UNESCO RED BOOK ON ENDANGERED LANGUAGES: NORTHEAST ASIA
by Juha Janhunen (nearly all entries) and
Tapani Salminen (two entries and general editing)
<tasalmin@cc.helsinki.fi>
© Juha Janhunen and Tapani Salminen <tasalmin@cc.helsinki.fi> 1993--1999. All rights reserved. The report may be used for private study purposes, and for that use stored in electronic form. No part of the report may be printed, reproduced, or transmitted in any form without the prior consent of the authors.
Please read the background information
and use the indexes for easier access.
Northern Mansi
- Variant(s): Northern Man'si, (old generic name also covering Eastern, Southern, and Western Mansi:) Vogul; also known by the names of the main dialectal varieties, including: Sygva Mansi, Sosva Mansi, Ob Mansi, and Upper Loz'va Mansi
- Geographical location: on the western tributaries to the lower Ob, mainly along the Sosva, and in the central and northern Ural mountains, within the forest zone; administratively mainly within the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District of Tyumen' Oblast, Russia
- Relationships: /Mansi/Finno-Ugrian (Uralic)
- Present state of the language: SERIOUSLY ENDANGERED
(a) children speakers: very few, if any
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: unknown, but mainly more than 40 years
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: approx. 3,000; members of the ethnic group: approx. 7,000
(e) degree of speakers' competence: often rudimentary, under strong interference from Russian, the principal language of the speakers; there is a written standard (in Cyrillic script), but its use is limited to school textbooks aiming at introducing the language of the older generation to the already Russianized children
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): Urmas BERECZKI: Sukupolvien kuilu nykypäivän obinugrilaisilla, Journal de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 79, Helsinki 1984
(ii) published material (of the language): KÁLMÁN Béla: Chrestomathia Vogulica, Budapest 1976; there is a vast scholarly literature on all aspects of the language, both in Russian and in Western languages
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): László HONTI, University of Groningen, the Netherlands
- Remarks: Mansi is, with some justification, often considered to be a single language with four main groups of dialects; the linguistic differences within Mansi are, indeed, smaller than those within the otherwise comparable cases of Khanty, Selkup, and Ket (qq.v.); together with Khanty, Mansi is traditionally classified as forming the Ob-Ugrian branch of Ugrian, but the genetic basis of this classification remains questionable
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 28 Dec. 1993
Eastern Mansi
- Variant(s): Eastern Man'si, (old generic name also covering Northern, Southern, and Western Mansi:) Vogul; also known by the names of the main dialectal varieties, including: Konda Mansi and Yukonda Mansi
- Geographical location: in the basin of the river Konda, a western tributary to the lower Irtysh
- Relationships: /Mansi/Finno-Ugrian (Uralic)
- Present state of the language: NEARLY EXTINCT
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: unknown, but hardly less than 60 years
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: unknown, but hardly more than 500, possibly much less; members of the ethnic group: unknown, but hardly more than 1,000, possibly much less
(e) degree of speakers' competence: mainly rudimentary, under strong interference from Russian, the principal language of the remaining speakers
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): László HONTI: Kriterien zur Klassifizierung der Dialekte des Wogulischen, Dialectologia Uralica, Wiesbaden 1985
(ii) published material (of the language): the idiom is relatively well documented, both in Russian and in Western languages
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): László HONTI, University of Groningen, the Netherlands
- Remarks:
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 28 Dec. 1993
Western Mansi
- Variant(s): Western Man'si, (old generic name also covering Eastern, Northern, and Southern Mansi:) Vogul; also known by the names of the main dialectal varieties, including: Pelym Mansi, Middle and Lower Loz'va Mansi, and Vagil'sk Mansi
- Geographical location: in the region of the source rivers of the Tavda, a tributary to the lower Tobol'-Irtysh
- Relationships: /Mansi/Finno-Ugrian (Uralic)
- Present state of the language: POSSIBLY EXTINCT [since the middle of the 20th century]
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers:
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference in the past
(d) total number of speakers: [probably] 0; members of the ethnic group: very few
(e) degree of speakers' competence:
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): --
(ii) published and unpublished material (of the language): --
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): László HONTI, University of Groningen, the Netherlands
- Remarks:
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 28 Dec. 1993
Southern Mansi
- Variant(s): Southern Man'si, (old generic name also covering Eastern, Northern, and Western Mansi:) Vogul; also known by hydrographical association as: Tavda Mansi
- Geographical location: in the region of the lower Tavda, a tributary to the lower Tobol'-Irtysh
- Relationships: /Mansi/Finno-Ugrian (Uralic)
- Present state of the language: EXTINCT since the middle of the 20th century
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers:
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference in the past
(d) total number of speakers: 0; members of the ethnic group: very few
(e) degree of speakers' competence: the language, as recorded from the last generations of speakers, reveals strong interference from Siberian Tatar (q.v.); the very last speakers seem to have adopted Russian, however
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language) and (ii) published material (of the language): László HONTI; System der paradigmatischen Suffixmorpheme des wogulischen Dialektes an der Tawda, Budapest 1975
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): László HONTI, University of Groningen, the Netherlands
- Remarks:
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 28 Dec. 1993
Northern Khanty
- Variant(s): Northern Khant or Khante, (old generic name also covering Eastern and Southern Khanty:) Ostyak, Ostiak, Ugrian Ostyak, not to be confused with Yenisei Ostyak or Ket (q.v.), nor with Ostyak Samoyed or Selkup (q.v.); also known by the names of the main dialectal varieties, including: Ob Khanty, Kazym Khanty, Berezovo Khanty, Sherkaly Khanty, and Nizyam Khanty
- Geographical location: in the lower Ob basin and on its tributaries; administratively mainly within the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous District of Tyumen' Oblast, Russia
- Relationships: /Khanty/Finno-Ugrian (Uralic)
- Present state of the language: ENDANGERED
(a) children speakers and (b) mean age of youngest speakers: Northern Khanty is reportedly still being used in many families as an idiom of internal communication, though Russian is universally learnt as the dominant language; native language skills are, however, often destroyed by the unifying boarding school system, operating in Russian only
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: possibly more than 10,000; the total number of Khanty speakers is officially given as approx. 14,000, of whom a majority must be speakers of Northern Khanty; members of the ethnic group: possibly approx. 15,000, out of a total of approx. 22,000 for Khanty, in general
(e) degree of speakers' competence: generally good, though under increasing interference from Russian; Northern Khanty itself is, however, far from a uniform language, and the dialectal varieties cannot be served by a single normative standard; separate written norms (in Cyrillic script) exist for some of the dialects, but they have very limited use
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language) and (ii) published material (of the language): Károly RÉDEI: Northern Ostyak chrestomathy, Bloomington 1965; there is a vast scholarly literature on all aspects of the language, both in Russian and in Western languages
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): László HONTI, University of Groningen, the Netherlands
- Remarks: though often considered to be a single language, Khanty is actually a group of three mutually unintelligible conglomerations of dialects that may well be counted as separate languages; together with Mansi (q.v.), Khanty is traditionally classified as forming the Ob-Ugrian branch of Ugrian, but this classification is to be understood in an areal and historical, rather than in a genetic framework; a particularly close areal and typological affinity exists between Northern Khanty and Northern Mansi
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 28 Dec. 1993
Southern Khanty
- Variant(s): Southern Khant or Khante, (old generic name also covering Eastern and Northern Khanty:) Ostyak, Ostiak, Ugrian Ostyak; also known by the names of the main dialectal varieties, including: Dem'yanka Khanty, Konda Khanty, and Irtysh Khanty
- Geographical location: in the lower Irtysh basin and on its tributaries
- Relationships: /Khanty/Finno-Ugrian (Uralic)
- Present state of the language: POSSIBLY EXTINCT
(a) children speakers: according to unconfirmed information there are no speakers left; in any case, the transmission of the language to children has ceased long ago
(b) mean age of youngest speakers:
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: very few, possibly 0; members of the ethnic group: unknown, but probably less than 1,000, perhaps even close to 0
(e) degree of speakers' competence: Southern Khanty used to be under strong interference not only from Russian, but also from Siberian Tatar (q.v.)
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): Erhard F. SCHIEFER: Kriterien zur Klassifizierung der Dialekte des Ostjakischen, Dialectologia Uralica, Wiesbaden 1985
(ii) published material (of the language): cf. the bibliography in HONTI László: Chrestomathia Ostiacica, Budapest 1984; although there is no reliable information about the current ethnic situation of the speakers of Southern Khanty and their descendants, the Southern Khanty language itself, like Eastern and Northern Khanty, is well documented in older sources, in both Russian and Western languages
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): László HONTI, University of Groningen, the Netherlands
- Remarks:
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 28 Dec. 1993
Eastern Khanty
- Variant(s): Eastern Khant or Khante, (old generic name also covering Northern and Southern Khanty:) Ostyak, Ostiak, Ugrian Ostyak; also known by the names of the main dialectal varieties, including: Vakh-Vasyugan Khanty, Salym Khanty, and Surgut Khanty
- Geographical location: along the western and eastern tributaries to the middle Ob, from the Vasyugan to the Pim
- Relationships: /Khanty/Finno-Ugrian (Uralic)
- Present state of the language: SERIOUSLY ENDANGERED
(a) children speakers: probably none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: unknown, but hardly less than 40 years
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: unknown, but hardly more than 1,000, possibly much less; members of the ethnic group: unknown, but hardly more than 5,000, possibly much less
(e) degree of speakers' competence: mainly rudimentary, under strong interference from Russian, the principal language of the remaining speakers; there is also some traditional bilingualism between Eastern Khanty and Central Selkup (q.v.)
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language) and (ii) published material (of the language): János GULYA: Eastern Ostyak chrestomathy, Bloomington 1966; there is a vast scholarly literature on all aspects of the language, both in Russian and in Western languages
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): László HONTI, University of Groningen, the Netherlands
- Remarks:
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 28 Dec. 1993
Nganasan
- Variant(s): Tavgi, Tavgi Samoyed, Avam Samoyed
- Geographical location: the northernmost language of the Eurasian continent; on central Taimyr, in the regions of the Pyasina and Taimyra river systems, within the Taimyr (Dolgano-Nenets) Autonomous District of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia; in two main groups (western and eastern), corresponding to a slight dialectal difference
- Relationships: /Samoyed/Finno-Ugrian (Uralic)
- Present state of the language: SERIOUSLY ENDANGERED
(a) children speakers and (b) mean age of youngest speakers: very few, if any; generally, only individuals aged 40 or more are fully fluent in the language
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: according to official census data, the Nganasan ethnic group has the highest native language retaining rate (approx. 85 per cent) among the 26 so-called "Peoples of the Far North" in Russia, which would give approx. 1,000 native speakers; according to inofficial field data, however, the rate is much lower, and a cautious estimate would give no more 500 native speakers; members of the ethnic group: approx. 1,300
(e) degree of speakers' competence: there are still a few old speakers with little knowledge of Russian, or with a knowledge of a special Russian-based Taimyr pidgin only; middle-aged and younger speakers are, however, fully bilingual in Russian, with inevitable traces of Russian interference in native language use; some knowledge of Yakut: Dolgan (q.v.) is also common
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language) and (ii) published material (of the language): N. M. TERESHHENKO: Nganasanskij jazyk, Leningrad 1979
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Eugene HELIMSKI (XELIMSKIJ), Russian University of Humanities, Moscow, Russia
- Remarks: together with Nenets and Enets (qq.v.) often considered to constitute a special subbranch termed Northern Samoyed
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 26 Dec. 1993
Tundra Enets
- Variant(s): Somatu, Madu, (historical names:) Turukhan Samoyed, Khantai or Chantai Samoyed, (old generic name also covering Forest Enets:) Yenisei Samoyed
- Geographical location: in the tundra zone on the lower Yenisei, within the Ust'-Yenisei raion of the Taimyr (Dolgano-Nenets) Autonomous District of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia; with a historical movement towards the north comparable to that of Forest Enets (q.v.)
- Relationships: /Enets/Samoyed/Finno-Ugrian (Uralic)
- Present state of the language: NEARLY EXTINCT
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: from 40 years up
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: less than 50, possibly only a few; members of the ethnic group: approx. 100
(e) degree of speakers' competence: possibly only rudimentary; the last speakers are bilingual in Russian, but there may also be individuals with a knowledge of Nganasan (q.v.)
