Nenets language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Nenets ненэця" вада | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Russia | |
| Region: | Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Komi Republic, Murmansk Oblast | |
| Total speakers: | 27,273 | |
| Language family: | Uralic Samoyedic Northern Nenets | |
| Official status | ||
| Official language in: | Nenets Autonomous Okrug | |
| Regulated by: | no official regulation | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | mis | |
| ISO 639-3: | yrk | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
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.
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[edit] 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.
[edit] 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:
| Schwa | ə | ||||
| Reduced | ø | ||||
| Plain | a | e | i | o | u |
| Stretched | iː | uː | æ |
Some western dialects lack æ, replacing it with e.
Consonants:
| Unvoiced plosives | k | kʲ / c | p | pʲ | t | tʲ / ƫ |
| Voiced plosives | ɡ | ɡʲ / ɟ | b | bʲ | d | dʲ |
| Affricates | ʦ | ʦʲ / ʨ | ||||
| Fricatives | s | sʲ / ɕ | ʒ | ʒʲ / ʑ | ||
| Nasals | m | mʲ | n | nʲ / ɲ | ŋ | |
| Liquids | l | lʲ / ʎ | r | rʲ | ||
| Semi-vowels | h | hʲ / ç | w | j | ʔ |
The〈ʲ〉mark denotes palatalization, or a movement towards palatal articulation or secondary palatal articulation.
[edit] Orthography
Nenets is written with an adapted form of the Cyrillic alphabet, incorporating the supplemental letters Ӈ, ', and ".
| А а
а | Б б
бе | В в
ве | Г г
ге | Д д
де | Е е
е | Ё ё
ё | Ж ж
же |
| З з
зе | И и
и | Й й
й | й й | К к
ка | Л л
ел | М м
ем | Н н
ен |
| Ӈ ӈ
еӈ | О о
о | П п
пе | Р р
ер | С с
ес | Т т
те | У у
у | Ф ф
еф |
| Х х
ха | Ц ц
це | Ч ч
че | Ш ш
ша | Щ щ
ща | Ъ ъ
ъ | Ы ы
ы | |
| Ь ь
ь | Э э
э | Ю ю
ю | Я я
я | ' | " |
[edit] External links
- Tundra Nenets homepage
- Forest Nenets-English glossary
- Ethnologue report
- The Russian-Nenets Audio Phrasebook
- Comparative Nenets-Nganasan dictionary (with Russian and English equivalents)br:Nenetseg
ca:Iurac de:Nenzische Sprache fr:Nénètse ga:Neneitsis ko:네네츠어 os:Неннаг æвзаг it:Lingua neneziana hu:Nyenyec nyelv nl:Nenets no:Nenetsisk nn:Nenetsisk språk pl:Język nieniecki ro:Limba neneţ ru:Ненецкий язык se:Nenetsagiella fi:Nenetsi sv:Nentsiska
