the region east of Lake Khövsgöl in the Tsagaan-Üür, Chandmani-Öndör, and Khankh Districts of Khövsgöl Province of Mongolia

There are five known Tuha languages and ethnonyms, alongside Tofa synonymous with the Taiga-Sayan linguistic area. Tuha dyl (language) is spoken by the Uighur Uryangkhai to the east of Lake Khövsgöl. Their apparent endonym is Soyot Uryangkhai but also Tuhalyr, Tuha kishiler and they have also been referred to as the Khövsgöl or Üüriin Uryangkhai. Both ethnonyms have been used by the Dukha whose language and ethnonym is Tuha. Tuha and Dukha are orthographical representations of the same word, the latter a Roman adaptation of Mongolian Dukhaa. Tuha is spoken among some of the elderly Soyot Uryangkhai (from Written Mongol vUrijavgqai, modern 'ouryaangxai') in Tsagaan-Üür (Tuha: Högshin-Tsagaan), in their summer settlement Burgaltai just east of the Üür (Tuha: Högshin) River, and their winter settlement up the Üür River in Ireenok. Another smaller group lives in Uylgan to the east of Burgaltai but both groups migrated in living memory from the original settlement in Üürin-Tsagaan, further north up the Üür River where there are several more elderly speakers. They refer to Mongolians as Haruul 'sentry'. Tuha speakers in Chandmani-Öndör are yet to be located among the Daagain 'Colt' Uryangkhai (also Aryg, an exonym?). Soyot is probably folk etymology from the Mongolic plural *soyo-d with the same root as the name of the Sayan mountains that was used for the Tuvinians in the 19th century. Even earlier the ethnonym referred to a Mator Samoyedic-speaking group in the region, perhaps indicating that the Soyot Uryangkhai were once Samoyedic speakers.

Tuha is perhaps spoken in several other scattered settlements in the region east of Lake Khövsgöl in the Tsagaan-Üür, Chandmani-Öndör, and Khankh Districts of Khövsgöl Province of Mongolia. One dialect, apparently just west of Chandmani-Öndör, is spoken by the Chulan ('Snake?') Uryangkhai. (It was transcribed to me as 'ǰylyn'.) Another settlement was at the Bulnain Arshaan hot spring just north of Chandmani-Öndör where the last two elderly speakers have recently died. The Övör Shirkheten 'Southern Sirkid' ('South Flea') Uryangkhai and The Görööchin 'Hunter' Uryangkhai are western Mongolic speakers. The Dukha were called the Ar Shirkheten Uryangkhai 'Northern Sirkid' ('North Flea') in the Qing era. There were three other Tuha languages and ethnonyms to the west of Lake Khövsgöl spoken by the Dukha (Tsaatan), the Toja in the North-East of Tuva Republic until as late as 1974, according to Z.B. Chadamba, and the Tere Khöl of the Steppe Sayan linguistic area in the South-East of the Tuva Republic. The Tere Khöl also claim Uighur descent. According to M.A. Castrén, the reindeer herding Soyot of the Okinsky District in Buryatia still spoke a Turkic language as late as the 1840s, assimilating to Buryat. G. Sanjeev wrote in 1930 that they were "completely Buryatized and had forgotten their own Soyot language" though it was heard as late as the early 1990s by Prof. Valentin Rassadin and expedition. Their revived language is now called 'Soyot Tyl'.

to the east of Lake Khövsgöl in Khövsgöl League in the northernmost region of Mongolia