арай

Dolgan

Adverb

арай • (aray)

1. only, merely

Kazakh

Alternative scripts
Arabic	اراي
Cyrillic	арай
Latin	arai

Interjection

арай • (arai)

1. hush, quiet

Noun

арай • (arai)

1. twilight
2. calm, tranquility

Mongolian

Etymology

Cognate with Buryat арай (araj) and Kalmyk әрә (ärä), likely a variant of more widely attested Proto-Mongolic *aran.

Perhaps related to Common Turkic *hāz (if from earlier Proto-Turkic *hāŕ). Compare Daur araang (“barely, slightly”), Turkish az (“few, a bit”). (Can this⁽⁺⁾ etymology be sourced?)

Adverb

арай • (araj) (Mongolian spelling ᠠᠷᠠᠢ (arai))

1. a bit, slightly

   Antonym: илүү (ilüü)

2. barely

   Synonym: дөнгөж (döngöž)

3. hardly
4. almost, practically

   Synonyms: бараг (barag), дөхөм (döxöm)

Descendants

• Accepted
  • → Evenki: арай (araj)
  • → Tofa: арай
  • → Tuvan: арай (aray)
• Less certain
  • →? Even: арай (araj, “oh, ow, suddenly, only”)
  • →? Yakut: арай (aray), →? Dolgan: арай

Yakut

Etymology

From Mongolian арай (araj). Cognate to Dolgan арай, Northern Altai арай (aray, “little, some”), Tofa арай, Tuvan арай (aray), etc. See the discussion in the Mongolian entry above.

Adverb

арай • (aray)

1. only, merely
2. suddenly

Particle

арай • (aray)

1. (at the beginning of a sentence, with a negative connotation) what if, let's say