Ket language. The meaning of the Ket language in the linguistic encyclopedic dictionary Which language family does the Ket language belong to?

According to the Ket language

Options for the name and self-name of the language

• Ket language
• Yenisei-Ostyak language
• cooled off ka’

Latikova (Tyganova) Olga Vasilievna (born 1917). The oldest among the Ket, an expert in the Ket language and folklore, the most experienced informant, who worked with E.A. Kreinovich, A.P. Dulzon, E.A. Alekseenko
Photo by O.A. Kazakevich, 2004, village. Sulomai

Genetic affiliation

The Ket language is practically the last representative of the Yenisei language family. The last reliable recording of the use of its closest relative, the Yug language, dates back to the 1970s. Other related languages ​​- Pumpokol, Arin, Kott (Assan) - fell out of use in the 18th-19th centuries. Experts suggest that the Yenisei languages ​​are distantly related to the North Caucasian (Adyghe-Abkhaz and Nakho-Dagestan) and Sino-Tibetan languages.

Geography of language distribution

The Kets are the indigenous population of the taiga part of the Yenisei basin (from the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in the south to the Kureika River in the north). Currently, most of the Kets (as of January 1, 1999, 742 people) live in villages along the Yenisei and its tributaries in the Turukhansky district Krasnoyarsk Territory. Almost a third of the Ket population of the region (228 people) is concentrated in the village. Kellogg, the rest are settled in the village. Maduika, Goroshikha, Baklanikha, Surgutikha, Vereshchagino, Verkhne-Imbatsk, Bakhta. Since the early 1990s. quite a lot of Kets moved to the regional center of Turukhansk (as of January 1, 1999, there were 80 Kets there) and to a large village. in the south of the district - Bor (71 people). The only village outside the Turukhansky district with a compact Ket population is Sulomai, located on the territory of the Evenki Autonomous Okrug on Podkamennaya Tunguska, 80 km from the mouth. Today, Kets make up the majority of the population only in the village. Kellogg, Maduika and Sulomai. Some Kets live in cities, mainly in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, primarily in Krasnoyarsk itself.

Language contacts

• Yuga language
• Selkup language
• Evenki language
• Enets language
• Russian language

Number of native speakers

Magnitude ethnic group in 1989 in the USSR there were 1113 people (1089 people in Russia); the 2002 census gives 1,494 people. According to our assessment, based on materials obtained during a series of sociolinguistic surveys of Ket villages. in the territory of the Turukhansky district of the Krasnoyarsk Territory and the Evenki Autonomous Okrug, carried out in 1999–2005, today there are no more than 150 native speakers of the Ket language, and not all of them speak the Ket language fully. The 2002 census materials presented on CD indicate 485 people who speak the Ket language, which in no way corresponds to reality.

Availability of dialects

Difference between dialects Ket language. (northern, central and southern, the latter in turn is divided into talk Eloguysky and Podkamenno-Tungussky) are relatively small, but the speakers of the dialects themselves are clearly aware of the difference between their own version and the variants of their neighbors and, as a rule, consider their own version to be the only correct one, and all other dialects as distortions of the Ket language.

Linguistic characteristics of the language

Phonological information

Vocalism: 11 vowels that are opposed in rise (upper - i, y, u; medium closed – e, b, o; medium open – ε , , ; lower – ä, a, (å)) and row (front – i, e, ε, ä ; average- y, b, a; rear – u, o, (å )).

Consonantism: stop – p, b, t, d, k, g, q, ; slotted – ( v), s, s´, (γ ), h; affricates – č, j; nasal – m, n, n´, ; lateral – l, ľ; trembling - r.

Prosody: Four tones have been discovered in the Ket language. They differ most clearly in isolated monosyllabic words. In polysyllabic words, tones are preserved only in stressed syllables.

Morphology

An agglutinative-synthetic language that uses all types of affixation: prefixation, infixation and suffixation. In verb conjugation, prefixation and infixation are used predominantly, in noun inflection - suffixation.

