Neshan (Forest Nenets Language)

I. Sociolinguistic data

Names of the language

In Russian, the language spoken by Forest Nenets is called the Neshan or Neshchan language (derived from нешаӊ  /  нещаӊ (neshaŋ/neshchaŋ) ‘human being, a person’). In academic usage one can also see the use of such terms as Nenets Forest/Forest Nenets language , Neshan in English, Waldjurakischen in German. Before the 2000s, when both Forest and Tundra Nenets idioms were frequently considered to be not separate languages, but dialects of the same language, it used to be called the Forest Dialect of Nenets or the Forest Subdialect of Nenets . There was also an antiquated name of the Pyakov language . Forest Nenets themselves call their language ‘ нешаӊ вата’(neshaŋ wata) , literally ‘word of a person’. 

The self-designation of speakers of Neshan is ‘ nesha ’ ‘people. Earlier Forest Nenets were also known as Kunnaya Samoyad (16 th -17 th c.), Kondinski, Purovski, Lyaminski, Aganski, Kazymski Samoeyd , (mid 19 th -early 20 th c.), Forest Samoyed/Forest Yuraki (mid 19 th c.-1920s), Pyan Khasava/ Pyan Khasavo/Pyan-Khazavo (Tundra Nenets ‘a forest person’- a name recorded in census records, georgraphical and ethnographical descriptions of Siberia from mid 16 th c. to early 19 th c.), Pyaki . 

General characteristics

Number of native speakers and the corresponding ethnic group 

It is hard to give an estimate of the exact number of Forest Nenets, since in both federal and regional official statistics, apart from the 1926-1927 Soviet Polar Census Expidions, they are united with the Tundra Nenets and are recorded as one ethnic group. Besides, the members of one Forest Nenets family may live together in one nomad camp, but be registered as living in different settlements. In case of intermarriages of the Forest Nenets with other indigenous Arctic ethnic groups, the ethnicity of children is difined by the ethnicity of the father. 

In E.V.Vokzhanina’s ethnodemographic studies [Volzhanina 2007, 2009, 2010, 2018]  the total number of the Forest Nenets is estimated to be 2000 people, and the number has been stable with no more that 45 percent speaking their native language, which makes around 900 people. 

2.2. Age of speakers

The age of native speakers varies in different areas of residence of Forest Nenets. Neshan holds well enough in the central and north-eastern part of the area of its distribution. In Purovski District of Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (YNAO) the majority of Forest Nenets carry on doing their traditional economic activities (hunting, fishing and small-scale deer herding), the areas of their habitation are relatively distant from major cities and settlements, besides, Neshan is one of the main means of communication in this territory, and most marriages are monoethnic. Due to these circumstances, one can find native speakers in all the age groups here. For instance, in the settlements of Kharampur, Khalyasavvei and Khnymei over 90 percent of Ferest Nenets speak their native language. [Volzhanina 2018]. Nonetheless, the number of Neshan speakers has been dwindling in recent years among younger generations who choose Russian as the main language of communication.

We can see a similar situation in the western part of the area of the language distribution – in Beloyark District of Khanty-Mansi Automonous Okrug – Yugra (KMAO), where most Forest Nenets stick to their traditional way of living. Here, the Neshan language exists in a stable Khanty and Nenets diglossia and is subjected to considerable influence of the Kazym dialect of the Khanty language. (see [Koshkareva 2005]), but the speakers of the language can be found in all age groups, though their number among younger people is growing ever smaller. 

On the peripheral parts of the area of distribution, in the north, south and south-east, the situation is quite different. In the south-east, in Nizhnevartovsk District of KMAO, the presence of oil and gas fields led to the increased pressure from the Russian language, so only a small number of older people can speak their ethnic language. Southern and south-western areas of traditional residence (Surgut and Khanty-Mansi Districts of KMAO) were the first to find themselves in the zones of oil and gas field development, so in the 1960s-1970s most Forest Nenets of the area migrated to Purovski District, YNAO. The remainder of the Forest Nenets are dissiminated among Russian- and Khanty-speaking population, so only an insignificant number of older people can speak their native language. 

In the north, in Nadymski District of YNAO, the overwhelming majority of Forest Nenets living in the area have lost their native language and speak either Tundra Nenets and/or Russian. 

