Enets () is a Samoyedic language of Northern Siberia spoken on the Lower Yenisei within the boundaries of the Taimyr Municipality District, a subdivision of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russian Federation. Enets belongs to the Northern branch of the Samoyedic languages, in turn a branch of the Uralic language family.

Status

In 2010 about 40 people claimed to be native Enets speakers, while in 2020, 69 people claimed to speak Enets natively, while 97 people claimed to know Enets in total.

Older generation still speaks their language, but education is in Russian and very little of Enets language is taught and the language is almost unused in everyday life.

Dialects

There are two distinct dialects, and , which may be considered separate languages.

Tundra Enets is the smaller of the two Enets dialects. In the winter of 2006/2007, approximately 35 people spoke it (6 in Dudinka, 20 in and 10 in Tukhard, the youngest of whom was born in 1962 and the oldest in 1945). Many of these speakers are trilingual, with competence in Forest Enets, Tundra Nenets and Russian, preferring to speak Tundra Nenets.

The two dialects differ both in phonology and in lexicon. Additional variation was found in early Enets records from the 17th to 19th centuries, though all these varieties can be assigned as either Tundra Enets or Forest Enets.

Phonological differences:

  • In some words, Forest Enets corresponds to Tundra Enets (from Proto-Samoyedic *ms, *ns, *rs and *rkʲ).
  • Forest — Tundra 'wind' (from *merse < *märkʲä);
  • Forest — Tundra 'meat' (from *ʊnsa < *əmså);
  • Forest — Tundra 'snow';
  • Forest — Tundra 'pike';
  • Forest — Tundra 'grandmother';
  • In some words, Forest Enets word-initial corresponds to Tundra Enets (from Proto-Samoyedic *a- > *ä-).
  • Certain vowel + glide sequences of Proto-Samoyedic have different reflexes in Forest Enets and Tundra Enets.
  • Forest Enets word-initial corresponds to Tundra Enets .

Lexical differences:

  • Forest — Tundra 'head'
  • Forest — Tundra 'word'
  • Forest — Tundra 'tobacco'
  • Forest — Tundra 'what'

Stress

The type of stress in Enets is quantitative. Stressed vowels are pronounced relatively longer than unstressed vowels. Based on the available data, the stress is not (as a rule) used as a feature for distinguishing the meaning. The stress in a word usually falls on the first vowel. The primary stress usually falls on the first syllable and is accompanied by a secondary stress, which falls on the third and the fifth syllable. Sometimes the stress distinguishes the meaning, e.g. in mo·di ('I') vs. modi· ('shoulder'). (The primary stress is marked by ·). served as supplements for speakers.

In 2019, the Enets alphabet was reformed, and in April 2020, the Enets primer was published in a new version of the alphabet. The alphabet contains the following letters:

{| style="font-size:1.4em; border-color:#000000; border-width:1px; border-style:solid; border-collapse:collapse; background-color:#F8F8EF; text-align:center;"

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |А а

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |Б б

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |В в

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |Г г

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |Д д

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |Е е

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |Ԑ ԑ

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |Ё ё

|-

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |Ж ж

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |З з

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |И и

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |Й й

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |К к

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |Л л

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |М м

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |Н н

|-

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |Ӊ ӊ

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |О о

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |О̂ о̂

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |П п

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |Р р

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |С с

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |Т т

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |У у

|-

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |Ф ф

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |Х х

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |Ц ц

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |Ч ч

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |Ш ш

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |Щ щ

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |ъ

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |Ы ы

|-

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |ь

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |Э э

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |Ю ю

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |Я я

| style="width:3em; padding: 3px;" |ˮ

|}

Grammar

Enets nouns vary for number, case, and person-number of the possessor. There is also an intriguing nominal case in which 'destinativity' determines the entity is destined for someone. Possessor markers are also used for discourse related purposes, where they are completely devoid of the literal possessive meaning. Enets postpositions are marked for person-number; many postpositions are formed from a small set of relational nouns and case morphology.

Morphology

The parts of speech in Enets are: nouns, adjectives, numerals, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, postpositions, conjunctions, interjections and connective particles.-->

</references>

  • Enets bibliography
  • Bibliography on Enets studies
  • Linguistic items (Texts, vocabularies, links, ...)
  • ELAR archive of Enets language documentation materials
  • INEL Enets corpus
  • INEL Enets corpus (online search)
  • http://www.siberianlanguages.surrey.ac.uk/summary/