The Samoyedic () or Samoyed languages () are spoken around the

Ural Mountains The Ural Mountains ( ),; , ; , or simply the Urals, are a mountain range in Eurasia that runs north–south mostly through Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the river Ural (river), Ural and northwestern Kazakhstan.

, in northernmost

Eurasia Eurasia ( , ) is a continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. According to some geographers, Physical geography, physiographically, Eurasia is a single supercontinent. The concept of Europe and Asia as distinct continents d ...

, by approximately 25,000 people altogether, accordingly called the

Samoyedic peoples The Samoyedic peoples (sometimes Samodeic peoples) are a group of closely related peoples who speak Samoyedic languages, which are part of the Uralic family. They are a linguistic, ethnic, and cultural grouping. The name derives from the obsole ...

. They derive from a common ancestral language called

Proto-Samoyedic Proto-Samoyedic, or Proto-Samoyed, is the reconstructed ancestral language of the Samoyedic languages: Nenets (Tundra and Forest), Enets, Nganasan, Selkup, as well as extinct Kamas and Mator. Samoyedic is one of the principal branches of ...

, and form a branch of the

Uralic languages 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 ...

. Having separated perhaps in the last centuries BC, they are not a diverse group of languages, and are traditionally considered to be an

outgroup Outgroup may refer to: * Outgroup (cladistics), an evolutionary-history concept * Outgroup (sociology) In social psychology and sociology, an in-group is a social group to which a person psychologically identifies as being a member. By cont ...

, branching off first from the other Uralic languages.

Etymology

The term ''Samoyedic'' is derived from the Russian term ''samoyed'' () originally applied only to the

Nenets people The Nenets (; ), in the past also called 'Samoyeds' or 'Yuraks', are a Samoyedic ethnic group native to Arctic Russia, Russian Far North. According to the latest census in 2021, there were 49,646 Nenets in the Russian Federation, most of them l ...

and later extended to other related peoples. One of the theories supposes that the term is interpreted by some ethnologists as originating somewhat derogatorily from Russian ''samo-yed'', literally meaning "self-eater" (the word has been interpreted by foreign travelers as an allegation of

cannibalism Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is also well document ...

). Another suggestion for the term's origin is a corruption of the expression ''saam-edne'', meaning "Land of the Saams". The word ''Samodeic'' has been proposed as an alternative by some ethnologists. In modern Russian the words самодийцы/самодийские (''samodiytsy/samodiyskie''), i.e., "samodians"/"samodian" are used for this ethnic grouping and the corresponding area of research is called "samodistika", i.e., "samodistics". The word " самоед/samoyed" also refers in Russian to an excessively introspective or self-disparaging person i.e., the one engaged in самоедство/"self-devouring".

Classification

Traditionally, Samoyedic languages and peoples have been divided into two major areal groups: Northern Samoyedic (Nenets, Yurats, Enets, Nganasans), and Southern Samoyedic (Selkups) with a further now-extinct subgroup of Sayan-Samoyedics (Kamasins, Mators) named after the

Sayan Mountains The Sayan Mountains (, ; ) are a mountain range in southern Siberia spanning southeastern Russia (Buryatia, Irkutsk Oblast, Krasnoyarsk Krai, Tuva and Khakassia) and northern Mongolia. Before the rapid expansion of the Tsardom of Russia, the mou ...

. They are however purely geographical, and do not reflect linguistic relations. Linguistic genealogical classifications point to an early divergence of Nganasan and (perhaps to a lesser degree) Mator, with Enets–Nenets–Yurats and Kamas–Selkup forming internal branches. * Samoyedic ** Nganasan (''Tavgi'' or ''Tawgi-Samoyed'') *** Avam *** Vadey/Vadeyev ** Core-Samoyedic *** Enets-Nenets ****

Enets The Enets (, ; singular: , ; also known as Yenetses, Entsy, Entsi, Yenisei or Yenisey Samoyeds) are a Samoyedic ethnic group who live on the east bank, near the mouth, of the Yenisei River. Historically they were nomadic people. As of 2002, most ...

(''Yenisei-Samoyed'') ***** Tundra Enets ***** Forest Enets **** Yurats ****

Nenets The Nenets (; ), in the past also called 'Samoyeds' or 'Yuraks', are a Samoyedic ethnic group native to Arctic Russia, Russian Far North. According to the latest census in 2021, there were 49,646 Nenets in the Russian Federation, most of them l ...

