Ket language
Encyclopedia
The Ket language, formerly known as Yenisei Ostyak, is a Siberia
n 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 has dropped from 1,225 in 1926 to 537 in 1989. Another Yeniseian language, Yugh
, is believed to have recently become extinct.
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 have 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, 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 Yenisein remain extremely skeptical or reject the hypothesis (e.g. Stefan Georg
).
historical linguist Edward Vajda
offers better substantiated findings into the origins of the Ket people, where DNA claims show genetic affinities with that of Tibetan, Burmese, and others http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ea210/ket.htm. Edward Vajda spent a year in Siberia (2005–2006) studying the Ket people, and finds a relationship of Ket language to that of Native American
Na-Dene languages
, and also suggests the tonal system of the Ket language is closer to that of Vietnamese
than any of the native Siberian languages http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6050673836854498204#. His (2004) monograph Ket is the first modern scholarly grammar of the Ket language in English. (Lueders 2008)
There is much allophony, and the phonetic inventory of consonants is essentially as below. This is the level of description reflected by the Ket alphabet.
Furthermore, all nasal consonants in Ket have voiceless allophones at the end of a monosyllabic word with a glottalized or descending tone (i.e., [m, n, ŋ] turn into [m̥, n̥, ŋ̥]), likewise, [ɮ] becomes [ɬ] in the same situation. Alveolars are often pronounced laminal
and possibly palatalized, though not in the vicinity of a uvular consonant. /q/ is normally pronounced with affrication, as [qχ].
In tonal descriptions, Ket does not employ a tone on every syllable but instead uses one tone per word. Following one description that employs tone, the five basic tones are as follows:
In the 1980s a new, Cyrillic-based, alphabet was created:
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
n language long thought to be an isolate
Language isolate
A language isolate, in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common with any other language. They are in effect language families consisting of a single...
, the sole surviving language of a Yeniseian language family
Yeniseian languages
The Yeniseian language family is spoken in central Siberia.-Family division:0. Proto-Yeniseian...
. It is spoken along the middle Yenisei
Yenisei River
Yenisei , also written as Yenisey, is the largest river system flowing to the Arctic Ocean. It is the central of the three great Siberian rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean...
basin by the Ket people
Ket people
Kets are a Siberian people who speak the Ket language. In Imperial Russia they were called Ostyaks, without differentiating them from several other Siberian peoples. Later they became known as Yenisey ostyaks, because they lived in the middle and lower basin of the Yenisei River in the Krasnoyarsk...
.
The language is threatened with extinction—the number of ethnic Kets that are native speakers of the language has dropped from 1,225 in 1926 to 537 in 1989. Another Yeniseian language, Yugh
Yugh language
Yugh is a Yeniseian language, closely related to Ket, formerly spoken by the Yugh people, one of the southern groups along the Yenisei River in central Siberia. In the past it was regarded as a dialect of the Ket language, which was considered to be a language isolate...
, is believed to have recently become extinct.
Classification
Attempts have been made by SovietSoviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
scholars to establish a relationship with either Burushaski
Burushaski language
The Burushaski or Burushko language , is a language isolate . It is spoken by some 87,000 Burusho people in the Hunza, Nagar, Yasin, and Ishkoman valleys, and some parts of the Gilgit valley, in Gilgit–Baltistan in Pakistan and by about 300 Burusho people in Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir, India...
or the Sino-Tibetan languages
Sino-Tibetan languages
The Sino-Tibetan languages are a language family comprising, at least, the Chinese and the Tibeto-Burman languages, including some 250 languages of East Asia, Southeast Asia and parts of South Asia. They are second only to the Indo-European languages in terms of the number of native speakers...
, and it frequently forms part of the Dene–Caucasian hypothesis. None of these attempts have been conclusive. Joseph Greenberg
Joseph Greenberg
Joseph Harold Greenberg was a prominent and controversial American linguist, principally known for his work in two areas, linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages.- Early life and career :...
