Russia is a multinational country. It is not surprising that among the peoples inhabiting it, many amazing, little studied and archaic languages coexist. The ethnic culture in its various manifestations, including linguistic ones, is best preserved by the northern regions. Siberia is no exception. One of the languages of the local indigenous people is Ket.
Basic information about the language
The first thing to say about it is that the Ket language belongs to the Yenisei family of languages. This fact is so simple, but at the same time almost unbelievable, since today Ket is the last representative of this language family. More recently, his brother lived - the Yug language. However, now it has disappeared, and the Ket itself is on the verge of extinction.
Despite the fact that the family of the Ket language seems to be determined quite confidently, a number of scientists have attempted to trace its relationship with other languages. For example, with the languages of the inhabitants of Tibet, and with the dialects of the northern Indians; however, their attemptscrashed.
The Ket language is widespread in the territory of the Yenisei River basin, namely in a small area of the Krasnoyarsk Territory.
Kets
It is impossible not to say a few words about the Kets - the people whose representatives are the main native speakers of the Ket language.
In ethnography they are often called Ostyaks or Yeniseis, but the word "ket" is both a name and a self-name, since in Ket the word "ket" denotes a person.
According to 2010, the number of Kets in Russia is only about 1200 people. Almost all of them live in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. In the modern study of a particular nationality, it is also important to determine the paths of its origin. So, it is known about the Kets that the community of their ancestors originated in the southern part of the interfluve of the Ob and Yenisei. In themselves, they combine both Siberian Caucasoid and ancient Caucasoid roots.
Before the development of Siberia by the Russians, the Kets, although they still existed in the tribal system, already mastered the art of metallurgy. They became part of Russia at the beginning of the 17th century. From time immemorial, their main occupation has been hunting, fishing, and raising livestock (including deer).
The original religion of the Kets has no definite name, although it can be defined as based on animism. The world, in their mythological representation, is divided into three spheres, and the space around is inhabited by many spirits of different nature. There is a higherthe deity Es is good, his wife Hosedem is evil.
With the arrival of Russians in their lands, the Kets begin to accept Orthodox Christianity.
Study history
The first mention of this language was documented at the end of the 18th century: in 1788 in the travel notes of P. Pallas. Since then, over the course of several centuries, a number of scientific and practical manuals on the Ket language have been published, revealing its history, features of its structure and existence. In particular, the most outstanding works should be noted. The first among them is the grammar and dictionary of the Ket language, published by the Russian philologist M. Castren.
However, this did not stop the interest in the language - in the Soviet years, it only flared up more strongly. So, in the 1960s, several ethnographic and cultural expeditions were organized to the areas where the Ket language was used. Among the participants of the expedition were such famous domestic scientists and researchers as V. N. Toporov, as well as B. A. Assumption.
Features
Many of the peculiarities of the Ket language may seem at least strange to a native Russian speaker. So, for example, most of the meanings in a verb are distinguished not only with the help of prefixes (prefixes) that are familiar to us, suffixes that are much rarer than in Russian, but also with the use of so-called infixes (a morpheme inserted in the middle of the word root)!
Also, among the linguistic features, one can note the coexistence of such qualities of the language as the presence of opposition of phonemes in terms of hardness and softness,as well as tone differences (up to five - depending on the dialect).
Ket alphabet
In the 1930s, a certain alphabet based on the Latin alphabet was compiled for the Ket language. However, in the 1980s it was replaced by a new one based on the Cyrillic alphabet, which in writing makes it look a bit like Russian (deceptive similarity!). Despite the fact that 17 more letters are distinguished in the educational literature, this is what the main accepted Ket alphabet looks like now:
Ket today
As mentioned above, the fate of this language, like many other isolated minority languages, is rather sad. Today it is endangered.
The main function of its use today remains the crafts of indigenous peoples. Although in colloquial speech, even among speakers, including the elderly, it is used quite sluggishly and reluctantly. Children are hardly taught it. Like many national languages, this one is often used in the presence of people who do not know it, in order to hide the subject of conversation from them, to discuss secret or personal matters.
