Yurats (Yurak) was a Samoyedic language spoken in the

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 ...

n tundra west of the

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 ...

. It became extinct in the early 19th century, due to the expansion of 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 ...

. Yurats was probably either a transitional variety connecting the

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 ...

and

Enets language Enets is a Samoyedic language of Northern Siberia spoken on the Lower Yenisei within the boundaries of the Taimyr Municipality District, a subdivision of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russian Federation. Enets belongs to the Northern branch of the Samoy ...

s of the Samoyedic family, or an archaic dialect of Enets. While it is marginally closer to Enets rather than Nenets, it does not show a majority of either Enets or Nenets features. Some eastern dialects of Tundra Nenets may have a Yurats substrate, as the Yurats were likely absorbed by the Tundra Nenets. The uncertainty regarding the language's status is due to the scarcity of information about the language. Nevertheless, ''

Glottolog ''Glottolog'' is an open-access online bibliographic database of the world's languages. In addition to listing linguistic materials ( grammars, articles, dictionaries) describing individual languages, the database also contains the most up-to-d ...

'' considers it to be a dialect of Tundra Nenets, as is the traditional assumption.

References

External links

UNESCO red book entry
(144K)
Dictionary of the Samoyedic languages (includes Yurats)
Northern Samoyedic languages Extinct languages of Asia Languages extinct in the 19th century Indigenous languages of Siberia {{Uralic-lang-stub