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, linguist Edward Vajda
Edward Vajda
Edward Vajda is a historical linguist at Western Washington University. He has become known for his work on the proposed Dené–Yeniseian language family, seeking to establish that the Ket language of Siberia has a common linguistic ancestor with the Na-Dené languages of North America...
also submitted a paper on the proposed link between Ket with the Na-Dene languages
Na-Dené languages
Na-Dene is a Native American language family which includes at least the Athabaskan languages, Eyak, and Tlingit languages. An inclusion of Haida is controversial....
. 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
James Kari
James Kari is a linguist and Professor Emeritus with the Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks , specializing in Athabascan languages of Alaska. In the past thirty-five years he has done extensive linguistic work in many Athabascan languages including Ahtna, Dena'ina,...
, and Heinrich Werner, as well as a number of other well-known linguists, including Bernard Comrie
Bernard Comrie
Bernard Comrie is a British-born linguist. Comrie is a specialist in linguistic typology and linguistic universals, and on Caucasian languages....
, Johanna Nichols
Johanna Nichols
Linguist Johanna Nichols is a professor emerita on active duty in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include the Slavic languages, the linguistic prehistory of northern Eurasia, language typology, ancient linguistic...
, Victor Golla, Michael Fortescue
Michael Fortescue
Michael David Fortescue is a British-born linguist specializing in Arctic and native North American languages, including Kalaallisut, Inuktun, Chukchi and Nitinaht. He is professor of General Linguistics at the University of Copenhagen and chairman of the Linguistic Circle of Copenhagen...
, and Eric Hamp
Eric P. Hamp
Eric Pratt Hamp is an American linguist. Born in London, England on November 16, 1920, he grew up in The United States from age 5 onward due to his father's posting by a British shipping firm...
, so that a broad consensus has formed in support of this connection. Some experts on Yenisein remain extremely skeptical or reject the hypothesis (e.g. Stefan Georg
Stefan Georg
Stefan Georg is currently Privatdozent at the University of Bonn in Bonn, Germany, for Altaic Linguistics and Culture Studies.- Background :...
).
Documentation
The earliest observations about the language were published by P. S. Pallas in 1788 in a travel diary (Путешествия по разным провинциям Русского Государства Puteshestviya po raznim provintsiyam Russkogo Gosudarstva). In 1858, M. A. Castrén published the first grammar and dictionary (Versuch einer jenissei-ostjakischen und Kottischen Sprachlehre), which also included material on the Kot language. During the 19th century, the Kets were mistaken for a tribe of the Finno-Ugric Khanty. A. Karger in 1934 published the first grammar (Кетский язык Ketskij jazyk), as well as a Ket primer (Букварь на кетском языке Bukvar' na ketskom jazyke), and a new treatment appeared in 1968, written by A. Kreinovich. E. Alekseyenko has written a historical-ethnological treatment of the Kets (Кеты Kety, 1967). Western Washington UniversityWestern Washington University
Western Washington University is one of six state-funded, four-year universities of higher education in the U.S. state of Washington. It is located in Bellingham and offers bachelor's and master's degrees.-History:...
historical linguist Edward Vajda
Edward Vajda
Edward Vajda is a historical linguist at Western Washington University. He has become known for his work on the proposed Dené–Yeniseian language family, seeking to establish that the Ket language of Siberia has a common linguistic ancestor with the Na-Dené languages of North America...
offers better substantiated findings into the origins of the Ket people, where DNA claims show genetic affinities with that of Tibetan, Burmese, and others http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ea210/ket.htm. Edward Vajda spent a year in Siberia (2005–2006) studying the Ket people, and finds a relationship of Ket language to that of Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
Na-Dene languages
Na-Dené languages
Na-Dene is a Native American language family which includes at least the Athabaskan languages, Eyak, and Tlingit languages. An inclusion of Haida is controversial....