Parts of speech: noun, adjective, numerals, pronouns, verb, adverb, particles, postpositions, interjections. Conjunctions are borrowed from Russian

Nouns have a selective category of the concordant class (male/female/material). The inflectional categories of a noun include number (singular/plural). As for the presence of the category of case, this issue still remains controversial; different researchers have different points views on this matter. G.K. Werner distinguishes 11 cases: absolute, genitive, dative, initial, presumptive, local-personal, local, instrumental-joint, longitudinal, deprivative, vocative.

Adjective has the category of number (singular/plural) and can be formed by predicative suffixes.

Verb has selective categories of aspect, mode of verb action and voice. The inflectional categories of the verb include mood (indicative, imperative, unreal, incentive-permissive), tense (present-future/past), class, person and number. In the Ket verb paradigm there are indicators of the subject, as well as direct and indirect objects.

Negation is expressed by negative particles.

Semantic-grammatical information

The counting system is decimal, but it retains the features of the pentad and septenary systems, which, apparently, preceded the decimal one.

Most of the borrowings reflect ancient language contacts and cannot be traced back to a specific source language. It has only been established that some of this vocabulary has parallels in the Nostratic languages, and some - in Sino-Tibetan languages. Of the later borrowings, Selkup and, in small quantities, Turkic ones are identified. The latest are borrowings from the Russian language. Some of them (the earliest borrowings) underwent significant phonetic and grammatical adaptation. Currently, Russian vocabulary is borrowed with minimal phonetic adaptation.

Syntax information

The language has a nominative structure, although some researchers find in it relics of ergative and active syntactic structures.

Simple offer. The verb form dominates in the sentence. There is a tendency to reflect in its structure all members of the sentence, and the order of arrangement of the formal elements of the scheme of subject-object relations in the verbal word form, as a rule, coincides with the order of arrangement of the corresponding members of the sentence: SVO (or OVS). In an attributive syntagm, the definition precedes the defined.

The question is framed using question words or intonation.

Complex sentences are organized from simple ones using intonation, conjunctions (many borrowed conjunctions from the Russian language), case indicators that formalize the predicate subordinate clause, and postpositions.

Sociolinguistic characteristics of language

Legal status, current state of the language

Language of the indigenous people of the Russian Federation. In the territory of the Turukhansky district of the Krasnoyarsk Territory and the Evenki Autonomous Okrug, the Ket language has the status of an encouraged language.

Writing and spelling

Although the Ket alphabet was developed in the 1920s–1930s, and in 1934 N.K. Karger compiled and published a Ket primer for the Middle Ket dialect, which used a Latin graphic basis, actually functioning writing in the Ket language appeared only at the end 1980s, when first in Krasnoyarsk (1988), and then in Leningrad (1991), an ABC book compiled by G.K. Werner and G.H. Nikolaeva for the South Ket dialect, and the Ket language was taught at school as a subject. The new Ket graphics were developed based on the Russian alphabet with the addition of several special characters. Only textbooks and teaching aids For primary school, including a collection of Ket fairy tales; other publications of Ket folklore used different kinds transcriptions. It should be noted that the published textbooks and teaching aids contain a number of original works of small genres (stories and poems) and a fairly significant number of translations from Russian. The only area of ​​use of Ket writing today is education (school and university). Outside this sphere, the Kets write exclusively in Russian.

Social functions of language

Traditional areas of operation Ket language are family, crafts(hunting, fishing and transport reindeer husbandry), folklore(folklore).

Once upon a time, the Ket language was intensively used in religious practice (the Kets are animists; to communicate with other worlds and the spirits of the world around them, they resorted to the help of shamans who had helping spirits and knew how to control these spirits), but today there are no practicing shamans left among the Kets, and only very few elderly people still remember texts of shamanic chants heard in childhood.

