Yukaghir languages

Infobox Language family
name=Yukaghir
region=Russian Far East
familycolor=Palaeosiberian
family=Yukaghir
iso2=—

thumb|300px|Geographical distribution of Yukaghir, Finnic, Ugric and Samoyedic languages.The Yukaghir languages (also "Yukagir", "Jukagir") are a family of related languages spoken in the Russian Far East by the Yukaghir, an indigenous people in Eastern Siberia, living in the basin of the Kolyma River. The entire family is regarded as moribund [http://www.helsinki.fi/~tasalmin/nasia_report.html] , with a total of fewer than 200 speakers reported in the 1989 Russian census.

The only two extant members are:
*Northern Yukaghir ( [http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=ykg ykg] ; "Tundra Yukaghir", also known as Odul, Tundra, Tundre): 30 to 150 speakers as of 1989.
*Southern Yukaghir ( [http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=yux yux] ; "Forest Yukaghir", also known as Kolym, Kolyma, Odul): 10 to 50 speakers as of 1989.

Classification

The relationship with other language families is mostly unknown, although it has been suggested that it is related to the Uralic languages (see Uralic-Yukaghir languages).

Tundra Yukaghir

Last spoken in the tundra belt extending between the lower Indigirka to the lower Kolyma basin (coord|69|N|154|E|). Formerly spoken in a much wider area extending to the Lena basin in the west.

Forest Yukaghir

Last spoken in the forest zone near the sources of the Kolyma, divided between the Sakha Republic and the Magadan Oblast (around coord|65|N|153|E|), previously in the wider area of the upper Kolyma region.

Phonology

*Чч IPA|/ʧ/ palatal voiceless affricate
*Җҗ IPA|/ʤ/ palatal voiced affricate
*Сь сь palatal voiceless fricative, a positional variant of c' in non-initial contexts
*IPA|Ҕҕ /ɣ/ uvular fricative
*Ққ /q/ uvular stop
*Зз /z/ voiced palato-alveolar fricative
*IPA|Ҥҥ /ŋ/ velar nasal
*Шш IPA|/ʃ/ voiceless palato-alveolar fricative
*Ль ль palatal lateral
*Нь нь palatal nasal
*Өө mid front rounded vowel
*Әә short non-high underspecified vowel which occurs after the first foot and is either pronounced as the central mid vowel or harmonized to other vowels
*Ы ы back high unrounded vowel which occurs in loanwords

Long vowels are written as digraphs: аа, ии, оо, уу, (э)

ample

;YarqadanRecorded by Ljudmila Zhukova from Ljubov' Demina in 1988. [http://ling.uni-konstanz.de/pages/home/nikolaeva/documentation/texts/start1.html] :"From the bottom of the mountains, from the whiteness of the ice our mother Yarqadan quietly carries its shining water downstream."

Further reading

* Vakhtin, N. B. 1991. "The Yukagir language in sociolinguistic perspective". Steszew, Poland: International Institute of Ethnolinguistic and Oriental Studies.
*Krejnovich, Eruhim A., "Jukagirskij jazyk". Moscow / Leningrad: Nauka (1958).
*Maslova, Elena, "A Grammar of Kolyma Yukaghir", Mouton Grammar Library, 27 (2003).
*Maslova, Elena, "Tundra Yukaghir", LINCOM Europa. Languages of the World/Materials 372 (2003).

ee also

* Paleosiberian languages
* Uralic-Yukaghir languages
* Yukaghirs

External links

* [http://www.stanford.edu/~emaslova/Yukaghir.htm The Yukaghir Languages]
* [http://pge.rastko.net/dirs/pge/pge05/100180/e100180.htm Northern Yukaghir text sample - Declaration of Human Rights]
* [http://www.tooyoo.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/Russia/bibl/Yukaghir.html Bibliography]