Tundra Nenets language
Encyclopedia
Tundra Nenets is a Samoyedic language
spoken in northern Russia
, from the Kanin Peninsula
to the Yenisei River
, by the Nenets people
. It is closely related to Nganasan
and Enets
, more distantly related to Selkup
and even more distantly to the other Uralic languages
. It has a sister language, the Forest Nenets language
, and the two are sometimes seen as simply being dialects of a single Nenets language, and sometimes as separate languages. There is low mutual intelligibility
between the two. In spite of the huge area in which Tundra Nenets is spoken, Tundra Nenets is very uniform with few dialectal differences.
The language has speakers of all ages and is still passed down to children. In some western parts of where the language is spoken, however, children and young people are increasingly shifting
to either Russian
or Komi
. Also, the traditional Nenets lands are being destroyed and as it seems like the world has turned the blind eye to these destructions, the future of the Tundra Nenets language may not be as bright as one would think.
structure of Tundra Nenets is generally C
V
(C
), and syllables with initial, medial or final consonant cluster
s of more than two consonants are not allowed. Words normally do not begin with a vowel, except in western dialects of the language, mostly due to the loss of /ŋ/, so the standard Tundra Nenets word ŋarka ('big') is found as arka in western varieties.
phoneme
s in Tundra Nenets is 10, which have 17 distinct allophone
s governed by palatality
, which dominates whole sequences of vowels and consonants.
Monophthong
vowels are present in the chart below.
Phoneme
s are marked in bold, with their palatal (on the left) and non-palatal (on the right) allophones marked underneath using the International Phonetic Alphabet
.
/i/ and /u/ have long counterparts /iː/ and /uː/.
There is also a diphthong
oid vowel <æ>, which is interchangeably
realized as [æ͡e̘] or [æː].
, a so-called reduced vowel is mentioned. This reduced vowel was thought to have two distinct qualities depending on whether it was found in a stressed
or unstressed position. In stressed position it was transcribed as <ø> and represented a reduced variant of an underlying vowel, and in unstressed position it was transcribed as <â> and represented a reduced variant of /a/. Recently, however, it has become clear that the reduced vowels are in fact short vowels, counterparts to their respective long vowels. Today <â> should simply be replaced by , while <ø> simply represents a short vowel, although it is not specified which short vowel in this orthography.
s in Tundra Nenets is 27.
¹) The underlying phoneme nasalizable glottal stop (here denoted with a phonetically impossible nasalized glottal stop) surfaces as a plain glottal stop, or (contrary to the underlying plain glottal stop) as a nasal consonant homorganic with a following obstruent. Both kinds of underlying glottal stops may additionally be lost in the surface form.
of Tundra Nenets is based on the Cyrillic alphabet
, like with most other languages found in Russia
, with the addition of three letters: Ӈ ӈ
, ʼ
, and ˮ
, which are less common among the Cyrillic letters.
and plain allophones are distinguished in the original orthography.
The Cyrillic orthography doesn't distinguish the reduced vowel from /a/, nor long /iː/ and /uː/ from their short counterparts /i/ and /u/. <æ> is not found in a palatalized environment, and thus does not show up in the chart.
The schwa
, /ə/, has no direct counterpart in the Cyrillic orthography, and is in most cases not written. Sometimes, however, it is written, but its presence is very irregular, as the writing system is not fully standardized. It may be seen as <а>, <я>, <ы>, <ӗ> or <ŏ>. Consider for instance the following words written with phonemic transcription and the Cyrillic orthography
respectively, xad°, хад ('snowstorm') and nix°, ныхы ('power').
s are included, and neither are the palatalized consonants
.
As in Russian
, the consonants are palatalized using the soft sign, <ь>, so, the palatalized consonant /mʲ/ is represented with <мь> in Cyrillic unless it is followed by a palatalizing vowel
, such as <ё>, so that /mʲo/ is <мё> in Cyrillic.
Samoyedic languages
The Samoyedic languages are spoken on both sides of the Ural mountains, in northernmost Eurasia, by approximately 30,000 speakers altogether....
spoken in northern Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, from the Kanin Peninsula
Kanin Peninsula
Kanin Peninsula is a large peninsula in Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Russia. Latitude : 68° Longitude : 45°It is surrounded by the White Sea to the west and by the Barents Sea to the north and east. Shoyna is one of the few communities on the peninsula....
to the Yenisei River
Yenisei River
Yenisei , also written as Yenisey, is the largest river system flowing to the Arctic Ocean. It is the central of the three great Siberian rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean...
, by the Nenets people
Nenets people
The Nenets are an indigenous people in Russia. According to the latest census in 2002, there are 41,302 Nenets in the Russian Federation, most of them living in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug and Nenets Autonomous Okrug...
