| Kott | |
| Also Known As: | Kot, Kottish,[1] Kott–Assan |
| Nativename: | kottuen |
| States: | Russia |
| Ethnicity: | Kott, Asan |
| Extinct: | 1850s |
| Familycolor: | Dené-Yeniseian |
| Fam2: | Yeniseian |
| Fam3: | Kottic |
| Dia1: | Kott A |
| Dia2: | Kott B |
| Dia3: | Kyshtym[2] |
| Iso3: | zko |
| Linglist: | zko.html |
| Glotto: | kott1239 |
| Glottorefname: | Kott-Assan |
| Dia4: | Assan (status unclear) |
| Map: | File:Yeniseian_languages_map.svg |
| Mapcaption: | Map of pre-contact Yeniseian languages. |
| Ancestor: | Old Kott |
| Region: | originally Kan and Biryusa rivers, in 19th century |
| Dia5: | Yastin[3] |
| Dia6: | Yarin |
| Dia7: | Baikot |
| Map2: | Lang Status 01-EX.svg |
The Kott (Kot) language (Russian: Коттский язык) is an extinct Yeniseian language that was formerly spoken in central Siberia by the banks of the Mana River, a tributary of the Yenisei river. It became extinct in the 1850s. Kott was closely related to Ket, still spoken farther north along the Yenisei river. Assan, a close relative, is sometimes considered a dialect of Kott.[4] The term kott may be derived from Buryat 'town', applied to neighbouring non-pastoral peoples, including the last few Kotts.
Kott was spoken to the southeast of Krasnoyarsk, in the Biryusa and Kan river basins. However, hydronyms indicate a much wider area in the past, ranging from the Uda and Chuna rivers in the east to the Tom in the west.[5]
One of the earliest written records of Kott is in 1791, with the publication of Peter Simon Pallas's , a comparative dictionary of various world languages and dialects. In 1858, Matthias Castrén published the grammar and dictionary (Versuch einer jenissei-ostjakischen und kottischen Sprachlehre), which included material on the Kott and Ket (Yenisei-Ostyak) languages, recording two different dialects of Kott in the 1840s. There also exists two books written by about the Kott language, namely (Kottskij jazyk), which includes a 110-page Russian-Kott glossary,[6] and .
In multisyllabic words, vowel length is phonemic.
| Close | i pronounced as /link/ | (ɨ pronounced as /link/)1 | u pronounced as /link/ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close-mid | e pronounced as /link/ | o pronounced as /link/ | ||
| Open-mid | ɛ pronounced as /link/ | ɔ pronounced as /link/ | ||
| Open | ä pronounced as /link/ | a pronounced as /link/ |
Vajda 2024 gives a different vowel system for Kott, based off of Castrén 1858.
| Front | Central | Back | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| short | long | short | long | short | long | ||
| Close | i pronounced as /link/ | î pronounced as /link/ | u pronounced as /link/ | û pronounced as /link/ | |||
| Mid | e pronounced as /link/ | ê pronounced as /link/ | o pronounced as /link/ | ô pronounced as /link/ | |||
| Open | a pronounced as /link/ | â pronounced as /link/ | |||||
| Occlusive | p pronounced as /link/ | t pronounced as /link/ | tʼ pronounced as /link/ | k pronounced as /link/ | q pronounced as /link/ | ? pronounced as /link/ | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| aspirated | pʰ pronounced as /link/ | tʰ pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| b pronounced as /link/ | d pronounced as /link/ | dʼ pronounced as /link/ | g pronounced as /link/ | G pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f pronounced as /link/ | s pronounced as /link/ š pronounced as /link/ | x pronounced as /link/ | X pronounced as /link/ | ħ pronounced as /link/ | h pronounced as /link/ | |||
| voiced | R pronounced as /link/ | |||||||||
| Affricate | voiceless | č pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| voiced | dž pronounced as /link/ | |||||||||
| Nasal | m pronounced as /link/ | n pronounced as /link/ | nʼ pronounced as /link/ | ŋ pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| Approximant | j pronounced as /link/ | |||||||||
| Lateral | l pronounced as /link/ lʼ pronounced as /link/ | |||||||||
| Trill | r pronounced as /link/ | |||||||||
| Plosive | p pronounced as /link/ | t pronounced as /link/ | tʼ pronounced as /link/ | k pronounced as /link/ | q pronounced as /link/ | ʔ pronounced as /link/ | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| aspirated | pʰ pronounced as /link/ | tʰ pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| b pronounced as /link/ | d pronounced as /link/ | dʼ pronounced as /link/ | g pronounced as /link/ | G pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f pronounced as /link/ | s pronounced as /link/ | š pronounced as /link/ | j pronounced as /link/ | x pronounced as /link/ | χ pronounced as /link/ | h pronounced as /link/ | ||
| voiced | ||||||||||
| Affricate | č pronounced as /link/ | |||||||||
| Lateral | l pronounced as /link/ | lʼ pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| Trill | r pronounced as /link/ | |||||||||
| Nasal | m pronounced as /link/ | n pronounced as /link/ | nʼ pronounced as /link/ | ŋ pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| Plosive | p pronounced as /link/ | t pronounced as /link/ | tʼ pronounced as /link/ | k pronounced as /link//pronounced as /link/ | q pronounced as /link//pronounced as /link/ | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| aspirated | tʰ pronounced as /link//pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| b pronounced as /link/ | |||||||||
| Fricative | f pronounced as /link//pronounced as /link//pronounced as /link/ | s pronounced as /link/ | š pronounced as /link//pronounced as /link/ | x pronounced as /link/ | h pronounced as /link//pronounced as /link//pronounced as /link/ | ||||
| Affricate | č pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| Liquid | l pronounced as /link//pronounced as /link/ | ||||||||
| r pronounced as /link/ | j pronounced as /link//pronounced as /link/ | ʔ pronounced as /link/ | |||||||
| m pronounced as /link/ | n pronounced as /link//pronounced as /link/ | ŋ pronounced as /link/ | |||||||
Kott had been influenced by Turkic languages, and had borrowed some words from Turkic languages. For example Kott ‘to praise’ comes from Proto-Turkic *paktïr (based on phonetics, likely loaned from Kumandin or Shor), or Kott ‘copper, brass’ comes from Proto-Turkic *kola (of which the source is not phonetically identifiable).[7] At the time of its extinction, it was also loaning words from Russian.
Kott has special end markings to indicate that the noun being described is a hydronym which are -šet/-čet.
Kott is an agglutinative, polysynthetic language which typically uses SVO word order, but can vary depending on situation. It uses suffixes, prefixes and infixes in its verbal inflection, however suffixation is more common than infixation. Personal-subject verbal indicators are usually suffixed to the verb form, and personal-objective indicators are affixed.
Kott has 7 cases. The dative, ablative and locative cases developed from possesed nouns, similarly to Ket and Yugh.
| singular | plural | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| feminine and neuter | masculine | inanimate | animate | ||
| Basic | -∅ | ||||
| Genitive | {{= | {{= | {{= | {{= | |
| Dative | {{= | {{= | {{= | {{= | |
| Locative | {{= | {{= | {{= | {{= | |
| Ablative | {{= | {{= | {{= | {{= | |
| Instrumental | {{= | {{= | {{= | {{= | |
| Comitative | {{= | {{= | {{= | {{= | |