The Oroch language is an critically endangered language spoken by the

Oroch people Orochs (Russian ''О́рочи''), Orochons, or Orochis (self-designation: ''Nani'') are a people of Russia that speak the Oroch (''Orochon'') language of the Southern group of Tungusic languages. According to the 2002 census there were 686 Or ...

Siberia Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...

. It is a member of the southern group of the

Tungusic languages The Tungusic languages (also known as Manchu-Tungus and Tungus) form a language family spoken in Eastern Siberia and Manchuria by Tungusic peoples. Many Tungusic languages are endangered. There are approximately 75,000 native speakers of the doz ...

and is closely related to the

Nanai language The Nanai language (also called Gold, Goldi, or Hezhen) is spoken by the Nanai people in Siberia, and to a much smaller extent in China's Heilongjiang province, where it is known as Hezhe. The language has about 1,400 speakers out of 17,000 ethn ...

and

Udege language The Udege language (also Udihe language, Udekhe language, Udeghe language) is the language of the Udege people. It is a member of the Tungusic family. History Previously an oral language, in 1931 an alphabet was created for writing Udege as a pa ...

. It is or was spoken in the

Khabarovsk Krai Khabarovsk Krai ( rus, Хабаровский край, r=Khabarovsky kray, p=xɐˈbarəfskʲɪj kraj) is a federal subject (a krai) of Russia. It is geographically located in the Russian Far East and is a part of the Far Eastern Federal District ...

( Komsomolsky, Sovetskaya Gavan, and Ulchsky districts). The language is split into three dialects: Tumninsky, Khadinsky, and Hungarisky. At the beginning of the 21st century, a written form of the language was created. The Russian government and the scientific field disagree on whether the language is living or extinct.

Genealogical and areal characteristics

According to the 2002 Census, there were 257 speakers of the Oroch language, however, this data is known to be erroneous due to confusion with the similarly-named

Orok language Uilta ( oaa, ульта, also called Ulta, Uilta, Ujlta, or Orok) is a Tungusic language spoken in the Poronaysky and Nogliksky Administrative Divisions of Sakhalin Oblast, in the Russian Federation, by the Uilta people. The northern Uilt ...

. According to the 2010 Census, there were 8 people speakers. However, according to researchers, by the late 1990s, even the oldest Orochi could only utter a few phrases. The Association of Indigenous Peoples of the Khabarovsk Krai stated that the last fluent speaker of the Oroch language died in 2008. In 2010, this association held a meeting of elderly Orochi, who together were able to remember only about 20 Oroch words, and could not count to ten.

Orthography

Phonology

References

Bibliography

* * * Альбина Гирфанова (1994). "Орочский язык". Контактологический энциклопедический словарь-справочник: Северный регион. Языки народов Севера, Сибири и Дальнего Востока в контактах с русским языком. М. (1). (in Russian)

External links

Unesco – Oroch language
(In Russian) {{DEFAULTSORT:Oroch Language Agglutinative languages Critically endangered languages Khabarovsk Krai Languages of Russia Tungusic languages stub