Census data record a constant decline in the percentage of Ket who consider Ket their native language: from 74.9% in 1970 to 60.2% in 1979 and, finally, to 48.8% in 1989 (48.3% Kets former USSR). Research conducted by V.P. Krivonogov in 1991–1992 gave an even more modest figure - 35%, and his research conducted 10 years later shows a further decrease in the figure. It should be borne in mind that not everyone who recognizes the Ket language as their native language can actually speak it. The native language for the Kets, as for representatives of many other indigenous peoples of Siberia, is increasingly turning from a means of communication into an emblem of ethnic self-identification. Today he really speaks the Ket language, and in varying degrees, no more than 15% of the total Ket population. These are almost exclusively representatives of the older generation, those over 50, and even in this generation they speak Ket. far from universal. Among the representatives of the middle generation (35–50 years old) those who speak Ket. also occur, but much less frequently. The overwhelming majority of children and youth do not know the Ket language at all, except maybe a few words. Moreover, all Kets speak Russian either as a native language or as a second language. Among the representatives of the older generation in the village. Surgutikha, Baklanikha and Vereshchagino, as well as in the village. Kellogg, Kets-Selkup-Russian trilingualism is still found, and in the north you can still find Kets-Evenki-Russian trilingualism.

Education is the only area of ​​use of the Ket language regulated by the state. According to the regional department of public education, in the 1992/93 school year. Ket language was taught in primary school schools in the village Kellogg, Goroshikha, Vereshchagino, Surgutikha, Baklanikha and Sulomai. At Kellogg, Ket was also taught as an elective in high school. At that time, many Ket teachers treated their work with great enthusiasm, hoping that teaching the Ket language at school would revive Ket children’s interest in the language of their ancestors and help curb the growing process of ousting the Ket language from almost all spheres of communication. However, faced with harsh reality, enthusiasm gradually began to fade, and the teaching of the Ket language in schools began to fade away. As a result, in the 1998/99 academic year. The Ket language was taught only in schools in the village. Bohr, Kellogg and Sulomai. In the reports for the 2001/02 academic year. g., sent to the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation, it is indicated that the teaching of the Ket language as a subject was carried out in this academic year in eight schools in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, and in some schools from grades 1 to 9. It is difficult to say whether this indicates increased attention to the Ket language on the part of the regional administration, however, of course, the increase in the number of schools where the Ket language is taught should be welcomed in every possible way. However, unfortunately, we have to admit that today the effectiveness of teaching the Ket language at school is extremely low.

In spoken practice, the Ket language is used today to a very limited extent. In villages on the Yenisei, it is sometimes spoken among themselves by representatives of the older generation, mainly those over 70. Some representatives of the middle generation use Ket when talking with older relatives and friends, preferring to speak Russian among themselves; They switch to the Ket language only when they want to hide the content of the conversation from others, for example, from children. The Ket language is preserved somewhat better than in other places in Kellogg. However, the natural transmission of language within families from parents to children has been interrupted everywhere. This is not the first generation of parents, regardless of the degree of proficiency in the Ket language, who speak exclusively Russian with their children, even in monoethnic Ket families (such families in the early 1990s accounted for a little more than 40% of total number Ket families, and by now their share has decreased to 30%), not to mention mixed families. As a result, today Russian language is the main means of communication of the Kets in all areas, including family and even traditional crafts (hunting and fishing). The prestige of the Ket language, which rose somewhat in the early 1990s, is again steadily falling. Among the reasons for this decline, not the least is the disastrous economic situation in which the majority of Ket families find themselves today. Sociolinguistic survey of the Ket population of the village. Baklanikha, Vereshchagino, Surgutikha and Turukhansk, conducted by O.A. Kazakevich and O.S. Parfenova in 1999, revealed a disappointing trend: about 30% of the Ket respondents said that the Ket language is not needed either by themselves or their children, with the largest number of such answers coming from informants aged 40 to 60 years. In general, the situation of the Ket language can be defined as critical. Hopes that teaching the Ket language in school could at least to some extent slow down its displacement by the Russian language did not materialize. The experience accumulated since the early 1990s turned out to be mostly negative, the reason for which was an undeveloped teaching system, the lack of a sufficient number of qualified teachers, the inability to adapt classes to the specific situation of each individual village, and the lack of due attention and methodological assistance from the district department education, as well as the lack of any material incentives for both teachers and students. And yet, approximately 60% of Ket parents surveyed still want their children to learn the Ket language at school. At the same time, many stipulate that it is the dialect of a given village that should be taught, and not some other, foreign and “wrong”, in their opinion, version of the language. Perhaps these comments from local residents will suggest how to organize the teaching of the Ket language in the future.