. It is closely related to Nganasan
Nganasan language
Nganasan language is a language of the Nganasan people...
and Enets
Enets language
Enets is a Samoyedic language spoken by the Enets people along the lower Yenisei River in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. There are two distinct dialects - Forest Enets and Tundra Enets - which may be considered separate languages. There are only about seventy speakers in total, with slightly more...
, more distantly related to Selkup
Selkup language
Selkup language is a language of the Selkups, belonging to the Samoyedic group of the Uralic language family. It is spoken by some 1,570 people in the region between the Ob and Yenisei Rivers . The language name Selkup comes from the Russian "" , based on the native name used in the Taz dialect, ...
and even more distantly to the other Uralic languages
Uralic languages
The Uralic languages constitute a language family of some three dozen languages spoken by approximately 25 million people. The healthiest Uralic languages in terms of the number of native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Mari and Udmurt...
. It has a sister language, the Forest Nenets language
Forest Nenets language
Forest Nenets is a Samoyedic language spoken in northern Russia, around the Agan, Pur, Lyamin and Nadym rivers, by the Nenets people. It is closely related to the Tundra Nenets language, and the two are still sometimes seen as simply being dialects of a single Nenets language, despite there being...
, and the two are sometimes seen as simply being dialects of a single Nenets language, and sometimes as separate languages. There is low mutual intelligibility
Mutual intelligibility
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is recognized as a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related languages can readily understand each other without intentional study or extraordinary effort...
between the two. In spite of the huge area in which Tundra Nenets is spoken, Tundra Nenets is very uniform with few dialectal differences.
The language has speakers of all ages and is still passed down to children. In some western parts of where the language is spoken, however, children and young people are increasingly shifting
Language shift
Language shift, sometimes referred to as language transfer or language replacement or assimilation, is the progressive process whereby a speech community of a language shifts to speaking another language. The rate of assimilation is the percentage of individuals with a given mother tongue who speak...
to either 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...
or Komi
Komi language
The Komi language is a Finno-Permic language spoken by the Komi peoples in the northeastern European part of Russia. Komi is one of the two members of the Permic subgroup of the Finno-Ugric branch...
. Also, the traditional Nenets lands are being destroyed and as it seems like the world has turned the blind eye to these destructions, the future of the Tundra Nenets language may not be as bright as one would think.
Phonology
The syllableSyllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
structure of Tundra Nenets is generally C
Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
V
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
(C
Consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
), and syllables with initial, medial or final consonant cluster
Consonant 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 of more than two consonants are not allowed. Words normally do not begin with a vowel, except in western dialects of the language, mostly due to the loss of /ŋ/, so the standard Tundra Nenets word ŋarka ('big') is found as arka in western varieties.
Vowels
The number of vowelVowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
phoneme
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
s in Tundra Nenets is 10, which have 17 distinct allophone
Allophone
In phonology, an allophone is one of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds used to pronounce a single phoneme. For example, and are allophones for the phoneme in the English language...
s governed by palatality
Palatalization
In linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate....
, which dominates whole sequences of vowels and consonants.
Monophthong
Monophthong
A monophthong is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation....
vowels are present in the chart below.
| Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... |
Central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel... |
Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unrounded | Unrounded | Unrounded | Rounded | |
| Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the... |
i [i], [ɨ] |
u [ɯ], [u] |
||
| Close-mid Close-mid vowel A close-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from a close vowel to a mid vowel... |
e [(ʲ)eː], [ɤː] |
o [(ʲ)o̙ː], [oː] |
||
| Mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel... |
° [ə] |
|||
| Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue... |
a [(ʲ)ɑː], [ɑː] |
|||
Phoneme
Phoneme
In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
s are marked in bold, with their palatal (on the left) and non-palatal (on the right) allophones marked underneath using the International Phonetic Alphabet
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic...
.
/i/ and /u/ have long counterparts /iː/ and /uː/.
There is also a diphthong
Diphthong
A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...
oid vowel <æ>, which is interchangeably
Free variation
Free variation in linguistics is the phenomenon of two sounds or forms appearing in the same environment without a change in meaning and without being considered incorrect by native speakers...
realized as [æ͡e̘] or [æː].
Reduced vowel
In much of the literature on Tundra Nenets and its sister dialect, Forest NenetsForest Nenets language
Forest Nenets is a Samoyedic language spoken in northern Russia, around the Agan, Pur, Lyamin and Nadym rivers, by the Nenets people. It is closely related to the Tundra Nenets language, and the two are still sometimes seen as simply being dialects of a single Nenets language, despite there being...