2.3. Sociolinguistic characteristics 

2.3.1. General characteristics 

Notwithstanding the relatively small number of speakers, the Forest Nenets language is characterised by quite a good state of preservation in comparison to other indigenous minority languages of the North, but in different areas of Forest Nenets habitation the linguistic situation varies and has changed considerably within the last 100 years.

First, in the second half of the 20 th century there were changes in the distribution and dialect splitting of Neshan caused by the fact that some traditional Forest Nenets groups found themselves in the centre of industrial development of oil and gas fields. In the first half of the 20 th century, on the grounds of its territorial distribution and a number of phonetic differences, Neshan used to be broken into the following dialects and subdialects: 

• Nyalin, spoken by the Forest Nenets living along of the Ob River tributaries flowing from the north to the north of the Irtysh Estuary; 
• Lyamin, spoken by the Forest Nenets living along of the Ob River tributaries flowing from the north to the east of the Irtysh Estuary
• Pur, spoken by the Forest Nenets living along the upper and middle reaches of the Pur River [Verbov 1973: 27-28, 122]

In the early 21 st century, there are nearly no Forest Nenets along the rivers of Lyamin and Nyalin, their number having dwindled dramatically due to migration to other territories and assimilation with the Khanty. For instance, the number of Forest Nenets just in Surgutski District fell down from 260 people in 1970 to just 66 people in 2003. [Volzhanina 2007]. Currently, on the basis of territorial distribution and a number of linguistic characteristics one can single out the following dialects: 

• Pur, spoken by the Forest Nenets living along the upper, middle and partially the lower reaches of the Pur River (Purovski and partially Nadymski Districts of YNAO);
• Agan, spoken by the Forest Nenets living along the Agan and the Amputa Rivers, tributaries to the Ob River (Nizhnevartovsk Region of KMAO-Yugra);
• Numto, spoken by the Forest Nenets living around Lake Numto and the upper Kazym River (Beloyarski, Khanty-Mansiyski and partially Surgutski Districts of KMAO-Yugra). 

Secondly, in recent decades, due to the ongoing construction of motorroads and development of the new oil fields, the dispersion of the Forest Nenets groups is being disrupted, the process of Russification of the Forest Nenets has dramatically intensified, compared to the previous decades, so they lose their ethnic language in greater numbers than ever. For instance, in 1934, when G.D.Verbov organised an expedition to the Forest Nenets living along the Agan River, none of the Forest Nenets there knew Russian [Verbov 1934]. According to the 2010 census results, around 90 percent of Forest Nenets spoke Russian, while in the area where Verbov once worked, this number reached 99 percent. 

Currently, the linguistic situation is more favourable for Forest Nenets living in the countryside in the Purovski District of YNAO and the Beloyarski District of KMAO. It is due to the fact that most of the ethnic group lives in nomad camps with the natural way of language transmission from parents to children. But even in these areas the number of Neshan speakers is diminishing. As O.A.Kazakevich and I.V.Samarina’s sociolinguistic studies of the Purovsky District YNAO carried out back in 2002 have shown, many young people were heard to say that their ethnic language was of no use anymore. Many younger people, who could speak Neshan well and lived in camps, preferred to speak Russian to their peers [Kazakevich 2003: 364]. The sociolinguistic surveys carried out by the linguists of the Institute of Philology of the Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences in the settlement Varyegan of Nizhnevartovsk District KMAO in 2000-2006 show that, as a rule, young people and children born in monoethnic Nenets families, as well in Khanty and Nenets intermarriages speak neither Neshan nor Khanty and use Russian in all the areas of communication. When asked whether their children must learn their native language at school, most Forest Nenets gave a negative answer. Yu.Vella, writer, poet and public figure, a Forest Nenets ethnically, made major efforts to preserve the traditional culture and language of the Forest Nenets, but even he communicated with his children mostly in Russian, apparently, seeing no future in their being able to speak their ethnic language. 

Even in those territories where the vitality of Neshan is still fairly high, the speech of its speakers is characterised by a noticeable stylistic reduction, frequent code switches, modelling a number of grammar constructions following Russian patterns. Forest Nenets have nearly lost the tradition of oral storytelling, still preserved to a degree among the older speakers of the Tundra Nenets language. 

Neshan along with the Tundra Nenets language (which are not discriminated in official documents and are united under the same name of ‘the Nenets language’) has a status of one of the languages of indigenous minority ethnic groups of the North. In the territories of their concentrated habitation (KMAO and YNAO) Forest Nenets are guaranteed by law to be able to use their ethnic language in regional authority and local government agencies. But in practice, Neshan is barely used in this field. 

The peculiarities of Forest Nenets dispersion and the polyethnic character of their area of habitation bring about the close and long-standing contacts of Neshan with other languages of indigenous ethnic groups of the North: Khanty (in the west, south-west, south and south-east); Selkup (in the east and north-east); Mansi (in the west and north-west); Tundra Nenets and the Komi language (in the north). The closest contacts are with the Khanty language. In the west, along the Kazym River, Forest Nenets share the same territory with Kazym Khanty, with Khanty-Nenets intermarriages being a frequent phenomenon among the population in this area [Koshkareva 2005: 36]. In the south-east, along the rivers Agan and Amputa, Forest Nenets live alongside Surgut Khanty. In the settlement Varyegan in this district, around 35 percent are Forest Nenets and around the same percentage are Surgut Khanty. There are also frequent Khanty-Nenets intermarriages in the settlement, too. 

2.3.2. Vitality status 

2.2.3. Use in various fields 

2.2.4. Identifying Neshan as a separate language 

In the late 19 th c.-early 20 th c. the Forest Nenets language was considered to be distinct (Ya.N.Popova [Popova 1978b: 9] mentions works of P.N.Butsunsky, S.P.Patkanov, I.I.Sreznevsky, V.I.Bartenev, A.A.Dunin-Gorkavich), M.A. Kastren even considered it to be an intermediary link between the North Samoyed and the South Samoyed subgroups [Castrén 1853: 67]. When the two Nenets idioms were compared, everyone pointed out considerable differences between them (c.f. [Tereshchenko 1947: 8; Popova 1978a:6]). Nonetheless, there were no attempts to suggest there were two different languages. In 1994, E.A.Khelimsky [Khelimsky 1994:41] writes again: “Forest Nenets dialect stands somewhat apart and, as several scholars think, it might be regarded as a separate language.” From 2003 on, there has been a steadily growing number of studies, which consider there to be two Nenets languages different from each other, c.f. [Kazakevich 2003a; Kazakevich, Parfyonova 2003; Burkova 2016a; 2016b; Stenin 2015; 2017; Koshkareva et al, 2017]. Finally, in a number of Russian-language newspaper articles and essays written by the native speakers of Neshan, and in the M.S.Prikhodko’s papers [Prikhodko 2000; Prikhodko 2002], the Forest Nenets is called the Neshan language for the first time (from the language’s own name or endonym).

2.4. Information about writing system 

Neshan is a language with a young writing system. The Forest Nenets acquired their writing system much later than their relatives, the Tundra Nenets. This is due to their small number as well as to the idea that they can use the written language created on the basis of the Bolshezemelski subdialect of the Tundra Nenets language. In 1934, tasked by the Committee of New Alphabet of the Peoples of the North, G.D.Verbov conducted an expedition to Ostyako-Vogulski National Okrug (currently Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug – Yugra) to study the Forest Nenets. One of the main goals of the expedition was to find out whether there was any need to come up with a separate writing system for this ethnic group. Verbov came to conclusion that the language of the Forest Nenets was close to that of the Tundra Nenets, so there was no point of drawing up a writing system for this small ethnic group. Further studies showed that the differences between these two languages were too great for speakers of Neshan to be able to use the existing writing system of Tundra Nenets. But in the years that followed educational policies greatly changed, so the issue of coming up with a writing system for Neshan was not addressed for a long a time. As a result, the current writing system only emerged in the early 1990s. It was created on the Cyrillic basis with the principal rules of Russian writing system taken into consideration. Additionally, some more graphemes were adopted to designate specific sounds of Neshan, as well as diacritical marks to denote long and short vowels. 

There are not many books in Neshan. They are several study books (spelling books, dictionaries, grammar textbooks), two folklore collections, a collection of short stories. Around 60 more texts of different genre have been published in articles and books of linguists working with Neshan. The only author to write literary works in this language was writer, poet and public figure Yuri Kylevich Vella (1948-2013)

Currently, Neshan cannot be said to have a unified spelling standard.

