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The NorthernYukaghirLanguage is a YukaghirLanguage of Russia (Asia). SIL code: YKG. ISO 639-2: mis. Population: 30 to 150 Tundra out of 230 to 1,100 in the ethnic group (1995 M. Krauss, 1989 census). Region: Yakutia and the Kamchatka Peninsula. Alternate names: YUKAGIR, JUKAGIR, ODUL, TUNDRA, TUNDRE, NORTHERN YUKAGIR. Comments: Not inherently intelligible with Southern Yukaghir (Kolyma). It may be distantly related to Altaic or Uralic. Even is the literary language used. Speakers below 50 years use Russian as second language. All can speak Yakut. Reindeer herdsmen and some other families can speak Even. Chukot is also used. Most speakers over 50 years old. Endangered. No sense of ethnic identity between speakers of the two Yukaghir varieties. In the 19th century their territory shrank because of merging clans, military clashes, assimilation with the Even, and later, collectivization. From the 1950s to the 1980s the state sent all children to boarding school. 'Odul' is their name for themselves. SOV, postpositions, genitives, articles, adjectives, numerals, relatives before noun heads, question word not initial or final, 2 prefixes, 6 suffixes, word order focus preverbal, subjects and topics tend to be initial, affixes indicate case of noun phrases, person and number of subject indicated by obligatory verb phrases, split intransitivity: intransitive subjects encoded as transitive when nonfocus, focus marked the same way for intransitive subjects and direct objects, and only those, otherwise rather accusative, resultative, reflexive, reciprocal, causative, comparative, CV, CVCCVV, nontonal. Taught through fourth grade in the Adnriushkino settlement, and as an elective through eighth grade in Nelemnoye. Pine and deciduous forest. Riverine. Swidden agriculturalists, heavy dependence on the support of the government. Christian, traditional religion.(extract from http://www.ethnologue.com/)
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