Nenets

Abstract

Abstract The chapter presents an overview of two closely related indigenous languages—Tundra Nenets and Forest Nenets (in older literature often conflated and called "Yurak Samoyed"). It provides sociolinguistic information on these two sister languages, focusing especially on the regional variance in their vitality and endangerment, and also touching upon the debates on their status as two distinct languages. The structure of both Nenets varieties is described, from phonology and morphology to lexicon, syntax, and information structuring, also focusing on the structural differences between Tundra Nenets and Forest Nenets. Special emphasis is put on the phenomena specific to these languages: complex morphophonological processes; the category of evidentiality that displays a rather complicated structure and closely interacts with TAM categories; functional distribution of monofinite and bifinite clause combining, and predominantly verbal means of encoding information structure.