The Tuba language in retrospect and prospect
67th Annual Meeting of the PIAC, Gotemba 2025
The Tuba language is a disappearing Turkic idiom of the northern subgroup of the Mountain Altai group. The language officially acquired its status in 2000. The earliest records were authored by V.V. Radlov, in the 50s to early 60s of the XIX century. My presentation compares data of different authors on the Tuba language and its dialects for the early 60s of the XIX century, the middle of the XX century, as well as the first 20 years of the XXI century. The reliability of this data is assessed, the genealogical affiliation is clarified, a hypothesis is built on the possible future of the Tuba language, taking into account the modern activities of Tuba language activists.