Ket language
| Ket | |
|---|---|
| Ostyganna qa' | |
| Native to | Russia |
| Region | Krasnoyarsk Krai |
| Ethnicity | 1,220 Ket people (2010 census) |
|
Native speakers
|
210 (2010) |
|
Dené–Yeniseian?
|
|
| Cyrillic | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | kett1243 |
The Ket /ˈkɛt/ language, or more specifically Imbak and formerly known as Yenisei Ostyak /ˈɒstiæk/, is a Siberian language long thought to be an isolate, the sole surviving language of a Yeniseian language family. It is spoken along the middle Yenisei basin by the Ket people.
The language is threatened with extinction—the number of ethnic Kets that are native speakers of the language dropped from 1,225 in 1926 to 537 in 1989. According to the UNESCO census, this number has since fallen to 150. There was a 2005 census reporting 485, but it is suspected to be inflated. Another Yeniseian language, Yugh, is believed to have recently become extinct.
Attempts have been made by Soviet scholars to establish a relationship with either Burushaski or the Sino-Tibetan languages, and it frequently forms part of the Dene–Caucasian hypothesis. None of these attempts has been conclusive. Joseph Greenberg proposed a link between Ket and other Yeniseian languages and the Na-Dene language group of North America in his final study of Eurasiatic languages. In February 2008, the linguist Edward Vajda also submitted a paper on the proposed link between Ket with the Na-Dene languages. Now published in 2010, Vajda's paper has been favorably reviewed by several experts on Na-Dene and Yeniseian languages, including Michael Krauss, Jeff Leer, James Kari, and Heinrich Werner, as well as a number of other well-known linguists, including Bernard Comrie, Johanna Nichols, Victor Golla, Michael Fortescue, and Eric Hamp, so that a broad consensus has formed in support of this connection. Some experts on Yeniseian remain extremely skeptical or reject the hypothesis (e.g. Stefan Georg).
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Wikipedia