Nenets language

language
name=Nenets
nativename=ненэця" вада
states=Russia
region=Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Komi Republic, Murmansk Oblast
speakers=31,311
familycolor=Uralic
fam2=Samoyedic
fam3=Northern
nation=Nenets Autonomous Okrug
iso2=mis
iso3=yrk

Nenets ("autonym": ненэця" вада) is a language spoken by the Nenets people in northern Russia. It belongs to the Samoyedic languages which form the Uralic language family with the Finno-Ugric languages. There are two major dialects—Tundra Nenets and Forest Nenets—with low mutual intelligibility between the two. Tundra Nenets has the larger group of speakers.

Geographical distribution

Nenets is spoken by 27,273 people, of which 26,730 people are native speakers. It is spoken in the wide area in North Russia including Nenets and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrugs, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Komi Republic, and the eastern parts of Murmansk Oblast on the Kola peninsula.

Phonology

Nenets has a CV(C) syllable structure. In other words, a syllable may contain an initial consonant, a medial vowel, and an optional terminal consonant. Examples include "ya" ("earth"), "wada" ("word"), and "ŋarka" ("big"). The schwa or reduced vowel may sometimes appear in lieu of a terminal consonant. Although the language does not technically permit syllables to begin with vowels, in practice this sometimes occurs in western dialects, particularly due to the loss of initial ŋ, e.g. western "arka" ("big") versus standard east-central "ŋarka".

The syllabic structure is fairly consistent in all dialects, however. There are no long vowels or diphthongs, nor initial nor final consonant clusters, nor medial clusters containing more than two consonants.

Vowels:

External links

* [http://www.helsinki.fi/~tasalmin/tn.html Tundra Nenets homepage]
* [http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/3259/fnen-eng.html Forest Nenets-English glossary]
* [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=yrk Ethnologue report]
* [http://www.speech.nw.ru/Nenets/ The Russian-Nenets Audio Phrasebook]
* [http://www.speech.nw.ru/NenNgan/ Comparative Nenets-Nganasan dictionary (with Russian and English equivalents)]