Selkup language

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Selkup шӧльӄумыт әты šöľqumyt әty, чумыль ӄумыт әты čumyľ qumyt әty, сӱccӱ ӄумыт әты śüssü qumyt әty, шӧш ӄумыт әты šöš qumyt әty, тӱй ӄумыт әты tüj qumyt әty
Spoken in:	Russia
Region:	Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug
Total speakers:	1,570 (1994 est.)
Language family:	Uralic Samoyedic Southern Samoyedic Selkup
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	none
ISO 639-2:	`sel`
ISO 639-3:	`sel`
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key.

Selkup language is a language of the Selkups. It is spoken by some 1,570 people (1994 est.) in the region between the Ob and Yenisei Rivers (in Siberia). The language name Selkup comes from the Russian "cелькупский язык" (selkupsky yazyk}}. However, the most common native name for the language is шӧльӄумыт әты šöľqumyt әty, lit. forest-man language. Different dialects use different names, and these variations are shown in the infobox to the right.

The Selkup language belongs to the Samoyedic group of the Uralic language family. There are three main dialects in the Selkup language, including the Taz dialect (тазовский диалект, tazovsky dialekt), which became the basis of the Selkup written language in the 1930s, Tym dialect (тымский диалект, tymsky dialekt), and Ket dialect (кетский диалект, ketsky dialekt). There are 25 vowel and 16 consonant phonemes in the Taz dialect.