Selkup

• Main Author: Kazakevič, Olga
• Format: Book Part
• Language: unknown
• Published: Oxford University PressOxford 2022
• Subjects: samoyed*; Selkup; Siberia
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198767664.003.0038; https://academic.oup.com/book/chapter-pdf/47097806/oso-9780198767664-chapter-38.pdf

Abstract Selkup (in older literature also known as "Ostyak Samoyed") is an indigenous language with some 600 speakers and semi-speakers, very few of whom are children. Practically all speakers reside in the north of Western Siberia. Selkup has had restricted written use for about 150 years; from the late 1930s on the orthography is based on Cyrillic script. Northern Selkup dialects show variation in both phonology and morphology. Here a description of the Middle Taz dialect will be given, and specific features of the other local dialects of Northern Selkup will only be mentioned. This chapter will describe the Middle Taz Selkup phonology with its forty-one vowels and sixteen consonants, rich morphonology, derivation and inflection, and syntax (special attention will be paid to the word order, which is often described as SOV, although in practice, the word order in Selkup is not very strict). The chapter ends with a glossed text example.