# Nganasan language

The Nganasan language (formerly called тавгийский, tavgiysky, or тавгийско-самоедский, tavgiysko-samoyedsky in Russian; from the ethnonym тавги, tavgi) is a moribund Samoyedic language spoken by about 30 of the Nganasan people. It is notable for its unusual characteristics among the Samoyedic languages, as well among the greater Uralic languages.

## Classification

Nganasan is the most divergent language of the Samoyedic branch of the Uralic language family (Janhunen 1998). There are two main dialects, Avam (авамский говор, avamsky govor) and Vadeyev (Russian: вадеевский говор, romanized: vadeyevsky govor). A part of the vocabulary can be traced to elements of unknown substrate origin, which are roughly twice as common in Nganasan than in other Samoyedic languages such as Nenets or Enets, and bear no apparent resemblance to the neighboring Tungusic and Yukaghir languages. The source of this substrate remains a mystery so far.

## Phonology

Nganasan has 10 vowel phonemes and 21 consonant phonemes.

### Vowels

Nganasan vowels :
| | Front | Front | Central | Back |
| | unrounded | rounded | Central | Back |
| Close | i | y | ɨ | u |
| Mid | e | | ə | o |
| Open | ⁱa | ⁱa | a | ᵘa |
Several disyllabic sequences of vowels are possible:
| | | Second Vowel |
| | | High | Mid | Low |
| High First Vowel | i- | ii | iə | ia |
| y- | yy | yə | ya |
| ɨ- | ɨɨ | ɨə | ɨa |
| u- | uu | uə | ua |
Non-High First Vowel :
| | -i | -y | -u | -ə | -a |
| e- | ei | ey | | | |
| ə- | əi | əy | əu | əə | |
| o- | oi | | ou | | oa |
| a- | ai | ay | au | | aa |
The sequences /ⁱai/ and /iu/ also occur, but only across morpheme boundaries.
The vowels /e/ and /o/ only occur in initial syllables.
Vowels can be divided two pairs of groups based on harmony: front /ⁱa e i y/ vs back /a o ɨ u/, and unrounded /ⁱa e i ɨ/ vs rounded /a o y u/. Backness harmony only applies to high vowels.
Front vowels do not occur after initial dental consonants.
/ə ɨ u/ do not occur after palatal consonants, as they have fronted to /e i y/, although the first of these only happens in word-initial syllables.
/ⁱa/ does not occur after palatal consonants, having been neutralized into /a/.
/o/ does not occur after labial consonants, having unrounded to /ə/ in this position.

### Consonants

One of the main features of Nganasan is consonant gradation, which concerns the consonant phonemes /h, t, k, s/ alternating with /b, d, g, ɟ/ and their nasal combinations /ŋh, nt, ŋk, ns/ with /mb, nd, ŋg, ɲɟ/.
Nganasan consonants :
| | | Bilabial | Dental/ Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal |
| Nasal | Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | |
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | c | k | ʔ |
| Plosive | voiced | b | d | ɟ | ɡ | |
| Fricative | plain | | ð | | | h |
| Fricative | sibilant | | s | sʲ | | |
| Rhotic | Rhotic | | r | | | |
| Approximant | central | | | j | | |
| Approximant | lateral | | l | lʲ | | |
* /h/ is labialized [hʷ] before /a/ and /ə/
* /b/ has the allophone [p] before other consonants, although this can also be analyzed as an "unusual" allophone of /h/
* /ɟ/ has the allophone [j] when not before a vowel
* /d/ is lenited to [ð] intervocalically

## Orthography

The language's Cyrillic-based alphabet was devised in the 1990s:
| А а | Б б | В в | Г г | Д д | Е е | Ё ё | Ж ж |
| З з | З̌ з̌ (З̆ з̆) | И и | Й й | ˮ | К к | Л л | М м |
| Н н | Ӈ ӈ | О о | Ө ө | П п | Р р | С с | Т т |
| У у | Ү ү | Ф ф | Х х | Ц ц | Ч ч | Ш ш | Щ щ |
| Ъ ъ | Ы ы | Ь ь | Э э | Ә ә | Ю ю | Я я | |
Cyrillic orthography :
| А | Б | В | Г | Д | Е | Ё | Ж | З | З̌ | И | Й | ˮ | К | Л | М | Н | Ӈ | О | Ө | П | Р | С | Т | У | Ү | Ф | Х | Ц | Ч | Ш | Щ | Ъ | Ы | Ь | Э | Ә | Ю | Я |
| а | б | в | г | д | е | ё | ж | з | з̌ | и | й | ˮ | к | л | м | н | ӈ | о | ө | п | р | с | т | у | ү | ф | х | ц | ч | ш | щ | ъ | ы | ь | э | ә | ю | я |
| IPA |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| a | b | v | g | d | je | jo | ʒ | z | ð | i | j | ʔ | k | l | m | n | ŋ | o | ᵘa | p | ɹ, ɾ | s | t | u | y | f | x | t͡s | t͡ʃ | ʃ | ʃtʃ | - | ɨ | ʲ | e | ə | ju | ja |