3. Geographic characteristics 

3.1. Subjects of the Russian Federation with compact population of native speakers

The Forest Nenets live in the North Siberian taiga between the Ob and Taz Rivers, along the upper and middle reaches of the River Pur, along the upper Nadym River, along the northern tributaries of the Lyamin, the Tromyegan and the Agan. These areas are within YNAO (Purovski, Krasnoselkupski and Nadymski Districts) and KMAO (Beloyarski, Nizhnevartovski, Surgutski and Khanty-Mansiyski Districts)

3.2. Total number of traditional native settlements  

In the early 20 th c., according to the data of the the 1926-1927 Soviet Polar Census (the only one to consider the Forest Nenets to be a separate ethnic group – in the rest of the official statistics they are united with the Tundra Nenets) and G.D.Verbov’s detailed estimates, the Forest Nenets were dispersed (in the lake and river type) throughout a wide territory which included the whole of the River Pur basin in its upper and middle reaches, along the upper Nadym River, the upper and middle reaches of the River Lyamin, the northern tributaries of the River Lyamin, the upper River Polui as well as the northern tributaries of the upper and middle Agan. The total number of the ethnic group was thought to be around 2000 people back then [Verbov 1973: 28]. In the early 21 st c, the area of habitation remained largely the same, though there has been a shift of numbers between several local groups of the Forest Nenets. 

A considerable part of the Forest Nenets still live in the countryside, even though there are cities and towns founded in the areas of their habitation due to industrial development. Currently, most Forest Nenets have some property in settlements or in the town of Tarko-Sale, but also keep their traditional dwelling places, nomad camps, which get used for fishing and hunting. The Forest Nenets live dispersed widely (in the lake and river types). The site for their summer camp is based on the presence of a water body usable for fishing, or building a lock, for their winter camp they look for good reindeer pastures. Summer camps are linked to fishing areas in the estuaries of smaller rivers flowing into bigger rivers, on lake shores, the biggest of which are Numto and Pyako-to. [Volzhanina 2007: 144]. The total number of settlements with speakers of Neshan is 15. 

3.3. List of settlements (according to the 2010 Census) 

Table of territorial entities and districts, overall population, number of the the ethnic group with the specified language, number of language speakers, degree of endangerment in the given settlement, dialect attribution. In the official statistics the Forest Nenets were not separated into a group of their own, and were recorded along the Tundra Nenets, apart from the 1926-1927 Soviet Polar Census. Therefore, the table shows as ≈ an approximate number of the Forest Nenets based on the data of [Volzhanina 2007, 2010, 2018; Zenko-Nemchinova 2006].

4. Historical dynamics characteristics 

Number of native speakers and the corresponding ethnic group according to the data of different censuses (starting with 1897) and other sources. 

II. Linguistic data 

1. Position in the genealogy of world languages

Ural Family > Samoyedis Branch > North Samoyedis Group

The languages most closely related to Neshan are Tundra Nenets, Enets (Tundra and Forest) and Nganasan. There are two academic opinions on the linguistic status of Neshan. The first argues that this idiom along with Tundra Nenets is a dialect (or a patois, in several papers) of one Nenets language. But these idioms have considerable differences on all the levels of the language structure. Therefore many linguistic studies suggested that Neshan (Forest Nenets) and Tundra Nenets should be regarded as two closely related languages which emerged from the same language, but now exhibit considerable divergencies. 

Dialect situation 

In the first half of the 20 th c., on the basis of the areas of distribution and a number of phonetic differences, the language was generally broken into three distinct dialects: Nyalin, spoken by the Forest Nenets living along the River Ob tributaries flowing from the north to the north to the River Irtysh estuary; Laymin spoken by the Nenets Nenets living along the River Ob tributaries flowing from the north to the east to the River Irtysh estuary; Pur spoken by the Nenets living along the upper and middle reaches of the River Pur. [Verbov 1973: 27-28, 122]. But in the second half of the 20 th c. there were major shifts in the distribution and dialect splitting of Neshan caused by the fact that the historical areas of Nenets residence were disrupted by industrial development of oil and gas fields. Currently, scholars break Neshan into the following dialects: Pur dialect spoken by the Forest Nenets living along the upper, middle and partially lower reaches of the River Pur; Agan dialect spoken by the Forest Nenets living along the Rivers Agan and Amputa, the tributaries to the River Ob; Numto spoken by the Forest Nenets living around Lake Numto and the upper River Kazym. The differences between these dialects are mostly restricted to phonetics and create no unsurpassable difficulties for communication of speakers of different dialects.