Even language

Not to be confused with Evenki language.
Even
эвэды торэн
evedy toren
Native toRussia
RegionRussian Far East
Ethnicity21,800 Evens (2010 census)[1]
Native speakers
5,700 (2010 census)[1]
Tungusic
Dialects
  • Western
  • Eastern
  • Arman †
Cyrillic
Language codes
ISO 639-3eve
Glottologeven1260
ELPEven
Even is classified as Severely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
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The Even language /əˈvɛn/ ə-VEN, also known as Lamut, Ewen, Eben, Orich, Ilqan (Russian: Эве́нский язы́к, romanized: Evénsky yazýk, historically also Ламутский язы́к, Lamutsky yazýk), is a Tungusic language spoken by the Evens in Siberia. It is spoken by widely scattered communities of reindeer herders from Kamchatka and the Sea of Okhotsk in the east to the Lena river in the west and from the Arctic coast in the north to the Aldan river in the south. Even is an endangered language with only some 5,700 speakers (Russian census, 2010). These speakers are specifically from the Magadan region, the Chukot region and the Koryak region.[2] The dialects are Arman (transitional between Even and Evenki), Indigirka, Kamchatka, Kolyma-Omolon, Okhotsk, Ola, Tompon, Upper Kolyma, Sakkyryr and Lamunkhin.[3]

In the regions where the Evens primarily reside, the Even language is generally taught in pre-school and elementary school alongside the national language, Russian. Where Even functioned primarily as an oral language for communication between reindeer herding brigades, textbooks began circulating throughout these educational institutions from around 1925 to 1995.[4]

The syntax of the Even language follows the nominative case and subject-object-verb (SOV) word order, with the attribute preceding the dependent member.[4]

  1. ^ a b Even at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
  2. ^ "Even (Lamut) language and alphabet". www.omniglot.com. Retrieved 2017-02-08.
  3. ^ Raymond G. Gordon Jr., ed. 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 15th edition. Dallas: Summer Institute of Linguistics.
  4. ^ a b "Endangered Languages of Siberia - The Even Language". lingsib.iea.ras.ru. Retrieved 2017-02-09.