Mednyj Aleut is a nearly extinct mixed language

Mixed language

A mixed language is a language that arises through the fusion of two source languages, normally in situations of thorough bilingualism, so that it is not possible to classify the resulting language as belonging to either of the language families that were its source...

 spoken on Bering Island

Bering Island

Bering Island is located off the Kamchatka Peninsula in the Bering Sea. At long by wide, it is the largest of the Commander Islands with the area of ....

. It is characterized by Aleut

Aleut language

Aleut is a language of the Eskimo–Aleut language family. It is the heritage language of the Aleut people living in the Aleutian Islands, Pribilof Islands, and Commander Islands. As of 2007 there were about 150 speakers of Aleut .- Dialects :Aleut is alone with the Eskimo languages in the...

 nouns and 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...

 verbs, each with the full inflectional complexity of the source languages. There are only 5 native speakers left.

Mednyj Aleut is characterised by a blending of Russian and Aleut (primarily Attu

Attu

Attu may refer to:*A common name for the Dosa in Telugu*Attu Island in Alaska*The Battle of Attu, the primary land battle in the Aleutian Islands campaign of World War II, which took place on Attu Island in May 1943....

) elements in most components of the grammar, but most profoundly in the verbal morphology. The Aleut component comprises the majority of the vocabulary, all the derivational morphology, part of the simple sentence syntax, nominal inflection and certain other grammatical means. The Russian components comprises verbal inflection, negation, infinitive forms, part of the simple sentence syntax and all of the compound sentence syntax.

Originally, the language was spoken in Copper Island

Medny Island

Medny Island , is the second largest island in the Komandorski Islands east of Russia...

, from where it takes its name, but all the population of that island was moved to Bering island in 1970.

Sources

• http://languageserver.uni-graz.at/ls/art?id=981
• Encyclopedia of the world's endangered languages By Christopher Moseley pg 42.
• http://archives.conlang.info/so/gentua/vonjhuanjhian.html