Kerek language

Extinct Chukotko-Kamchatkan language of northeast Russia

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Kerek
Native to	Russia
Region	Chukotka Autonomous Okrug
Ethnicity	Kereks
Extinct	2005^[1]
Language family	Chukotko-Kamchatkan Chukotkan Kerek
Dialects	Maino-Pilgin Khatyr
Language codes
ISO 639-3	`krk`
Linguist List	`krk.html`
Glottolog	`kere1280`
ELP	Kerek
Pre-contact distribution of Kerek (dark orange) and other Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages

Kerek (Russian: Керекский язык, romanized: Kereksky yazyk) is an extinct language in Russia of the northern branch of the Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages. On historical linguistic grounds it is most closely related to Koryak (both languages have a merger of the Proto-Chukotko-Kamchatkan phonemes /*ð/ and /*r/ with /*j/). The next closest relative is Chukchi (/*ð/ and /*r/ are merged, but not /*j/).

In 1997 there were still two speakers remaining, but by 2005 the language was considered extinct.^[2] According to the 2010 census,^[3] there were 10 people claiming Kerek as their native language, believed to only consist of partial speakers and non-speakers who claim the language as part of their ethnic heritage. Over the 20th century many members of the Kerek ethnic group shifted to Chukchi, the language of the majority ethnic group in the area, but now most Chukchis and Kereks speak Russian.

Phonology

Vowels

Vowels in Kerek
	Front	Central	Back
Close	[i]		[u]
Mid		[ə]	[o]
Open		[a]

Vowels may be long.

Consonants

Consonants in Kerek
	Bilabial	Dental	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal	Glottal
Plosive	[p]	[t]		[k]	[q]		[ʔ]
Fricative						[ħ]
Affricate			[tʃ]
Nasal	[m]	[n]		[ŋ]
Lateral		[l]
Semivowel	[w]		[j]

Consonants may also be long, [l] is palatalized intervocalically, and [tʃ] is pronounced as [s] by some.

Dialects

There were two dialects, the Maino-Pilgin and Khatyr dialects.^[4]

Grammar

Kerek is an agglutinative language, meaning that the morphemes build on each other to have different meanings.^[5]

References

^ Kerek at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
^ Fortescue, Michael 2005. Comparative Chukotko-Kamchatkan Dictionary. Berlin / New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
^ 2010 census
^ "КЕРЕКСКИЙ ЯЗЫК • Большая российская энциклопедия - электронная версия". old.bigenc.ru. Retrieved 20 April 2024.
^ "Endangered Languages of Siberia – The Kerek Language". lingsib.iea.ras.ru. Retrieved 10 February 2017.