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): Eugene HELIMSKI: Die Feststellung der dialektalen Zugehörigkeit der enzischen Materialien, Dialectologia Uralica, Wiesbaden 1985
(ii) published material (of the language): there are no special publications of Tundra Enets material, but the idiom is covered to some extent by many general works on Enets and Samoyed, e.g. Michael KATZSCHMANN & János PUSZTAY: Jenissei-samojedisches (Enzisches) Wörterbuch, Hamburg 1978
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Eugene HELIMSKI (XELIMSKIJ), Russian University of Humanities, Moscow, Russia
- Remarks: on the taxonomy within Samoyed, cf. Forest Enets
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 26 Dec. 1993
Forest Enets
- Variant(s): Bai, (historical names:) Mangazeia Samoyed, Baikha or Baicha Samoyed, Karasina Samoyed, (old generic name also covering Tundra Enets:) Yenisei Samoyed
- Geographical location: in the forest zone on the lower Yenisei, within the Dudinka raion of the Taimyr (Dolgano-Nenets) Autonomous District of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia; historically, the speakers of the idiom have gradually moved towards the north along the Yenisei basin; this movement has during the last 150 years involved a distance of approx. 500 kms
- Relationships: /Enets/Samoyed/Finno-Ugrian (Uralic)
- Present state of the language: NEARLY EXTINCT
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: from 40 years up
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: less than 50, possibly only a few; members of the ethnic group: approx. 100
(e) degree of speakers' competence: the last speakers are mainly trilingual, speaking also Russian and Tundra Nenets; interference from the latter two languages tends to influence what is left of native language skills in Forest Enets
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language) and (ii) published material (of the language): N. M. TERESHHENKO: Eneckij jazyk, Jazyki mira: ural'skie jazyki, Moskva 1993
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Eugene HELIMSKI (XELIMSKIJ), Russian University of Humanities, Moscow, Russia
- Remarks: Forest Enets and Tundra Enets are officially counted as dialects of a single language, but they have a number of fundamental differences; areally, Forest Enets reveals an orientation towards Nenets (q.v.), while Tundra Enets adheres to Nganasan (q.v.); together with Nenets and Nganasan, the idioms of the Enets group are often considered to constitute a special subbranch termed Northern Samoyed
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 26 Dec. 1993
Yurats
- Variant(s): Yurak, (Russian:) Jurackij; the appellation Yurak has historically also been used for Nenets, with which Yurats in the technical sense is not to be confused
- Geographical location: in the tundra zone to the west of the lower Yenisei
- Relationships: /Samoyed/Finno-Ugrian (Uralic)
- Present state of the language: EXTINCT since the early 19th century
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers:
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference in the past
(d) total number of speakers: 0; members of the ethnic group: 0; it seems that Yurats was absorbed by Tundra Nenets, which had a period of eastward expansion in the 18th and 19th centuries; the eastern groups of the modern Tundra Nenets speakers may therefore be considered to have been formed upon a Yurats substrate
(e) degree of speakers' competence: the idiom, as recorded in the historical sources, had already undergone strong areal influence of Tundra Nenets
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): Evgenij XELIMSKIJ: Ob odnom perexodnom severnosamodijskom dialekte (K istoricheskoj dialektologii neneckogo jazyka), Proisxozhdenie aborigenov Sibiri i ix jazykov 3, Tomsk 1976
(ii) published material (of the language): only very limited 18th century lexicological sorces
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Eugene HELIMSKI (XELIMSKIJ), Russian University of Humanities, Moscow, Russia
- Remarks: [possibly] an archaic member of the Enets group; areally, Yurats occupies a position transitional between Enets and Nenets; although it has also been classified as an aberrant dialect of Nenets, its primary diagnostic features are common with Enets
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 26 Dec. 1993
Tundra Nenets
- Variant(s): (for Nenets) Yurak (derogatory), Samoyed (obsolete)
- Geographical location: the Russian Federation: Europe: Nenets District, the Kolguev Island, a part of Mezen' County, and formerly the Novaya Zemlya Islands of Arkhangel'sk Province, extending to Komi Republic; Siberia: Yamal Nenets District, excluding southwestern and southeastern corners, of Tyumen' Province; western Taymyr District of Krasnoyarsk Region
- Relationships: /Nenets/Samoyed/Finno-Ugrian (Uralic)
- Present state of the language: ENDANGERED
(a) children speakers: in Siberia, many children learn the language, but some of them cease to use it throughout the school years; on the European side, very few children learn the language
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: on the European side, possibly 20
(c) distribution by sex:
(d) total number of speakers, members of the ethnic group: approx. 25,000 speakers; cf. combined 26,730 speakers in the 1989 Soviet census for the two Nenets languages
(e) degree of speakers' competence: practically all elderly and middle-aged people are fully competent; in Siberia, most young people are also fully competent, but on the European side young people tend to be less competent and prefer Russian
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): N. M. Tereshchenko: Neneckij jazyk. Jazyki mira: ural'skie jazyki. Moskva 1993. 326--343.
(ii) published and unpublished material (of the language): quite a lot
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Tapani Salminen, University of Helsinki, Finland
- Remarks:
- Compiler: Tapani Salminen, Helsinki, 31 Dec. 1993
Forest Nenets
- Variant(s): (for Nenets) Yurak (derogatory), Samoyed (obsolete)
- Geographical location: the Russian Federation: Siberia: Pur County of Yamal Nenets District of Tyumen' Province, extending to adjacent counties and Khanty Mansi District
- Relationships: /Nenets/Samoyed/Finno-Ugrian (Uralic)
- Present state of the language: SERIOUSLY ENDANGERED
(a) children speakers: a few children learn the language, but most cease to use it throughout the school years
(b) mean age of youngest speakers:
(c) distribution by sex:
(d) total number of speakers, members of the ethnic group: approx. 1,500 speakers; cf. Tundra Nenets
(e) degree of speakers' competence: older generations fully competent; middle-aged people usually fully competent, but some individuals exhibit strong Khanty or Russian influence; among younger people, many individuals are less competent and prefer Russian
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): Pekka Sammallahti: Material from Forest Nenets. Helsinki 1973.
(ii) published and unpublished material (of the language): a little
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Tapani Salminen, University of Helsinki, Finland
- Remarks:
- Compiler: Tapani Salminen, Helsinki, 31 Dec. 1993
Northern Selkup
- Variant(s): Taz Selkup, Tas Selkup, (also:) Sel'kup, Sölkup, Sölqup, Söl'qup, (old generic name also covering Central and Southern Selkup:) Ostyak Samoyed, not to be confused with Ugrian Ostyak or Khanty (q.v.), nor with Yenisei Ostyak or Ket (q.v.)
- Geographical location: in the basin of the river Taz (flowing to the Arctic Ocean), as well as in the Baikha-Turukhan river system, to the west of the upper Yenisei, partly within the tundra zone; administratively mainly within the Krasnosel'kup raion of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District of Tyumen' Oblast, Russia
- Relationships: /Selkup/Samoyed/Finno-Ugrian (Uralic)
- Present state of the language: ENDANGERED
(a) children speakers and (b) mean age of youngest speakers: a large proportion of Northern Selkup children are native speakers of Russian, but Selkup is probably still used in some families as an idiom of internal communication
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: less than 1,000; members of the ethnic group: approx. 1,200
(e) degree of speakers' competence: under interference from Russian; a written standard (in Cyrillic script) has recently been (re)introduced and is being used, with modest success, in elementary-level school instruction
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): HAJDÚ Péter, Chrestomathia Samoiedica, Budapest 1968
(ii) published material (of the language): A. I. KUZNECOVA & E. A. XELIMSKIJ & al., Ocherki po sel'kupskomu jazyku, Tazovskij dialekt 1--2, Moskva 1980--1993
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Jarmo ALATALO, University of Helsinki, Finland
- Remarks: the only member of the Selkup group of idioms that, for the moment, is not yet threatened by imminent extinction; together with Kamas and Mator (qq.v.), Selkup is often considered to constitute a special subbranch termed Southern Samoyed; the three main varieties of Selkup have traditionally been counted as dialects of a single language; their differences are, however, comparable to those between, for instance, Ket, Yug, and Pumpokol (qq.v.)
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 28 Dec. 1993
Central Selkup
- Variant(s): Tym Selkup, Middle Selkup, (old generic name also covering Northern and Southern Selkup:) Ostyak Samoyed
- Geographical location: in the basin of the upper Ob and on its tributaries, from the Chaya in the south to the Tym in the north; with each river basin having a dialect of its own
- Relationships: /Selkup/Samoyed/Finno-Ugrian (Uralic)
- Present state of the language: NEARLY EXTINCT
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: unknown, but hardly less than 60 years
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: less than 500; members of the ethnic group: approx. 2,000
(e) degree of speakers' competence: mainly rudimentary, under strong interference from Russian, the principal language of the remaining speakers; historically, there have been attempts to support the language by a written standard (in Cyrillic script), and currently there is a wave of national awakening embracing even the linguistically assimilated part of the population; it seems, however, that this movement is mainly concerned about social and ecological problems, rather than about a true revigoration of the native language
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): A. I. KUZ'MINA: Grammatika sel'kupskogo jazyka 1, Sel'kupy i ix jazyk, Novosibirsk 1974
(ii) published material (of the language): Hartmut KATZ: Selcupica 1, Materialien von Tym, Munich 1975; there are large collections of unpublished lexicological and text material both in Russia and in Finland
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Jarmo ALATALO, University of Helsinki, Finland
- Remarks: [in the original report, Upper Ob Selkup was grouped together with Tym Selkup to constitute "Ob Selkup", but traditionally Upper Ob Selkup and Ket Selkup have been classified together as Southern Selkup, which is followed here]
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 28 Dec. 1993
Southern Selkup
- Variant(s): Ket Selkup, Ket' Selkup, (old generic name also covering Northern and Central Selkup:) Ostyak Samoyed; not to be confused with Ket and Pumpokol (qq.v.; the word Ket of Ket Selkup refers to the hydronym Ket', while the name of the Ket group of Yeniseian languages is of an entirely different, appellative origin)
- Geographical location: in the basin of the river Ket', an eastern tributary to the upper Ob
- Relationships: /Selkup/Samoyed/Finno-Ugrian (Uralic)
- Present state of the language: NEARLY EXTINCT
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: unknown, but hardly less than 60 years
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: very few; members of the ethnic group: unknown, but hardly more than 200
(e) degree of speakers' competence: probably rudimentary, under strong interference from Russian, the principal language of the remaining speakers
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): --
(ii) unpublished material (of the language): very little has been published on Ket Selkup, but there are collections of unpublished material both in Russia and in Finland
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Jarmo ALATALO, University of Helsinki, Finland
- Remarks: consists of two dialect groups, Upper Ob Selkup and Ket Selkup [according to the original report, the classificatory status of Upper Ob Selkup with regard to Ket Selkup is disputed, and though often classified together with the southern dialects of Ob Selkup, Ket Selkup is rather to be understood as a separate, and in many respects aberrant, language of the Selkup group]
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 28 Dec. 1993
Kamas
- Variant(s): Kamassian, Kamas-Koibal (KK); Koibal is a regional and dialectal variety occasionally considered to form an entity in its own right; Kamas and Koibal are ethnohistorically more or less congruous, but linguistically not to be confused with, the Kamas and Koibal tribal varieties of Khakas (q.v.)
- Geographical location: in the eastern part of the Minusinsk region, within modern Krasnoyarsk Krai, where the area of Kamas became gradually restricted to the Kan and Mana river basins and their sources on the northwesternmost slopes of the Eastern Sayan mountains; the last Kamas-speaking community lived here in a single village, Abalakovo
- Relationships: /Samoyed/Finno-Ugrian (Uralic)
- Present state of the language: EXTINCT since 1989
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers:
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference in the past; before the extinction of the language, however, the Kamas-speaking male population was decimated by political and social developments (WW I, spread of alcohol misuse), leaving only a few female speakers
(d) total number of speakers: 0; members of the ethnic group: there are still a few individuals considering themselves to be more or less pure descendants of the last speakers of Kamas
(e) degree of speakers' competence: the last speaker was trilingual in Khakas and Russian, with rather rudimentary native language skills only
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): Ago KÜNNAP: Kamasinskij jazyk, Jazyki mira: ural'skie jazyki, Moskva 1993
(ii) published material (of the language): Aulis J. Joki: Kai Donners Kamassisches Wörterbuch nebst Sprachproben und Hauptzügen der Grammatik, Helsinki 1944
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Ago KÜNNAP, University of Dorpat (Tartu), Estonia
- Remarks: together with Mator (q.v.) often considered to constitute a special subbranch termed Sayan Samoyed
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 25 Dec. 1993
Mator
- Variant(s): Motor, Mator-Taigi-Karagas (MTK); Taigi and Karagas, as well as Soyot, were regional and possibly dialectal varieties occasionally considered to form entities in their own right; Karagas or Karagas Samoyed is ethnohistorically more or less congruous, but linguistically not to be confused with, Karagas Turk, cf. Tuvan: Tofa (q.v.)
- Geographical location: on the northern slopes of the Eastern Sayan mountains, extending from the eastern part of the Minusinsk region in the west (Mator proper) to the Baikal region in the east (Karagas Samoyed)
- Relationships: /Samoyed/Finno-Ugrian (Uralic)
- Present state of the language: EXTINCT since the 1840s
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers:
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference in the past
(d) total number of speakers: 0; members of the ethnic group: 0
(e) degree of speakers' competence: the last speakers were bilingual in Khakas (in the west) or Tofa (in the east); the available material reveals a strong areal influence of northern Turkic
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language) and (ii) published material (of the language): Eugene HELIMSKI: The Mator-Taigi-Karagas language, Jazyki mira: ural'skie jazyki, Moskva 1993
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Eugene HELIMSKI (XELIMSKIJ), Russian University of Humanities, Moscow, Russia
- Remarks: together with Kamas (q.v.) often considered to constitute a special subbranch termed Sayan Samoyed
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 25 Dec. 1993
Yakut
Dolgan
- Variant(s): Dolghan, Dulgan, Dulghan
- Geographical location: on southern and southeastern Taimyr, in the region of the Kheta-Khatanga river system, within the Taimyr (Dolgano-Nenets) Autonomous District of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia
- Relationships: a dialect of Yakut/N/Turkic
- Present state of the language: POTENTIALLY ENDANGERED
(a) children speakers and (b) mean age of youngest speakers: it seems that a fair proportion of children are still learning the language, though Russian is also learnt at an early age as a second language
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: approx. 5,600; members of the ethnic group: approx. 6,600
(e) degree of speakers' competence: apparently fluent, though with interference from Russian; generally, Dolgan has undergone more Russian influence than Yakut proper; Dolgan also has a position as the lingua franca of Aboriginal Taimyr, and some knowledge of it is not uncommon among speakers of neighbouring languages, notably Nganasan (q.v.)