, a so-called reduced vowel is mentioned. This reduced vowel was thought to have two distinct qualities depending on whether it was found in a stressed
Stress (linguistics)
In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...
or unstressed position. In stressed position it was transcribed as <ø> and represented a reduced variant of an underlying vowel, and in unstressed position it was transcribed as <â> and represented a reduced variant of /a/. Recently, however, it has become clear that the reduced vowels are in fact short vowels, counterparts to their respective long vowels. Today <â> should simply be replaced by , while <ø> simply represents a short vowel, although it is not specified which short vowel in this orthography.
Consonants
The number of underlying consonantConsonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are , pronounced with the lips; , pronounced with the front of the tongue; , pronounced with the back of the tongue; , pronounced in the throat; and ,...
s in Tundra Nenets is 27.
| 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).... |
Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plain | Palatalized Palatalization In linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate.... |
Plain | Palatalized | |||||
| 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 | mʲ | n | ɲ | ŋ | (ʔ̃)¹ | ||
| Plosive | Voiceless | p | pʲ | t | tʲ | k | ʔ | |
| Voiced | b | bʲ | d | dʲ | ||||
| Affricate Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :... |
t͡s | t͡sʲ | ||||||
| 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... |
s | sʲ | x | |||||
| 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 | rʲ | ||||||
| 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... |
j | w | ||||||
| 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 | ||||||
¹) The underlying phoneme nasalizable glottal stop (here denoted with a phonetically impossible nasalized glottal stop) surfaces as a plain glottal stop, or (contrary to the underlying plain glottal stop) as a nasal consonant homorganic with a following obstruent. Both kinds of underlying glottal stops may additionally be lost in the surface form.
Orthography
The alphabetAlphabet
An alphabet is a standard set of letters—basic written symbols or graphemes—each of which represents a phoneme in a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past. There are other systems, such as logographies, in which each character represents a word, morpheme, or semantic...
of Tundra Nenets is based on the Cyrillic alphabet
Cyrillic alphabet
The Cyrillic script or azbuka is an alphabetic writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School...
, like with most other languages found in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, with the addition of three letters: Ӈ ӈ
En with hook
En with hook is a letter of the Cyrillic alphabet. Its form is derived from the Cyrillic letter En by adding a hook to the right leg.En with hook commonly represents the velar nasal , like the pronunciation of ⟨ng⟩ in "sing".-Usage:...
, ʼ
Modifier letter apostrophe
The modifier letter apostrophe is a glyph. It is used in the orthography of Tundra Nenets to denote a glottal stop. In IPA it is used to express ejective consonants. It is encoded at ....
, and ˮ
Modifier letter double apostrophe
The modifier letter double apostrophe is a spacing glyph. It is used in the orthography of Tundra Nenets to denote a glottal stop, or in the orthography of Dan to indicate that a syllable has a top tone. It is encoded at .-See also:...
, which are less common among the Cyrillic letters.
Vowels
Vowels' palatalizedPalatalization
In linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate....
and plain allophones are distinguished in the original orthography.
| phonemic transcription | a | e | o | i | u | æ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cyrillic | Plain | а | э | о | ы | у | э |
| Palatalized Palatalization In linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate.... |
я | е | ё | и | ю |
The Cyrillic orthography doesn't distinguish the reduced vowel from /a/, nor long /iː/ and /uː/ from their short counterparts /i/ and /u/. <æ> is not found in a palatalized environment, and thus does not show up in the chart.
The 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/, has no direct counterpart in the Cyrillic orthography, and is in most cases not written. Sometimes, however, it is written, but its presence is very irregular, as the writing system is not fully standardized. It may be seen as <а>, <я>, <ы>, <ӗ> or <ŏ>. Consider for instance the following words written with phonemic transcription and the Cyrillic orthography
Cyrillic alphabet
The Cyrillic script or azbuka is an alphabetic writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School...
respectively, xad°, хад ('snowstorm') and nix°, ныхы ('power').
Consonants
The consonants in the Cyrillic orthography can be seen in the chart below. Note that not all the palatal consonantPalatal consonant
Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...
s are included, and neither are the palatalized consonants
Palatalization
In linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate....
.
| phonemic transcription | /m/ | /p/ | /b/ | /w/ | /n/ | /t/ | /d/ | /ts/ | /s/ | /j/ | /l/ | /r/ | /ŋ/ | /k/ | /x/ | /ʔ/ | /h/ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cyrillic | м | п | б | в | н | т | д | ц | с | й | л | р | ӈ | к | х | ˮ | ʼ |
As 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...
, the consonants are palatalized using the soft sign, <ь>, so, the palatalized consonant /mʲ/ is represented with <мь> in Cyrillic unless it is followed by a palatalizing vowel
Vowel
In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as English ah! or oh! , pronounced with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! , where there is a constriction or closure at some...
, such as <ё>, so that /mʲo/ is <мё> in Cyrillic.