## Morphology
### Nouns

Nouns in Nganasan have the grammatical categories of number (singular, dual, plural), case (nominative, genitive, accusative, lative, locative, elative, prolative, comitative) and possessivity (non-possessive versus possessive forms). Nganasan lacks determiners; however, the possessive forms of second person singular and third person singular can be used to express definiteness.
Case suffixes in Nganasan :
| | Singular | Dual | Plural |
| Nominative | Ø | -KƏJ | -ʔ |
| Accusative | Ø ~ (-M) | -KI | -J |
| Genitive | Ø ~ (-Ŋ) | -KI | -ʔ |
| Dative | -NTƏ | - | -NTI-ʔ |
| Locative | -NTƏ-NU | - | -NTI-NU |
| Ablative | -KƏ-TƏ | - | -KI-TƏ, ~KI-TI-ʔ |
| Prolative | -MƏ-NU | - | -ʔ-MƏ-NU |

### Pronouns

Nganasan has personal, demonstrative, interrogative, negative and determinative pronouns. Personal pronouns are not inflected: their grammatical case forms coincide and their local case forms are expressed by the corresponding possessed forms of the postposition na-. Other pronouns are inflected like nouns (Helimski, 1998).
Personal pronouns and pronominal forms :
| | Nom, Gen, Acc | Lative | Locative | Elative | Prolative | Personal pronouns + clitics | Personal emphatic pronouns |
| Sg1 | mənə | nanə | nanunə | nagətənə | namənunə | mɨlʲianə | ŋonənə |
| Sg2 | tənə | nantə | nanuntə | nagətətə | namənuntə | tɨlʲiatə | ŋonəntə |
| Sg3 | sɨtɨ | nantu | nanuntu | nagətətu | namənuntu | sɨlʲiatɨ | ŋonəntu |
| Du1 | mi | nani | nanuni | nagətəni | namənuni | mɨlʲiani | ŋonəni |
| Du2 | ti | nandi | nanunti | nagətəndi | namənundi | tɨlʲiati | ŋonənti |
| Du3 | sɨti | nandi | nanunti | nagətəndi | namənundi | sɨlʲiati | ŋonənti |
| Pl1 | mɨŋ | nanuʔ | nanunuʔ | nagətənuʔ | namənunuʔ | mɨlʲianɨʔ | ŋonənuʔ |
| Pl2 | tɨŋ | nanduʔ | nanuntuʔ | nagətənduʔ | namənunduʔ | tɨlʲiatiʔ | ŋonəntuʔ |
| Pl3 | sɨtɨŋ | nanduŋ | nanuntuŋ | nagətənduŋ | namənunduŋ | sɨlʲiatɨŋ | ŋonəntuŋ |

### Verbs

Verbs agree with their subjects in person and number, and have three conjugation types. Like other Samoyedic languages, Nganasan has the opposition of perfective and imperfective verbs.

#### Conjugation

The subjective conjugation is used when there is no object or the object is focused. The objective conjugation is used with transitive words. The reflexive conjugation is used for some intransitive verbs. Each conjugation type has its own personal endings. There are three subtypes of objective conjugation endings that correspond to object number.
| | Subjective | Objective | Objective | Objective | Objectless |
| | Subjective | singular object | dual object | plural object | Objectless |
| 1Sg | -m | -mə | -kəi-j-nə | -j-nə | -nə |
| 2Sg | -ŋ | -rə | -kəi-j-tə | -j-tə | -ŋ |
| 3Sg | ø | -tu | -kəi-j-tu | -j-tu | -ʔ or -tə |
| 1Du | -mi | -mi | -kəi-j-ni | -j-ni | -ni |
| 2Du | -ri | -ri | -kəi-j-ti | -j-ti | -nti |
| 3Du | -kəj | -ði | -kəi-j-ti | -j-ti | -nti |
| 1Pl | -muʔ | -muʔ | -kəi-j-nuʔ | -j-nuʔ | -nuʔ |
| 2Pl | -ruʔ | -ruʔ | -kəi-j-tu | -j-tu | -ntuʔ |
| 3Pl | -ʔ | -tuŋ | -kəi-j-tuŋ | -j-tuŋ | -ntəʔ |

#### Mood

Nganasan has a broad mood paradigm with nine forms: indicative, imperative, interrogative, inferential, renarrative, irrealis, optative, admissive-cohortive, debitive, abessive and prohibitive. Mood forms are mostly built with the help of affixation but special particles are also sometimes used. All mood forms, except the imperative, have the same personal suffixes. Tenses are distinguished in the indicative, imperative and interrogative moods (Tereščenko, 1979).

#### Aspect and tense

Most corresponding imperfective and perfective stems have the same root, but in rare cases the roots can be different. The aspectual opposition between imperfective and perfective verbs remains semantic in most verbal forms. However, in the indicative mood it is used to express present continuous and present perfect meanings, respectively. In this case, the opposition is present formally: imperfective verbs take imperfective suffixes and the perfective ones have the perfective suffixes (Helimski, 1998). Imperfective verbs can also express future meanings. These forms are not considered tense in the strict sense. The proper tense forms of past and future include past, past perfect, future, future-in-the past (Katzschmann, 2008).

#### Non-finite verb forms

Participles :
| | Formation | Example |
| Present participle | S1'-NTUə(-NCx)(-Px) | koðutuə "which kills ~ which is killed" |
| Preterite participle | S1-SUə-Dʲəə(-NCx)(-Px) | kotudʲüədʲəə "which killed ~ which was killed" |
| Future participle | S1'-ʔSUTə(-NCx)(-Px) | koðuʔsutə "which will kill ~ which will be killed" |
| Future-in-the-past participle | S1'-ʔSUTə-Dʲəə(-NCx)(-Px | koðuʔsutədʲəə "which was to kill ~ which was to be killed" |
| Abessive participle | S1-MəTUMA̩ʔ(-NCx)(-Px) | kotumətumaʔa "which does not kill ~ which is not been killed" |
| Preterite abessive participle | S1-MəTUMA̩ʔA̩̥-Dʲəə(-NCx)(-Px) | kotumətumaʔdʲəə "which did not kill ~ which was not killed" |
| Passive participle | S1-Məə(-NCx)(-Px) | kotuməə "killed" |
| Preterite passive participle | S1-Məə-Dʲəə(-NCx)(-Px) | kotuməədʲəə "which was killed" |
Verbal adverbs :
| | Formation | Example |
| Verbal adverb | S1-SA | kotudʲa 'having killed', nʲisɪ̈ kotudʲa "having not killed" |
| Verbal adverb of immediate precedence | S1-KAJ-SA | kotugasʲa "having just killed" |
| Conditional-temporal verbal adverb | S1-HÜʔ(-Px4) | kotubüʔ "(if ~ when) to kill', kotubɪ̈nə 'if ~ when I kill", etc. |
| Preterite temporal verbal adverb | S1-HÜʔ-ə(-Cx))-Px) | kotubüʔə "when killed', kotubüʔəmə "when I killed", etc. |
| Future conditional verbal adverb | S1-HÜʔ-NÜ-Px2 | kotubününə "if I will kill" |
Verbal nouns :
| | Formation | Example |
| Imperfective verbal noun | S1-MUN(-Cx)(-Px) | kotumu sG kotumunə hireə "worth killing" sLat niimsiəm kotomundə "I was afraid to kill" sEla + s1 kotumu(ng)ətənə "so that I do not kill", etc. |
| Perfective verbal noun | (S3/S1')-ʔMUə(-Cx)(-Px) | koðaʔmuə ~ koðuʔmuə sLoc + s1 koðaʔmuəntənunə "where I killed", etc. |
| Preterite verbal noun | S1'-NTU(-Cx)(-Px) | koðutu sLat koðutundə "when killed" koðutundənə "when I killed" |
| Supine | S1'-NAKə(-Px2) | kotunakə s3 kotunagətu "in order that he killed", etc. |

## Syntax
### Word order

The dominating word order in Nganasan is SOV, similar to other Samoyedic languages. However, Nganasan is considered to exhibit more freedom in word order than other languages of its group. According to Tereščenko (1979), other types of word orders are used for shifting the sentence focus, especially in emphatic speech. The focused constituent usually immediately precedes the verb. Wagner-Nagy (2010) suggests that Nganasan is similar to Hungarian in its behavior, in that its word order is determined by pragmatic factors rather than being fixed.
On the phrase level, the attributes within the noun phrase usually precede the noun and become focused when placed after it. Numerals and adjectives agree with the heads in case, and adjectives also agree with the head in number. The case agreement is only complete in grammatical cases; in locative cases the attribute gets genitive form. There are no prepositions in Nganasan, postpositions are composite parts of words and also require the attributes in genitive cases. Possession is expressed with genitive construction or by a possessive suffix attached to the possessed (Helimski, 1998; Katzschmann, 2008).
Nganasan is a pro-drop language: pronominal subjects are often omitted when the verb conjugation type is subjective (Tereščenko, 1979).

