Salar Language

Salar Language

Salar is a Turkic language spoken by the Salar people, who mainly live in the provinces of Qinghai and Gansu in China; some also live in Yining, Xinjiang. The Salar number about 105,000 people, about 60,000(2002) speak the Salar language; under 20,000 monolinguals.

The Salar arrived at their current location in the 14th century, having migrated there from the west, according to a Salar legend from Samarkand. Linguistic evidence points to a possible western Turkic, Oghuz origin of the Salar. Contemporary Salar is heavily influenced by contact with Tibetan and Chinese.

Read more about Salar Language:  Status, Phonology, Chinese and Tibetan Influence, Writing System

Famous quotes containing the word language:

    One can say of language that it is potentially the only human home, the only dwelling place that cannot be hostile to man.
    John Berger (b. 1926)