Degree of knowledge and history of language learning

The study of the Ket language was started in the middle of the 19th century by M.A. Castren. In the second half of the 20th century, a real breakthrough was made in the description of language. However, today the Ket language continues to be an extremely popular object of study, primarily due to the complexity of its verbal morphology.

Sample of the sound of the language

Photos of representatives of an ethnic group

KET LANGUAGE (obsolete - Yenisei-Ostyak language), the language of the Kets. Distributed in the north of the Krasnoyarsk Territory (in the Turukhansky region, as well as in the southeast of the Evenki region) - along the Yenisei and its tributaries. It is on the verge of extinction: according to the 2002 census, out of 1.5 thousand Ket people, 485 people speak the Keto language; according to experts, the number of competent native speakers is less than 100.

The Ket language is the last representative of the Yenisei languages. Together with the Yug language, it forms their northern branch. Previously, the linguonym “Ket language” united two dialects - Imbat and Sym; in modern linguistics, these idioms are assigned the status of separate languages ​​- Ket proper and Yug. The Ket languages ​​are divided into 3 main dialects: southern, middle and northern. Dialects are divided into dialects, named after the name of the locality: for example, in the locality Sulomai - Sulomaisky. Largest number Ket language speakers speak the southern dialect, the smallest speak the northern dialect.

The phonological system is characterized by the presence systems of four word and form-distinguishing tones. Depending on the approach to the phonological status of vocal allophones, the vowel inventory includes from 7 to 11 phonemes. There is no synharmonism. Unlike Kott, the Ket language (as well as Yug) retains a four-stage system of unrounded mid-back vowels. Character traits vocalism of the southern dialect - elimination of the final unstressed vowel and iotation of the front vowels i, e. There are differences in the nature of the fourth tone compared to other dialects. The composition of consonants in the Ket language varies from 12 to 18 phonemes, depending on the phonological interpretation. In consonantism, the southern and northern dialects differ from the middle dialect in the presence of rhotacism d > r and spirantization b > v. In the middle dialect there is a transition s>š, and in the northern dialect there is a frequent transition s>č in consonantal combinations ns and ls. The morphology of the name is suffixal-agglutinative in nature. There is a system of nominal classes: male, female and real. The traditionally distinguished case system (up to 13 cases) is mostly spatial character, there are no syntactic cases. A system of postpositions has been developed. The verb system is polysynthetic. The verb expresses the categories of tense and mood, as well as the concordant categories of person, class and number. The presence of other categories [mode of action (see Aspectology), voice, type, version, etc.] remains a subject of debate. The verb word form is built on the basis of morphemic orders (from 9 to 17, depending on the approach), mainly prefixal. The incorporation of nouns is limited to a few productive stems. The incorporation of other parts of speech (verb noun, adjective, adverb, etc.) is developed. The question of the structure of the Ket language has long been a subject of debate. Some scientists classify it as an active type, others as a nominative type (see Nominative system) with features of an active system and an ergative system. In modern linguistics, the prevailing point of view is that at the synchronic stage the Ket language cannot be attributed to any of the named types due to the lack of a general grammatical rule when choosing personal indicators in the verb.

The vocabulary is predominantly of Yenisei origin. Early borrowings are mainly from Turkic languages ​​and Samoyedic languages, later ones - from Russian.

The first writing system for the Ket language was developed in 1934 on the basis of the Latin alphabet by the Russian researcher of the Yenisei languages ​​N.K. Karger. A script based on the Cyrillic alphabet, created by the Russian Yeniseist G.K. Werner, was officially adopted in 1985.

Lit.: Dulzon A.P. Ket tales. Tomsk, 1966; aka. Ket language. Tomsk, 1968; Kreinovich Yu. A. Verb of the Celtic language. L., 1968; Ket collection. Mythology, ethnography, texts. M., 1969; Ket collection. Linguistics. M., 1995; Werner N. Die ketische Sprache. Wiesbaden, 1997; Vajda E. Ket. Münch., 2004; Georg S. A descriptive grammar of Ket (Yenisei-Ostyak). Introduction, phonology and morphology. Folkestone, 2007.

