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Vyacheslav SHADRIN
Research Associate, Institute for Humanitarian Studies
and Ethnic Minorities of the North,
Russian Academy of Sciences (Siberian Branch)
(Yakutsk, Russian Federation)
Yukaghir Language and Culture in Cyberspace
Linguistic Situation
Scholars believe that the Yukaghir people once formed a separate family of
related tribes. Russians who explored North-Eastern Siberia at the beginning of
the 17 th century found survivors of twelve indigenous tribes in the area between
the Lena and the Anadyr Rivers. Those tribes all had a common ethnonym,
“Odul,” along with various local names such as alai, koime, and anaul.
According to period yasak tribute bills, there were about 6,000 Odul (or
Yukaghir) speakers in the early 17 th century. Their numbers subsequently
dropped, though. Overtime, the remnants of surviving tribes became dissolved
in other ethnic communities, with only two groups maintaining their ancestral
language and culture – the Yukaghirs of the lower and the upper Kolyma River
(some specialists regard them as separate ethnicities speaking related languages).
As of 2002, the total number of ethnic Yukaghirs was 1,509, including 1,097
Yakutia-based. Of these, only 604 (or 40%) spoke the Yukaghir language.
It should be noted here that the Yukaghir language status differs from
community to community. Many of the Yukaghir inhabitants based in
the tundra have now switched over to either Yakut or Russian while those
living in forestland tend to speak Russian more. The tundra-based Yukaghir
communities, meanwhile, often opt for multilingualism, using languages such
as Yukaghir, Even, Chukchi, Yakut and Russian.
Region
Republic of
Sakha (Yakutia)
Chukchi
Autonomy
Magadan
Region
Ethnic
Yukaghir
Fig. 1. Findings of a 2002 census
Yukaghir people
speaking their
native language
Yukaghir
people
speaking
Russian
Yukaghir people
speaking other
languages
No data
available
1097 310 1046 677 2
185 82 152 86 17
79 13 79 8 -