Tuvinian

Tuvans (Тувинцы) are a Turkic people indigenous to Tuva, Russia. They number approximately 30,000, making them one of the smallest Turkic peoples. The majority of Tuvans practice Buddhism and Shamanism, which makes them unique among Turkic peoples. The Tuvan language (Тыва дыл) is also unique among Turkic languages in that it is not written in Cyrillic or Latin script, but instead in a script called Old Turkic. This script was used by the ancient Turkic peoples of Central Asia and is thought to be derived from the Orkhon script. The Tuvan language is spoken by approximately 30,000 people, making it one of the smaller Turkic languages. It is closely related to other Turkic languages, such as Turkish and Uzbek. However, due to the isolation of the Tuvan people, the language has developed some unique features. For example, it has a large number of loanwords from Mongolian and Tibetan. The Tuvan language is not written in Cyrillic or Latin script, but instead in a script called Old Turkic. This script was used by the ancient Turkic peoples of Central Asia and is thought to be derived from the Orkhon script. Tuvan is an agglutinative language, meaning that words are formed by adding suffixes to stems. For example, the word for 'horse' is ata, which becomes atalar 'horses' when the plural suffix -lar is added. The Tuvan language has three dialects: West Tuvan, Central Tuvan, and East Tuvan. The dialects are not mutually intelligible, but all use the Old Turkic script. Tuvan is an endangered language, as many Tuvan children are not learning it as their first language. However, there are efforts to revive the language, such as the creation of a Tuvan language television channel and the establishment of a Tuvan language institute.