Dictionaries: Werner G.K. Kets-Russian/Russian-Kets dictionary. St. Petersburg, 1993; Maksunova Z.V. Concise Kets-Russian dictionary. Middle Ket dialect / Edited by G. K. Werner. Krasnoyarsk, 2001.

KET LANGUAGE(outdated name - Yenisei-Ostyak). Belongs to the Yenisei languages ​​(Ket-Yug group) and is their unity. surviving representative. Names of "chum salmon" (< кет. ке?т ‘человек’) и «кет. яз.» окончательно утвердились в отеч. науке лишь в 1920-х гг.

K. I. – agglutinative type, using prefixation (primarily in the verb system) and suffixation (primarily in the noun system), sometimes they talk about the presence of infixation, there are also elements of incorporation. There is reason to believe that in the early stages of development of K. i. he was characterized by analyticism. K. I. has atypical for the languages ​​of the North. Eurasia phonetic. and grammar. build. It is characterized by the absence of synharmonism: the presence of 4 syllabic tones - syllabic accentuation, but its functionality. the load is insignificant, because in polysyllabic words, tonal oppositions are neutralized. A noun has grammatical categories. class (male, female, real), number, case. There are a large number of ways to express the category of number. There is no formal opposition between the case of the subject and the direct object; these functions are marked subject-object. verb indicators. The conjugation system is complex and includes several. paradigmatic series (series) subject-object. indicators, the distribution of which has not yet received an unambiguous semantic, morphol. or syntactic. justifications. Through subject.-object. verb indicators are consistent with actants in the categories of person, number and class. In this case, the categories of person and number of the subject are expressed separately: the indicators of person occupy the left extreme position in the word form, and numbers occupy the right extreme position. Personal-subject. indicators are prefixed. K. I. with certain reservations they are classified as languages ​​of the nominative system, and a number of researchers note the department. relic. features of ergative and active. building. Word order - prem. subject, object, predicate, and its change can be caused by the needs of communicative selection. Connection of parts complex sentence carried out asyndetically (through intonation) or with the help of clamps, the functions of which are performed by servants. words going back to question. pronouns and adverbs or formally coinciding with case. indicators and postpositions. Actually, unions are practically absent.

Hypotheses are put forward that bring them closer together. plan K. I. with the North Caucasus, Sino-Tibetan, Burushaski, Basque, Indian and certain other languages. Borrowings from the Selkup language, some from Turkic and a large number from Russian have been identified. language

It is believed that the Kets entered Siberia from the south. By the time the Russians arrived on the Yenisei, the neighbors of the Kets were the ancestors of the Selkups and Khanty (in the west), the tundra and forest Entsy (in the north), the Nenets (in the north-west) and the Evenks (in the east). Basic Occupations: fishing and hunting. Reindeer herding had a season. har-r - in the spring, deer were released to free grazing. The distribution area of ​​the Kets is characterized by dispersion. Dept. their groups are far removed from each other. distances. Kets live in the main in bass Yenisei from Podkam. Tunguska in the south to Kureika in the north in the Turukhansky, partly Baikitsky districts (the villages of Kellogg, Surgutikha, Vereshchagino, Baklanikha, Goroshikha, Maduika, Farkovo, Bakhta, Verkhneimbatsk) and the village. Sulomai of the Evenki highway. env. Krasnoyarsk region Most of the chum. The population is concentrated in Kellogg, Maduyka and Sulomai. According to census data in the Krasnoyarsk region. in 1989 there were 994 Kets, in 2002 – 1,189.

Almost all Kets who speak K. Ya. are Ket.-Russian. bilinguals. Rus. language became the main a means of communication in all areas of life. K. I. prem. is used. for family life. level for older people. M.A. Castren, and after him E.A. Kreinovich and A.P. Dulzon was isolated in the Yenis.-Ost. language 2 dialects: Imbatsky and Symsky, named the rivers Inbak and Sym, in the basins of which are pre-im. speakers of these dialects lived. Def. the differences between these dialects allow a number of researchers to consider the language of the Sym Kets as independent, which received the name. "Southern".

