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Kalmyk

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Also known as Kalmuk, Kalmyk language, Western Mongolian, Kalmyk of the Volga, Modern Kalmyk, European Kalmyk, Kalmyk Oirat language, xal

register of the Oirat language, natively spoken by the Kalmyk people of Kalmykia

AI overview

Kalmyk is a language spoken by the Kalmyk people who live in Kalmykia, a region in Russia. It belongs to the Oirat language family and represents an important part of the cultural and linguistic heritage of this ethnic group.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

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Encyclopedic overview

A bilingual (Russian and Kalmyk) sign with the text "Clean zone!" (Russian) and "Overseen zone!" (Kalmyk) at the Elista bus station

Kalmyk language (хальмг келн), formerly anglicized as Calmuck, is a variety of the Oirat language, natively spoken by the Kalmyk people of Kalmykia, a federal subject of Russia. In Russia's Kalmykia, the modern Kalmyk language is the standard form of the Oirat Mongolian that based on the Torgut dialect, which belongs to the Mongolic language family. The Kalmyk people of the Northwest Caspian Sea of Russia claim descent from the Oirats from Eurasia, who have also historically settled in Mongolia and Northwest China. According to UNESCO, the language is "definitely endangered". According to the Russian census of 2021, there are 110,000 speakers out of an ethnic population consisting of 178,000 people.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Kalmyk” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

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