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): E. I. UBRJATOVA: Jazyk noril'skix dolgan, Novosibirsk 1985
(ii) published material (of the language): Marek STACHOWSKI: Dolganischer Wortschatz, Cracow 1993
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Marek STACHOWSKI, Freie Universität, Berlin, Germany
- Remarks: the northernmost Turkic language; essentially a dialect of Yakut, but for ethnohistorical and administrative reasons counted as a separate language; Yakut, in general, is a rare example of an aboriginal language in Siberia that cannot be regarded as immediately endangered, though the situation is fragile; Dolgan is also exceptionally vigorous among the languages of the 26 so-called "Peoples of the Far North" in Russia; nevertheless, in view of the small number of speakers, as well as the demographical and ecological problems of the Taimyr region, it can hardly be considered safe
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 23 Dec. 1993
Khakas
- Variant(s): Xakas, Khakassian, Minusinsk Tatar, Abakan Tatar, Abakan Turkic, (historical name:) Yenisei Kirgiz; tribal varieties: Kacha, Sagai, Kyzyl, Kamas, Koibal, Beltir
- Geographical location: in the western half of the Minusinsk steppe region on the upper Yenisei, within the Khakas Republic (Khakassia), southern Siberia
- Relationships: /N/Turkic
- Present state of the language: ENDANGERED [locally NEARLY EXTINCT]
(a) children speakers: in some rural areas, the language is still being learnt by children; in cities, however, Russian has been established as the sole language even in families with both parents speaking Khakas as their native language
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: among the assimilated city population, from 40 years up
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: approx. 60,000; members of the ethnic group: approx. 80,000
(e) degree of speakers' competence: with a varying degree of interference from Russian, the universal second language of the Khakas-speaking population; Khakas has a written standard (in Cyrillic script) with some use even in newspapers and belletristics; it has also recently been introduced as the language of instruction in a few "national" schools, including one in Abakan, the local capital; on the other hand, it has become the language of a tiny minority only (approx. 10 per cent) of the total population living in the region; there are large industrial cities in the Republic with a completely Russian-speaking immigrant population
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): M. I. BORGOJAKOV: Istochniki i istorija izuchenija xakasskogo jazyka, Abakan 1981
(ii) published material (of the language): abundant lexicological, grammatical and dialectological sources, mainly in Russian
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Claus SCHÖNIG, University of Mainz, Germany
- Remarks: the principal member of the Khakas branch of northern Turkic, also comprising Chulym Tatar and Manchurian Kirgiz (qq.v.); very close to the Mrass dialect of Shor (q.v.); historically (in the 16th to 19th centuries), part of the speakers of Mrass Shor have crossed the Kuzneckiy Alatau to the Minusinsk region, where their descendants are now considered to form a special Shor dialect group within the composition of Khakas
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 24 Dec. 1993
Manchurian Kirgiz
- Variant(s): Heilongjiang Kirgiz, Fuyu or Fuyü or Fu-yü Kirgiz, (also:) Kirghiz, Kyrgyz, Gďrgďs, (Chinese pinyin:) Jierjisi, Fuyu Keerkezi
- Geographical location: on the eastern bank of the lower Nonni, within the county of Fuyu, Heilongjiang, China; another group of speakers used to live in the Imin region of Hulun Buir, modern Inner Mongolia
- Relationships: an aberrant diaspora variant of Khakas (q.v.)
- Present state of the language: NEARLY EXTINCT in the Nonni region, EXTINCT since the early 20th century in the Imin region
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: from 60 years up
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: less than 10; members of the ethnic group: approx. 900
(e) degree of speakers' competence: rapidly deteriorating, mainly rudimentary; for several generations already, the speakers of Manchurian Kirgiz seem to have been bilingual in Manchurian Ölöt (q.v.); knowledge of Dagur has also been common, but today all the local languages are being replaced by Chinese (Mandarin)
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): Juha JANHUNEN: K voprosu o zarubezhnyx xakasax, Izvestija Rossijskoj Akademii Nauk, Novosibirsk 1993
(ii) published material (of the language): HU Zhen-hua & Guy IMART: Fu-yü Gďrgďs: a tentative description of the easternmost Turkic language
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): HU (Mohammed) Zhenhua, Central Institute for National Minorities, Peking, China
- Remarks: the easternmost Turkic language; until the late 17th century, the linguistic ancestors of the Manchurian Kirgiz seem to have constituted an integral part of the Khakas-speaking population, then known as the Yenisei Kirgiz, in the upper Yenisei basin; the arrival of the Russians (1703) forced them southwards, where they came to form a satellite to the Ölöt tribe of the Oirat federation in Jungaria; the satellite relationship continued, when some speakers of Yenisei Kirgiz followed a group of Oirat-speaking Ölöt transferred to Manchuria (after 1758); the satellite relationship of Manchurian Kirgiz to Manchurian Ölöt is functionally reminiscent of that of Evenki: Solon to Dagur (qq.v.)
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 20 Dec. 1993
Chulym Tatar
- Variant(s): Chulym Turk, Chulym Turkic, Meletsk Tatar; officially counted as a variety of Siberian Tatar (q.v.)
- Geographical location: on the middle Chulym, a tributary to the upper Ob; the lower Chulym is inhabited by speakers of Siberian Tatar
- Relationships: /N/Turkic
- Present state of the language: NEARLY EXTINCT
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: unknown, but probably from 60--70 years up
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: very few, though individuals speaking Siberian Tatar mixed with occasional Chulym Tatar features may be somewhat more numerous; members of the ethnic group: probably less than 1,000; difficult to determine as there is no official distinction with regard to the speakers of Siberian Tatar
(e) degree of speakers' competence: probably rudimentary, with strong interference from Russian and Siberian Tatar
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): A. P. DUL'ZON: Chulymskie tatary i ix jazyk, Uchenye zapiski Tomskogo pedagogicheskogo instituta 9, Tomsk 1952
(ii) unpublished material (of the language): field material on Chulym Tatar has been collected by linguists from the Tomsk Pedagogical Institute (Tomsk) and the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Novosibirsk)
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Claus SCHÖNIG, University of Mainz, Germany
- Remarks: an aberrant member of the Khakas branch of northern Turkic, also comprising Khakas and Manchurian Kirgiz (qq.v.); historically it seems that Chulym Tatar was separated from the connection of Khakas only by the advent of the Russian conquerors (in the late 17th to early 18th century); since then, the two idioms have developed in different directions, with Chulym Tatar undergoing interaction with the neighbouring languages, notably Selkup (q.v.) and Siberian Tatar
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 24 Dec. 1993
Tuvan: Tofa
- Variant(s): Tofalar, Tufa, Karagas Turk, Turkic Karagas, Karagass, Karagassian; linguistically not to be confused with the Karagas variety of Mator (q.v.)
- Geographical location: on the northern slopes of the Eastern Sayan mountains, to the south of the city of Nizhneudinsk, in a region inofficially known as Tofalaria
- Relationships: /Tuvan/N/Turkic
- Present state of the language: NEARLY EXTINCT
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: from 40 years up
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: approx. 300; members of the ethnic group: approx. 700
(e) degree of speakers' competence: rapidly deteriorating under the pressure of Russian, the second language of all the remaining speakers; knowledge of Buryat: Western Buryat (q.v.) also used to be common in the past, but has been lost by the present day
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): Karl Heinrich MENGES: Das Sojonische und Karagassische, Philologiae Turcicae Fundamenta 1, Wiesbaden 1959
(ii) published material (of the language): Valentin RASSADIN: Fonetika i leksika tofalarskogo jazyka, Ulan-Ude 1971; Morfologija tofalarskogo jazyka, Moskva 1978
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Valentin RASSADIN, Russian Academy of Sciences, Buryat Branch, Ulan-Ude, Buryatia
- Remarks: an aberrant and in some respects archaic member of the Tuvan branch of northern Turkic; ethnohistorically, the modern Tofa-speaking community seems to have been formed upon a substrate population that until the 18th century spoke Mator
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 25 Dec. 1993
Tuvan
Tsaatan
- Variant(s): Mongolian Reindeer Tuvan, (Mongolian:) Caatan; often not distinguished, but apparently to be kept distinct from, Tuvan: Khövsgöl Uryangkhai (q.v.)
- Geographical location: to the west of Lake Khövsgöl, in the mountainous western half of Khövsgöl Aimak, northern Mongolia
- Relationships: a dialect of Tuvan/N/Turkic
- Present state of the language: SERIOUSLY ENDANGERED
(a) children speakers and (b) mean age of youngest speakers: there are data that children until the 1970s still used to be monolingual in the native language, but the situation has probably changed; because of its traditional engagement in reindeer nomadism, however, the Tsaatan population still lives in relative isolation for part of the year, and the language may have survived in a few families in spite of the growing influence of the unifying school system, based on the use of Standard Mongolian (Khalkha)
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: unknown, but possibly no more than 100; members of the ethnic group: probably less than 200
(e) degree of speakers' competence: unknown, but probably under increasing interference from Standard Mongolian (Khalkha)
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): S. BADAMKHATAN: Khövsgöliin caatan ardyn azh baidlyn toim, Ulan-Bator 1962
(ii) published and unpublished material (of the language): --
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Valentin RASSADIN, Russian Academy of Sciences, Buryat Branch, Ulan-Ude, Buryatia
- Remarks:
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 25 Dec. 1993
Khövsgöl Uryangkhai
- Variant(s): Khövsgöl or Kubsugul Uriangkhai, Khövsgöl Tuvan, (Mongolian also:) Tuxa, not to be confused with Tuvan: Altai Uryangkhai (q.v.); also to be kept distinct from Tuvan: Tsaatan (q.v.)
- Geographical location: to the east of Lake Khövsgöl, in the eastern half of Khövsgöl Aimak, northern Mongolia
- Relationships: a dialect of Tuvan/N/Turkic
- Present state of the language: SERIOUSLY ENDANGERED
(a) children speakers and (b) mean age of youngest speakers: no reliable information is available, Khövsgöl Uryangkhai being one of the least documented Turkic idioms; compared with the Tsaatan group, however, the speakers of Khövsgöl Uryangkhai would seem to have been more liable to cultural and linguistic assimilation, meaning that very few children can be expected to be speaking the idiom
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: unknown; members of the ethnic group: unknown, but hardly more than 5,000
(e) degree of speakers' competence: probably under influence of Standard Mongolian (Khalkha), the only functioning literary language in the region
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): --
(ii) published and unpublished material (of the language): --
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Valentin RASSADIN, Russian Academy of Sciences, Buryat Branch, Ulan-Ude, Buryatia
- Remarks:
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 25 Dec. 1993
Altai Uryangkhai
- Variant(s): Altai Uriangkhai, Altai Tuvan, (Chinese pinyin:) Tuwa, (also:) Monchak, Monjak, Mondzhak; in China officially counted as a variety of Mongolian, (Chinese pinyin:) Menggu; not to be confused with Tuvan: Khövsgöl Uryangkhai (q.v.), nor with Northern Altai and Southern Altai (qq.v.); ethnohistorically, the ethnonym Uryangkhai refers to all the Turkic groups of the Sayan-Baikal-Lena region, including the speakers of Tuvan proper and even Yakut
- Geographical location: in two groups, on both sides of the southern Altai mountains, the one group living within the Ölgei (Olgii) Aimak of western Mongolia (Mongolian Altai), and the other group in the northernmost part of Sinkiang, China (Chinese Altai)
- Relationships: a diaspora dialect of Tuvan
- Present state of the language: SERIOUSLY ENDANGERED
(a) children speakers and (b) mean age of youngest speakers: until recently, the language seems to have been spoken by the majority of children, but the situation may be rapidly changing
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: unknown, but possibly a majority of the ethnic group; members of the ethnic group: approx. 6,000, of whom roughly one half on the Mongolian side, and the other half in China
(e) degree of speakers' competence: traditionally under strong influence of the neighbouring languages (Kazakh, Oirat); recently also threatened by the increasingly powerful state languages (Khalkha, Mandarin)
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): S. I. VAJNSHTEJN & E. TAUBE: Tuvincy mongol'skogo Altaja (kobdinskie tuvincy), Polevye issledovanija Instituta etnografii 1980--1981, Moskva 1984
(ii) published and unpublished material (of the language): --
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Erika TAUBE, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany
- Remarks: originally (since the early 19th century) a single diaspora group of Tuvan proper; the Tuvan Turkic idioms spoken in Mongolia and China are virtually uninvestigated from the taxonomical point of view; preliminary data would suggest that they represent two distinct subbranches; Altai Uryangkhai would seem to belong to a single subbranch with Tuvan proper, and it is, in fact, often simply considered to be a diaspora dialect of the latter, while Khövsgöl Uryangkhai and Tsaatan, together with Tofa, would seem to belong to a basically different subbranch
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 25 Dec. 1993
Northern Altai
- Variant(s): traditionally known by the names of the main tribal varieties: Tuba, Kumandy, and Chalkan, each with a number of alternative appellations
- Geographical location: in the northeastern river valleys of the Altai region (Russian Altai), divided between the Altai (Gorno-Altai) Republic and Kemerovo Oblast, Russia
- Relationships: /N/Turkic
- Present state of the language: ENDANGERED [locally NEARLY EXTINCT]
(a) children speakers and (b) mean age of youngest speakers: the transmission of the language to children is definitely becoming rare, but it has probably not yet completely ceased; there may be tribal or local differences
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: probably less than 10,000; members of the ethnic group: probably approx. 20,000, or about one third of the official Altai nationality
(e) degree of speakers' competence: under increasing interference from Russian, the universal second language of the speakers
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): N. A. BASKAKOV: Altaiskij jazyk, Moskva 1958
(ii) published material (of the language): N. A. BASKAKOV: Severnye dialekty altajskogo (ojrotskogo) jazyka [1--3], Moskva 1972--1985
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Claus SCHÖNIG, University of Mainz, Germany
- Remarks: a conglomeration of tribal dialects constituting the northern section of the Altai branch of northern Turkic, also comprising Southern Altai (q.v.); very close to the Kondoma dialect of Shor (q.v.); Northern Altai and Southern Altai are two basically separate entities, which only during the Soviet period were "united" into a single language, and their speakers into a single "nationality", with a uniform written standard
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 25 Dec. 1993
Southern Altai proper
- Variant(s): traditionally known by the names of the main tribal varieties: Altai proper and Telengit, each with a number of alternative appellations; historically also referred to by a variety of generalizing names, including: Altai Tatar, Altai Kalmuck, and Oirot, not to be confused with Mongol Oirat and Kalmuck, nor with Tatar
- Geographical location: in the central and southwestern river valleys of the Altai region (Russian Altai), mainly within the Altai (Gorno-Altai) Republic, southern Siberia
- Relationships: /N/Turkic
- Present state of the language: ENDANGERED [locally NEARLY EXTINCT]
(a) children speakers and (b) mean age of youngest speakers: probably still being learnt by some proportion of children; there may be tribal or local differences
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: probably less than 20,000; members of the ethnic group: probably approx. 40,000, or about two thirds of the official Altai nationality
(e) degree of speakers' competence: under increasing interference from Russian, the universal second language of the speakers; triggered by both social and ecological problems, there is, however, a current rise of nationalism, which may improve the position of the native language
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): Omeljan PRITSAK: Das Altaitürkische, Philologiae Turcicae Fundamenta 1, Wiesbaden 1959
(ii) published material (of the language): there are good sources on most aspects of the language, mainly in Russian; many of these sources concentrate, however, on the artificial normative standard created for the language
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Claus SCHÖNIG, University of Mainz, Germany
- Remarks:
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 25 Dec. 1993
Southern Altai: Teleut
- Variant(s): Telengut, (Chinese pinyin:) Tielingute; historically also known as White Kalmuck
- Geographical location: dispersed by political developments in the 17th and 18th centuries, and now mainly spoken to the north of the actual Altai region; concentrated in the western part of Kemerovo Oblast, but also extending to Novosibirsk Oblast; a tiny diaspora group (probably since the 18th century) of Teleut origin has been registered within the Altai District of northern Sinkiang (Xinjiang), China
- Relationships: a dialect of Southern Altai
- Present state of the language: ENDANGERED [locally POSSIBLY EXTINCT]
(a) children speakers and (b) mean age of youngest speakers: there is no reliable information, but the transmission of the language to children has probably not yet fully ceased; there is also no information concerning the linguistic identity of the Sinkiang diaspora group, but it would appear likely that the group has been linguistically assimilated, possibly long ago, by speakers of Oirat and Kazakh
