Ostyak () is a name formerly used to refer to several

Indigenous peoples There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...

and languages 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 ...

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 ...

. Both the

Khanty people The Khanty (), also known in older literature as Ostyaks (), are a Ob-Ugric languages, Ugric Indigenous people, living in Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug, a region historically known as "Yugra" in Russia, together with the Mansi people, Mansi. I ...

and the

Ket people Kets (; Ket: кето, кет, денг) are a Yeniseian-speaking people in Siberia. During the Russian Empire, they were known as Ostyaks, without differentiating them from several other Siberian people. Later, they became known as ''Yenisei ...

were formerly called Ostyaks, whereas the Selkup people were referred to as Ostyak-Samoyed.

Khanty

The Khanty people, who also call themselves ''Khanti'', ''Khande'', or ''Kantek'' were known to the Russians as ''

Yugra Yugra or Yugor Land (; also spelled ''Iuhra'' in contemporary sources) was a collective name for lands and peoples in the region east of the northern Ural Mountains in modern Russia given by Russian chroniclers in the 12th to 17th centuries. Du ...

'' in the eleventh century, with the name ''Ostyak'' first appearing in the sixteenth century. The

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

began using the

endonym An endonym (also known as autonym ) is a common, name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate them ...

''Khant'' or ''Khanty'' during the 1930s. some 28,000 people identify as Khanty, primarily in

Tyumen Oblast Tyumen Oblast () is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject (an oblast) of Russia. It is located in Western Siberia, and is administratively part of the Ural Federal District. The oblast has administrative jurisdiction over two autonomous ...

, which includes the Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug. The Khanty languages, also known as Hanty, Khant, Xanty, or Ostyak, are a

Uralic language 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 ...

group with about 9,500 native speakers.

Ket

The Kets historically lived near 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 ...

in the

Krasnoyarsk Krai Krasnoyarsk Krai (, ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject (a krai) of Russia located in Siberia. Its administrative center is the types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Krasnoyarsk, the second-largest city in Siberia after ...

district of

. The

Imperial Russia Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor/empress, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imperial, Nebraska * Imperial, Pennsylvania * ...

ns originally called them ''Ostyak'', and later ''Yenisei Ostyak''. Fewer than 1,500 people identified themselves as Ket during the 2002 Russian census. The Ket language, also known as Imbatski-Ket or Yenisei Ostyak, is a Yeniseian language. It is considered severely endangered to moribund.

Selkup

The Selkup people were known as Ostyak-Samoyeds until the 1930s. They are descended from both Yeniseian and

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 ...

, and live in the northern parts of the Siberian plain. About 4,000 people identified as Selkup during the 2002 Russian census. The Selkup language, also known as Selkups, Chumyl' Khumyt, Shöl Khumyt, Shösh Gulla, Syusugulla, or Ostyak Samoyed, is a Uralic Samoyedic language with perhaps two thousand or more native speakers. The northern dialect is taught in some schools.

Khanty

Ket

Selkup

See also

References

Further reading