(''Yurak-Samoyed'') ***** Tundra Nenets ***** Forest Nenets *** Kamas-Selkup **** Selkup ''(Ostyak-Samoyed'') ***** Northern Selkup (Taz) ***** Central Selkup (Tym) ***** Southern Selkup (Ket) **** Kamassian (''Sayan-Samoyed'') ***** Kamas ***** Koibal **

Mator Mator or Motor is an extinct Uralic languages, Uralic language belonging to the group of Samoyedic languages, extinct since around 1839. It was spoken in the northern region of the Sayan Mountains in Siberia, close to the Mongolian north bord ...

(''Sayan-Samoyed'') *** Mator *** Taigi *** Karagas *** Soyot (Modern

Soyots The Soyot are an ethnic group of Samoyedic and Turkic origin who live mainly in the Oka region in the Okinsky District in Buryatia, Russia. They share much of their history with the Tofalar, Tozhu Tuvans, Dukha, and Buryat; the Soyot have ...

were subject to

Turkification Turkification, Turkization, or Turkicization () describes a shift whereby populations or places receive or adopt Turkic attributes such as culture, language, history, or ethnicity. However, often this term is more narrowly applied to mean specif ...

and do not speak the historical language)

Grammar

Samoyedic languages are primarily

agglutinative In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes (word parts), each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglu ...

. They have

postpositions Adpositions are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in, under, towards, behind, ago'', etc.) or mark various semantic roles (''of, for''). The most common adpositions are prepositions (which precede their complemen ...

and suffixes and do not use articles or prefixes. Samoyedic languages also have grammatical evidentiality. Word order in Samoyedic languages is typically subject-object-verb (SOV). Below are two sentences in Nenets that demonstrate SOV word order and case in Samoyedic languages:

Nouns

Nouns in Samoyedic languages do not have gender, but they are declined for number (singular,

dual Dual or Duals may refer to: Paired/two things * Dual (mathematics), a notion of paired concepts that mirror one another ** Dual (category theory), a formalization of mathematical duality *** see more cases in :Duality theories * Dual number, a nu ...

, and plural) as well as case. All Samoyedic languages have at least seven noun cases which may include nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, ablative, locative, instrumental, lative, and/or prolative depending on the language.

Verbs

Many Samoyedic languages have the following three conjugation types: subjective, objective (in which the number of the object is expressed in addition to that of the subject), and reflexive. Verbs in Samoyedic languages have several moods, ranging from at least eight in Selkup to at least sixteen in Nenets. Other forms of verbs that can be found in Samoyedic languages are gerunds, participles, and infinitives. Of the Samoyedic languages, only Selkup has

verbal aspect In linguistics, aspect is a grammatical category that expresses how a verbal action, event, or state, extends over time. For instance, perfective aspect is used in referring to an event conceived as bounded and unitary, without reference to ...

Phonology

Sonorant In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant or resonant is a speech sound that is produced with continuous, non-turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; these are the manners of articulation that are most often voiced in the world's languages. Vowels a ...

obstruent An obstruent ( ) is a speech sound such as , , or that is formed by ''obstructing'' airflow. Obstruents contrast with sonorants, which have no such obstruction and so resonate. All obstruents are consonants, but sonorants include vowels as well ...

consonant clusters with two consonants, of which the latter consonant is more sonorous than the former, are the most frequently occurring consonant clusters in several Samoyedic languages. Conversely, consonant clusters ending in glides are not found in any Samoyedic languages. Unlike some other Uralic languages, Samoyedic languages do not have vowel harmony. Vowel

epenthesis In phonology, epenthesis (; Greek ) means the addition of one or more sounds to a word, especially in the first syllable ('' prothesis''), the last syllable ('' paragoge''), or between two syllabic sounds in a word. The opposite process in whi ...

is frequently used in Samoyedic languages to break up consonant clusters, particularly in the case of loanwords borrowed from Russian. Vowel epenthesis from Russian to Nenets * крупа (krupa) > xurupa "cereals" * класс (klass) > xalas "class" Vowel epenthesis from Russian to Nganasan * бригада (brigada) > birigadә "brigade" * метр (metr) > metәrә "meter" Vowel epenthesis from Russian to Selkup * стекло (stʲeklo) > tʲekɨla "glass" * стол (stol) > istol "table"

Contact with Russian language

Samoyedic languages have experienced significant language contact with Russian to such an extent that members of the Nenets, Selkup, Nganasan, and Enets ethnic groups now often have Russian as a first language, with speakers of Samoyedic languages primarily belonging to elder age groups. Russian loanwords in Samoyedic languages include: колхоз ("collective farm"), машина ("car"), молоко ("milk"), Москва ("Moscow").