, and also suggests the tonal system of the Ket language is closer to that of Vietnamese
Vietnamese people
The Vietnamese people are an ethnic group originating from present-day northern Vietnam and southern China. They are the majority ethnic group of Vietnam, comprising 86% of the population as of the 1999 census, and are officially known as Kinh to distinguish them from other ethnic groups in Vietnam...
than any of the native Siberian languages http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6050673836854498204#. His (2004) monograph Ket is the first modern scholarly grammar of the Ket language in English. (Lueders 2008)
Vowels
| Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also... |
Central Central vowel A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel... |
Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark... |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the... |
i | ɨ | u |
| Mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel... |
ɛ1 | ə | ɔ1 |
| Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue... |
a 2 | ||
- The normally open-midOpen-mid vowelAn open-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from an open vowel to a mid vowel...
/ɛ/ and /ɔ/ are pronounced as close-midClose-mid vowelA close-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from a close vowel to a mid vowel...
[e] and [o], respectively, when they have the high-steady tone. - /a/ freely varies between [æ], [a], [ɐ], and [ɑ].
Consonants
Vajda analyses Ket as having only twelve consonant phonemes:| Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... |
Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
Uvular Uvular consonant Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and... |
Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m | n | ŋ | ||||
| Plosive | voiceless Voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of... |
t | k | q | |||
| voiced Voice (phonetics) Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate... |
b | d | |||||
| Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... |
s | ç | h | ||||
| Lateral fricative Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth.... |
ɮ | ||||||
There is much allophony, and the phonetic inventory of consonants is essentially as below. This is the level of description reflected by the Ket alphabet.
| Bilabial Bilabial consonant In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:... |
Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth... |
Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate... |
Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum).... |
Uvular Uvular consonant Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be plosives, fricatives, nasal stops, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and... |
Glottal Glottal consonant Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider... |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :... |
m | n | ŋ | ||||
| Plosive | voiceless Voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of... |
p | t | k | q | ʔ | |
| voiced Voice (phonetics) Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate... |
b | d | ɡ | ɢ | |||
| Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or... |
voiceless Voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of... |
s | ç | (x) | (χ) | h | |
| voiced Voice (phonetics) Voice or voicing is a term used in phonetics and phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless or voiced. The term, however, is used to refer to two separate concepts. Voicing can refer to the articulatory process in which the vocal cords vibrate... |
β | ʝ | ɣ | ʁ | |||
| Lateral fricative Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth.... |
ɮ | ||||||
| Tap | ɾ | ||||||
| Trill Trill consonant In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular.... |
r | ||||||
Furthermore, all nasal consonants in Ket have voiceless allophones at the end of a monosyllabic word with a glottalized or descending tone (i.e., [m, n, ŋ] turn into [m̥, n̥, ŋ̥]), likewise, [ɮ] becomes [ɬ] in the same situation. Alveolars are often pronounced laminal
Laminal consonant
A laminal consonant is a phone produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, which is the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue on the top. This contrasts with apical consonants, which are produced by creating an obstruction with the tongue apex only...
and possibly palatalized, though not in the vicinity of a uvular consonant. /q/ is normally pronounced with affrication, as [qχ].
