Status
, Kolyma Yukaghir is a moribund language, with only 50 remaining speakers with the language as their mother tongue. No speakers are monolingual, since all speak Russian and most speak Yakut. The first language for all Yukaghir under 60 is Russian, although many still have Kolyma Yukaghir as a mother tongue, and the average age for fluent, first-language speakers is 63 or more. In the past, multilingualism was common in the region, and Kolyma Yukaghir, Yakut, Even, and Chukchi all served as languages of intercultural communication, depending on the ethnicity of the addressee. Yukaghirs 60 and older follow this custom. Middle-aged Yukaghir, from 41 to 60, still have Yukaghir as their mother tongue and speak to elders in it, although they use Russian for all other communication. The youngest generation of Yukaghir is almost entirely monolingual in Russian, the only language used at school. Although Kolyma Yukaghir has been taught at school since 1985, the youngest generation still know little to none of the language.Classification
The relationship of the Yukaghir languages with other language families is uncertain, though it has been suggested that they are distantly related to the Uralic languages, thus forming the putative Uralic–Yukaghir language family. Kolyma and Tundra Yukaghir are the only two remnants of what used to be one of the dominant language families of northeastern Siberia, spreading from the River Anadyr in the east to the River Lena in the west. On the basis of the evidence of early sources, it can be assumed that there existed a Yukaghir dialect continuum, with what is today Kolyma Yukaghir and Tundra Yukaghir at the extremes. Kolyma Yukaghir and Tundra Yukaghir are not mutually intelligible.Phonology
All charts are from Maslova (2003).Vowels
Kolyma Yukaghir demonstrates contrastive vowel length.Consonants
Kolyma Yukaghir has a glottal stop, but only as a marginal phoneme in some interjections (ex. ''maʔ'': "take!"). , x, ɣ, ç, ʝoccur as allophones of /w, q, ʁ, tɕ, dʑ/. When a labial approximant /w/ occurs at the end of a word, it is pronounced as a When a velar nasal /ŋ/ occurs before a voiced uvular fricative /ʁ/, it becomes a voiced uvular stop � The phonemes /(s) (z)/ only occur in Russian loanwords.Writing system
In the 1980s, (Gavril Kurilov) developed a writing system for the language, based on theGrammar
Both Yukaghir languages have residual vowel harmony and a complex phonotactics of consonants, rich agglutinative morphology and are strictly head-final. They have practically no finite subordination and very few coordinate structures. Yukaghir has a split intransitive alignment system based on discourse-pragmatic features. In absence of narrow focus, the system is organised on a nominative–accusative basis; when focused, direct objects and subjects of intransitive verbs are co-aligned (special focus case, special focus agreement). The grammar of Kolyma Yukaghir, like that of its sibling Tundra Yukaghir, is agglutinative. Most forms of declension in the language come about by means of suffixing, with only a handful of prefixes expressing certain types of grammatical aspect. Word order is usually verb-final, but the overall order of constituents is determined by their pragmatic roles; the language is strongly head-final and is pro-drop. The language exhibits strong dialectal and even idiolectal variation as well as a heavy influence from Russian and Yakut; generational differences in use are also quite distinct. Russian influence is especially strong, with Russian vocabulary borrowed wholesale without any phonological alteration, unlike Yakut borrowings, which are altered to match native Yukaghir phonology.Nouns
Kolyma Yukaghir nouns inflect for number, case and possession according to the following paradigm: ::: The corresponding markers are suffixed to the stem. This nominal morphology is compatible with nouns as well as nominalized verb forms, various pronominal forms and non-possessives. Case, number and possessive forms are shown below with the noun ''āče'' (deer). Number Nouns are inherently singular and marked for plural. This plural affix, -p(ul)- for nouns ending in or and -pe- for all others, comes after the noun stem and before other affixes. With the singular exception of the word ''uø'' (“child”), which becomes ''uø-r-pe'', these plural forms are highly regular. Possessive Possession is expressed via the affix -d(e)-, which is positioned between the noun stem and case ending, in the same position as, and taking the place of, the number suffix. Since possession is expressed independently of grammatical number, the meaning of a fully inflected possessive form can sometimes be ambiguous, as in the example below: ::''ače-p-ki'' ::deer- ::“his/her anydeer” / “their ingledeer” / “their anydeer” Possession in Kolyma Yukaghir can denote in-group membership and kinship roles as well as direct ownership. Case marking and focus Nouns are marked for nine grammatical cases. The nominative is unmarked while the others are expressed via suffix which follows the possessive marker