Samoyedic languages

The Samoyedic languages are spoken on both sides of the Ural mountains, in northernmost Eurasia, by perhaps 30,000 speakers altogether.

Together with the Finno-Ugric languages they form the Uralic language family.

Classification

The language and respective ethnic groups include:

Northern Samoyedic

• Enets (Yenets, Yenisei-Samoyed), the tribe by the Yenisei River, spoken by the Enets people
• Nenets (Yurak), spoken by the Nenets people
• Nganasan (Tavgy, Tavgi , Tawgi, Tawgi-Samoyed), spoken by the Nganasan people
• Yurats, formerly spoken in the Yenisei River region

Southern Samoyedic

• Kamassian (Kamas)
• Mator (Motor)
• Selkup (Ostyak-Samoyed), also called Ostyak Samoyeds; the name can cause certain confusion, because some observers labelled the Khants with the name Ostyaks,

Geographical Distribution

Samoyed territory extends from the White Sea to the Laptev Sea, along the Arctic shores of European Russia, including southern Novaya Zemlya, the Yamal Peninsula , the mouths of the Ob and the Yenisei and into the Taimyr peninsula in northernmost Siberia. Their economy is based on reindeer herding. They are contiguous with the trans-Ural Ugric speakers and the cis-Ural Permic Finns to the south, but they are cut off from the Baltic Finns by the Russians in the west and, in the east, by the north Turkic Yakut from the Yukaghir. A substantial Samoyed city grew up at Mangazeya in 16th century as a trade city, to be destroyed at the beginning of the 17th century.

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