Eastern Khanty language

Eastern Khanty is a Uralic language, frequently considered a dialect of a Khanty language, spoken by about 1,000 people.^[4][5][6][7] The majority of these speakers speak the Surgut dialect, as the Vakh-Vasyugan and Salym varieties have been rapidly declining in favor of Russian.^[8] The former two have been used as literary languages since the late 20th century, with Surgut being more widely used due to its less isolated location and higher number of speakers.^[8]

Eastern Khanty
қӑнтәк кӧԯ (ӄӑнтәк кӧԓ) ḳăntək köł[note 1] (Surgut dialect) Ӄӑнтәӽ
Native to	Russia
Region	Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug
Ethnicity	<1,000 eastern Khanty[1]
Native speakers	~1,000 (2019–2025)[2][3]
Language family	Uralic Finno-Ugric? Ugric? Khanty Eastern Khanty
Dialects	Salym Surgut Vakh-Vasyugan
Writing system	Cyrillic
Official status
Recognised minority language in	Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug (all Khanty varieties)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Linguist List	1ok
	kca-eas
Glottolog	east2774  Eastern Khanty
ELP	Eastern Khanty Eastern Khanty
Map of Khanty and Mansi varieties in the early 20th century, with   Eastern Khanty

Classification

Dialects

Classification of Eastern Khanty dialects:^[9]

• Far Eastern (Vakh, Vasjugan, Verkhne-Kalimsk, Vartovskoe)
• Surgut (Jugan, Malij Jugan, Pim, Likrisovskoe, Tremjugan-Tromagan^[10])

The Vakh, Vasyugan, Alexandrovo and Yugan (Jugan) dialects have less than 300 speakers in total.^[1]

Transitional

The Salym dialect can be classified as transitional between Eastern and Southern (Honti 1998 suggests closer affinity with Eastern, Abondolo 1998 in the same work with Southern). The Atlym and Nizyam dialects also show some Southern features.

Phonology

Eastern Khanty [k] corresponds to [x] in the northern and southern languages.

Vakh

Vakh has the richest vowel inventory, with five reduced vowels /ĕ ø̆ ə̆ ɑ̆ ŏ/ and full /i y ɯ u e ø o æ ɑ/. Some researchers also report /œ ɔ/.^[11][12]

Vakh Khanty consonants^[13]

	Bilabial	Dental	Palatal/ized	Retroflex	Velar
Nasal	m	n	nʲ	ɳ	ŋ
Plosive	p	t	tʲ		k
Affricate			tʃ
Fricative		s			ɣ
Lateral		l	lʲ	ɭ
Trill		r
Semivowel	w		j

Surgut

Surgut Khanty has five reduced vowels /æ̆ ə̆ ɵ̆ ʉ̆ ɑ̆ ŏ/ and full vowels /i e a ɒ o u ɯ/.^[14]

Surgut Khanty consonants^[14]

		Bilabial	Dental / Alveolar	Palatal/ized	Post- alveolar	Velar	Uvular
Nasal		m	n̪	nʲ		ŋ
Plosive / Affricate		p	t̪	tʲ ~ tɕ[a]	tʃ	k[b]	q[b]
Fricative	central		s		(ʃ)[c]		ʁ
	lateral		ɬ[d]	ɬʲ
Approximant		w	l	j			(ʁ̞ʷ)[e]
Trill			r

1. /tʲ/ can be realized as an affricate [tɕ] in the Tremjugan and Agan sub-dialects.
2. The velar/uvular contrast is predictable in inherited vocabulary: [q] appears before back vowels, [k] before front and central vowels. However, in loanwords from Russian, [k] may also be found before back vowels.
3. The phonemic status of [ʃ] is not clear. It occurs in some words in variation with [s], in others in variation with [tʃ].
4. In the Pim sub-dialect, /ɬ/ has recently shifted to /t/, a change that has spread from Southern Khanty.
5. The labialized postvelar approximant [ʁ̞ʷ] occurs in the Tremjugan sub-dialect as an allophone of /w/ between back vowels, for some speakers also word-initially before back vowels. Research from the early 20th century also reported two other labialized phonemes: /kʷ~qʷ/ and /ŋʷ/, but these are no longer distinguished.

Alphabet

Surgut alphabet^[15] (ԯ ң typeface)

А а	Ӑ ӑ	Ӓ ӓ	В в	И и	Й й	К к	Қ қ	Л л
Љ љ	Ԯ ԯ	М м	Н н	Њ њ	Ң ң	О о	Ө ө	Ө̆ ө̆
Ӧ ӧ	П п	Р р	С с	Т т	Ᲊ ᲊ	У у	Ў ў	Ӱ ӱ
Ҳ ҳ	Ҷ ҷ	Ш ш	Ы ы	Э э	Ә ә

The Khanty letters with a tick or tail at bottom, namely Қ Ԯ Ң Ҳ Ҷ, are sometimes rendered with a diagonal tail, i.e. ⟨Ӆ Ӊ⟩, and sometimes with a curved tail, i.e. ⟨Ӄ Ӈ Ԓ Ӽ⟩. However, in the case of Surgut such graphic variation needs to be handled by the font, because there are no Unicode characters to hard-code Ҷ with a diagonal tail, and Unicode has refused a request to encode a variant of Ҷ with a curved tail ( , approximated in unicode as Ч̡ч̡), the reasoning being that it would be an allograph rather than a distinct letter. (The same is true of the other curved-tail variants in Unicode; those were encoded by mistake.)^[16]

Grammar

The Vakh dialect is divergent. It has rigid vowel harmony and a tripartite (ergative–accusative) case system, where the subject of a transitive verb takes the instrumental case suffix -nə-, while the object takes the accusative case suffix. The subject of an intransitive verb, however, is not marked for case and might be said to be absolutive. The transitive verb agrees with the subject, as in nominative–accusative systems.

