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Tameï: Difference between revisions
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Tameï is Earth's second most spoken language isolate (after [[w:Korean language|Korean]]), being the native tongue of about 42 million people, mostly in the Tameï Islands but also in countries of the former [[w:Soviet Union|USSR]]. Tameï is one of two official languages in the country - the '''Tameïan People's Socialist Republic''' (officially ''ұРесыпұбылихы ұСоциалиссичүки Ланньыр баТамеи'' and ''Социалистическая Республика Тамеиского Народа'') as [[w:Russian language|Russian]] is still official for historical and cultural reasons, despite actual Russian native speakers being only 1% of the Tameï population. | Tameï is Earth's second most spoken language isolate (after [[w:Korean language|Korean]]), being the native tongue of about 42 million people, mostly in the Tameï Islands but also in countries of the former [[w:Soviet Union|USSR]]. Tameï is one of two official languages in the country - the '''Tameïan People's Socialist Republic''' (officially ''ұРесыпұбылихы ұСоциалиссичүки Ланньыр баТамеи'' and ''Социалистическая Республика Тамеиского Народа'') as [[w:Russian language|Russian]] is still official for historical and cultural reasons, despite actual Russian native speakers being only 1% of the Tameï population. | ||
Despite fairly regular contacts with the peoples of Indonesia through centuries, the first major external influence in the Tameï Islands came with the first Western contact in 1594 through a Dutch expedition by Johannes De Boer on the ship De Schildpad. Established in 1613 as a Dutch colony, the Tameï islands remained under Dutch rule until 1827, when they were conquered by the British. They remained a British colony until the Communist Revolution of 1934 which saw the Tameï Islands, extremely rich in raw materials, become an important partner of the USSR, | Despite fairly regular contacts with the peoples of Indonesia through centuries, the first major external influence in the Tameï Islands came with the first Western contact in 1594 through a Dutch expedition by Johannes De Boer on the ship De Schildpad. Established in 1613 as a Dutch colony, the Tameï islands remained under Dutch rule until 1827, when they were conquered by the British. They remained a British colony until the Communist Revolution of 1934 which saw the Tameï Islands, extremely rich in raw materials, become an important partner of the USSR (so much it was informally sometimes known as "the 16th Republic"); after the latter's dissolution, the country remained mostly isolated in the international community, which resulted in multi-party elections being allowed in 1999. Self-defined Tameï people (even if heavily intermixed with other groups) are the majority, forming 57% of the population; there are also substantial Pashtun (21%) and Punjabi (13%) components. Religiously, there is no absolute majority; the largest religion is [[w:Sufism|Sufi Islam]], followed by 30% of the population, with atheism or irreligiousness (28%) and more or less syncretic modern forms of Tameï shamanism (24%) also being relevant percentages. | ||
This history, and the varied ethnic composition of the Tameï state (which saw a large influx of West and South Asians during the British period, as well as European communists during the 20th century), are reflected in its language, which has up to 20% of its lexicon of foreign origin, with early loans from [[w:Dutch language|Dutch]] (borrowed early enough to have underwent Tameï vowel shifts), then from [[w:English language|English]], [[w:Persian language|Persian]], [[w:Pashto language|Pashto]] (the latter two especially in more colloquial registers), and more recently from Russian and [[w:Japanese language|Japanese]] (the latter because of heavy Japanese cultural influence since the end of the Communist era). Tameï's orthography was only created after the Revolution of 1934. The first orthography was based on Dutch spelling conventions, though the difficult way of representing some sounds specific to Tameï led to different proposals being considered. Finally, in 1943, the current Cyrillic orthography was introduced, requested by the government as a sign of political alignment with the Soviet Union; the orthography itself was heavily influenced by the Cyrillic alphabet for Kazakh that at the time had just been introduced. In contemporary Tameï, some words (mostly Russian proper names) keep the original spelling but pronounced as a Tameï word, like the city of ''Сталинахаль''<ref>Tameï for "Stalin City".</ref>, is {{IPA|[ˌtаlinаˈxаj]}}. | This history, and the varied ethnic composition of the Tameï state (which saw a large influx of West and South Asians during the British period, as well as European communists during the 20th century), are reflected in its language, which has up to 20% of its lexicon of foreign origin, with early loans from [[w:Dutch language|Dutch]] (borrowed early enough to have underwent Tameï vowel shifts), then from [[w:English language|English]], [[w:Persian language|Persian]], [[w:Pashto language|Pashto]] (the latter two especially in more colloquial registers), and more recently from Russian and [[w:Japanese language|Japanese]] (the latter because of heavy Japanese cultural influence since the end of the Communist era). Tameï's orthography was only created after the Revolution of 1934. The first orthography was based on Dutch spelling conventions, though the difficult way of representing some sounds specific to Tameï led to different proposals being considered. Finally, in 1943, the current Cyrillic orthography was introduced, requested by the government as a sign of political alignment with the Soviet Union; the orthography itself was heavily influenced by the Cyrillic alphabet for Kazakh that at the time had just been introduced. In contemporary Tameï, some words (mostly Russian proper names) keep the original spelling but pronounced as a Tameï word, like the city of ''Сталинахаль''<ref>Tameï for "Stalin City".</ref>, is {{IPA|[ˌtаlinаˈxаj]}}. | ||