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 admin ...

, 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 tenth longest river, forming the border between the Russian Far East and Northeastern China (Inner Manchuria). The Amur proper is long ...

.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 wh ...

. 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, 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'' 12: 1-14. http://hdl.handle.net/10125/24760 *

External links

* ELAR archive o
Endangered Tungusic Languages of Khabarovskij Kraj (including Negidal)

Ethnologue - Negidal

The Endangered Languages Project - Negidal
{{DEFAULTSORT:Negidal Language Agglutinative languages Tungusic languages Languages of Russia Critically endangered languages stub