Selkup is the group of

languages Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing. Human language is ch ...

of the Selkups, belonging to the Samoyedic group of the

Uralic language family The Uralic languages ( ), sometimes called the Uralian languages ( ), are spoken predominantly in Europe and North Asia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian. Other languages with speakers ab ...

. It is spoken by some 1,570 people (1994 est.) in the region between the Ob and

Yenisei River The Yenisey or Yenisei ( ; , ) is the list of rivers by length, fifth-longest river system in the world, and the largest to drain into the Arctic Ocean. Rising in Mungaragiyn-gol in Mongolia, it follows a northerly course through Lake Baikal a ...

s (in

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

). The language name ''Selkup'' comes from the

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

, based on the native name used in the Taz dialect, ( ). Different

dialect A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...

s use different native names.

Dialects

Selkup is fractured in an extensive

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...

whose ends are no longer

mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between different but related language varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intellig ...

. The three main varieties are the Taz (Northern) dialect (, ), which became the basis of the Selkup

written language A written language is the representation of a language by means of writing. This involves the use of visual symbols, known as graphemes, to represent linguistic units such as phonemes, syllables, morphemes, or words. However, written language is ...

in the 1930s, Tym (Central) dialect (, ), and Ket dialect (, ). It is not related to the Ket language. Some have proposed to split Selkup into two different languages, termed Northern Selkup and Southern Selkup. According to the

Endangered Languages Project The Endangered Languages Project (ELP) is a worldwide collaboration between indigenous Language planning, language organizations, linguists, institutions of higher education, and key industry partners to strengthen endangered languages. The foun ...

, the differences between dialects are "comparable to those between, for instance, Ket, Yug, and Pumpokol".

Grammar

Southern Selkup

Noun

References

Works cited

External links

Endangered Languages of Indigenous Peoples of Siberia: The Selkup LanguageThe Red Book of the Peoples of the Russian Empire: The SelkupsAudio of a man telling a story in Selkup
{{Authority control Indigenous languages of Siberia Southern Samoyedic languages Culture of Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug Selkup people