Nenets (; in former work also Yurak) is a pair of closely related languages spoken in northern Russia by the Nenets people. They are often treated as being two dialects of the same language, but they are very different and mutual intelligibility is low. The languages are Tundra Nenets, which has a higher number of speakers, spoken by some 30,000 to 40,000 people in an area stretching from the Kanin Peninsula to the Yenisei River, and Forest Nenets, spoken by 1,000 to 1,500 people in the area around the Agan, Pur, Lyamin and Nadym rivers.
Common features of Nenets languages
Tundra Nenets has 16 moods, most of which reflect different degrees of certainty in what in English might be called indicative statements or different degrees of force in what in English might be called imperative commands. An overarching feature of the Nenets languages is the introduction of systematic palatalization of almost all consonants. This originates from contrasts between different vowel qualities in the Proto-Samoyedic language.
- *Cä, *Ca → *Cʲa, *Ca
- *Ce, *Cë → *Cʲe, *Ce
- *Ci, *Cï → *Cʲi, *Ci
- *Cö, *Co → *Cʲo, *Co
- *Cü, *Cu → *Cʲu, *Cu
The velar consonants *k and *ŋ were additionally shifted to *sʲ and *nʲ when palatalized.
Similar changes have also occurred in the other Samoyedic languages spoken in the tundra zone: Enets, Nganasan and the extinct Yurats.
Differences between Tundra and Forest Nenets
Tundra Nenets generally has remained closer to Proto-Nenets than Forest Nenets, whose phonology has been influenced by eastern Khanty dialects. Changes towards the modern languages include: