Evenki language
| Evenki | ||
|---|---|---|
| Эвэды̄ турэ̄н (Russian dialect) Evedyy tureen Ewengki Gisong (Chinese dialect) ᠧᠸᠡᠩᠺᠢ ᠬᠢᠰᠰᠩ | ||
| Pronunciation | [əwəŋki gisʊŋ] | |
| Native to | China, Russia | |
| Region | Inner Mongolia and Heilongjiang in China; most of the Asian part of Russia | |
| Ethnicity | Evenks | |
Native speakers | 16,000 (2007–2010) | |
| Cyrillic, Latin, Mongolian (experimentally) | ||
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-3 | evn | |
| Glottolog | even1259 | |
| ELP | Evenki | |
| Glottopedia | (de) Evenki (de) | |
Current geographic distribution of languages in the Tungusic family, including Evenki.
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Evenki is classified as Severely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger | ||
Evenki (/eɪˈvɛŋki/ ay-VEN-kee), formerly known as Tungus, is the largest member of the northern group of Tungusic languages, a group which also includes Even, Negidal, and the more closely related Oroqen language. The name is sometimes wrongly given as "Evenks". It is spoken by the Evenki or Ewenkī(s) in Russia and China.
In certain areas the influences of the Yakut and the Buryat languages are particularly strong. The influence of Russian in general is overwhelming (in 1979, 75.2% of the Evenkis spoke Russian, rising to 92.7% in 2002). Evenki children were forced to learn Russian at Soviet residential schools, and returned with a "poor ability to speak their mother tongue...". The Evenki language varies considerably among its dialects, which are divided into three large groups: the northern, the southern and the eastern dialects. These are further divided into minor dialects. A written language was created for Evenkis in the Soviet Union in 1931, first using a Latin alphabet, and from 1937 a Cyrillic one. In China, Evenki is written experimentally in the Mongolian script. The language is generally considered endangered.