Gilyak

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A language of Russian Federation

ISO 639-3
niv
Alternate Names
Nivkh, Nivkhi
Population

200 (2010 census). A few hundred active users (Salminen 2007). Ethnic population: 4,650 (2010 census).

Location

Sakhalinskaya Oblast’, Nekrasovka and Nogliki villages, Rybnoe, Moskalvo, Chir-Unvd, Viakhtu, and other villages; Khabarovskiy Kray, Amur river area, Aleyevka village.

Language Maps
Language Status

8a (Moribund).

Classification
Language isolate
Dialects

Amur, East Sakhalin Gilyak, North Sakhalin Gilyak. Amur and East Sakhalin dialects have difficult inherent mutual intelligibility. North Sakhalin is between them linguistically.

Typology

SOV; postpositions; case-marking (8 cases); passives (active, hortative, reflexive, reciprocal); aspect; 31 consonant and 12 vowels; non-tonal; no adjectives.

Language Use

Seriously endangered (2000 A. Kibrik). Forced resettlement weakened use. Some scattered without regular contact with other speakers. No younger speakers in Amur region and very few on Sakhalin (Salminen 2007). Home. Mainly older adults. Mixed attitudes. Also use Russian [rus].

Language Development
Taught through second grade in settlements at Nogliki and Nekrasovka. Not taught at Amur. Dictionary. Grammar.
Language Resources
OLAC resources in and about Gilyak
Writing

Cyrillic script [Cyrl]. Latin script [Latn].

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