Khanty
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A language of Russian Federation
9,580 (2010 census). Mostly speakers of Northern Khanty, 2,000 speakers of Eastern Khanty and probably no speakers left in Southern Khanty (Salminen 2007). Ethnic population: 30,900 (2010 census).
Khanty-Mansi autonomous district; Tomsk province; Yamalo-Nenets autonomous district; along Ob river.
6b (Threatened).
Northern Khanti, Eastern Khanti, Southern Khanti, Vach (Vasyugan). Intelligibility difficult between geographically distant dialects. 3 dialect groups; ‘Vach’, archaic. Dialect used in writing rejected by many speakers.
20%–60% of the ethnic group speaks Khanty. In Eastern Khanty, some child speakers but many shift to Russian [rus] at school age. Northern Khanty is still used in the home but boarding school system often forces a shift to Russian among younger generations. In Southern Khanty, transmission of the language to children stopped long ago. Assimilated to Siberian Tatar [tat] and Russian. Few domains. Used by few children. Positive attitudes. Also use Russian [rus].
Cyrillic script [Cyrl].
Traditional religion.