Negidal (also spelled Neghidal) is a language of the
Tungusic family spoken in the
Russian Far East
The Russian Far East (russian: Дальний Восток России, r=Dal'niy Vostok Rossii, p=ˈdalʲnʲɪj vɐˈstok rɐˈsʲiɪ) is a region in Northeast Asia. It is the easternmost part of Russia and the Asian continent; and is admini ...
, mostly in
Khabarovskij Kraj, along the lower reaches of the
Amur River
The Amur (russian: река́ Аму́р, ), or Heilong Jiang (, "Black Dragon River", ), is the world's List of longest rivers, tenth longest river, forming the border between the Russian Far East and Northeast China, Northeastern China (Inne ...
.
[Lewis, M. Paul (ed.), 2009]
Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Sixteenth edition
Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. Negidal belongs to the Northern branch of Tungusic, together with
Evenki and
Even
Even may refer to:
General
* Even (given name), a Norwegian male personal name
* Even (surname)
* Even (people), an ethnic group from Siberia and Russian Far East
** Even language, a language spoken by the Evens
* Odd and Even, a solitaire game w ...
. It is particularly close to Evenki, to the extent that it is occasionally referred to as a dialect of Evenki.
Language Status
According to the Russian Census of 2002, there were 567
Negidals
Negidals (; Negidal language, Negidal: ''элькан бэйэнин'', ''elkan bayenin'', "local people") are a people in the Khabarovsk Krai in Russia, who live along the Amgun River and Amur River.
The ethnonym "Negidal" is a Russification ...
, 147 of which still spoke the language. The Russian Census of 2010 reported lower speaker numbers, with only 19 of 513 ethnic Negidals reported to still speak the language.
[Pakendorf, Brigitte & Natalia Aralova. 2018. The endangered state of Negidal: A field report. ''Language Documentation & Conservation'' 12: 1-14. http://hdl.handle.net/10125/24760]
However, recent reports from the field reveal that the linguistic situation of Negidal is much worse than the census reports. According to Kalinina (2008), whose data stem from the fieldwork conducted in 2005-2007, there are only three full speakers left, and a handful of semi-speakers. Pakendorf & Aralova (2018) report from fieldwork conducted in 2017 that there remain only six active speakers of Upper Negidal and there are no speakers of Lower Negidal.
The language is thus classified as severely endangered and is predicted to become dormant within the next decade.
Dialects
There were formerly two dialects: the Upper Negidal dialect (''Verkhovskoj'' in Russian) along the
Amgun River
The Amgun () is a river in Khabarovsk Krai, Russia that flows northeast and joins the river Amur from the left, 146 km upstream from its outflow into sea. The length of the river is . The area of its basin is . The Amgun is formed by the c ...
(village of Vladimirovka), still residually spoken, and the now extinct Lower dialect (''Nizovskoj'') in its lower reaches (villages of Tyr and Beloglinka, the town of
Nikolaevsk-on-Amur
Nikolayevsk-on-Amur (russian: Никола́евск-на-Аму́ре, translit=Nikoláyevsk-na-Amúrye) is a town in Khabarovsk Krai, Russia located on the Amur River close to its liman in the Pacific Ocean. Population:
Geography
The town ...
).
The Lower dialect was especially close to Evenki.
Phonology
Vowels
* /o/ may also be heard as in some areas.
* An /o/ when appearing in more than two syllables in a word, it may also be heard as or .
Consonants
* /ɡ/ can also have an allophone of .
* /w/ becomes voiceless before a voiceless consonant and is heard as a fricative .
Notes
Bibliography
* Aralova, N. B. & N. R. Sumbatova. (2016). Negidal’skij jazyk (Negidal). In Vida Ju. Mikhal’čenko (ed.), ''Jazyk i obščestvo. Sociolingvističeskaja enciklopedija'' (Language and society. A sociolinguistic encyclopedia) 307–308. Moscow: Azbukovnik.
*
* Kalinina, E. J. (2008). Etjud o garmonii glasnykh v negidal’skom jazyke, ili neglasnye prezumpcii o glasnykh zvukakh (A study of vowel harmony in the Negidal language or unstated assumptions about vowels). In Arkhipov, Aleksandr V., Leonid M. Zakharov, Andrey A. Kibrik, Aleksandr E. Kibrik, Irina M. Kobozeva, Ol’ga F. Krivnova, Ekaterina A. Ljutikova & Ol’ga V. Fedorova, (eds.), ''Fonetika i nefonetika. K 70-letju S.V. Kodzasova'' (Phonetics and non-phonetics. On the occasion of the 70th birthday of S.V. Kodzasov), 272–282. Moscow: Jazyki slavjanskikh kul’tur.
*
*
* Pakendorf, B. & Aralova, N. (2018). The endangered state of Negidal: a field report. ''
Language Documentation & Conservation
''Language Documentation & Conservation'' is a peer-reviewed open-access academic journal covering all topics related to language documentation and conservation, including the goals of data management, field-work methods, ethics, orthography desig ...
'' 12: 1-14. http://hdl.handle.net/10125/24760
*
External links
* ELAR archive o
Endangered Tungusic Languages of Khabarovskij Kraj (including Negidal)Ethnologue - NegidalThe Endangered Languages Project - Negidal
{{DEFAULTSORT:Negidal Language
Agglutinative languages
Tungusic languages
Languages of Russia
Critically endangered languages
stub