Selkup language is the

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...

of the Selkups, belonging to the Samoyedic group of the

Uralic language family The Uralic languages (; sometimes called Uralian languages ) form a language family of 38 languages spoken by approximately 25million people, predominantly in Northern Eurasia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian ...

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

Yenisei River The Yenisey (russian: Енисе́й, ''Yeniséy''; mn, Горлог мөрөн, ''Gorlog mörön''; Buryat: Горлог мүрэн, ''Gorlog müren''; Tuvan: Улуг-Хем, ''Uluğ-Hem''; Khakas: Ким суғ, ''Kim suğ''; Ket: Ӄук, ...

s (in

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 ...

). The language name ''Selkup'' comes from the Russian "", based on the native name used in the Taz dialect, шӧльӄумыт әты ''šöľqumyt әty'', lit. ''forest-man language''. Different

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is ...

s use different names. Selkup is fractured in an extensive

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated vari ...

whose ends are no longer

mutually intelligible In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as a ...

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

written language A written language is the representation of a spoken or gestural language by means of a writing system. Written language is an invention in that it must be taught to children, who will pick up spoken language or sign language by exposure eve ...

in the 1930s, Tym (Central) dialect (, ''tymsky dialekt''), and

Ket Kentucky Educational Television (KET) is a state network of PBS member television stations serving the U.S. Commonwealth of Kentucky. It is operated by the Kentucky Authority for Educational Television, an agency of the Kentucky state governme ...

dialect (, ''ketsky dialekt''). It is not related to the Ket language.

Phonology

There are 25

vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (len ...

and 16

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced w ...

phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...

s in the Taz dialect. * Voicing is not phonemic. Stops and fricatives may be voiced between vowels or after

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 ar ...

consonants. * The palatalized stop and fricative , are most typically rendered as an alveolo-palatal

affricate An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pai ...

and fricative . Depending on the speaker, the former can be also realized as the stop , the latter as a non-palatalized fricative, postalveolar or retroflex . * Before

front vowel A front vowel is a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages, its defining characteristic being that the highest point of the tongue is positioned as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would otherw ...

s, palatalized variants of other consonants are also found. * and are allophones of when occurring before nasals and liquids, respectively. * The non-coronal stops , , have optional fricative allophones , , when occurring before or . *

Vowel length In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word ...

is phonemic. alone, deriving from proto-Selkup , has no short counterpart. * The

tenseness In phonology, tenseness or tensing is, most broadly, the pronunciation of a sound with greater muscular effort or constriction than is typical. More specifically, tenseness is the pronunciation of a vowel with less centralization (i.e. either mo ...

contrast, an innovation of northern Selkup, is independent of length (e.g. all contrast). * The full range of vowel quality contrasts is only possible in the initial syllable of a word: in later syllables, of either length do not occur, nor does long . (Shown on a darker gray background.) * The non-phonemic lax central vowel only occurs in unstressed non-first syllables; it is normally treated equivalent with short tense . Selkup has a syllable structure (C)V(C). Word-initial and word-final or do not occur. Various

consonant cluster In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound, is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education fie ...

s and

geminate In phonetics and phonology, gemination (), or consonant lengthening (from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...

consonants such as may occur, though many potential combinations occurring morphologically are simplified.

Stress Stress may refer to: Science and medicine * Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition * Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...

in Selkup is marginally phonemic. Generally the rightmost long vowel in a word is stressed, or otherwise the first syllable, but certain suffixes with short vowels may acquire stress, leading to minimal pairs such as "to stamp down" vs. "to stamp once".

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 Languages of Russia Southern Samoyedic languages Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug Selkup people