Lop dialect

Lop, also known as Lopnor or Lopnur is a Turkic dialect spoken in the Lopnor region of Xinjiang, China. Lop speakers are officially classified as ethnic Uyghurs by the Chinese government.

Lop
ليوپ تېلې / Lyop tëlë / Лёп теле
Native to	China
Region	Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region
Native speakers	(undated figure of 25,000)
Language family	Turkic Common Turkic Karluk Uyghur Lop
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	lopn1238  Lopnor
ELP	Lopnor Uighur

Classification

Lop belongs to the Karluk branch of Turkic languages, along with Uyghur and Uzbek. Its status as a distinct language from Uyghur is disputed. Although it has some features that differentiate it from standard Uyghur, it is considered by some linguists to be one of its dialects.

Phonology

Consonants:

		Labial	Alveolar	Palato- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal		m	n			ŋ
Plosive	unvoiced	p	t			k	q
	voiced	b	d			g
Fricative	unvoiced		s	ʃ	ç	x~χ		h
	voiced	v	z	ʒ	ʝ	ɣ~ʁ
Approximant			l		j
Tap			ɾ

Vowels:

	Front		Back
	unrounded	rounded
High	i	y	u
Mid	e	ø	o
Low	æ		a

References

General

• Abdurehim, Esmael (2014). The Lopnor Dialect of Uyghur: A Descriptive Analysis (PDF) (Doctoral thesis). Publications of the Institute for Asian and African Studies 17. Helsinki: Unigrafia. hdl:10138/136392. ISBN 978-951-51-0384-0.