### Negation

Standard negation is expressed by negative auxiliary (ńi-) followed by the main verb in connegative form marked with ʔ, e.g. ńi-ndɨ-m konɨʔ "I do not go". All inflectional markers are taken by the negation auxiliary (Gusev, 2015). Objects in the form of personal, negative or demonstrative pronouns can be inserted between the negative auxiliary and the main verb (Wagner-Nagy, 2011). There are a few negative verbs other than ni-, such as kasa — "nearly", ləði — "vainly", əku — "maybe", and ŋuəli — "of course", but their functionality is restricted, with only ni- having a full paradigm.
Existential sentences are negated with the negative existential predicate d'aŋku or its derivative stem d'anguj-. D'aŋku can only be used in present indicative as it behaves like a noun: it takes nominal predicative endings. D'anguj- (a composite of d'aŋku and ij- "be") is used for all other tense/mood combinations.

### Subordination

Subordination is typically formed by constructions with non-finite verbal forms. Such constructions are usually placed before the constituents they modify. The relative construction is always placed immediately before the modified constituent, whereas other types of constructions allow other constituents to interfere. The word order in such construction is the same as in simple sentences (Tereščenko, 1973).

### Coordination

Coordination is most often achieved by means of intonation. Sometimes pronominal and adverbial derivatives can be used as conjunctions. For example, adverb ŋonə 'also' can be used as conjunction. The category of conjunctions may be undergoing formation under the influence of Russian (Tereščenko, 1973).

## Education

Compulsory education did not exist for Nganasans until the 1930s. Until then, Nganasans were illiterate with no exceptions. Not many Nganasans spoke Russian; any spoken Russian would not be in standard Russian. Rather, it would be a pidgin called Taimyr Pidgin Russian or Govorka.
The first school was founded in Dudinka in 1920. After its foundation, other villages started to have schools. Russian was taught as the primary language in these schools, not only because the administration desired to Russify the population, but also due to the fact Nganasan was spoken rather than written until the 1980s.
In schools, there are some learning materials for some age groups: Volochanka pupils only learn their heritage language 2 times a week. The Ust'ye Avam pupils no longer have this education, as their school closed after it burned down in 2012.

## Media

In 2019 professor Beáta Wagner-Nagy, who did fieldwork at Taimyr, reported the following. Radio Taimyr, with its station in Dudinka have their broadcasts in Nganasan language daily since 1990, but these programs are only of 10–15 minutes long. 24 percent of Nganasan do listen to the radio program; some more want to but do not have a radio set. There are no TV broadcasts in Nganasan. Since 1993, the newspaper Sovetsky Taimyr (renamed to Taimyr after the collapse of the Soviet Union) has been irregularly publishing news and other stories in Nganasan.

## Literature

* Gusev, V. (2015) Negation in Nganasan. In Miestamo, M., Tamm, A., Wagner-Nagy, B. (ed.) Negation in Uralic Languages, 103–312. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISBN 9789027268648.
* Helimski, Еugene. (1994). Очерк морфонологии и словоизменительной морфологии нганасанского языка. Таймырский этнолингвистический сборник (1), 190–221.
* Helimski, Eugene. (1998) Nganasan. In Abondolo, Daniel (ed.), The Uralic Languages, 480–515. London: Routledge.
* Katzschmann, Michael; Labanauskas, Kazis I. (2008). Chrestomathia Nganasanica: Texte - Übersetzung - Glossar - Grammatik ; Bearbeitung der "Nganasanskaja folʹklornaja chrestomatija", zusammengestellt von Kazis I. Labanauskas unter Berücksichtigung des "Slovarʹ nganasansko-russkij i russko-nganasanskij". Nganasanica. Norderstedt: Books on Demand GmbH. ISBN 978-3-8370-1121-0.
* Kortt, I. R.; Simčenko, Ju. B. (1985). Wörterverzeichnis der Nganasanischen Sprache. Berlin: Systemata Mundi. ISBN 3-925500-00-6.
* Tereščenko, N.M. (1986) Алфавит нганасанского языка, in Skorik P.A. (ed.), Палеоазиатские языки, Leningrad: Nauka.
* Tereščenko, N.M. (1979) Нганасанский язык, Leningrad: Nauka.
* Tereščenko, N.M. (1973) Синтакс самодийских языков, Leningrad: Nauka.
* Wagner-Nagy, B. (2002) Chrestomathia Nganasanica. (Studia Uralo-Altaica: Supplementum 10) Szeged. ISBN 963-482-588-5.
* Wagner-Nagy, B. (2010) Existential and possessive predicate phrases in Nganasan. In Gusev, V. and Widmer, A., Finnisch-Ugrische Mitteilungen, 32/33. Hamburg: Buske.
* Wagner-Nagy, B. (2011) On the typology of negation in Ob-Ugric and Samoyedic languages (MSFOu 262). Helsinki: SUS.
* Wagner-Nagy, B. (2018). A grammar of Nganasan (Vol. 6). Brill.