Arin language

It is classified as belonging to the Arinic branch, being its only attested language.^[7] The closest known relative of Arin, Pumpokol, has been suggested to be similar to the language of the ruling elite of the Xiongnu,^[8][2] as well as that of the Jie ruling class of the Later Zhao dynasty.^[9]

Hydronyms associated with Arin have the suffixes -set, -igai, -lat, -zat, -zet and -sat (meaning "river") and -kul'/-kul (meaning "water").^[10] These hydronyms, along with Khanty folklore telling of an eastern people known as the ar-jäx "Ar people", indicate that Arin may have once been spread out as far west as the Ob.^[3][7]

One notable aspect of the Arin phonology is the correspondence of words starting with the word-initial k- and words in other Yeniseian languages that start with a bare vowel. For example, the Arin word kul (meaning 'water') corresponds to the Ket word uˑl’ and the Kott word ûl.^[11] This feature of Arin allows for far more accurate reconstructing of the Proto-Yeniseian language by historical linguistics, for instance, the Proto-Yeniseian term for "water" is reconstructed as *xuɬ, where the initial *x- could not be inferred if not for Arin attestation.

Etymological analysis suggests that speakers of the Arin language, as with other members of the Yeniseian people, were bilingual in Siberian Turkic languages; for example, the Arin word teminkur (meaning "ore") has been suggested to stem from the Old Turkic compound word *tämir qān (meaning "iron blood").^[12] There are over 400 lexica for the Arin language, recorded in the 18th century.^[5]