Itelmen language
Encyclopedia
Itelmen, also known as Western Itelmen and formerly known as Kamchadal, is a language belonging to the Chukotko-Kamchatkan family
traditionally spoken in the Kamchatka Peninsula
. Fewer than a hundred native speakers, mostly elderly, in a few settlements in the southwest of Koryak Autonomous Okrug
, remained in 1993. The 2002 Census
counted 3,180 ethnic Itelmen, virtually all of whom are now monolingual in Russian
. However, there are attempts to revive
the language, and it is being taught in a number of schools in the region.
(Western) Itelmen is the only surviving Kamchatkan language. It has two dialects, Sedanka and Xajrjuzovo (Ukä).
. Vladimir Atlasov
, who annexed Kamchatka and established military bases in the region, estimated in 1697 that there were about 20,000 ethnic Itelmens. The explorer Stepan Krasheninnikov
, who gave the first detailed description of the Itelmen language and culture, identified the three main dialects, but explained that all Itelmens could understand each other.
From the time of Atlasov, Russian fur traders began to settle in the region. There were frequent clashes between Cossacks and Itelmens, who rebelled against Russian domination. Many Itelmen were forcibly converted to Christianity
, and by the early nineteenth century all Itelmen were forced to adopt Russian names. Intermarriage with Russian settlers led to the development of a creole known as Kamchadal, traces of which remain in the Russian dialect now spoken in Kamchatka.
During the Soviet
era the process of assimilation intensified, as Itelmen communities were moved by force and children were sent to boarding schools, where they were required to speak Russian. By the end of the 1930s Russian was the medium of instruction in all schools, and children grew up speaking Russian as their main language.
However it was also during this period that Itelmen was written down for the first time. In 1930 a Latin-based alphabet was designed for all the native languages of northern Siberia, and in 1932 a 27-letter Itelmen alphabet was created. A few textbooks were written in this alphabet during the 1930s, but it was quickly abandoned. More recently a Cyrillic-based alphabet, designed in 1986 and consisting of 32 letters, has been used.
, and most speakers are aged over sixty and live in scattered communities. However there is a movement to revive the language, and educational materials are being developed. Modern Itelmen has been heavily influenced by Russian, lexically, phonologically and grammatically.
s in some environments, but has a different system of vowel harmony
than its relatives Chukchi and Koryak.
Volodin (1997) gives the following consonant inventory, shown here with both the Cyrillic and IPA forms. Itelmen is unusual in having a voicing
(VOT) distinction in fricatives but not in plosives.
In addition to the consonants shown above, some sources also include the glottal stop /ʔ/, as well as glottalised nasal and lateral phonemes, including /mˀ/, /nˀ/, and /lˀ/. 's' and 'z' may be apical post-alveolar fricatives rather than alveolar fricatives. There may also be distinct labialised consonant phonemes.
There are five vowel phonemes: /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, and /u/. Schwa
([ə]) also appears but its phonemic status is unclear.
Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages
The Chukotko-Kamchatkan or Chukchi–Kamchatkan languages are a language family of extreme northeastern Siberia. Its speakers are indigenous hunter-gatherers and reindeer-herders....
traditionally spoken in the Kamchatka Peninsula
Kamchatka Peninsula
The Kamchatka Peninsula is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of . It lies between the Pacific Ocean to the east and the Sea of Okhotsk to the west...
. Fewer than a hundred native speakers, mostly elderly, in a few settlements in the southwest of Koryak Autonomous Okrug
Koryak Autonomous Okrug
Koryak Okrug , or Koryakia, is an administrative division of Kamchatka Krai, Russia. It was a federal subject of Russia from 1931 until July 1, 2007, when it merged with Kamchatka Oblast. Prior to the merger, it was called Koryak Autonomous Okrug...
, remained in 1993. The 2002 Census
Russian Census (2002)
Russian Census of 2002 was the first census of the Russian Federation carried out on October 9 through October 16, 2002. It was carried out by the Russian Federal Service of State Statistics .-Resident population:...
counted 3,180 ethnic Itelmen, virtually all of whom are now monolingual in Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
. However, there are attempts to revive
Language revival
Language revitalization, language revival or reversing language shift is the attempt by interested parties, including individuals, cultural or community groups, governments, or political authorities, to reverse the decline of a language. If the decline is severe, the language may be endangered,...
the language, and it is being taught in a number of schools in the region.
(Western) Itelmen is the only surviving Kamchatkan language. It has two dialects, Sedanka and Xajrjuzovo (Ukä).
History
Originally Itelmen was spoken throughout Kamchatka, and possibly also in the northern Kuril IslandsKuril Islands
The Kuril Islands , in Russia's Sakhalin Oblast region, form a volcanic archipelago that stretches approximately northeast from Hokkaidō, Japan, to Kamchatka, Russia, separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the North Pacific Ocean. There are 56 islands and many more minor rocks. It consists of Greater...
