Everything about Nenets Language totally explained
Nenets (
autonym: ненэця" вада) is a language spoken by the
Nenets people in northern
Russia. It belongs to the
Samoyedic languages which form the
Uralic language family with the
Finno-Ugric languages. There are two major dialects—Tundra Nenets and Forest Nenets—with low mutual intelligibility between the two. Tundra Nenets has the larger group of speakers.
Geographical distribution
Nenets is spoken by 27,273 people, of which 26,730 people are native speakers. It is spoken in the wide area in North
Russia including
Nenets and
Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrugs,
Krasnoyarsk Krai,
Komi Republic, and the eastern parts of
Murmansk Oblast on the
Kola peninsula.
Phonology
Nenets has a CV(C)
syllable structure. In other words, a syllable may contain an initial
consonant, a medial
vowel, and an optional terminal consonant. Examples include
ya ("earth"),
wada ("word"), and
ŋarka ("big"). The
schwa or reduced vowel may sometimes appear in lieu of a terminal consonant. Although the language doesn't technically permit syllables to begin with vowels, in practice this sometimes occurs in western dialects, particularly due to the loss of initial ŋ, for example western
arka ("big") versus standard east-central
ŋarka.
The syllabic structure is fairly consistent in all dialects, however. There are no
long vowels or
diphthongs, nor initial nor final
consonant clusters, nor medial clusters containing more than two consonants.
Vowels:
| Schwa |
ə |
|
|
|
|
| Reduced |
ø |
| Plain |
a |
e |
i |
o |
u |
| Stretched |
iː |
uː |
æ |
Some western dialects lack
æ, replacing it with
e.
Consonants:
| Unvoiced plosives |
k |
kʲ / c |
p |
pʲ |
t |
tʲ / ƫ |
| Voiced plosives |
ɡ |
ɡʲ / ɟ |
b |
bʲ |
d |
dʲ |
| Affricates |
ʦ |
ʦʲ / ʨ |
| Fricatives |
s |
sʲ / ɕ |
ʒ |
ʒʲ / ʑ |
| Nasals |
m |
mʲ |
n |
nʲ / ɲ |
ŋ |
|
| Liquids |
l |
lʲ / ʎ |
r |
rʲ |
|
|
| Semi-vowels |
h |
hʲ / ç |
w |
j |
ʔ |
|
The〈ʲ〉mark denotes
palatalization, or a movement towards palatal articulation or secondary palatal articulation.
Orthography
Nenets is written with an adapted form of the
Cyrillic alphabet, incorporating the supplemental letters Ӈ, ', and ".
| А аа
|
Б ббе
|
В вве
|
Г гге
|
Д дде
|
Е ее
|
Ё ёё
|
Ж жже
|
| З ззе
|
И ии
|
Й йй
|
й й
|
К кка
|
Л лел
|
М мем
|
Н нен
|
| Ӈ ӈеӈ
|
О оо
|
П ппе
|
Р рер
|
С сес
|
Т тте
|
У уу
|
Ф феф
|
| Х хха
|
Ц цце
|
Ч чче
|
Ш шша
|
Щ щща
|
Ъ ъъ
|
Ы ыы
|
| Ь ьь
|
Э ээ
|
Ю юю
|
Я яя
|
'
|
" |
Further Information
Get more info on 'Nenets Language'.
|
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