Talk:Kerek language

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[edit] 20 new Kereks

This information from the BBC New Report (for some reason linked as Discovery) is extremely dubious. The only evidence is hear-say, and part of that is factually incorrect. Here's the quote (from a person only identified as "Fayina", an Evenk schoolteacher):

There are more than 30,000 Evenks living across Siberia and, although only about a fifth of them speak their native language, it is taught in schools. "My language is probably safe for the moment," she says, "but the Kereks, for example, aren't so fortunate. There are fewer than 30 of them left.

"We thought there were just eight, but some scientists recently found a group of about 20 travelling across the tundra and the taiga. They all spoke Kerek but, once they have gone, there will be no one left speaking the language."

My objections:

• Who is the "we" that thought there used to be eight Kerek speakers? Scholars such as Leontev and Asinovsky have been studying Kerek for decades: we know all the ethnic Kerek families, and we know that most of the members of these families do not speak Kerek. It might be the case that there are eight people who identify as ethnic Kereks in the last census, but ethnicity does not equate to language competence.

• Who are the scientists that identified these people as Kerek speakers? A scholar of Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages could identify Kerek on the basis of field investigation, but there's no evidence that this has really been done. How come Asinovsky or Volodin haven't published about this? It would be big news for linguistics if it were true!

• Kereks were sedentary coastal foragers up until the Soviet expansion into Chukotka. Nomadic Kereks sound very unlikely, especially in "Western Siberia" or any zone where there is taiga.

• The Russian Far East is not PNG or the Amazon, it has been intensively developed since the Second World War: there are not uncontacted tribes out there waiting to be discovered.

Basically, a journalist said that "Fayina the Evenk school teacher" said, that "scientists" said that some more Kereks have been found. We can't let this stand as fact! -- Ngio 10:27, 21 March 2007 (UTC)