Salar

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A language of China

ISO 639-3
slr
Alternate Names
Sala
Population

70,000 (2002), increasing. 10,000 monolinguals. Ethnic population: 105,000 (2000 census).

Location

Qinghai Province, Xunhua Salar and Hualong Hui autonomous counties; Gansu Province, Jishishan autonomous county; Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Yilli. Kazakh autonomous prefecture.

Language Maps
Language Status

6b (Threatened).

Classification
Altaic, Turkic, Southern
Dialects

Ili, Jiezi, Mengda. Salar is spoken by descendants of an Oghuz-Turkic-speaking subtribe. Has an Oghuz Turkic base, and took on a medieval Chaghatay Turkic stratum through Central Asian contacts and finally acquired a stratum of features from local languages (1989 R. Hahn). Jiezi often seen as standard dialect.

Typology

SOV; postpositional; verbs take up to 3 or 4 suffixes, no prefixes; no person or gender marking; 27 consonant and 8 vowel phonemes; nontonal

Language Use

Some speakers of other languages in the area use Salar, especially men. Domestic, informal domains. All ages, but children less. Positive attitudes. Also use Chinese [cmn], Uyghur [uig], or Tibetan [bod].

Language Development
Literacy rate in L1: 0%. Literacy rate in L2: 60%. Dictionary. Grammar.
Writing
Unwritten.
Other Comments

Officially classified within Salar nationality. Muslim (Sufi), Muslim (Sunni), Muslim (Ikhwan).