Vocabulary

Numerals

Surgut Khanty numerals

No.	Numerals
1	əj (attributive), əj-əɬ (non-attributive)
2	kȧt (attributive), kȧt-ɣən (non-attributive)
3	qoɬəm
4	ńəɬə
5	wä̌t
6	qut
7	ɬȧpət
8	ńyɬəɣ
9	irjeŋ
10	jeŋ
11	jeŋ ü̆rəkkə əj
12	jeŋ ü̆rəkkə kȧt-ɣən
20	qos
25	qos ü̆rəkkə wä̌t
30	qoɬəm jeŋ
31	qoɬəm jeŋ əj
40	ńəɬ jeŋ
42	ńəɬə jeŋ kȧtɣən
80	ńyɬ sɔt
100	sɔt
255	kȧt sɔtɣən wä̌t jeŋ wä̌t
800	ńyɬəɣ sɔt
1000	ťǒras
30943	qoɬəm jeŋ ťŏrȧs irjeŋ sɔt ńəɬə jeŋ qoɬəm

References

1. Filʹchenko, A. I︠U︡ (2010). Aspect of the grammar of Eastern Khanty. Tomsk: Tomsk State Pedagogical University. ISBN 978-5-89428-315-9.
2. "Вах-васюганский хантыйский язык | Малые языки России". minlang.iling-ran.ru. Retrieved 2025-02-13.
3. "Сургутско-хантыйский язык | Малые языки России". minlang.iling-ran.ru. Retrieved 2025-02-13.
4. "Endangered languages in Northeast Asia: report". University of Helsinki. 2019-02-11. Archived from the original on February 11, 2019. Retrieved 2024-06-23.
5. "Вах-васюганский хантыйский язык | Малые языки России". minlang.iling-ran.ru. Retrieved 2024-08-31.
6. "Сургутско-хантыйский язык | Малые языки России". minlang.iling-ran.ru. Retrieved 2024-08-31.
7. "Хантыйский язык" [Khanty language]. Историческая энциклопедия Сибири (in Russian). Новосибирск. 2009.{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
8. Salminen, Tapani (2023). "Demography, endangerment, and revitalization". In Abondolo, Daniel Mario; Valijärvi, Riitta-Liisa (eds.). The Uralic languages. Routledge Language Family (2nd ed.). London New York: Routledge. p. 103. ISBN 978-1-138-65084-8.
9. Honti, László (1981), "Ostjakin kielen itämurteiden luokittelu", Congressus Quintus Internationalis Fenno-Ugristarum, Turku 20.-27. VIII. 1980, Turku: Suomen kielen seura, pp. 95–100
10. Abondolo & Valijärvi 2023.
11. Abondolo 1998, p. 360.
12. Filchenko 2007.
13. Honti 1998, p. 338.
14. Csepregi 1998, pp. 12–13.
15. Volkova, Anisʹja Nikolaevna; Solovar, Valentina Nikolaevna (2018). Chantyjsko-russkij tematičeskij slovarʹ: (surgutskij dialekt): bolee 3000 slov Хантыйско-русский тематический словарь (сургутский диалект) более 3000 слов. Sankt-Peterburg: Izdatelʹstvo RGPU im. A.I. Gercena. ISBN 978-5-8064-2560-8.
16. L2/23-015 Comments on CYRILLIC CHE WITH HOOK’s use in Khanty and Tofa (Tofalar) (L2/22-280).

Notes

1. Wiktionary Khanty transliteration

Sources

• Bakró-Nagy, Marianne; Laakso, Johanna; Skribnik, Elena, eds. (2022-03-24). The Oxford Guide to the Uralic Languages. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oso/9780198767664.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-876766-4.
• Abondolo, Daniel (1998). "Khanty". In Abondolo, Daniel (ed.). The Uralic Languages.
• Honti, László (1998). "ObUgrian". In Abondolo, Daniel (ed.). The Uralic Languages.
• Csepregi, Márta (1998). Szurguti osztják chrestomathia (PDF). Studia Uralo-Altaica Supplementum. Vol. 6. Szeged. Retrieved 2014-10-11.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Filchenko, Andrey Yury (2007). A grammar of Eastern Khanty (Doctor of Philosophy thesis). Rice University. hdl:1911/20605.
• Gulya, János (1966). Eastern Ostyak chrestomathy. Indiana University Publications, Uralic and Altaic series. Vol. 51.
• Abondolo, Daniel Mario; Valijärvi, Riitta-Liisa, eds. (2023). The Uralic languages. Routledge language family (2nd ed.). Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-315-62509-6.