Tone
Descriptions of Ket vary widely in the number of contrastive tones they report: as many as eight and as few as zero have been counted. Given this wide disagreement, whether or not Ket is a tonal language is debatable, although the non-tonal argument "seems to be the most well-supported."In tonal descriptions, Ket does not employ a tone on every syllable but instead uses one tone per word. Following one description that employs tone, the five basic tones are as follows:
| Tone name Tone name In the Chinese and Vietnamese languages, tone names are the names given to the tones these languages use.*In Chinese, tone names are given in terms of the four tones, namely level , rising , departing , and entering , as well as dark and light , and high and low .* Standard Vietnamese has six... |
Glottalized | High-Even | Rising Falling | Falling | Rising High-Falling |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tone contour Tone contour A tone contour is a tone in a tonal language which shifts from one pitch to another over the course of the syllable or word. Tone contours are especially common in East and Southeast Asia, but occur elsewhere, such as the Kru languages of Liberia and the Ju languages of Namibia.-Themes:When the... |
34 | 55 | 13.31 | 31 | 13.53 |
| Example | [bɛ̌ʔs] "rabbit" |
[súl] "blood" |
[hə̌.nûl] "puddle" |
[ɛ̂m̥] "flying squirrel" |
[qǐ.bá͜âŋ] "grandfathers" |
Ket Alphabet
In the 1930s a Latin based alphabet was developed and used:| A a | Ā ā | Æ æ | B b | Ç ç | D d | E e | Ē ē |
| Ə ə | F f | G g | H h | Ҕ ҕ | I i | Ī ī | J j |
| K k | L l | M m | N n | Ņ ņ | Ŋ ŋ | O o | Ō ō |
| P p | Q q | R r | S s | Ş ş | T t | U u | Ū ū |
| V v | Z z | Ƶ ƶ | Ь ь |
In the 1980s a new, Cyrillic-based, alphabet was created:
| А а | Б б | В в | Г г | Д д | Е е | Ё ё | |
| Ж ж | З з | И и | Й й | К к | Л л | М м | |
| Н н | О о | Ө ө | П п | Р р | С с | Т т | |
| У у | Ф ф | Х х | Ц ц | Ч ч | Ш ш | Щ щ | Ъ ъ |
| Ә ә | Ы ы | Ь ь | ’ | Э э | Ю ю | Я я |
Literature
- N. K. Karger, Кетский язык. — Языки и письменность народов Севера. Ч. III, Moscow, Leningrad (1934)
- E. A. Kreinovich, Кетский язык. — Языки народов СССР. Т. V, Leningrad (1968)
- Edward J. Vajda. Ket Prosodic Phonology. (2000) Munich: Lincom Europa Languages of the World vol. 15.
- Edward J. Vajda. Ket. (2004) Munich: Lincom Europa Languages of the World vol. 204. ISBN 3895862215. 109pp.
- E. Vajda, M. Zinn. Morfologicheskii slovar ketskogo glagola: na osnove iuzhno-ketskogo dialekta. = Morphological dictionary of the Ket verb: Southern dialect / E. Vajda, M. Zinn. (2004)
- Vajda, Edward J. "Siberian Link with Na-Dene Languages." The Dene–Yeniseian Connection, ed. by J. Kari and B. Potter, 33-99. Anthropological Papers of the University of Alaska, new series, vol. 5. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Fairbanks, Department of Anthropology. (2010)
External links
- Endangered Languages of the Indigenous Peoples of Siberia – The Ket Language
- Ket language vocabulary with loanwords (from the World Loanword Database)
- Filtchenko, Andrei. 2001. Ket Language
- Georg, Stefan. 2006. A Descriptive Grammar of Ket (Yenisei-Ostyak). Folkestone, Kent: Global OrientalGlobal OrientalGlobal Oriental is an imprint of the Dutch publishing house Brill . It used to be trade publishing company based in Kent, United Kingdom. It is the publisher of scholarly books on Japan and East Asia in fields such as History, Martial Arts, Arts and Literature...
. 10-ISBN 1-901-90358-3; 13-ISBN 978-1-901-90358-4 - Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005. Ket. In Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International.
- Kazakevich, Olga, et al. 2006?. Multimedia Database of Ket Language, Moscow State (Lomonosov) University
- Lueders, Ulrich. Books: Language Description, Ket: Vajda. Publisher's announcement on LINGUIST ListLinguist ListThe LINGUIST List is a major online resource for the academic field of linguistics. It was founded by Anthony Aristar in early 1990 at the University of Western Australia, and is used as a reference by the National Science Foundation in the United States...
- Vajda, Edward J. 2000. Ket and other Yeneseic Peoples
- Vajda, Edward J. 2006. The Ket People – Google Video
- Table of contents and ordering information for The Dene–Yeniseian Connection.
- Notices and news items on Dene–Yeniseian
- Viikberg, Jüri. Kets. In The Red Book of the Peoples of the Russian Empire, NGO Red Book, ISBN 9985-9369-2-2 (Wikipedia articleThe Red Book of the Peoples of the Russian EmpireThe Red Book of the Peoples of the Russian Empire is a book about the small nations of the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the Russia and some other post-Soviet states of today...
)