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: no reliable information; members of the ethnic group: probably less than 10,000; the size of the Sinkiang diaspora group is given as 13 families, i.e. approx. 50 individuals
(e) degree of speakers' competence: under increasing interference from Russian, the universal second language of all speakers; it deserves to be noted, however, that of all the groups speaking Turkic idioms of the Altai branch, the speakers of Teleut have recently shown the greatest interest in national renaissance; it remains to be seen, whether this also leads to the revigoration of the native language
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): A. P. UMANSKIJ: Teleuty i russkie v XVII--XVIII vekax, Novosibirsk 1980
(ii) published and unpublished material (of the language): --
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Claus SCHÖNIG, University of Mainz, Germany
- Remarks: often considered to be an integral part of Southern Altai (q.v.), but, in view of ethnohistorical, administrative, and dialectal differences better to be treated as a separate entity
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 25 Dec. 1993
Shor
- Variant(s): Sor, Kuznetsk Tatar, not to be confused with Tatar and Siberian Tatar
- Geographical location: along the rivers flowing from the southwestern slopes of the Kuzneckiy Alatau mountains, within Kemerovo Oblast, Russia; the Shor-speaking territory, inofficially known as Shoria briefly held the status of an autonomous district (1925--1939), but was subsequently turned into one of the greatest industrial regions of the Soviet Union (the so-called Kuzbass region)
- Relationships: /N/Turkic
- Present state of the language: SERIOUSLY ENDANGERED
(a) children speakers: probably none, except possibly in a few families of rural origin with mixed Shor-Khakas composition; the idiom of communication between Shor and Khakas city-dwellers is Russian
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: mainly from 40 years up
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: less than 10,000; members of the ethnic group: approx. 16,000
(e) degree of speakers' competence: rapidly deteriorating due to the massive presence of Russian-speaking immigrant population in the region; there have been recent signs of increased national and linguistic consciousness, however
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): Omeljan PRITSAK: Das Abakan- und vCulymtürkische und das Schorische, Philologiae Turcicae Fundamenta 1, Wiesbaden 1959
(ii) published material (of the language): N. P. DYRENKOVA: Grammatika shorskogo jazyka, Moskva & Leningrad 1941
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Claus SCHÖNIG, University of Mainz, Germany
- Remarks: a conglomeration of two basically very different northern Turkic dialects, identified by river names as Kondoma Shor (the southern dialect) and Mrass Shor (the northern dialect); the former adheres in important diagnostic respects to Northern Altai (q.v.), while the latter belongs to the context of Khakas (q.v.); from the linguistic point of view it is, therefore, questionable, whether Shor is a distinct language; on the other hand, the two dialects of Shor do share a number of areal features which have consolidated their mutual relation; an attempt has also been made to unify the two dialects by a common written standard (in Cyrillic script, dialectally based on Kondoma Shor)
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 25 Dec. 1993
Siberian Tatar
- Variant(s): West Siberian Tatar; also known by a variety of local river and steppe names, such as (from west to east): Tura Tatar, Tiumen' Tatar, Tobol' or Tobolsk Tatar, Ishim Tatar, Irtysh Tatar, Om' or Omsk Tatar, Tara Tatar, Baraba Tatar, and Tom' or Tomsk Tatar; two of the easternmost dialects are known by the special names Küärik and Kecik
- Geographical location: in the steppe and forest steppe belts of southwestern Siberia, from the southern Urals in the west to the upper Ob region in the east; also spoken on the lower Chulym, where there is a transition towards Chulym Tatar (q.v.)
- Relationships: a dialect of Tatar
- Present state of the language: ENDANGERED [locally NEARLY EXTINCT]
(a) children speakers and (b) mean age of youngest speakers: the situation probably varies considerably according to locality; generally the Siberian Tatar population lives in villages with a multiethnic composition, with Russian acting as the everyday idiom outside of the family
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: unknown, but probably a small minority of the ethnic group; members of the ethnic group: estimates vary greatly up to approx. 300,000; an important factor supporting the ethnic identity even after the loss ot the native language is religion, the speakers of Siberian Tatar being the only aborigines of Moslem faith in Siberia; both religion and language also favour the link with Tatar
(e) degree of speakers' competence: varies depending on locality, but generally under strong interference from Russian; to a varying degree also influenced by the normative standard of Tatar, which has been used locally as a language of school and religious education
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language) and (ii) published material (of the language): D. G. TUMASHEVA: Jazyk sibirskix tatar, Kazan' 1968
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): D. G. TUMASHEVA, University of Kazan, Kazan, Tatarstan
- Remarks: a chain of dialects often considered to be an integral part of Tatar, itself not an endangered language for the moment; the linguistic differences between Siberian and European Tatar are, however, considerable, and opinions about mutual intelligibility vary; the desire to view the two as a single linguistic entity often seems to be stronger among speakers of European Tatar than among those of Siberian Tatar
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 26 Dec. 1993
Oirat: Manchurian Ölöt
- Variant(s): Heilongjiang Ölöt, Mannai Ölöt, (also:) Ölet, Olot, (Written Mongolian:) Yeke Mingghan, (Modern Mongolian:) Yikh Mianggan; in China officially counted as a variety of Mongolian, (Chinese pinyin:) Menggu
- Geographical location: on the eastern bank of the lower Nonni, within the county of Fuyu, Heilongjiang, China; another group of speakers used to live in the Imin region of Hulun Buir, Inner Mongolia
- Relationships: a diaspora variant of Ölöt, a tribal dialect of Oirat, the Western Mongolic language of the Altai region
- Present state of the language: NEARLY EXTINCT in the Nonni region, EXTINCT since the early 20th century in the Imin region
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: from 20 years up
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: probably less than 1,000, all in the Nonni region; there are also Mongolic-speaking individuals in the Imin region still identifying themselves as Ölöt, but their language has become completely assimilated by the northern dialects of Mongolian proper; members of the ethnic group: probably less than 2,000, including the Ölöt individuals in the Imin region
(e) degree of speakers' competence: rapidly deteriorating due to assimilation by Chinese (Mandarin); bilingualism in Dagur has been common in the past, while Manchurian Ölöt itself used to serve as a second language for the speakers of Manchurian Kirgiz (q.v.); there have been attempts to support Manchurian Ölöt by teaching Standard and Written Mongolian at a local school, but it seems impossible to save the native language, since it has already ceased to be learnt by children
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language) and (ii) published material (of the language): B. X. TODAEVA, Jazyk mongolov Vnutrennej Mongolii, Moskva 1985
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): c/o HU (Mohammed) Zhenhua, Central Institute for National Minorities, Peking, China
- Remarks: Oirat was the principal language of the Oirat tribal confederation in Jungaria in the 17th to 18th centuries; after conquering Jungaria (1758), the Manchu government of China transferred a group of Oirat-speaking Ölöt to Manchuria; here the transferred population was further divided into two sections, the one placed in the Nonni region and the other in the Imin region; Ölöt in Manchuria has been influenced by the local Mongolic languages and dialects, and there is some uncertainty as to how the idiom should be classified; it does, nevertheless, preserve a number of important features diagnostic of Oirat
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 21 Dec. 1993
Buryat: Eastern Buryat
- Variant(s): Eastern Buriat, (Chinese pinyin:) Buliyate, in Mongolia and China officially counted as a variety of Mongolian, (Chinese pinyin:) Menggu
- Geographical location: in Transbaikalia, extending from Lake Baikal in the west to the Onon basin in the east; also in northeastern Mongolia (since the 19th century) and northwestern Manchuria, China (after 1917); on the Russian side the Eastern Buryat population is today concentrated in the regions known as the Buryat Republic (Buryatia) and the Aga Buryat Autonomous District of Chita Oblast; on the Chinese side the speakers of Eastern Buryat live in the region of the river Xinihe (Shinehen), a tributary to the Imin-Hailar-Argun system in southern Hulun Buir, Inner Mongolia
- Relationships: part of Buryat/N/Mongol
- Present state of the language: POTENTIALLY ENDANGERED
(a) children speakers and (b) mean age of youngest speakers: in many rural areas, children are still learning the language, but not in cities, where Russian is normally spoken even between Buryat-speaking individuals
(c) distribution by sex: in rural areas, knowledge of other languages (Russian, Mongolian, Chinese, and Japanese) seems to be better among adult males than females
(d) total number of speakers: possibly more than 300,000; members of the ethnic group: approx. 400,000, if the population of Buryat origin in Mongolia is included
(e) degree of speakers' competence: generally good, though under increasing interference from Russian; the language also has a Soviet-period written standard (in Cyrillic script) replacing earlier use of Written Mongolian; the Russian impact is currently being fought back by a purist movement, which aims at reintroducing Written Mongolian as the literary language; Written Mongolian is also going to be reintroduced in Mongolia, and it already serves as the literary language for the Buryat population in China
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language) and (ii) published material (of the language): Nicholas POPPE, Buriat grammar, Bloomington 1960; there is a vast literature of material and research on all aspects of the language, mainly in Russian
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Valentin RASSADIN, Russian Academy of Sciences, Buryat Branch, Ulan-Ude, Buryatia
- Remarks: the Buryat-speaking territory is, nevertheless, continuously shrinking, and there are very few monolingual individuals
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 21 Dec. 1993
Buryat: Western Buryat
- Variant(s): Western Buriat, (historically in Russian:) bratskij
- Geographical location: in Cisbaikalia, to the north of the Eastern Sayan mountains and in the Angara region; officially concentrated in the Ust'-Orda (Ust'-Ordynskij) Autonomous District of Irkutsk Oblast; a displaced dialect of Western Buryat is also spoken in the Barguzin valley of Transbaikalia
- Relationships: part of Buryat/N/Mongol
- Present state of the language: ENDANGERED [locally NEARLY EXTINCT]
(a) children speakers and (b) mean age of youngest speakers: relatively few; a completely assimilated generation has grown up in cities
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: no exact data are available, since speakers of Western and Eastern Buryat are not distinguished in official census data; members of the ethnic group: probably less than 50,000
(e) degree of speakers' competence: deteriorating due to interference from Russian, invariably known as a second language; Russian cultural impact has also been stronger on the speakers of Western Buryat than on those of Eastern Buryat; Written Mongolian was traditionally not used as a literary language, but Standard Eastern Buryat (in Cyrillic script) gained some foothold during the Soviet period
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language) and (ii) published material (of the language): there is a considerable dialectological literature in Russian covering both Eastern and Western Buryat
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Valentin RASSADIN, Russian Academy of Sciences, Buryat Branch, Ulan-Ude, Buryatia
- Remarks: Western and Eastern Buryat are officially counted as a single language, but their differences are large enough to prevent immediate mutual intelligibility; internally, Western Buryat, with a variety of dialects, is more heterogeneous than Eastern Buryat
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 22 Dec. 1993
Buryat: New Bargut
- Variant(s): New Barghut, (Chinese pinyin:) Xin Baerhu, officially counted as a variety of Mongolian, (Chinese pinyin:) Menggu
- Geographical location: in the southwestern part of the Barga steppe region, within the Right and Left Xin Baerhu Banners of Hulun Buir Aimak, Inner Mongolia, China
- Relationships: part of Buryat/N/Mongol
- Present state of the language: ENDANGERED
(a) children speakers and (b) mean age of youngest speakers: the language is apparently still being learnt by many children in pre-school age, but native language skills are undermined in later age by the assimilative pressure of Standard Mongolian, the official minority language of Inner Mongolia
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: no exact data available; possibly still a majority of the total ethnic group ; members of the ethnic group: probably less than 100,000
(e) degree of speakers' competence: since children are educated in Standard Mongolian, there is a lot of variation as to how consistently any given individual will preserve New Bargut features in his native speech
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language) and (ii) published material (of the language): B. X. TODAEVA, Mongol'skie jazyki i dialekty Kitaja, Moskva 1960
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): c/o CHENGGELTEI, Inner Mongolian University, Huhehaote, Inner Mongolia, China
- Remarks: like Old Bargut, New Bargut is an early (18th century) Manchurian branch of Eastern Buryat that has developed under increasing influence of the northern dialects of Mongolian proper
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 23 Dec. 1993
Buryat: Old Bargut
- Variant(s): Old Barghut, (Chinese pinyin:) Chen Baerhu, officially counted as a variety of Mongolian, (Chinese pinyin:) Menggu
- Geographical location: in the northern part of the Barga steppe region, within the Chen Baerhu Banner of Hulun Buir Aimak, Inner Mongolia, China
- Relationships: part of Buryat/N/Mongol
- Present state of the language: SERIOUSLY ENDANGERED
(a) children speakers and (b) mean age of youngest speakers: the language is probably still being learnt by some children in pre-school age, but native language skills are undermined in later age, even more than among the speakers of New Bargut, by the assimilative pressure of Standard Mongolian
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: no exact data available; probably only a minority of the total ethnic group ; members of the ethnic group: probably less than 50,000
(e) degree of speakers' competence: since children are educated in Standard Mongolian, there is a lot of variation as to how consistently any given individual will preserve Old Bargut features in his native speech; currently, a mixed variety of speech seems to be emerging, which may be classified as a dialect of Mongolian proper
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): Juha JANHUNEN: Preliminary notes on the phonology of Modern Bargut, Studia Orientalia 64, Helsinki 1988
(ii) published material (of the language): UUDA nar (ed.): Mongghol töröl ün kele ayalghun u sudulul un cuburil 2--3, Kökeqota (Huhehaote) 1983
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): c/o CHENGGELTEI, Inner Mongolian University, Huhehaote, Inner Mongolia, China
- Remarks: like New Bargut, Old Bargut is an early (17th century) Manchurian branch of Eastern Buryat that seems to have developed in relative isolation, though recently under increasing influence of the northern dialects of Mongolian proper
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 23 Dec. 1993
Khamnigan Mongol
- Variant(s): Khamnigan, Kamnigan, Xamnigan, (Chinese pinyin:) Hamunikan
- Geographical location: three main groups of speakers identifiable by regional adherence as the Siberian (Russian), Manchurian (Chinese), and Mongolian Khamnigan, all in the Onon-Argun region of Transbaikalia
- Relationships: /N/Mongol
- Present state of the language: ENDANGERED in Manchuria, POSSIBLY EXTINCT in Mongolia and Siberia; the following data apply to the Manchurian group of speakers, who are today mainly confined within the Chen Baerhu Banner of Hulun Buir Aimak, Inner Mongolia, China:
(a) children speakers and (b) mean age of youngest speakers: still learnt consistently by almost all children as either the first language (in monolingual families) or as the community language (in families bilingual in Khamnigan Mongol and Khamnigan Evenki); although vigorous for the moment, the survival of Khamnigan Mongol in the long run is threatened by the increasing influx of Han Chinese settlers; both Chinese and Standard Mongolian are also present via the networks of radio and television as well as in the form of printed material
(c) distribution by sex: knowledge of other languages (Standard Mongolian, Russian, Chinese) is more common among adult males than females
(d) total number of speakers: approx. 1500; members of the ethnic group: approx. 1600
(e) degree of speakers' competence: used as the community language at the oral level by all speakers, with Modern Written Mongolian as the literary language; grammatical and lexical interference from the latter is occasionally present in the speech of educated individuals
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): Juha JANHUNEN: On the position of Khamnigan Mongol, Journal de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 84, Helsinki 1992
(ii) published material (of the language): Juha JANHUNEN: Material on Manchurian Khamnigan Mongol, Castrenianumin toimitteita 37, Helsinki 1990
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Juha JANHUNEN, University of Helsinki, Finland
- Remarks: the above data apply to the Manchurian group of speakers, who are today mainly confined within the Chen Baerhu Banner of Hulun Buir Aimak, Inner Mongolia, China; an archaic branch of northern Mongol, comprising two dialects areally involved in a complex symbiotic relationship with Evenki: Khamnigan Evenki (q.v.)