. Vladimir Atlasov
Vladimir Atlasov
Vladimir Vasilyevich Atlasov or Otlasov was a Siberian Cossack who was the first Russian to explore the Kamchatka Peninsula. Atlasov Island, an uninhabited volcanic island off the southern tip of Kamchatka, is named after him....
, who annexed Kamchatka and established military bases in the region, estimated in 1697 that there were about 20,000 ethnic Itelmens. The explorer Stepan Krasheninnikov
Stepan Krasheninnikov
Stepan Petrovich Krasheninnikov was a Russian explorer of Siberia, naturalist and geographer who gave the first full description of Kamchatka in the early 18th century. He was elected to the Russian Academy of Sciences in 1745...
, who gave the first detailed description of the Itelmen language and culture, identified the three main dialects, but explained that all Itelmens could understand each other.
From the time of Atlasov, Russian fur traders began to settle in the region. There were frequent clashes between Cossacks and Itelmens, who rebelled against Russian domination. Many Itelmen were forcibly converted to Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, and by the early nineteenth century all Itelmen were forced to adopt Russian names. Intermarriage with Russian settlers led to the development of a creole known as Kamchadal, traces of which remain in the Russian dialect now spoken in Kamchatka.
During the Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
era the process of assimilation intensified, as Itelmen communities were moved by force and children were sent to boarding schools, where they were required to speak Russian. By the end of the 1930s Russian was the medium of instruction in all schools, and children grew up speaking Russian as their main language.
However it was also during this period that Itelmen was written down for the first time. In 1930 a Latin-based alphabet was designed for all the native languages of northern Siberia, and in 1932 a 27-letter Itelmen alphabet was created. A few textbooks were written in this alphabet during the 1930s, but it was quickly abandoned. More recently a Cyrillic-based alphabet, designed in 1986 and consisting of 32 letters, has been used.
Present situation
Itelmen is now highly endangeredEndangered language
An endangered language is a language that is at risk of falling out of use. If it loses all its native speakers, it becomes a dead language. If eventually no one speaks the language at all it becomes an "extinct language"....
, and most speakers are aged over sixty and live in scattered communities. However there is a movement to revive the language, and educational materials are being developed. Modern Itelmen has been heavily influenced by Russian, lexically, phonologically and grammatically.
Phonology
Itelmen has a larger phonological inventory than other Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages, and permits complex consonant clusterConsonant cluster
In linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word splits....
s in some environments, but has a different system of vowel harmony
Vowel harmony
Vowel harmony is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels that occurs in some languages. In languages with vowel harmony, there are constraints on which vowels may be found near each other....
than its relatives Chukchi and Koryak.
Volodin (1997) gives the following consonant inventory, shown here with both the Cyrillic and IPA forms. Itelmen is unusual in having a voicing
Voice onset time
In phonetics, voice onset time, commonly abbreviated VOT, is a feature of the production of stop consonants. It is defined as the length of time that passes between when a stop consonant is released and when voicing, the vibration of the vocal folds, or, according to the authors, periodicity begins...
(VOT) distinction in fricatives but not in plosives.
| Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... | Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... | Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... | Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... | Uvular Uvular consonant Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and... |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive and Affricate Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :... |
voiceless | p | t | t͡ʃ | k | q |
| ejective Ejective consonant In phonetics, ejective consonants are voiceless consonants that are pronounced with simultaneous closure of the glottis. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated or tenuis consonants... |
pʼ | tʼ | t͡ʃʼ | kʼ | qʼ | |
| Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... / Approximant Approximant consonant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no... |
voiceless | ɸ | s | x | χ | |
| voiced | β | z | j | |||
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||
| Lateral Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth.... |
l | ʎ | ||||
| Trill Trill consonant In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular.... |
r | |||||
In addition to the consonants shown above, some sources also include the glottal stop /ʔ/, as well as glottalised nasal and lateral phonemes, including /mˀ/, /nˀ/, and /lˀ/. 's' and 'z' may be apical post-alveolar fricatives rather than alveolar fricatives. There may also be distinct labialised consonant phonemes.
There are five vowel phonemes: /a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, and /u/. Schwa
Schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...
([ə]) also appears but its phonemic status is unclear.
Orthography
| А а | Ӑ ӑ | Б б | В в | Г г | Д д | Е е | Ё ё |
| Ж ж | З з | И и | Й й | К к | К’ к’ | ||
| Л л | Љ љ | М м | Н н | Њ њ | О о | ||
| О̆ о̆ | П п | П’ п’ | Р р | С с | Т т | Т’ т’ | У у |
| Ў ў | Ф ф | Х х | Ҳ ҳ | Ц ц | Ч ч | Ч’ ч’ | Ш ш |
| Щ щ | Ъ ъ | Ы ы | Ь ь | Ә ә | Э э | Ю ю | Я я |