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Ethnologue: Languages of the World
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Ethnologue > Web version > Country index > Asia > Russian Federation (Asia) > Yukaghir, Northern

Yukaghir, Northern

A language of Russian Federation (Asia)

ISO 639-3: ykg

Population  90 (1995 M. Krauss). Ethnic population: 230 to 1,100 (1995 M. Krauss, 1989 census).
Region  Sakha and Kamchatka Peninsulas.
Language maps  Eastern Asian Russia, reference number 29
Western Asian Russia, reference number 29
Alternate names   Jukagir, Northern Yukagir, Odul, Tundra, Tundre, Yukagir
Dialects  Distinct from Southern Yukaghir (Kolyma) [yux]. May be distantly related to Altaic or Uralic.
Classification  Yukaghir
Language use  Home. Older adults. No sense of shared ethnic identity between the two Yukaghir varieties [yux] and [ykg]. People neutral or mildly supportive toward Yukaghir. Also use Russian or Yakut [sah]. Reindeer herdsmen and others can speak Even [eve]. Chukchi [ckt] also used.
Language development  Through 4th grade in Andriushkino settlement; as an elective through 8th grade in Nelemnoye. Dictionary. Grammar.
Writing system  Cyrillic script.
Comments  In 19th century their territory shrank due to merging clans, military clashes, assimilation with the Even, and later, collectivization. 1950s–1980s the state sent children to boarding school. ‘Odul’ is their name for themselves. SOV; postpositions; genitives, articles, adjectives, numerals, relatives before noun heads; question word not initial or final; 2 prefixes, 6 suffixes; word order focus preverbal, subjects and topics tend to be initial; affixes indicate case of noun phrases; person and number of subject indicated by obligatory verb phrases; split-intransitivity: intransitive subjects encoded as transitive when nonfocus; focus marked the same way for intransitive subjects and direct objects, and only those, otherwise accusative; resultative; reflexive; reciprocal; causative; comparative; CV, CVCCVV; nontonal. Swidden agriculturalists. Christian, traditional religion.