Currently time K. I. are divided into 3 dialects (G.K. Werner): Northern-Ket. (along the Ku-Reika River and on Lake Munduyskoye) and the South Ket. (from the river Podkam. Tunguska to the river Elogui), in which one can distinguish the dialects of the Kets Podkam. Tunguska and Eloguya. The last one is Middle Ket., or Lower Imbat. (from the village of Surgutikha to Turukhansk) - includes the south. (Surgutikha village) and the north. (from the village of Vereshchagina to Turukhansk) dialects. Due to the constant migration of the population, the border dialect. ranges are unclear.

1st ket. an alphabet based on the Latin alphabet was developed in the beginning. 1930s, and the 1st primer was published by N.K. Karger in 1934, but they did not find a practical one. applications. Creation of ket. Writing itself began in the 1980s, when an alphabet based on the Cyrillic alphabet was developed and schools were published. primer, dictionary and textbooks for beginners. classes. In a number of villages, teaching is carried out. in the beginning. classes. Lit. language absent.

Lit.: Castrén M.A. Versuch einer Jenissei-Ostjakischen und kottischen Sprachlehre nebst Wörterverzeichnissen aus den genannten Sprachen. St. Petersburg, 1858; Dulzon A.P. Ket language. Tomsk, 1968; Kreinovich E.A. Verb of the Ket language. L., 1968; Languages ​​of the peoples of the USSR. M.; L., 1968. T. 5; Paleoasian languages. M., 1997; Werner H. Die ketische Sprache. Wiesbaden, 1997; Languages ​​of the peoples of Russia: The Red Book: Encycl. dictionary-reference book. M., 2002; Krivonogov V.P. Kets - ten years later (1991–2001). Krasnoyarsk, 2003; Peoples Western Siberia: Khanty. Muncie. Selkups. Nenets. Enets. Nganasans. Chum salmon. M., 2005.

KET LANGUAGE

(obsolete - Yenisei-Ostyak language) - one of the Yenisei languages. Distributed along the course of the Yenisei and its tributaries from Kureykn to Pod-Kamennaya Tunguska in several. isolated districts. Number of speakers 684 people. (1979, census). In K. I. Usually there are 2 dialects - Nmbat (in the northern part) and Symskny (in the southern part of the area), the differences between Crimean are significant. However, certain other groups are also dialectally isolated (for example, Kurei Kets). Another dial is also offered. division: South Ket, Middle Ket, North Ket (G.K. Werner). The most important phonetic and phonological features: rich vocalism (10-11 phonemes), in consonantism the presence of a glottal stop, uvular and implosive consonants, limited. development of the opposition sonority - deafness, formation of opposition in hardness - softness, ease of distribution of consonants, the presence of a system of tones. The case paradigm is regular and two-stage: part of the cases - instrumental, caritive (so-called deprived, case), prosecutive (longitudinal) - is formed from the stem im.-vnn. case, other part (dative, locative, ablative) - from the stem gender. case. There is a special possessive declension (certain case forms are formed with the help of case forms of tense pronouns). Numerous are stored. traces of named classes. The verb system is extremely complex. Subject-object relations, like certain other categories, are expressed by special affixes, which can be found at the beginning, in the middle and at the end of a word. Internal elements inflections are combined with agglutinative affixes. A language of nominative typology with residual signs of the active structure and ergative structure. The vocabulary contains borrowings from Samoyed (Ch. Selkup), Turkic and Russian. languages. Writing is being developed based on rus. graphs, in K.reinoich E.L., Nominal classes and grammatical. means of their expression in the Ket language, VYa. 1961, no. 2; ego, Ket language, in the book: Languages ​​of the Peoples of the USSR, vol. 5, L., 1968; his, Verb of the Ket language, L., 1968; Dulzon L.P., Essays on the grammar of the Ket language, 1, Tomsk, 1964; his, Ket language, Tomsk, 1968; Ket collection. Linguistics, M, 1968; Castren M. A., Versuch einer jenissei-ostjakischen und kottischen Sprachlehre..., Sankt-Petersburg, 1858; Donner K., Ketica, )