in possessive noun forms. Case is dominated by an ergative system of focus which overrides subsequent case marking in certain instances. For example, in clauses in which the subject is in first or second person and the direct object is in third person, both occur in unmarked Nominative case, as in: ::''met tolow kudede'' ::I() deer() kill() ::“I killed a deer.” Nominative case represents the subject of an intransitive verb or otherwise the agent of a clause, depending upon the context of focus. Noun stems are inherently nominative and unmarked. ::''met tet-ul juø'' ::I() you- see() ::“I saw you.” Predicative case, expressed by the suffix -(le)k, marks the nominative predicate or otherwise the focus of a clause. ::''met tet-in šaqale-lek kej-te-me'' ::I you- fox- give- ::“I will give you a fox.” Accusative refers to the direct object of a transitive verb. It takes the suffix -gele. ::''čolhorā-die-gele tā šašil-ge ī-de-m'' ::hare- there snare- get.caught- ::“He caught the hare in the snare there.” Instrumental case, using the -le suffix implies that the referent is facilitated or acted upon, roughly equivalent to “by means of X” in English. ::''tāt n’umud’ī-le čine-j-m'' :: ax- chop- ::“Then he chopped it with an ax.” In clauses where the direct object is represented by an indefinite nominal predicate, this case is used instead of accusative, as in: ::''tudel tolow-le kudde-m'' ::he() deer- kill- ::“He killed a deer.” Dative case marks the indirect object of a verb using the -ŋin suffix. ::''tintaŋ pulut mon-I šaqale-ŋin'' ::that old.man say- fox- ::“that old man said to the fox” It can also be used with the Russian-borrowed ''do'' (“until”) to form a temporal construction. ::''do ugujel-ŋin mie-de-ŋi'' ::until morning- wait- ::“They waited until the morning.” Comitative case, marked by the suffix -n’e, is used to link constituents or to indicate a secondary actor in a joint or reciprocal event; in this way it is somewhat similar to “X and X” phrases in English. ::''irk-in omnī mod-l’el pulut terike-de-n’e'' ::one- family sit-() old.man old.woman- ::“There lived one family, an old man and his wife.” The Locative case suffix -ge expresses spatial relationships or directed action relating to the English pronominal forms “in,” “below,” “near” and “next to.” ::''irk-in jalhil-ge ninge-j omnī-k ed’-u-t madā-l’el-ŋi-l'' ::one- lake- many- family- ive-reside- ::“There were many people near one lake.” The Ablative case suffix -get indicates movement away from a location. ::''qodōbe-get čirčege-s’'' ::bed- spring.up- ::“He sprang up from the bed.” Finally, the Prolative case suffix -gen signifies movement along or within a location. ::''čuge-de-gen qon-ŋi'' ::trace- go- ::“They went along his trace.”Verbs
As with nouns, verbs in Kolyma Yukaghir are formed by the addition of suffixes to a verb stem. Unlike in English and most other European languages, the difference between these two parts of speech is somewhat indistinct and various markers can nominalize a verb stem. Of note, Kolyma Yukaghir does not feature adjectives as a distinct part of speech; attributive markers are added to verb stems which in turn modify nouns. Verbs inflect to express focus, negation/affirmation, person, aspect and tense according to the following paradigm: ::: Transitive and intransitive verb stems take separate sets of affixes corresponding to the categories in the paradigm above. The entire Transitive Verb paradigm is illustrated below with the verb ''juø'' (“to see”) and the Intransitive paradigm with ''šohie'' (“to disappear”):Personal pronouns
There are three grammatical persons in Kolyma Yukaghir. Plurality is marked by a pronominal stem change. Pronouns are declined in the same way as nouns, for case, possession and number (singular and plural). The complete set of personal pronouns and attendant case suffixes are shown below:Postpositions
Kolyma Yukaghir utilizes postpositions. They can have spatial or temporal meanings (or both), and can take locative suffixes to produce subtle changes in these meanings. In the following examples, the postposition ''jolā'' is translated as either “behind” or “after” depending on the presence of a locative (in this case, prolative) marker: ::''pølbiel jolā tāt abudā-je'' ::hammock behind lie.down- ::“then I lay down behind a hammock” ::''tet jolā-t mit kel-t-īl’i'' ::you behind- we come- ::“We’ll go after you.”Sample text
An interlinear glossed sample: ;Yarqadan Recorded by Ljudmila Zhukova from Ljubov' Demina in 1988.References
;Notes ;Bibliography * Vakhtin, N. B. 1991. ''The Yukaghir language in Sociolinguistic Perspective''. Steszew, Poland: International Institute of Ethnolinguistic and Oriental Studies. * Krejnovich, Eruhim A., ''Jukagirskij jazyk''. Moscow / Leningrad: Nauka (1958). * Maslova, Elena, ''A Grammar of Kolyma Yukaghir'', Mouton Grammar Library, 27 (2003). * Maslova, Elena, ''Tundra Yukaghir'', LINCOM Europa. Languages of the World/Materials 372 (2003). *Nagasaki, I. (2016) “Relative clauses and nominalizations in Kolyma Yukaghir.” ''Studia Orientalia''. 117: 137-151.External links