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 13 Dec. 1993
Dagur
- Variant(s): Daghur, Dahur, Daur, Daor, (Chinese pinyin:) Dawoer
- Geographical location: in central and northwestern Manchuria, China, administratively divided between Hulun Buir Aimak, Inner Mongolia (in the Nonni and Imin basins), and the province of Heilongjiang (in the Nonni basin); officially concentrated in the Dagur Autonomous Banner of Hulun Buir; there is also a small remnant population in the Aihui region (in the middle Amur basin)
- Relationships: /N/Mongol
- Present state of the language: ENDANGERED [locally NEARLY EXTINCT]
(a) children speakers: in Hulun Buir (esp. in the Imin basin) the language is still being retained well, while among most groups in Heilongjiang it has ceased to be transmitted to children
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: among the moribund groups in Heilongjiang (as in the cities of Nenjiang and Qiqihar), mainly from 40 years up
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: probably still more than 50,000; members of the ethnic group: approx. 90,000
(e) degree of speakers' competence: generally fluent within those communities still retaining the language; knowledge of other languages is, however, universal; in spite of the lack of a written standard, the speakers of Dagur have a tradition of learning and scholarship (earlier in Manchu, today in Chinese and Written Mongolian); many attempts have been made to write Dagur in various systems (Manchu, Mongolian, Roman, Cyrillic), and a project of a new literary language is currently being planned
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): Juha JANHUNEN: A revival of Dagur studies, Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen 48: 2--3, Helsinki 1988
(ii) published material (of the language): ENGKEBATU nar (ed.): Mongghol töröl ün kele ayalghun u sudulul un cuburil 4--6, Kökeqota (Huhehaote) 1984--1988; there is a rather extensive literature on many aspects of the language in Mongolian, Chinese, Japanese, and European languages
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): TSUMAGARI Toshirô, Otaru University of Commerce, Otaru, Japan
- Remarks: an aberrant and in some respects archaic branch of northern Mongolic; there is considerable but poorly investigated dialectal variation
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 23 Dec. 1993
Sinkiang Dagur
- Variant(s): Turkestan Dagur, earlier not distinguished from Evenki: Ongkor Solon, (Chinese pinyin:) Suolun
- Geographical location: in the Ili (Yili) region of Sinkiang (Xinjiang), within the Kazakh Autonomous District of the Xinjiang Uigur Autonomous Region, China
- Relationships: a diaspora group (since 1763) of Dagur (q.v.) from Manchuria
- Present state of the language: SERIOUSLY ENDANGERED
(a) children speakers and (b) mean age of youngest speakers: there is no reliable information, but the language is possibly still being learnt by some children
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference; both sexes used to be involved in interethnic marriages, especially with speakers of Ongkor Solon and Manchu: Sibe (q.v.)
(d) total number of speakers: unknown; members of the ethnic group: approx. 5,000
(e) degree of speakers' competence: in many cases reportedly fluent, but under the influence of neighbouring idioms; there is widespread multilingualism in Kazakh, Uigur, Chinese, and other languages
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): --
(ii) published and unpublished material (of the language): --
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): c/o BAI Lan, Inner Mongolia Academy of Social Sciences, Huhehaote, Inner Mongolia, China
- Remarks:
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 23 Dec. 1993
Even
- Variant(s): Ewen, Lamut, Lamoote, (historical names:) Dog Tungus, Pedestrian Tungus
- Geographical location: in northwestern Siberia, from the Lena to the Anadyr', with a small diaspora group in the Bystraya region of central Kamchatka
- Relationships: /N/Tungus
- Present state of the language: ENDANGERED [locally NEARLY EXTINCT]
(a) children speakers: very few, in most localities none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: from 40 years down
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: approx. 7,000; members of the ethnic group: approx. 17,000
(e) degree of speakers' competence: varies, but the whole population is bi- or multilingual (Russian, Yakut, Koryak); the language has limited written use with two orthographical standards (both in Cyrillic script, conforming to Yakut and Russian, respectively)
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): K. A. NOVIKOVA: Ocherki dialektov evenskogo jazyka: ol'skij govor 1--2, Moskva & Leningrad 1960--1980
(ii) published material (of the language): abundant grammatical and lexicological sources, as well as publications of folklore, mainly in Russian and German
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Aleksei BURYKIN, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Linguistics, St. Petersburg, Russia
- Remarks:
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 16 Dec. 1993
Even: Arman
- Variant(s): Arman', (Russian:) Armanskij
- Geographical location: in a small coastal pocket at the Okhotsk Sea, to the southwest of Magadan city
- Relationships: a dialect of Even
- Present state of the language: EXTINCT since recently, no exact date available
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers:
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference in the past
(d) total number of speakers: 0; members of the ethnic group: close to 0; the descendants to the last speakers appear to have become Russianized, though some of them may identify themselves as Even
(e) degree of speakers' competence:
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): Gerhard DOERFER: Classification problems of Tungusic, Beiträge zur nordasiatischen Kulturgeschichte, Tungusica 1, Wiesbaden 1978
(ii) published and unpublished material (of the language): --
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Aleksei BURYKIN, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Linguistics, St. Petersburg, Russia
- Remarks: an archaic variety of Even (q.v.), with some features in common with Evenki (q.v.), and perhaps to be classified as a transitional idiom between the two languages
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 16 Dec. 1993
Evenki
- Variant(s): Ewenki, Evenk, (Chinese pinyin:) Ewenke, (old generic name covering also Evenki: Khamnigan Evenki:) Tungus, Tunguz, Tongoose
- Geographical location: the widest-spread language of Siberia, spoken by a population sparsely covering the whole taiga zone from the Yenisei in the west to the lower Amur and Sakhalin in the east, and from Taimyr and the lower Lena in the north to Baikal and the upper Amur in the south; a small group of speakers, known as the Manchurian Reindeer Tungus (often erroneously called "Yakut"), live on the Chinese side of the upper Amur
- Relationships: /Evenki/N/Tungus
- Present state of the language: ENDANGERED [locally POSSIBLY EXTINCT]
(a) children speakers: still learnt by part of the children in some localities, notably in the Tunguska region (within the Evenki Autonomous District) and in the middle Amur region
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: varies from 40 years down
(c) distribution by sex: knowledge of other local languages (Yakut, Buryat) is traditionally more developed among adult males than females
(d) total number of speakers: approx. 10,000; members of the ethnic group: approx. 30,000
(e) degree of speakers' competence: varies from rudimentary to fluent; the language also has a written norm (in Cyrillic script), used for elementary-school textbooks and occasional other publications; Russian is almost universally spoken as a second language
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): Karl H. MENGES: Die tungusischen Sprachen, Handbuch der Orientalistik I.V.3, Leiden 1968
(ii) published material (of the language): abundant lexicological, grammatical and dialectological sources, mainly in Russian
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Nadezhda BULATOVA, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Linguistics, St. Petersburg, Russia
- Remarks: in spite of the vast area, the dialectal differences within Evenki are small
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 15 Dec. 1993
Evenki: Orochen
- Variant(s): Orochon, Orochën, (Chinese pinyin:) Elunchun, (nativized pinyin:) Oroqen; N.B. not to be confused with Oroch, Orok (qq.v.); dialectal varieties occasionally considered to form entities in their own right: Birarchen or Birare, Kumarchen or Manegir or Manyagir
- Geographical location: in the Khingan region of northern Manchuria, China; administratively divided between Hulun Buir Aimak, Inner Mongolia (Orochen proper: esp. in the Orochen Autonomous Banner), and the province of Heilongjiang (subgroups along the Amur basin: Birarchen, Selpechen, and Kumarchen)
- Relationships: a dialect of Evenki
- Present state of the language: NEARLY EXTINCT [locally EXTINCT]
(a) children speakers: very few, if any
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: varies locally between 20 and 40
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference, mixed marriages with other nationalities being common for both sexes
(d) total number of speakers: probably no more than 2,000; members of the ethnic group: approx. 5,000
(e) degree of speakers' competence: varies from rudimentary to fluent; on a tentative basis and with poor results, the language has been taught at a few elementary schools (in IPA transcription); Chinese (Mandarin) is becoming the main language within both monoethnic and multiethnic families
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): Juha JANHUNEN & HOU Yucheng & XU Jingxue: The Orochen of Xinsheng, Journal de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 82, Helsinki 1989
(ii) published material (of the language): HU Zengyi: Elunchun yu jianzhi, Beijing 1986; there are also other recent grammatical and lexicological publications, mainly in Chinese
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Juha JANHUNEN, University of Helsinki, Finland
- Remarks: a heterogeneous conglomeration of Manchurian varieties of Evenki (q.v.); some Evenki-speaking groups living to the north of the Amur are also occasionally referred to as Orochen, but they should rather be classified as speakers of Evenki
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 15 Dec. 1993
Evenki: Khamnigan Evenki
- Variant(s): Khamnigan Tungus, Horse Tungus, Tungus Evenki, (Chinese pinyin:) Tonggusi Ewenke
- Geographical location: three main groups of speakers identifiable by regional adherence as the Siberian (Russian), Manchurian (Chinese), and Mongolian Khamnigan, all in the Onon-Argun region of Transbaikalia
- Relationships: a dialect of Evenki
- Present state of the language: ENDANGERED in Manchuria, POSSIBLY EXTINCT in Mongolia and Siberia; the following data apply to the Manchurian group of speakers, who are today mainly confined within the Chen Baerhu Banner of Hulun Buir Aimak, Inner Mongolia, China:
(a) children speakers and (b) mean age of youngest speakers: still learnt consistently as the home language, in the one or the other of the two dialectal varieties, by approx. two thirds of all children, with Khamnigan Mongol being learnt parallelly as the community language
(c) distribution by sex: knowledge of other languages (Standard Mongolian, Russian, Chinese) is more common among adult males than females
(d) total number of speakers: approx. 1000; members of the ethnic group: approx. 1600
(e) degree of speakers' competence: fluent, but with a strong interference of Khamnigan Mongol at all levels of linguistic structure
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): Gerhard DOERFER: Das Kamniganische, Bulletin of the Institute for the Study of North Eurasian Cultures 17, Sapporo 1985
(ii) published material (of the language): Juha JANHUNEN: Material on Manchurian Khamnigan Evenki, Castrenianumin toimitteita 40, Helsinki 1991
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Juha JANHUNEN, University of Helsinki, Finland
- Remarks: the above data apply to the Manchurian group of speakers, who are today mainly confined within the Chen Baerhu Banner of Hulun Buir Aimak, Inner Mongolia, China; two originally separate dialects of Evenki (q.v.), areally involved in a complex symbiotic relationship with Khamnigan Mongol (q.v.); while there are no monolingual speakers of Khamnigan Evenki, monolingualism in Khamnigan Mongol does occur; this situation has the closest parallel in the relation of Evenki: Solon to Dagur (qq.v.)