Geographical distribution

At present, Samoyed territory extends from the

White Sea The White Sea (; Karelian language, Karelian and ; ) is a southern inlet of the Barents Sea located on the northwest coast of Russia. It is surrounded by Karelia to the west, the Kola Peninsula to the north, and the Kanin Peninsula to the nort ...

to the

Laptev Sea The Laptev Sea () is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean. It is located between the northern coast of Siberia, the Taimyr Peninsula, Severnaya Zemlya, and the New Siberian Islands. Its northern boundary passes from the Arctic Cape to a point with ...

, along the

Arctic The Arctic (; . ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole, lying within the Arctic Circle. The Arctic region, from the IERS Reference Meridian travelling east, consists of parts of northern Norway ( ...

shores of

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

, including southern

Novaya Zemlya Novaya Zemlya (, also , ; , ; ), also spelled , is an archipelago in northern Russia. It is situated in the Arctic Ocean, in the extreme northeast of Europe, with Cape Flissingsky, on the northern island, considered the extreme points of Europe ...

, the

Yamal Peninsula The Yamal Peninsula () is located in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug of northwest Siberia, Russia. It extends roughly 700 km (435 mi) and is bordered principally by the Kara Sea and its Baydaratskaya Bay on the west, and by the G ...

, the mouths of the Ob and the

Yenisei The Yenisey or Yenisei ( ; , ) is the 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 and the Krasnoyarsk Dam b ...

, and into the Taimyr peninsula in northernmost

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 ...

. They are contiguous with the trans-Ural Ugric speakers and the cis-Ural Komi to the south, but they are cut off from the

Baltic Baltic may refer to: Peoples and languages *Baltic languages, a subfamily of Indo-European languages, including Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct Old Prussian *Balts (or Baltic peoples), ethnic groups speaking the Baltic languages and/or originatin ...

Finns by the

Russians Russians ( ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Eastern Europe. Their mother tongue is Russian language, Russian, the most spoken Slavic languages, Slavic language. The majority of Russians adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church ...

in the west. To the east traditionally dwell the northern Turkic Sakha. A substantial Samoyed city grew up at

Mangazeya Mangazeya () was a Northwest Siberian trans- Ural trade colony and later city in the 17th century. Founded in 1600 by Cossacks from Tobolsk, it was situated on the Taz River, between the lower courses of the Ob and Yenisei Rivers flowing int ...

in the 16th century as a trade city, but was destroyed at the beginning of the 17th century. The Southern Samoyedic languages, of which only the

Selkup language Selkup is the group of languages of the Selkups, belonging to the Samoyedic group of the Uralic language family. It is spoken by some 1,570 people (1994 est.) in the region between the Ob and Yenisei Rivers (in Siberia). The language name ''Se ...

has survived to the present day, historically ranged across a wide territory in central Siberia, extending from the basin of the

Ob River The Ob (; ) is a major river in Russia. It is in western Siberia, and with its tributary the Irtysh forms the world's seventh-longest river system, at . The Ob forms at the confluence of the Biya and Katun which have their origins in the Alta ...

in the west to the Sayan-

Baikal Lake Baikal is a rift lake and the deepest lake in the world. It is situated in southern Siberia, Russia between the federal subjects of Irkutsk Oblast to the northwest and the Republic of Buryatia to the southeast. At —slightly larger tha ...

uplands in the east. Records up to the 18th century sporadically report several further entities such as "Abakan", "Kagmasin", "Soyot", though there is no clear evidence for any of these constituting separate languages, and all available data appears to be explainable as these having been simply early forms of Kamassian or Mator. ,

References

External links

* {{Authority control Languages of Russia