Reconstructing phonetics behind the graphic system of Evenki texts from the Rychkov archive

This paper discusses the graphic system of manuscripts by Konstantin Rychkov (ca. 1910) containing texts in several dialects of Evenki (Tungusic) with Russian translation. The letters г and һ arguably denote voiced velars or post-velars, stops and fricatives alike. The former is only used before fro...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Rhema
Main Authors: Chris Lasse Däbritz, Alexandre Arkhipov
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:unknown
Published: 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:https://zenodo.org/record/8233695
https://doi.org/10.31862/2500-2953-2021-2-46-64
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Summary:This paper discusses the graphic system of manuscripts by Konstantin Rychkov (ca. 1910) containing texts in several dialects of Evenki (Tungusic) with Russian translation. The letters г and һ arguably denote voiced velars or post-velars, stops and fricatives alike. The former is only used before front vowels, the latter otherwise. The letter һ is also found quite often in place of the velar nasal. Palatalization is denoted by three means: a dedicated diacritic after the consonant, an umlaut on the vowel, or the vowel і/ы alternation. Russian letters for hissing sibilants were substituted with Latin ones by Rychkov, which might reflect a different (“lisping”) pronounciation. A special diacritic under sibilants and б probably indicates semi-voicing.