Not to be confused with the Oroch language

Oroch language

The Oroch language is spoken by the Oroch people in Siberia. It is a member of the southern group of the Tungusic languages and is closely related to the Nanai language and Udege language. It is spoken in the Khabarovsk Krai...

.

Orok is the Russian name for the language known by its speakers as Ulta or Ujlta. Similarly, the people are called Oroks or Ulta. It is counted among the Tungusic languages

Tungusic languages

The Tungusic languages form a language family spoken in Eastern Siberia and Manchuria by Tungusic peoples. Many Tungusic languages are endangered, and the long-term future of the family is uncertain...

. The language is spoken in the Poronaysky and Nogliksky Administrative Divisions

Administrative divisions of Sakhalin Oblast

*Cities and towns under the oblast's jurisdiction:**Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk ***with 2 selsovets under the city's jurisdiction.**Alexandrovsk-Sakhalinsky **Dolinsk **Kholmsk...

 of Sakhalin Oblast

Sakhalin Oblast

Sakhalin Oblast is a federal subject of Russia comprising the island of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands.The oblast has an area of 87,100 km² and a population of 546,695...

, in the Russian Federation.

According to the 2002 Russian census

Russian Census (2002)

Russian Census of 2002 was the first census of the Russian Federation carried out on October 9 through October 16, 2002. It was carried out by the Russian Federal Service of State Statistics .-Resident population:...

 there were 346 Oroks living in Russia, of whom 64 were competent in Orok. Additionally, Oroks live on the island of Hokkaido

Hokkaido

, formerly known as Ezo, Yezo, Yeso, or Yesso, is Japan's second largest island; it is also the largest and northernmost of Japan's 47 prefectural-level subdivisions. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaido from Honshu, although the two islands are connected by the underwater railway Seikan Tunnel...

 in Japan. While Novikova claims that the number of speakers in Japan is uncertain, it can be inferred from Lewis that there are three speakers in Japan.

There are two dialects of Orok: northern (east Sakhalin) and southern (poronaysky). The variety of the language spoken on the island of Hokkaido belongs to the southern dialect.

Orok is used conversationally in everyday situations by the members of the older generation. It is also the language of oral folk literature. Oroks also speak Russian.

An alphabetic script, based on Cyrillic, was introduced in 2007. A primer has been published, and the language is taught in one school on the island of Sakhalin

Sakhalin

Sakhalin or Saghalien, is a large island in the North Pacific, lying between 45°50' and 54°24' N.It is part of Russia, and is Russia's largest island, and is administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast...

.

Alphabet

The Cyrillic alphabet

Cyrillic alphabet

The Cyrillic script or azbuka is an alphabetic writing system developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 10th century AD at the Preslav Literary School...

 introduced in 2007 is::
The letter "en with left hook" is not contained in Unicode

Unicode

Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...

6.0. However, it is accepted by the Unicode Technical Committee for inclusion in a later version of Unicode.