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 14 Dec. 1993
Negidal
- Variant(s): Neghidal, Ilkan Beye, El'kan Beye, Elkembei
- Geographical location: in the Amgun' basin, to the west of the lower Amur
- Relationships: /Evenki/N/Tungus
- Present state of the language: NEARLY EXTINCT
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: from 40 years up
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: approx. 150; members of the ethnic group: approx. 600
(e) degree of speakers' competence: only a few elderly people are reported to be fully fluent in all stylistic varieties of the language; Russian has become the principal language for the whole population
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language) and (ii) published material (of the language): V. I. CINCIUS: Negidal'skij jazyk, Leningrad 1982
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Marina XASANOVA & Aleksandr PEVNOV, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Linguistics, Novosibirsk, Russia
- Remarks: an aberrant variety of Evenki (q.v.), with areal features in common with other languages of the lower Amur region
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 16 Dec. 1993
Solon
- Variant(s): Manchurian Solon, Solon Evenki, (Chinese pinyin:) Suolun Ewenke
- Geographical location: in central and northwestern Manchuria, China, administratively divided between Hulun Buir Aimak, Inner Mongolia (in the Imin basin), and the province of Heilongjiang (in the Nonni basin); officially concentrated in the Ewenke Autonomous Banner of Hulun Buir
- Relationships: /Evenki/N/Tungus
- Present state of the language: ENDANGERED [locally NEARLY EXTINCT]
(a) children speakers: the situation varies greatly, with some groups in Heilongjiang adopting other languages (Dagur, Chinese); on the Inner Mongolian side the language is generally being retained well, with children also consistently learning it
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: from 40 years down, depending on locality
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: possibly more than 15,000; of all Evenki-related idioms Solon has the largest number of speakers, in any case considerably more than Evenki has (q.v.); members of the ethnic group: approx. 20,000
(e) degree of speakers' competence: generally fluent within those communities still retaining the language; unidirectional bilingualism in Dagur is very common, possibly universal, while the function of literary languages is fulfilled by both Chinese and Modern Written Mongolian; attempts have also been made to write Solon in various systems of transcription (Mongolian, Roman, IPA)
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): S. M. SHIROKOGOROFF: The social organization of the Northern Tungus, Shanghai 1929
(ii) published material (of the language): HU Zengyi & CHAO Ke: Ewenke yu jianzhi. Beijing 1986; there are also other recent grammatical, lexicological and text publications, mainly in Chinese, Japanese, and Written Mongolian
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): TSUMAGARI Toshirô, Otaru University of Commerce, Otaru, Japan
- Remarks: an aberrant and in some respects archaic branch of Evenki (q.v.); areally involved in a satellite relationship to Dagur (q.v.); there is considerable but poorly investigated dialectal variation; the position of Evenki: Solon as the first language among a population largely bilingual in Dagur has a close parallel in the case of Evenki: Khamnigan Evenki (q.v.)
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 15 Dec. 1993
Ongkor Solon
- Variant(s): Onkor Solon, Sinkiang or Turkestan Solon, (official name in China:) Ewenke
- Geographical location: in the Ili (Yili) region of Sinkiang (Xinjiang), within the Kazakh Autonomous District of the Xinjiang Uigur Autonomous Region, China
- Relationships: a diaspora group (since 1763) of Solon (q.v.) from Manchuria
- Present state of the language: POSSIBLY EXTINCT
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: the last speaker, of the male sex, was 79 in 1990
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference; both sexes used to be involved in interethnic marriages, especially with speakers of Dagur: Sinkiang Dagur and Manchu: Sibe (qq.v.)
(d) total number of speakers: 1; members of the ethnic group: less than 20
(e) degree of speakers' competence: in addition to the last fluent speaker, a few individuals know some isolated phrases or words; there is widespread multilingualism in Dagur, Kazakh, Uigur, Chinese, and other languages
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): BAI Lan & Juha JANHUNEN: On the present state of the Ongkor Solon, Journal de la Société Fino-Ougrienne 84, Helsinki 1992
(ii) published material (of the language): Pentti AALTO: G. J. Ramstedts Onkorsolonische Sprachmaterialien, Studia Orientalia 51:5, Helsinki 1979
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): c/o BAI Lan, Inner Mongolia Academy of Social Sciences, Huhehaote, Inner Mongolia, China
- Remarks:
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 15 Dec. 1993
Manchu
- Variant(s): Manchou, Manju, (Chinese pinyin:) Man; also called Spoken Manchu, as opposed to the corresponding standardized literary language known as Written Manchu; as a spoken language, Manchu is successive to earlier Jurchen, (Chinese pinyin:) Nüzhen or Ruzhen
- Geographical location: originally scattered all over historical Manchuria, China, with small remnant groups of speakers today preserved in the Aihui region (in the middle Amur basin) and Fuyu county (in the Nonni basin) of the province of Heilongjiang, as well as, possibly, in some localities within the province of Liaoning; linguistically assimilated groups and individuals identifying themselves with the Manchu nationality are registered in all parts of China
- Relationships: /Tungus
- Present state of the language: NEARLY EXTINCT
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: from 60 years up
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: probably less than 20; members of the ethnic group: approx. 5,000,000, one of the largest "minority nationalities" in China; the official number has fluctuated greatly depending on the ethnopolitical circumstances in the country
(e) degree of speakers' competence: mainly rudimentary, with some non-fluent individuals still preserving a passive knowledge of the language; the knowledge of Written Manchu is somewhat more common among educated individuals, but Chinese is the sole everyday language used for both oral and literary purposes
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): S. M. SHIROKOGOROFF: Social organization of the Manchus, Shanghai 1924
(ii) published and unpublished material (of the language): compared with the huge amount of literature existing on (and in) Written Manchu, very little has been published on the Manchu oral language, especially as it used to be spoken in Manchuria; there exists, however, a collection of unpublished material at the Manchu Language Research Institute, Harbin, China
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Giovanni STARY, Uinversity of Venice, Italy
- Remarks: only the diaspora variety of Manchu: Sibe possibly viable
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 16 Dec. 1993
Sibe
- Variant(s): Shibe, Sibo, Sibin, (Chinese pinyin:) Xibo; often included within the concept of Spoken Manchu
- Geographical location: in the Ili (Yili) region of Sinkiang (Xinjiang), within the Kazakh Autonomous District of the Xinjiang Uigur Autonomous Region, China
- Relationships: a diaspora group (since 1763) of Manchu (q.v.) from Manchuria
- Present state of the language: ENDANGERED
(a) children speakers and (b) mean age of youngest speakers: there are reports that the language is still being learnt by children, though apparently not in all families
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: information is scarce, but possibly no more than 10,000; members of the ethnic group: possibly no more than 20,000; there are also groups and individuals in Manchuria identifying themselves with the Sibe, rather than the Manchu nationality, raising the number of the total Sibe population in China close to 80,000; the linguistic background and geographical dimensions of this figure remain unclarified
(e) degree of speakers' competence: apparently mainly fluent, but with interference from Written Manchu, which is used as the literary language; there is widespread multilingualism in Kazakh, Uigur and Chinese
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): V. S. STARIKOV: Tunguso-man'chzhurskie narody, Narody Vostochnoj Azii, Moskva & Leningrad 1965
(ii) published material (of the language): YAMAMOTO Kengo: A classified dictionary of Spoken Manchu, Tokyo 1969; there is now also an increasing number of Sibe literary and folkloric publications in Written Manchu
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Giovanni STARY, University of Venice, Italy
- Remarks:
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 16 Dec. 1993
Udege
- Variant(s): Udige, Udehe, Udihe, Ude; earlier also called Taz or Tazy, (Chinese pinyin:) Dazi, a term which today primarily refers to a local Chinese-speaking population of mixed origins
- Geographical location: in the southern and central sections of the Sikhote Alin mountain range, to the east of the Ussuri river, within the Maritime and Khabarovsk Regions (Krai) of the Russian Far East
- Relationships: /Udege/SE/Tungus
- Present state of the language: NEARLY EXTINCT
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: from 40 years up
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: approx. 500; members of the ethnic group: approx. 1,900
(e) degree of speakers' competence: rapidly deteriorating, with many characteristic features of the language already lost; the current process of language death is taking place in favour of Russian, but assimilation by Chinese (Mandarin) seems also to have been of relevance in the past
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): A. I. KRUSHANOV (ed.): Istorija i kul'tura udčgejcev, Leningrad 1989
(ii) published material (of the language): very scarce, the principal sources being connected with an attempt at creating a written standard (in Roman script) for the language in the early 1930s; the written language was liquidated after 1937, however, and recent plans to revigorate it seem to have to come too late
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Al'bina GIRFANOVA, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Linguistics, St. Petersburg, Russia
- Remarks:
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 16 Dec. 1993
Udege: Kyakala
- Variant(s): Kiakala, Kiakla, (Chinese pinyin:) qiakala
- Geographical location: scattered over northeastern Manchuria, China, today also in cities, between the Ussuri and Sungari basins
- Relationships: a dialect of Udehe
- Present state of the language: EXTINCT probably in the early 20th century, no exact date available
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers:
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference in the past
(d) total number of speakers: 0; members of the ethnic group: approx. 2,000; after an initial integration into Manchu, the language has been replaced by Chinese (Mandarin); knowledge of Written Manchu is reportedly still encountered among educated individuals
(e) degree of speakers' competence:
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): --
(ii) published material (of the language): the language seems to have died before any linguistic notes were made
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): FU Yuguang, Jilin Institute for Ethnic Studies, Changchun, China
- Remarks: a Manchurian variety of Udehe, possibly transitional towards Manchu; the linguistic details remain unclarified, and historically the ethnonym Kyakala has also been applied to the speakers of Udege
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 16 Dec. 1993
Oroch
- Variant(s): Orochi, not to be confused with Orok, Evenki: Orochen (qq.v.); (autoethnonym:) Naani, not to be confused with Nanai (q.v.)
- Geographical location: in the northern section of the Sikhote Alin mountain range, to the east of the lower Amur, within the Khabarovsk Region (Krai) of the Russian Far East
- Relationships: /Udege/SE/Tungus
- Present state of the language: NEARLY EXTINCT
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: probably from 40--50 years up
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: probably no more than 150; members of the ethnic group: approx. 900
(e) degree of speakers' competence: rapidly deteriorating, the last speakers being fully bilingual in Russian; according to the most recent census data (1989), among the languages of the 26 so-called "Peoples of the Far North" in Russia, Oroch has the smallest proportion of native speakers (approx. 20 per cent) in relation to the corresponding ethnic group
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language) and (ii) published material (of the language): V. A. AVRORIN & E. P. LEBEDEVA, Orochskie teksty i slovar', Leningrad 1978
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Al'bina GIRFANOVA, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Linguistics, St. Petersburg, Russia
- Remarks:
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 17 Dec. 1993
Nanai
- Variant(s): Nanay, Nanei, Nani, (authentic shape:) Naanai, Naani; (also:) Gold, Gol'd, Goldi
- Geographical location: in the middle and lower Amur basin, within the Khabarovsk Region (Krai) of the Russian Far East
- Relationships: /Nanai/SE/Tungus
- Present state of the language: SERIOUSLY ENDANGERED
(a) children speakers: possibly none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: mainly from 40 years up
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: approx. 5,800; members of the ethnic group: approx. 12,000
(e) degree of speakers' competence: rapidly deteriorating, with Russian being used as the principal idiom of communication within the ethnic group; there is a written standard (in Cyrillic script) used for native language teaching at schools, but the language of instruction is Russian
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language) and (ii) published material (of the language): V. A. AVRORIN: Materialy po nanajskomu jazyku i fol'kloru, Leningrad 1986; there is also an abundance of other grammatical, lexicological, and dialectological sources, mainly in Russian
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Aleksandr STOLJAROV, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Linguistics, St. Petersburg, Russia
- Remarks: a special southern dialectal group is formed by the Nanai-speaking population on the river Bikin
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 17 Dec. 1993
Nanai: Hejen
- Variant(s): Hedjen, (Chinese pinyin:) Hezhe, (also:) Gold, cf. Nanai; historically the Hejen population has been referred to as the "Fish-skin Tatars", (Chinese pinyin:) Yupi Dazi, an appellation which has also been applied, in a more general sense, to all the aboriginal groups inhabiting the lower Sungari and lower Amur basins
- Geographical location: in the lower Sungari and Ussuri basins, within the Province of Heilongjiang, China
- Relationships: a dialect of Nanai
- Present state of the language: NEARLY EXTINCT
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: from 40 years up
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: unknown, but hardly more than 500, possibly much less; members of the ethnic group: approx. 1,500; the Hejen population is often publicized as the "smallest" minority nationality in China, a statement which, however, involves some distortion of facts
(e) degree of speakers' competence: rapidly deteriorating, with Chinese (Mandarin) becoming the sole idiom of communication within the ethnic group
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): Owen LATTIMORE: The Gold tribe "Fish-skin Tatars" of the lower Sungari, Memoires of the American Anthropological Association 40, Menasha 1933
(ii) published material (of the language): AN Jun, Hezhe yu jianzhi, Beijing 1986
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): TSUMAGARI Toshirô, Otaru University of Commerce, Otaru, Japan
- Remarks: the relationship between Nanai and Hejen involves a geographical and political difference (Russia vs. China), which is also reflected by the different basis of bilingualism among the two groups (Russian vs. Chinese); areally, there is a transition from Hejen towards the Bikin group of Nanai dialects on the Russian side
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 17 Dec. 1993
Nanai: Kili
- Variant(s): Kiler, Kur-Urmi
- Geographical location: in the region of the Kur and Urmi rivers, to the north of the middle Amur basin
- Relationships: a dialect of Nanai
- Present state of the language: NEARLY EXTINCT
(a) children speakers: probably none; information is scarce, however, and it cannot be ruled out that Kili is slightly better preserved than the other members of the Nanai branch; the possible difference would be connected with geographical and cultural factors
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: there is no up-to-date information, but it is unlikely that there would be fluent speakers younger than 40 years
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: probably no more than 100; members of the ethnic group: probably no more than 300
(e) degree of speakers' competence: rapidly deteriorating, with Russian becoming the sole idiom of communication within the ethnic group; knowledge of Chinese (Mandarin) used to be not uncommon in the past
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): Gerhard DOERFER: Das Kur-urmiische und seine verwandten, Zentralasiatische Studien 7, Wiesbaden 1973
(ii) published material (of the language): O. P. SUNIK: Kur-urmijskij dialekt, Leningrad 1958
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Aleksandr STOLJAROV, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Linguistics, St. Petersburg, Russia
- Remarks: in difference from the other members of the Nanai branch, Kili forms a transition towards northern Tungus, and it has even been characterized as a mixed language with Evenki (q.v.) phonology and Nanai morphology (and syntax)
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 18 Dec. 1993
Ulcha
- Variant(s): Ulchi, Olcha, Olchi, Mangun, Mangoon, (autoethnonym:) Naani; cf. Nanai, Oroch (qq.v.)
