Orok language

Not to be confused with the Oroch language.

Orok
Spoken in	Russia
Region	Sakhalin Oblast, Russia
Ethnicity	Orok
Native speakers	64  (2002 census)
Language family	Tungusic Southern Southeastern Orok
Language codes
ISO 639-3	oaa

Orok is the Russian name for the language known by its speakers as Ulta or Ujlta. Similarly, the people are called Oroks or Ulta. It is counted among the Tungusic languages. The language is spoken in the Poronaysky and Nogliksky Administrative Divisions of Sakhalin Oblast, in the Russian Federation.

According to the 2002 Russian census there were 346 Oroks living in Russia, of whom 64 were competent in Orok. Additionally, Oroks live on the island of Hokkaido in Japan. While Novikova^[1] claims that the number of speakers in Japan is uncertain, it can be inferred from Lewis^[2] that there are three speakers in Japan.

There are two dialects of Orok: northern (east Sakhalin) and southern (poronaysky). The variety of the language spoken on the island of Hokkaido belongs to the southern dialect.

Orok is used conversationally in everyday situations by the members of the older generation. It is also the language of oral folk literature. Oroks also speak Russian.

An alphabetic script, based on Cyrillic, was introduced in 2007. A primer has been published, and the language is taught in one school on the island of Sakhalin.

Alphabet

The Cyrillic alphabet introduced in 2007 is:^[3]:

The letter "en with left hook" is not contained in Unicode 6.0. However, it is accepted by the Unicode Technical Committee for inclusion in a later version of Unicode.^[4][5]

References

1. ^ Novikova, 1997
2. ^ Lewis, 2009 (Altaic)
3. ^ Уилтадаирису (in Russian; retrieved 2011-08-17) ([1])
4. ^ Unicode Pipeline Table ([2])
5. ^ Proposal to encode a missing Cyrillic letter pair for the Orok language ([3])

Bibliography

• Lewis, M. Paul (ed.) (2009). Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 16th edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International. http://www.ethnologue.com/. Retrieved 22 July 2009. 
• K.A. Novikova, L.I. Sem. Oroksky yazyk // Yazyki mira: Tunguso-man'chzhurskie yazyki. Moscow, 1997. (Russian)