Tuoba (Tabγač or Tabghach; also Taγbač or Taghbach; Chinese: 拓跋) is an extinct language spoken by the Tuoba people in northern China around the 5th century AD during the Northern Wei dynasty.

Classification

Alexander Vovin (2007) identifies the Tuoba language as a Mongolic language.[1]

On the other hand, Juha Janhunen proposed that the Tuoba might have spoken an Oghur Turkic language.[2] According to Peter Boodberg, the Tuoba language was essentially Turkic with Mongolic admixture.[3] Chen Sanping noted that the Tuoba language "had both" Turkic and Mongolic elements.[4][5]

Liu Xueyao stated that Tuoba may have had their own language, which should not be assumed to be identical with any other known languages.[6]

Andrew Shimunek (2017) classifies Tuoba (Tabghach) as a "Serbi" (i.e., para-Mongolic) language. Shimunek's Serbi branch also consists of the Tuyuhun and Khitan languages.[7]

Morphology

Some functional suffixes are:[7]

• *-A(y) ~ *ʁa(y) ‘verbal noun suffix’
• *-Al ~ *-l ‘deverbal noun suffix’
• **čɪ ~ **či ‘suffix denoting occupations’
• **-mɔr/-mʊr (萬) ‘deverbal noun suffix’
• **-n ‘plural suffix’

Lexicon

Selected basic Taghbach words from Shimunek (2017) are listed below. Forms reconstructed using the comparative method are marked with one asterisk (*), while forms reconstructed according to the Chinese fanqie spellings and/or rhymes of the traditional Chinese philological tradition are marked with two asterisks (**) (originally marked as ✩ by Shimunek 2017).[7]

References

Wiktionary has a word list at Appendix:Taghbach word list

• Liu, Xueyao (2005). 歷代胡族王朝之民族政策. ISBN 9789867151018.
• Liu, Xueyao (2012). 鮮卑列國：大興安嶺傳奇. ISBN 9789628904327.