- Geographical location: in the lower Amur basin, within the Khabarovsk Region (Krai) of the Russian Far East
- Relationships: /Nanai/SE/Tungus
- Present state of the language: NEARLY EXTINCT
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: from 40 years up
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: approx. 1,100; members of the ethnic group: approx. 3,200
(e) degree of speakers' competence: rapidly deteriorating, with Russian becoming the sole idiom of communication within the ethnic group
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language) and (ii) published material (of the language): O. P. SUNIK: Ul'chskij jazyk, Leningrad 1985
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Aleksandr STOLJAROV, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Linguistics, St. Petersburg, Russia
- Remarks: although Ulcha is officially recognized as a separate language, its relationship to Nanai involves a dialectal transition very similar to that present between Nanai and Hejen
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 18 Dec. 1993
Orok
- Variant(s): (Japanese:) Orokko, not to be confused with Oroch, Evenki: Orochen (qq.v.); (autoethnonym:) Ulta, Ul'ta, Uilta, (Japanese:) Uiruta, not to be confused with Ulcha (q.v.)
- Geographical location: in the central part of Sakhalin, within Sakhalin Oblast, Russia; there used to be Orok speakers also in the southern part of the island (Karafuto), from where individuals were evacuated (after 1945) to Hokkaido, Japan; the descendants of this small emigrant population have by now lost the Orok language
- Relationships: /Nanai/SE/Tungus
- Present state of the language: NEARLY EXTINCT
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: from 40 years up
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: probably less than 60; members of the ethnic group: approx. 180
(e) degree of speakers' competence: rapidly deteriorating, the last speakers being fully bilingual in Russian; according to the most recent census data (1989), among the languages of the 26 so-called "Peoples of the Far North" in Russia, Orok has the smallest absolute number of native speakers out of the smallest absolute size of the corresponding ethnic group; nevertheless, a project aiming at creating a literary norm for Orok (in Cyrillic script) and teaching the language at elementary schools has recently been launched in cooperation with Japanese scholars; earlier, the Japanese syllabic script (katakana) has also been used to transcribe Orok material
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): IKEGAMI Jiro: A brief history of the study of the Uilta language, Ethnic minorities in Sakhalin, Japanese Ministry of Education Project Report, [Sapporo] 1993
(ii) published material (of the language): T. I. PETROVA: Jazyk orokov (ul'ta), Leningrad 1967: there are also abundant sources on all aspects of the language published in Japan, mainly in Japanese
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): IKEGAMI Jirô, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan
- Remarks: an aberrant member of the Nanai branch
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 18 Dec. 1993
Ket
- Variant(s): Northern Ket, Imbatsk Ket, (old generic name also covering Ket: Pumpokol and Yug:) Yenisei Ostyak, not to be confused with Ugric Ostyak or Khanty (q.v.), nor with Ostyak Samoyed or Selkup (q.v.)
- Geographical location: on the middle and upper Yenisei and its tributaries, mainly between the Yelogui and Turukhan basins; today concentrated in a few villages, notably Kellog and Farkovo, in northern Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia
- Relationships: /N/Yeniseian
- Present state of the language: SERIOUSLY ENDANGERED
(a) children speakers: generally very few, but the situation varies depending on locality; recent field data suggest that there may still exist linguistically intact families or even communities
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: mainly from 40 years up
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: approx. 500; members of the ethnic group: approx. 1,100
(e) degree of speakers' competence: from rudimentary to good; however, Russian is spoken universally as a second language; some knowledge of Northern Selkup (q.v.) is also not uncommon
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language) and (ii) published material (of the language): A. P. DUL'ZON: Ketskij jazyk, Tomsk 1968; there is a relatively abundant literature on many aspects of the language, mainly in Russian
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Heinrich WERNER (VERNER), c/o Wolfgang VEENKER, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
- Remarks: often considered to be an isolate, but actually the principal surviving member of a previously larger family, also comprising Ket: Pumpokol and Yug, as well as Arin and Kott (qq.v.); Ket (and Yeniseian) is particularly interesting from the areal and typological points of view; it is the only language (language family) in Northeast Asia with a fully developed and apparently ancient tone system; it also has an extremely complicated morphological structure involving, among other things, the category of grammatical gender
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 27 Dec. 1993
Yug
- Variant(s): Southern Ket, Sym Ket, (old generic name also covering Ket and Pumpokol): Yenisei Ostyak
- Geographical location: in the basins of the rivers Sym, Kas, and Dubches, western tributaries to the middle Yenisei opposite to the Podkamennaya Tunguska
- Relationships: /N/Yeniseian
- Present state of the language: NEARLY EXTINCT
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: unknown, but hardly less than 60 years
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: less than 5; members of the ethnic group: probably less than 50
(e) degree of speakers' competence: mainly rudimentary, under strong interference from Russian, the principal language of the remaining speakers
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language) and (ii) published material (of the language): E. A. KREJNOVICH: Ketskij jazyk, Jazyki Azii i Afriki 3, Moskva 1979
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Heinrich WERNER (VERNER), c/o Wolfgang VEENKER, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
- Remarks: Yug used to be counted as a dialect of Ket (q.v.), but the differences between the two idioms are now increasingly often understood in terms of a language-level distinction
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 27 Dec. 1993
Pumpokol
- Variant(s): (Russian:) Pumpokol'skij
- Geographical location: on the upper Ket', an eastern tributary to the upper Ob
- Relationships: /N/Yeniseian
- Present state of the language: EXTINCT since the early 19th century
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers:
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference in the past
(d) total number of speakers: 0; members of the ethnic group: 0
(e) degree of speakers' competence:
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): G. K. VERNER: Pumpokol'sko-enisejskie zvukovye sootvetstvija, Voprosy stroja enisejskix jazykov, Novosibirsk 1979
(ii) published material (of the language): E. A. XELIMSKIJ: Arxivnye materialy XVIII veka po enisejskim jazykam, Paleoaziatskie jazyki, Leningrad 1986
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Eugene HELIMSKI (XELIMSKIJ), Russian University of Humanities, Moscow, Russia
- Remarks: the position of Pumpokol within Yeniseic is disputed, but it is probably to be viewed as an idiom rather closely related to Ket and Yug (qq.v.); it has, however, also been classified as a separate primary branch of the family, even more distantly related to Ket and Yug than Kott and Arin (qq.v.)
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 27 Dec. 1993
Kott
- Variant(s): Assan, Asan, Agul Tatar, (earlier Russian also:) kanskij
- Geographical location: in the basin of the river Kan, an eastern tributary to the upper Yenisei: possibly also extending further towards the east, into the upper Angara basin not far from Lake Baikal
- Relationships: /S/Yeniseian
- Present state of the language: EXTINCT since the 1850s
(a) children speakers and (b) mean age of youngest speakers: none
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference in the past
(d) total number of speakers: 0; members of the ethnic group: 0
(e) degree of speakers' competence: the language recorded from the last speakers was not seriously deteriorated, though influence of other languages can be observed; Kott seems to have been absorbed by several other languages, notably Russian and Khakas (in the west), as well as Buryat and Evenki (in the east)
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language) and (ii) published material (of the language): G. K. VERNER: Kottskij jazyk, Rostov-na-Donu 1990
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Heinrich WERNER (VERNER), c/o Wolfgang VEENKER, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
- Remarks: Kott is the only grammatically recorded language of what seems to have been an entire southern branch of Yeniseian, also comprising Arin (q.v.); Assan is often thought to have been a regional or dialectal variety of Kott, but the two appellations are more or less interchangeable in the sources
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 27 Dec. 1993
Arin
- Variant(s): (Russian:) Arinskij
- Geographical location: in the upper Yenisei basin, to the north of the Minusinsk region
- Relationships: /S/Yeniseian
- Present state of the language: EXTINCT since the late 18th century
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers:
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference in the past
(d) total number of speakers: 0; members of the ethnic group: 0
(e) degree of speakers' competence:
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language) and (ii) published material (of the language): V. N. TOPOROV: Materialy k sravnitel'no-istoricheskoj fonetike enisejskix jazykov 1, Arinsko-enisejskie sootvetstvija, Ketskij sbornik [1] (Lingvistika), Moskva 1968
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Eugene HELIMSKI (XELIMSKIJ), Russian University of Humanities, Moscow, Russia
- Remarks: historical sources contain the names of several other Yeniseic tribes, whose languages or dialects may or may not have been close to Arin
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 27 Dec. 1993
Yukagir: Tundra Yukagir
- Variant(s): Northern Yukagir or Yukaghir, Wadul, (erroneously:) Odul; (historically also:) Omok
- Geographical location: in the tundra zone, in a belt extending from the lower Indigirka in the west close to the lower Kolyma basin in the east; administratively within the Yakut (Sakha) Republic (Yakutia); previously in a much wider area in the Lena-Yana-Indigirka-Kolyma region
- Relationships: /Yukagir
- Present state of the language: NEARLY EXTINCT
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: mainly from 60 years up
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: probably less than 50; members of the ethnic group: approx. 700; the official number of the Yukagir population (of both groups) has recently shown a rising trend (almost doubling from 1970 to 1989); unfortunately, it seems to be a question of an artificially created statistical effect, which does not imply any true ethnic or linguistic revigoration; nevertheless, attempts are currently being made to create a written standard (in Cyrillic script, with either Russian or Yakut-based orthographical principles) for both Tundra Yukagir and Forest Yukagir
(e) degree of speakers' competence: mainly rudimentary, all the remaining speakers being multilingual in Russian, Yakut, Even, Koryak (qq.v.), and other languages
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language) and (ii) published material (of the language): E. A. KREJNOVICH: Jukagirskij jazyk, Moskva & Leningrad 1958
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Irina NIKOLAEVA, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Linguistics, Moscow, Russia
- Remarks: Yukagir, like Ket (qq.v.), is often erroneously considered to be an isolate, but it is more appropriately understood as a small family with Tundra Yukagir and Forest Yukagir (q.v.) as the only two surviving members; attempts to demonstrate the existence of a genetic connection between Yukagiric and other families have not given generally accepted results; the term Omok has been variously applied to Yukagir, in general, or to a specific tribal idiom that may be classified as an extinct eastern dialect of Tundra Yukagir
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 28 Dec. 1993
Yukagir: Forest Yukagir
- Variant(s): Southern or Kolyma Yukagir, (also:) Yukaghir, Odul
- Geographical location: in the forest zone, on the sources of the Kolyma; administratively divided between the Yakut (Sakha) Republic (Yakutia) and Magadan Oblast of Russia; previously in a much wider area in the upper Kolyma region
- Relationships: /Yukagir
- Present state of the language: NEARLY EXTINCT
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: mainly from 60 years up
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: probably less than 50; members of the ethnic group: approx. 400; on the population development, cf. Yukagir: Tundra Yukagir
(e) degree of speakers' competence: mainly rudimentary, with massive multilingualism; among the two extant Yukagiric languages, Forest Yukagir seems to be dying even more rapidly than Tundra Yukagir
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language) and (ii) published material (of the language): E. A. KREJNOVICH: Jukagirskij jazyk, Jazyki Azii i Afriki 3, Moskva 1979
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Irina NIKOLAEVA, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Linguistics, Moscow, Russia
- Remarks: the linguistic difference between Forest and Tundra Yukagir (q.v.) is great enough to make any immediate intelligibility impossible
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 28 Dec. 1993
Chuvan
- Variant(s): Chuvants, Chuvantsy
- Geographical location: on western Chukotka, in a belt extending from the Anadyr Bay in the Bering region to the Chaunskaya Guba on the Arctic coast
- Relationships: /Yukagir
- Present state of the language: EXTINCT since the late 19th century
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers:
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference in the past
(d) total number of speakers: 0; members of the ethnic group: according to the most recent official census data (1989) there are still approx. 1,400 people identifying themselves as Chuvan; moreover, approx. 300 of them (approx. 22 per cent of the whole population) claim to speak their native language; it is a question of a misunderstanding, due to ethnonymic and linguistic confusion; while some of the remaining Chuvan individuals may really be speakers of aboriginal languages such as Even and Koryak (qq.v.), most of them certainly speak Russian as their only language, though perhaps in a special archaic variety characteristic of the upper Anadyr' region
(e) degree of speakers' competence:
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language) and (ii) published material (of the language): Olivier Guy TAILLEUR: Le dialecte tchouvane du youkaghir, Ural-Altaische Jahrbücher 34, Wiesbaden 1962
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Irina NIKOLAEVA, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Linguistics, Moscow, Russia
- Remarks: Chuvan was the northeasternmost of the many Yukagiric tribal idioms that until the 18th to 19th centuries were spoken widely over northeastern Siberia, from the lower Lena to the lower Anadyr'; linguistically, Chuvan seems to have been relatively close to modern Tundra Yukagir, but distinct from the latter
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 28 Dec. 1993
Chukchee
- Variant(s): Chukchi, Chukcha, (Russian:) Chukotskij, (also:) Luoravetlan, Luorawetlan; the Chukchee population is geographically and economically divided into two groups known as the Maritime or Coastal or Sea Chukchee and the Inland or Reindeer Chukchee; there is no corresponding dialectal division, however
- Geographical location: all over Chukotka, from the Arctic coast to the Bering Sea region; within the Chukchee Autonomous District of Magadan Oblast, Russia
- Relationships: /Chukchee-Koryak
- Present state of the language: ENDANGERED
(a) children speakers and (b) mean age of youngest speakers: Chukchee is often thought to be safe, but there are actually very few children speaking the language
(c) distribution by sex: there used to be certain phonological, probably also lexical (and possibly grammatical), differences between men's speech and women's speech; the differences are now being levelled in favour of the men's variety
(d) total number of speakers: officially approx. 11,000, but quite possibly fewer; members of the ethnic group: approx. 15,000
(e) degree of speakers' competence: getting rudimentary among the younger generation, which is completely bi- or monolingual in Russian; Chukchee has a written standard (in Cyrillic script), but it is little used in the educational process
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language) and (ii) published material (of the language): P. Ja. SKORIK: Chukotskij jazyk, Jazyki narodov SSSR 5, Leningrad 1968; there is a relatively abundant literature on many aspects of the language, mainly in Russian
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Ol'ga MURAV'ËVA, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Linguistics, Moscow, Russia
- Remarks:
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 28 Dec. 1993
Kerek
- Variant(s):
- Geographical location: previously in a large belt along the Bering Sea coast between the Olyutor Bay and the Anadyr Bay, today only as a relict in a single locality, Maino-Pil'gyn (Mojno-Pil'gino), within the Bering raion of the Chukchee Autonomous District of Magadan Oblast, Russia
- Relationships: /Chukchee-Koryak
- Present state of the language: NEARLY EXTINCT
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: unknown, but probably from 60 years up
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: less than 10; in the early 1950s there were still approx. 100 speakers; members of the ethnic group: less than 100
(e) degree of speakers' competence: rudimentary, with strong interference from Chukchee, the language which has ultimately absorbed Kerek, as well as from Russian, the language today dominant over Chukchee
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): V. V. LEONT'EV: Etnografija i fol'klor kerekov, Moskva 1983
(ii) published material (of the language): P. Ja. SKORIK: Kerekskij jazyk, Jazyki narodov SSSR 5, Leningrad 1968
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Ol'ga MURAV'ËVA, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Linguistics, Moscow, Russia
- Remarks: Kerek used to be classified as a dialect of Chukchee, but it has idiosyncratic features suggesting, on the one hand, a non-Chukchee-Koryak (probably Eskimo-Aleut) substrate, and, on the other hand, transitionality towards Koryak; the superficial similarity of Kerek with Chukchee can also be due to secondary Chukchee areal influence on Kerek
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 28 Dec. 1993
Koryak
- Variant(s): Koriak, Korak, Nymylan; like the speakers of Chukchee (q.v.), the Koryak population is divided into two ecological groups known as the Coastal Koryak and the Reindeer or Chavchuven Koryak; in this case, dialectal differences are also involved
- Geographical location: on northern Kamchatka, from the Okhotsk Sea to the Bering Sea, extending to the upper Anadyr basin in the north; administratively mainly within the Koryak Autonomous District of Kamchatka Oblast, Russia
- Relationships: /Chukchee-Koryak
- Present state of the language: ENDANGERED [locally NEARLY EXTINCT]
(a) children speakers: very few, although the situation may vary depending on locality
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: probably mainly from 30 years up
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: unknown; taken together, Koryak and Alyutor have approx. 5,000 speakers; a rough estimate would give that slightly more than one half of them, or approx. 3,000 people, speak Koryak; members of the ethnic group: unknown, but probably approx. 5,000, out of a total Koryak (including Alyutor) population of approx. 9,000
(e) degree of speakers' competence: getting rudimentary among the younger generation, which is completely bi- or monolingual in Russian; Koryak has a written standard (in Cyrillic script), but education is conducted in Russian only
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language) and (ii) published material (of the language): A. N. ZHUKOVA: Korjakskij jazyk, Jazyki narodov SSSR 5, Leningrad 1968; there is a relatively abundant literature on many aspects of the language, mainly in Russian
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Ol'ga MURAV'ËVA, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Linguistics, Moscow, Russia
- Remarks:
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 28 Dec. 1993
Alyutor
- Variant(s): Aliutor, Olyutor, Oliutor
- Geographical location: in the region of the Kamchatkan Isthmus; administratively mainly within the Olyutor raion of the Koryak Autonomous District of Kamchatka Oblast, Russia
- Relationships: a dialect of Koryak
- Present state of the language: ENDANGERED [locally NEARLY EXTINCT]
(a) children speakers: apparently very few, but the situation may vary depending on locality
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: unknown, but probably mainly from 40 years up
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: possibly approx. 2,000; members of the ethnic group: possibly approx. 4,000
(e) degree of speakers' competence: increasingly rudimentary, with strong interference from Russian; Alyutor and related dialects is, however, still used for interethnic communication by many of the neighbouring ethnic groups on central and northern Kamchatka, including speakers of Even (the Kamchatkan group) and Itelmen (qq.v.)
