Enets language

Enets
Онаь базаан Ona' bazaan
Native to Russia
Region Krasnoyarsk Krai, along the lower Yenisei River
Ethnicity 160 Enets people
Native speakers
 40 (2010 census)
Uralic
Language codes
ISO 639-3 Either:
enf – Forest Enets
enh – Tundra Enets
Glottolog enet1250[1]

Enets, an indigenous language of Northern Siberia spoken on the Lower Yenisei within the boundaries of the Taimyr Municipality District, a subdivision of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia Federation. The language is moribund. Around 10 fluent speakers are left; the overall number of potential speakers is less than 40 individuals. All speakers are found in the generation of 50 years and older. Recent local statistics indicate that there are around 160 individuals of ethnic Enets origin. Concerning its genetic classification, Enets belongs to the Northern Samoyedic branch of Samoyedic. Samoyedic is the second major branch of the Uralic language family; the other branch consists of the generally more well known Finno-Ugric languages.[2]

Orthography

Enets is written using the Cyrillic alphabet, though it includes the letters ԑ, ӈ, and ҫ which are not used in the Russian alphabet.

А а Б б В в Г г Д д Е е Ё ё Ԑ ԑ
Ж ж З з И и Й й К к Л л М м Н н
Ӈ ӈ О о П п Р р С с Ҫ ҫ Т т У у
Ф ф Х х Ц ц Ч ч Ш ш Щ щ ъ Ы ы
ь Э э Ю ю Я я

The Enets language written form was created during the 1980s and has been used to produce a number of books. During the 1990s there was an Enets newspaper, Советский Таймыр (Soviet Taimyr) published and brief Enets broadcasts on local radio, which shut down in 2003,[3] served as supplements for speakers.[4]

Syntax

Enets syntax is typical for the family and the area. The Enets language follows SOV, head marking in the NP, both head and dependent marking within the clause, non-finite verbal forms used for clause combining.

Grammar

Enets nouns vary for number, case, and person-number of the possessor. There is also an intriguing nominal case in which ‘destinativity’ determines the entity is destined for someone. Possessor markers are also used for discourse related purposes, where they are completely devoid of the literal possessive meaning. Enets postpositions are marked for person-number; many postpositions are formed from a small set of relational nouns and case morphology.[5]

Phonology

Phoneme Inventory

Vowels

front middle back
high i ɨ u
middle e ə o
low ɑ ɔ

Consonants

bilabial dental palatal velar laryngal
stops p, b t, d tʲ, dʲ k, g ʔ
affricates t͡ʃ t͡ʃʲ
fricatives s, ʃ, ð sʲ, ʃʲ h
nasals m n nʲ ŋ
laterals l
trills r
glides j
  1. There is partial or complete vowel reduction in the middle and at the end of a word
  2. Consonants preceding i and e become palatalized[6]

Literature

References

  1. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2016). "Enets". Glottolog 2.7. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  2. ↑ Siegl, F. (2013). Materials on Forest Enets, an indigenous language of Northern Siberia. Tartu. doi:978-9949-19-673-9, http://dspace.ut.ee/handle/10062/17439?locale-attribute=en
  3. ↑ Siegl, Florian (2017-04-24). "The fate of Forest Enets – a short comm ent".
  4. ↑ "Enets language, alphabet and pronunciation". www.omniglot.com.
  5. ↑ Leipzig, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology,. "Former Dept. of Linguistics | Documentation of Enets". www.eva.mpg.de.
  6. ↑ "Enf/Phonology - ProAlKi". proalki.uni-leipzig.de.


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