljargal. 2021. Improved and time-aligned IPA transcription for the Deedmongol materials of Mongγul kelen-ü bayiγaji yariyan-u materiyal-un emkidkel. WAV (from mp3) & textgrid files). Finally, the collection contains transcriptions made on Brosig’s behalf by Tsogbadrakh Gantulga from the 17th century Deedmongol facsimiles published in Čimeddorǰi et al. (2003). An overview of the characteristics of these two corpora, as well as an overview of all known linguistically usable Deedmongol materials that could be accessed, can be found in Brosig (2025).

 

References

Baγatur, D. (ed.) 2016. Mongγul kelen-ü bayiγaǰi yariyan-u materiyal-un emkidkel [A collection of naturally occuring Mongolian speech]. Kökeqota: Öbür mongγul-un arad-un keblel-ün qoriy-a.

Brosig, Benjamin. 2025. Sources on Deedmongol. Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae [just being published, will be supplied shortly].

Čimeddorǰi, J̌aqadai, WU Yuanfeng & Sa. Narasun (eds.) 2003. Čing ulus-un dotuγadu narin bičig-ün yamun-u Mongγul dangsa ebkemel-ün emkidkel [Collection of Mongolian files from the Court of Internal Writings of the Qing state]. 7 volumes. Kökeqota: Öbür Mongγul-un arad-un keblel-ün qoriy-a.

Mushin, Ilana. 2001. Evidentiality and epistemological stance – narrative retelling. Philadelphia: Benjamins.

San Roque, Lila, Rumsey, Alan, Gawne, Lauren, Spronck, Stef, Hoenigman, Darja, Carroll, Alice, Miller, Julia Colleen and  Nicholas Evans. 2012. Getting the story straight: Language fieldwork using a narrative problem-solving task. Language Documentation & Conservation 6: 135–174.

 

Acknowledgement and citation

To refer to any data from the collection, please cite as follows:
Brosig, Benjamin. 2025. Haixi Deedmongol. Endangered Languages Archive. Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/2196/d0861832-4302-4186-a583-108a6a1224f7. Accessed on [insert date here]