Nenets languages

Nenets (in former work also Yurak) is a pair of closely related languages spoken in northern <a href="/facts/Russia/jfkCwyxn">Russia</a> by the <a href="/facts/Nenets_people/8tLlNYoc">Nenets people</a>. They are often treated as being two <a href="/facts/Dialect/gJ7uQQoj">dialects</a> of the same language, but they are very different and <a href="/facts/Mutual_intelligibility/h1SbX0wN">mutual intelligibility</a> is low. The languages are <a href="/facts/Tundra_Nenets_language/Q7mgPYWm">Tundra Nenets</a>, which has a higher number of speakers, spoken by some 30,000 to 40,000 people in an area stretching from the <a href="/facts/Kanin_Peninsula/IthWS5pn">Kanin Peninsula</a> to the <a href="/facts/Yenisei_River/zac3FKDo">Yenisei River</a>, and <a href="/facts/Forest_Nenets_language/3y9ulTIy">Forest Nenets</a>, spoken by 1,000 to 1,500 people in the area around the <a href="/facts/Agan_River/mP54IUyH">Agan</a>, <a href="/facts/Pur_River_(Russia)/Q3KafASd">Pur</a>, <a href="/facts/Lyamin_River/d8e7ASXx">Lyamin</a> and <a href="/facts/Nadym_River/J7QIaFdx">Nadym rivers</a>.
The Nenets languages are classified in the <a href="/facts/Uralic_languages/4K0r9XRI">Uralic language family</a>, making them distantly related to some national languages spoken in Europe – namely <a href="/facts/Finnish_language/lBuEIgs0">Finnish</a>, <a href="/facts/Estonian_language/ywCJos4e">Estonian</a>, and <a href="/facts/Hungarian_language/nt4g0ano">Hungarian</a> – in addition to other minority languages spoken in Russia. Both of the Nenets languages have been greatly influenced by <a href="/facts/Russian_language/ETXrTgHV">Russian</a>. <a href="/facts/Tundra_Nenets_language/Q7mgPYWm">Tundra Nenets</a> has, to a lesser degree, been influenced by <a href="/facts/Komi_language/qJwlzNhW">Komi</a> and <a href="/facts/Khanty_language/drDgfCI2">Northern Khanty</a>. <a href="/facts/Forest_Nenets_language/3y9ulTIy">Forest Nenets</a> has also been influenced by <a href="/facts/Khanty_language/drDgfCI2">Eastern Khanty</a>. Tundra Nenets is well documented, considering its status as an <a href="/facts/Indigenous_language/9wq76ErQ">indigenous</a> and <a href="/facts/Minority_language/jN1xCGGb">minority language</a>. It has a literary tradition going back to the 1930s, while Forest Nenets was first written during the 1990s and has been little documented.
Apart from the word 'Nenets', only one other Nenets word has entered the <a href="/facts/English_language/tpkxGt7b">English language</a>: '<a href="/facts/Parka/87o20Ytw">parka</a>', their traditional long, hooded jacket, made from skins and sometimes fur.

Nenets languages open-in-new

Nenets languages