| Northern Yukaghir | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Russia | |
| Region: | Yakutia and the Kamchatka Peninsula | |
| Total speakers: | 30–150 | |
| Language family: | Yukaghir Northern Yukaghir |
|
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | mis | |
| ISO 639-3: | ykg | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
The Northern or Tundra Yukaghir language is one of only two Yukaghir languages. Last spoken in the tundra belt extending between the lower Indigirka to the lower Kolyma basin (). Formerly spoken in a much wider area extending to the Lena basin in the west.
Contents |
| А а | Аа аа | Б б | В в | Г г | Ғ ғ | Д д | Дь дь |
| Е е | Ё ё | Ж ж | З з | И и | Ии ии | Иэ иэ | Й й |
| К к | Л л | Ль ль | М м | Н н | Нь нь | Ң ң | О о |
| Оо оо | Ӧ ӧ | П п | Р р | С с | Сь сь | Т т | У у |
| Уу уу | Уӧ уӧ | Ф ф | Х х | Ц ц | Ч ч | Ш ш | Щ щ |
| Ъ ъ | Ы ы | Ь ь | Э э | Ю ю | Я я |
| Front | back | |
|---|---|---|
| Close | i, iː | u, uː |
| Mid | e, eː ø, øː |
o, oː |
| Open | a, aː | |
The long mid vowels /eː øː oː/ are realized as diphthongs when stressed: they are [ie uø uo], respectively.
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plosive | p | b | t | d | tʲ | dʲ | k | g | q | |
| Fricative | s | ʁ¹ | ||||||||
| Nasal | m | n | nʲ | ŋ | ||||||
| Lateral | l | lʲ | ||||||||
| Trill | r | |||||||||
| Semivowel | w | j | ||||||||
¹The uvular fricative /ʁ/ is realized as a stop [ɢ] after /ŋ/.
Syllable structure is CVC, i.e. up to one consonant can occur at the beginning or end of a word, and up to two in the middle.
Northern Yukaghir is largely head-final and dependent-marking: the default position for the verb is at the end of the clause, nouns are marked for case, adjectives precede nouns and relative clauses precede main clauses.
Case assignment for core participants behaves in a broadly split-intransitive manner, though actual assignment is very complex, involving semantic role, focus, relative animacy of the participants (first or second person versus third), and nature of the noun itself. The assigned cases are primary (used for focused or high animacy nominative arguments), neutral (for low animacy nominative arguments and high animacy accusative ones), and focus case (most focused accusative arguments). Indexation of arguments on the verb is similarly conditioned by focus and animacy, as well as mood.
Oblique cases include dative, instrumental, comitative, locative, ablative, prolative, and transformative, the latter indicating the inteded use or function of an argument.
There is limited incorporation, used in reflexive constructions.
Northern Yukaghir verbs are marked for switch reference. Besides indicating whether the verb of a following clause shares the same subject, the switch-reference markers also describe the temporal relationship between clauses, the connection between the actions involved, and in the case of different subjects, the person (first or second versus third) and number of the subject.