Yukaghir languages
The Yukaghir languages (/ˈjuːkəɡɪər/ YOO-kə-geer or /juːkəˈɡɪər/ yoo-kə-GEER; also Yukagir, Jukagir) are a small family of two closely related languages—Tundra and Kolyma Yukaghir—spoken by the Yukaghir in the Russian Far East living in the basin of the Kolyma River. At the 2002 Russian census, both Yukaghir languages taken together had 604 speakers. More recent reports from the field reveal that this number is far too high: Southern Yukaghir had maximum 60 fluent speakers in 2009, while the Tundra Yukaghir language had around 60–70. The entire family is thus to be regarded as moribund. The Yukaghir have experienced a politically imposed language shift in recent times, and a majority also speak Russian and Yakut.
| Yukaghir | |
|---|---|
| Ethnicity | Yukaghirs, Chuvans, Anauls |
| Geographic distribution | Russian Far East |
| Linguistic classification | ? Uralic–Yukaghir; Otherwise one of the world's primary language families |
| Proto-language | Proto-Yukaghir |
| Subdivisions | |
| Glottolog | yuka1259 |
Extent of Yukaghir languages in the 17th (hatched) and 20th (solid) centuries | |
In the Russian 2020-2021 census, 516 people reported speaking a Yukaghir language as their native language.