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language) and (ii) published material (of the language): A. N. ZHUKOVA: Aljutorskij jazyk, Jazyki narodov SSSR 5, Leningrad 1968
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Ol'ga MURAV'ËVA, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Linguistics, Moscow, Russia
- Remarks: Alyutor in a narrow sense is a single idiom that used to be classified as an aberrant Koryak dialect, but is today more often considered to constitute a separate language; in a wider sense, Alyutor may be understood as a language also comprising a number of other related dialects, notably those spoken along the coast of western Kamchatka
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 28 Dec. 1993
Itelmen
- Variant(s): Western Kamchadal; in a different sense, the ethnonym Kamchadal is also used to refer to the old Russian-speaking immigrant population of Kamchatka, which may or may not have absorbed Itelmen-speaking elements in the past
- Geographical location: in a small pocket on the western coast of central Kamchatka, in the southern part of the Koryak Autonomous District
- Relationships: /Kamchatkan
- Present state of the language: NEARLY EXTINCT
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: from 60 years up
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference in the past
(d) total number of speakers: approx. 500; members of the ethnic group: approx. 2,500
(e) degree of speakers' competence: mainly rudimentary, with strong interference from Russian, the second language of all the last speakers; also areal influence of Koryak
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): P. Ja. SKORIK: Chukotsko-kamchatskie jazyki, Jazyki Azii i Afriki 3, Moskva 1979
(ii) published material (of the language): A. P. VOLODIN: Itel'menskij jazyk, Leningrad 1976
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): A. P. VOLODIN, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Linguistics, St. Petersburg, Russia
- Remarks: Itelmen (Western Kamchadal) is the only surviving member of the Kamchatkan family, also comprising Southern Kamchadal and Eastern Kamchadal (qq.v.); the genetic relationship of the Kamchatkan family with Chukchee-Koryak is still under investigation but [often taken for granted]
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 19 Dec. 1993
Kamchadal: Southern
- Variant(s):
- Geographical location: in the southern part of Kamchatka, possibly mainly on the eastern coast
- Relationships: /Kamchatkan
- Present state of the language: EXTINCT since the late 18th century
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers:
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference in the past
(d) total number of speakers: 0; members of the ethnic group: 0; on the historical circumstances, cf. Kamchadal: Eastern
(e) degree of speakers' competence:
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): --
(ii) published material (of the language): only very limited 18th century lexicological sorces
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): A. P. VOLODIN, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Linguistics, St. Petersburg, Russia
- Remarks:
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 19 Dec. 1993
Kamchadal: Eastern
- Variant(s): Northern Kamchadal
- Geographical location: on the eastern coast of central Kamchatka, and in the basin of the river Kamchatka
- Relationships: /Kamchatkan
- Present state of the language: EXTINCT since the late 18th century
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers:
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference in the past
(d) total number of speakers: 0; members of the ethnic group: 0; taken together, the historical groups speaking the three languages today tentatively classified as [Kamchatkan] used to form a culturally coherent population, which in the early 18th century still covered almost all of Kamchatka and may have numbered as many as 15,000 people; the greater part of this population was massacred by the Russians, who first arrived on Kamchatka in 1697; the colonization of the peninsula was completed during the 18th century, and the remnants of the Eastern and Southern Kamchadal speakers were incorporated into the Russian-speaking immigrant population
(e) degree of speakers' competence:
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): --
(ii) published material (of the language): only very limited 18th century lexicological sorces
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): A. P. VOLODIN, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Linguistics, St. Petersburg, Russia
- Remarks: the relationship of Eastern Kamchadal to Itelmen (Western Kamchadal) and Southern Kamchadal (qq.v.) has variously been described as one of three dialects, three related languages, or even three totally unrelated languages; for the time being the assumption of a reasonably close genetic relationship may be taken as a suitable working hypothesis
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 19 Dec. 1993
Nivkh
- Variant(s): Nivx or Nivukhi, (old generic name:) Ghilyak, Ghiliak, Gilyak, Gelyak, (Japanese:) Giriyaaku
- Remarks: Nivkh is often regarded as an isolate, but, like Ainu (q.v.), it may also be viewed as a small family, comprising two closely related, but mutually unintelligible, languages; attempts to demonstrate the existence of a genetic connection between Nivkh and other families have not given generally accepted results
Amur Nivkh
- Geographical location: in the mouth region of the Amur, within Khabarovsk Region (Krai) of the Russian Far East
- Relationships: /Nivkh
- Present state of the language: NEARLY EXTINCT
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: from 40 years up
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: probably less than 500; members of the ethnic group: approx. 2,500
(e) degree of speakers' competence: increasingly rudimentary, with strong interference from Russian; there is a little-used written standard (in Cyrillic script), separate from that of Sakhalin Nivkh
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language) and (ii) published material (of the language): E. A. KREJNOVICH: Nivxskij jazyk, Jazyki Azii i Afriki 3, Moskva 1979
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Galina OTAINA, Russian Academy of Sciences, Far Eastern Branch, Vladivostok, Russia
- Remarks:
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 28 Dec. 1993
Sakhalin Nivkh
- Geographical location: on northern Sakhalin, on both the western and the eastern coast, within Sakhalin Oblast, Russia; a small group of Sakhalin Nivkh speakers used to live in the southern part of the island (Karafuto), from where individuals were evacuated (after 1945) to Hokkaido, Japan; a few of these Sakhalin Nivkh emigrants survived until recently
- Relationships: /Nivkh
- Present state of the language: SERIOUSLY ENDANGERED
(a) children speakers: very few, if any, though there is information that Sakhalin Nivkh is somewhat more vigorous than Amur Nivkh
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: mainly from 40 years up
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: possibly more than 500; members of the ethnic group: approx. 2,000
(e) degree of speakers' competence: increasingly rudimentary, with strong interference from Russian; there is a recently created literary standard (based on the central dialect), which is being propagated with some success
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): --
(ii) published and unpublished material (of the language): --
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Robert AUSTERLITZ, Columbia University, New York, USA
- Remarks: Sakhalin Nivkh comprises three dialects, which may geographically be identified as northern, central, and southern; the northern dialect (on the Peninsula of Schmidt) shows features transitional towards Amur Nivkh (q.v.)
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 28 Dec. 1993
Ainu
- Variant(s): Aino, Aynu, (traditional Japanese:) Ezo, Yezo, Jesso
- Remarks: Ainu [may also be viewed as] a small family, comprising three languages geographically labelled as Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and Kuril Ainu; in spite of their obvious relationship, these languages can hardly have been mutually intelligible; on the other hand, attempts to demonstrate the existence of a more distant genetic connection between Ainu and other families have not given generally accepted results so far
Hokkaido Ainu
- Geographical location: originally all over the island of Hokkaido, today only in a few so-called native villages representing remnants of an earlier dialectal multitude; speakers of Hokkaido Ainu also used to inhabit the southern islands of the Kuril chain (esp. Kunashiri, Etorofu)
- Relationships: /Ainu
- Present state of the language: NEARLY EXTINCT
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: from 80 years up
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference
(d) total number of speakers: less than 10; members of the ethnic group: common estimates vary from approx. 10,000 to 40,000 depending on the criteria used
(e) degree of speakers' competence: strong influence of Japanese, which has been the main idiom of communication within the ethnic group for two generations or more; there has never been any written standard for the language, but the Japanese syllabic script (katakana) has occasionally been used by native speakers to transcribe Ainu material
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language) and (ii) published material (of the language): Kirsten REFSING: The Ainu language, Aarhus 1986; there is a vast literature on all aspects of the language, mainly in Japanese but also in European languages
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Alfred F. MAJEWICZ, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland
- Remarks:
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 18 Dec. 1993
Sakhalin Ainu
- Variant(s): Karafuto Ainu, (earlier also:) Kuril, cf. Kuril Ainu
- Geographical location: in the southern part of Sakhalin (Karafuto), from 1905 to 1945 under Japanese administration; most of the Ainu population was evacuated (after 1945) from here to Hokkaido, Japan, where a few speakers of Sakhalin Ainu have survived until recently
- Relationships: /Ainu
- Present state of the language: POSSIBLY EXTINCT
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers: the last speaker, of the female sex, was 90 in 1992
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference in the past
(d) total number of speakers: 1; members of the ethnic group: apparently less than 10, mainly on Hokkaido, with a few linguistically assimilated individuals also detectable on Sakhalin
(e) degree of speakers' competence: strong influence of Japanese, the second language of the last speakers
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language): Emiko OHNUKI-TIERNEY: The Ainu of the Northwest coast of southern Sakhalin, New York 1974
(ii) published material (of the language): MURASAKI Kyôko: Sakhalin Ainu, Asian & African Grammatical Manual 11, Tokyo 1978
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): MURASAKI Kyôko, Yokohama National University, Yokohama, Japan
- Remarks:
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 18 Dec. 1993
Kuril Ainu
- Variant(s): North Kuril Ainu, Kurile Aino, (early Russian:) Kuril'skij (the island chain of the Kurils was named after its inhabitants and not vice versa)
- Geographical location: on the northern islands of the Kuril chain (esp. Shumshu, Paramushir) and up to the southern tip of Kamchatka (Cape Lopatka)
- Relationships: /Ainu
- Present state of the language: EXTINCT since the late 19th century, if not earlier
(a) children speakers: none
(b) mean age of youngest speakers:
(c) distribution by sex: no known difference in the past
(d) total number of speakers: 0; members of the ethnic group: 0; in 1875 (when the Northern Kurils came under Japanese rule), the Kuril Ainu population is estimated to have been approx. 100; some of the last Kuril Ainu individuals are known to have moved to Kamchatka
(e) degree of speakers' competence: the last speakers seem to have been assimilated by the Russian traders who visited the Kuril islands since the late 18th century; the Russians also brought Aleut-speaking hunters, who mixed with the Ainu-speaking population and may have influenced the Kuril Ainu language before its extinction
- Sources:
(i) information (about the language) and (ii) published material (of the language): MURAYAMA Shichirou: Kita-Chishima Ainu go, Tokyo 1971
(iii) competent scholar(s) and institution(s): Aleksandr VOVIN, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA
- Remarks:
- Compiler: Dr. Juha Janhunen, Helsinki, 18 Dec. 1993