Even language
Even | |
---|---|
эвэды торэн (evedy toren) | |
Native to | Russia |
Region | Russian Far East |
Ethnicity | 21,800 Evens (2010 census)[1] |
Native speakers | 5,700 (2010 census)[1] |
Tungusic
| |
Cyrillic | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | eve |
Glottolog | even1260 |
ELP | Even |
Even is classified as Severely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
The Even language
In the regions where the Evens primarily reside, the Even language is generally taught in pre-school and elementary school alongside the national language,
The syntax of the Even language follows the nominative case and subject-object-verb (SOV) word order, with the attribute preceding the dependent member.[4]
Language contact
In some remote Arctic villages, such as Russkoye Ustye, whose population descended from Russian-Even intermarriage, the language spoken into the 20th century was a dialect of Russian with a strong Even influence.[5]
Phonology
Front | Central | Back | |
---|---|---|---|
Close | i iː ɪ ɪː |
u uː ʊ ʊː | |
Mid | e eː | ə əː | o oː ɔ ɔː |
Open | a aː |
Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Glottal | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Nasal | m | n
|
ɲ | ŋ | |||
Plosive/ Affricate |
voiceless | p | t
|
t͡ʃ | k ~ (q) | ||
voiced | b | d
|
d͡ʒ | g ~ (ɣ) | |||
Fricative | s | h | |||||
Rhotic | r
|
||||||
Approximant | ʋ ~ w | l
|
j |
[q], and [ɣ] are allophones of /k/ and /g/, respectively.[7]
Morphology and syntax
Even parts of speech include
Nouns in Even are marked for 13
Verbs can be conjugated with prefixes for 15 aspects and feature 6 distinctions in voice, with specific negative and interrogative forms. There are 14 ways to form participles, 8 being transgressives.
Orthography
At present, Even writing functions in Cyrillic. There are 3 stages in the history of Even writing:
- until the early 1930s, early attempts to create a written language based on the Cyrillic alphabet;
- 1931-1937 - writing on the Latin basis;
- since 1937 - modern writing based on the Cyrillic alphabet.
Modern Even alphabet
А а | Б б | В в | Г г | Д д | Е е | Ё ё | Ж ж | З з | |||
И и | Й й | К к | Л л | М м | Н н | Ӈ ӈ
|
О о | Ө ө
|
|||
Ӫ ӫ
|
П п | Р р | С с | Т т | У у | Ф ф | Х х | Ц ц | |||
Ч ч | Ш ш | Щ щ | Ъ ъ | Ы ы | Ь ь | Э э | Ю ю | Я я |
Long vowels are indicated by a macron above the corresponding letter.
References
- ^ a b Even at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ "Even (Lamut) language and alphabet". www.omniglot.com. Retrieved 2017-02-08.
- ^ Raymond G. Gordon Jr., ed. 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 15th edition. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
- ^ a b "Endangered Languages of Siberia - The Even Language". lingsib.iea.ras.ru. Retrieved 2017-02-09.
- ^ Russian dialects in East Siberia and Kamchatka. Reviews such publications as: A. Krasovitsky and Ch. Sappok. "The Isolated Russian Dialectal System in Contact with Tungus Languages in Siberia and Far East"; A.Krasovitsky. "Prosody of Statements in the Speech of Old Settlers in the Polar Region".
- ^ Kim, Juwon. 2011.
- ^ Aralova, Natalia (2015). Vowel harmony in two Even dialects: Production and perception.
External links
- Endangered Languages of Siberia - The Even Language
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Even language
- Vergleich der Reziproken des Ewenischen mit verwandten Sprachen
- А. А. Бурыкин (2001). Язык малочисленного народа в его письменной форме : На материале эвенского языка : диссертация ... доктора филологических наук. СПб.
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