Eastern Khanty language

Eastern Khanty is a Uralic language, frequently considered a dialect of a Khanty language, spoken by about 1,000 people. The majority of these speakers speak the Surgut dialect, as the Vakh-Vasyugan and Salym varieties have been rapidly declining in favor of Russian. The former two have been used as literary languages since the late 20th century, with Surgut being more widely used due to its less isolated location and higher number of speakers.

Eastern Khanty
қӑнтәк йасәӈ, ӄӑнтәк йасәӈ ḳăntək jasəṇ (Surgut) Ӄӑнтәӽ ӄӑнтәк кӧԓ, қӑнтәк кӧԯ
Native to	Russia
Region	Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug
Ethnicity	<1,000 eastern Khanty
Native speakers	~1,000 (2019–2025)
Language family	Uralic Finno-Ugric? Ugric? Khanty Eastern Khanty
Dialects	Salym Surgut Vakh-Vasyugan
Writing system	Cyrillic
Official status
Recognised minority language in	Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug (all Khanty varieties)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Linguist List	`1ok`
	`kca-eas`
Glottolog	`east2774` Eastern Khanty
ELP	Eastern Khanty
Map of regions where those who speak the Eastern Khanty language.(2020/21) 65%-75% 15%-65%

Classification

Dialects

Classification of Eastern Khanty dialects:

Far Eastern (Vakh, Vasjugan, Verkhne-Kalimsk, Vartovskoe)
Surgut (Jugan, Malij Jugan, Pim, Likrisovskoe, Tremjugan-Tromagan)

The Vakh, Vasyugan, Alexandrovo and Yugan (Jugan) dialects have less than 300 speakers in total.

Transitional

The Salym dialect can be classified as transitional between Eastern and Southern (Honti 1998 suggests closer affinity with Eastern, Abondolo 1998 in the same work with Southern). The Atlym and Nizyam dialects also show some Southern features.

Examples

Surgut; Љаљ, икита пэканәта катԓәмтәта мосәԓ. (Ljalj, ikita pekanəta katłəmtəta mosəł.) ― The war has begun, men must take up arms
Vakh; Пÿкинит ӛсäт пäни Ӄоԓӄǝт ӛсäт ǝйтхынǝ вǝлвǝлт. (Pükinit jəsät päni Ḳołḳǝt jəsät ǝjthynǝ wǝlwǝlt.)

Phonology

Eastern Khanty [k] corresponds to [x] in the northern and southern languages.

Vakh

Vakh has the richest vowel inventory, with five reduced vowels /ĕ ø̆ ə̆ ɑ̆ ŏ/ and full /i y ɯ u e ø o æ ɑ/. Some researchers also report /œ ɔ/.

Vakh Khanty consonants
	Bilabial	Dental	Palatal/ized	Retroflex	Velar
Nasal	m	n	nʲ	ɳ	ŋ
Plosive	p	t	tʲ		k
Affricate			tʃ
Fricative		s			ɣ
Lateral		l	lʲ	ɭ
Trill		r
Semivowel	w		j

Surgut

Surgut Khanty has five reduced vowels /æ̆ ə̆ ɵ̆ ʉ̆ ɑ̆ ŏ/ and full vowels /i e a ɒ o u ɯ/.

Surgut Khanty consonants
		Bilabial	Dental / Alveolar	Palatal/ized	Post- alveolar	Velar	Uvular
Nasal		m	n̪	nʲ		ŋ
Plosive / Affricate		p	t̪	tʲ ~ tɕ	tʃ	k	q
Fricative	median		s		(ʃ)		ʁ
Fricative	lateral		ɬ	ɬʲ
Approximant		w	l	j			(ʁ̞ʷ)
Trill			r

/tʲ/ can be realized as an affricate [tɕ] in the Tremjugan and Agan sub-dialects.
The velar/uvular contrast is predictable in inherited vocabulary: [q] appears before back vowels, [k] before front and central vowels. However, in loanwords from Russian, [k] may also be found before back vowels.
The phonemic status of [ʃ] is not clear. It occurs in some words in variation with [s], in others in variation with [tʃ].
In the Pim sub-dialect, /ɬ/ has recently shifted to /t/, a change that has spread from Southern Khanty.
The labialized postvelar approximant [ʁ̞ʷ] occurs in the Tremjugan sub-dialect as an allophone of /w/ between back vowels, for some speakers also word-initially before back vowels. Research from the early 20th century also reported two other labialized phonemes: /kʷ~qʷ/ and /ŋʷ/, but these are no longer distinguished.

