Sub-project Kalmyk

Photo: Vlada Branova

Kalmyk is a Central Mongolian variety of Mongolic languages. This group includes Standard Mongolian (Khalkha), Buryat, Khamnigan, Khorchin, Ordos, and Oirat/Kalmyk. Nomads settled over a large territory, and in the early 17th century, some Oirats formed an exclave in the Volga region, which was far to the west compared to other Mongol groups. The Kalmyks now live in the Republic of Kalmykia in southern Russia.

Kalmyk is the second official language of the Republic of Kalmykia. According to its constitution, Kalmyk is a language of official communication (along with Russian). Despite this, Kalmyk is classified as an endangered language by UNESCO. The Soviet-era Russification policies had a particularly harsh impact on the Kalmyk people.

The INEL corpus consists of oral texts recorded during fieldwork between 2007 and 2018.