Talk:Nenets languages

Significant Nenets language usage change

According to Rosstat: In 2010 Nenets language users were counted as 21 926(~50%). In 2020(with was done during covid time with unreliable methods) Nenets language users are now counted as 38 405(77%).
This is significant change in 10 years for any society to change by 20+% in language use - it is so significant, that it should be mentioned in wikipedia.
How it comes, that in 2010 Nenets language was classified as a language on a path to extinction and now it is thriving?
Any comments to this "change"?GrimDawn (talk) 11:45, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Untitled

"Most Nenetses speak Tundra Nenets."
1) I think English plural is just 'Nenets' not 'Neteses'
2) I bet it is intended to say 'Tundra Nenets has the largest group of speakers' or 'The Tundra Nenets speaking community is larger than ...'. Now it says that from a random population, some speak Tundra, others Forest. JAL - 85.223.48.149 19:42, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

actually changed, JAL 85.223.48.149 21:31, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Some of the issue about the nonstandard pronounciation might be fixed through reference to the phonological description here - http://www.helsinki.fi/~tasalmin/sketch.html#phono - although it doesn't help for certain details.

Separate languages

Tundra Nenets and Forest Nenets should really be treated as separate languages. I propose making a new article for 'Forest Nenets language' and renaming this one 'Tundra Nenets language'. Chamdarae 09:14, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

I agree. However, I would rather say that the current page should be moved to "Nenets languages", and then two new, separated pages should be created, "Forest Nenets" and "Tundra Nenets." There is some material freely available on the internet, so it shouldn't be a problem giving at least some descriptions of the languages. The phonology of "Forest Nenets" has already been described based on Salminen (2007), and the phonology of "Tundra Nenets" may be based on Körtvély (2005). -- Llonydd (talk) 12:42, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Llonydd, as that seems the appropriate thing to do. --JorisvS (talk) 11:30, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Final separation

I have finally separated the languages. The Nenets language page now includes a brief description of both of the languages, and the Forest Nenets language-page consists of most of the information which was found in on the original page, while Tundra Nenets language consists of completely new information I have written myself. Actually, I would have moved the Nenets language page to Nenets languages, but so many pages are linking to the Nenets language page, so I kept its name to avoid double redirects - I do however state very clearly in the beginning that it is in fact two languages. A future move would be in its right place in my opinion. Note that the Forest Nenets language-page needs a huge cleanup - especially the charts should be updated, and some of the information as well. -- Llonydd (talk) 07:11, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

'parka'

This article says that the English word 'parka' (a type of coat) is a Nenets loanword. However, the article for 'Anorak' says the word 'parka' is from Aleut. Which is correct? Or does the word 'parka' exist in both languages? (Are they closely related?) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.147.161.190 (talk) 16:06, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

The Aleut and Nenets languages are not related. Coroboy (talk) 17:57, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

The word parka is from the Aleut language and was adopted into the English language through the Russian language. I believe the Nenets word, parka, if there even is such word in the language, is a loanword from Russian and I guess that Games (2007), who is cited in the article, has incorrectly assumed that it was the other way around, that parka was adopted into Russian from Nenets, and then later into English. -- Llonydd (talk) 12:42, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

The article still says parka is from Nenets. Do you have a source? Then we can fix it, tell this in the article. I hate to see the article keep telling lies...--JorisvS (talk) 18:02, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Tereschenko's Nenets-Russian dictionary (Терещенко, Н. М. (1965). Ненецко-русский словарь [Nenets-Russian dictionary]. Moscow: Советская Энциклопедия, 1965. p. 448) lists «парка» as a Nenets word (but gives no indication whether the Russian word «парка» is derived from it, or vice versa). Merriam Webster's dictionary entry for "parka" gives the origin of the word as "Aleut, from Russian dial., ultimately from Nenets". Coroboy (talk) 17:57, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

An Uralic etymology has been proposed for Nenets parka, as this corresponds to Finnish parka "poor thing; rags, swaddling clothes". (Granted, we may be skeptical of the Proto-Uralicity of a word found only at the extremes of the family, but at minimum, the difference in meaning shows that even if it is ultimately a Wanderwort from somewhere else, it has existed in the Uralic area reasonably long.) --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 20:25, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

Nganasan

Regarding the English word 'Nganasan':

1) Нуприянава, З. Н.; Бармич, М. Я.; Хомич, Л. В. (1985). Ненецкий язык: Учебное пособие для педагогических училищ [Nenets language: training text book for teachers colleges], 4th edn. Leningrad: Просвещение. p. 3 says that the Nenets name for the Nganasan people is «тавысˮ».

2) Tereschenko's Nenets-Russian dictionary (see above) does not list the word «ӈанасан» (p. 382), but it does list the word «тавысˮ» with the meaning "Nganasan people" (p. 614).

I will rewrite the paragraph accordingly. Coroboy (talk) 17:57, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

/ø/?

What is it with the /ø/ in the block in the vowel section, which isn't described nor can be found in the table? --JorisvS (talk) 11:53, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

It is a so-called reduced vowel as it is also suggested in the table. I was working on the phonologyy and orthography of Nenets (or rather Tundra Nenets) some weeks ago, and I kept stumbling upon this reduced vowel, but I haven't managed to find anything but confusing descriptions about it. Apparently, the schwa is derived from it, and the reduced vowel itself is derived from a full vowel, if in stressed position, and derived from /a/ when in unstressed position. Tapani Salminen seems to make a distinction between the two, <ø> in stressed position and <â> in unstressed position, but in the original Cyrillic orthography there is no distinction, and many other linguists make no distinction either. I saw in a paper <â> being transcribed as [a] or [ɑ], which was in contrast to the plain <a> which is [ɑː], so <ø> may be a short counterpart to whatever other vowel it might have been, but this seems strange, as there is no way to find the original vowel quality using this orthography. I don't really think the reduced vowel is yet understood, or at least it hasn't been properly described in any of the papers I have managed to obtain. -- Llonydd (talk) 13:18, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Looking through my notes and the papers again I just found a nota bene, in the paper On identifying basic vowel distinctions in Tundra Nenets by Tapani Salminen, stating that the "[...] the symbol "â" needs to be completely replaced with "a" and its alleged connection to "the reduced vowel phoneme" regarded as obsolete; the remaining "reduced vowel" symbolized with "ø" is now better called the 'short vowel'" So it seems like my thought were right: the <ø> is just to be seen as the short counterpart of the underlying vowel.

The page really needs a cleanup, and I still think it should be split into Forest Nenets language and Tundra Nenets language. The information on the current page should be used on the Forest Nenets page, and I already have some information ready for the yet to be created Tundra Nenets page, mostly regarding the phonology and orthography (as I mentioned earlier). I haven't got much time at the moment, but I will start working on it as soon as I have got some time on my hands again, unless somebody beats me to it. -- Llonydd (talk) 13:25, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Done. -- Llonydd (talk) 07:42, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Great, very great, the split and the added info about /ø/. I renamed this page; it needs some additional cleanup now, as should be evident. --JorisvS (talk) 13:10, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Yurak

Yurak is an alternative expression, used e.g. by such famous scholars as Björn Collinder 1977, or Karoly Rédey 1988.HJJHolm (talk) 08:17, 10 July 2012 (UTC)