Alphabet

Surgut alphabet (*ԯ ң* typeface)
А а	Ӑ ӑ	Ӓ ӓ	В в	И и	Й й	К к	Қ қ	Л л
Љ љ	Ԯ ԯ	М м	Н н	Њ њ	Ң ң	О о	Ө ө	Ө̆ ө̆
Ӧ ӧ	П п	Р р	С с	Т т	Ᲊ ᲊ	У у	Ў ў	Ӱ ӱ
Ҳ ҳ	Ҷ ҷ	Ш ш	Ы ы	Э э	Ә ә

Vakh-Vasyugan alphabet (*ԯ ң* typeface)
А а	Ӑ ӑ	Ӓ ӓ	В в	И и	Й й	К к	Қ қ	Л л
Ԯ ԯ	М м	Н н	Ң ң	О о	Ө ө	Ө̆ ө̆	Ӧ ӧ	П п
Р р	С с	Т т	У у	Ў ў	Ӱ ӱ	Ҳ ҳ	Ҷ ҷ	Ш ш
Ы ы	Э э	Ә ә	Ӛ ӛ	Я я	Ю ю

The Khanty letters with a tick or tail at bottom, namely Қ Ԯ Ң Ҳ Ҷ, are sometimes rendered with a diagonal tail, i.e. ⟨Ӆ Ӊ⟩, and sometimes with a curved tail, i.e. ⟨Ӄ Ӈ Ԓ Ӽ⟩. However, in the case of Surgut such graphic variation needs to be handled by the font, because there are no Unicode characters to hard-code Ҷ with a diagonal tail, and Unicode has refused a request to encode a variant of Ҷ with a curved tail ( , approximated in unicode as Ч̡ч̡), the reasoning being that it would be an allograph rather than a distinct letter. (The same is true of the other curved-tail variants in Unicode; those were encoded by mistake.)

Grammar

The Vakh dialect is divergent. It has rigid vowel harmony and a tripartite (ergative–accusative) case system, where the subject of a transitive verb takes the instrumental case suffix -nə-, while the object takes the accusative case suffix. The subject of an intransitive verb, however, is not marked for case and might be said to be absolutive. The transitive verb agrees with the subject, as in nominative–accusative systems.

Vocabulary

Numerals

Surgut Khanty numerals
No.	Numerals
1	әй (attributive), оԓәӈ (non-attributive)
2	кат (attributive), катӽән (non-attributive)
3	ӄөԓәм
4	њәԓә
5	вӓт
6	ӄут
7	ԓапәт
8	њыԓәӽ
9	ирйэӈ
10	йэӈ
11	йэӈ ӱрәккә әй
12	йэӈ ӱрәккә катӽән
20	ӄөс
25	ӄөс ӱрәккә вӓт
30	ӄөԓәм йэӈ
31	ӄөԓәм йэӈ әй
40	њәԓә йэӈ
42	њәԓә йэӈ катӽән
80	њыԓсот
100	сот
255	кат сотӽән вӓт йэӈ вӓт
800	њыԓәӽ сот
1000	ᲊорас
30943	ӄөԓәм йэӈ ᲊорас ирйэӈ сот њәԓә йэӈ ӄөԓәм

[18] /tʲ/ can be realized as an affricate [tɕ] in the Tremjugan and Agan sub-dialects.

[velar/uvular-19] The velar/uvular contrast is predictable in inherited vocabulary: [q] appears before back vowels, [k] before front and central vowels. However, in loanwords from Russian, [k] may also be found before back vowels.

[20] The phonemic status of [ʃ] is not clear. It occurs in some words in variation with [s], in others in variation with [tʃ].

[21] In the Pim sub-dialect, /ɬ/ has recently shifted to /t/, a change that has spread from Southern Khanty.

[22] The labialized postvelar approximant [ʁ̞ʷ] occurs in the Tremjugan sub-dialect as an allophone of /w/ between back vowels, for some speakers also word-initially before back vowels. Research from the early 20th century also reported two other labialized phonemes: /kʷ~qʷ/ and /ŋʷ/, but these are no longer distinguished.