Samoyedic

The Samoyedic languages are a branch within the Uralic languages. They can be subdivided into two subgroups: the North Samoyedic languages and the South Samoyedic languages.

The North Samoyedic group contains three subgroups: Enets, Nenets and Nganasan.

• Enets is comprised of two languages, Baykha Enets and Khantaysk Enets, that are barely comprehensible to each others' speakers. Both are quite endangered, youngest speakers being in their 40s, as youth assimilate into Nenets-speaking community of Nenetsia.
  • Baykha Enets is very endangered, with speakers numbering in the low hundreds as the youth assimilate into Nenets and other, larger communities. Largest community of speakers is in the Potapovo settlement in the Dudinka region on the Yenisey river. [which Republic?]
  • Khantaysk Enets is also very endangered (more so than Baykha), with speakers numbering less than 100 as the youth assimilate into Nenets and other, larger communities. Speakers of Khantaysk Enets live in the Vorontsovo settlement in the Ust-Yenisey region. [which Republic?]
• Nenets is also comprised of two languages, Forest Nenets and Tundra Nenets, spoken in Nenetsia, where Tundra Nenets is an official language.
  • Tundra Nenets. There are about 135 000(?) speakers of Tundra Nenets in Nenetsia, part of the Russian Federation, where it is an official language.
  • Forest Nenets. Presently there are about 6000 speakers in Nenetsia.
• Nganasan has about 2,000 speakers, mainly concentrated in the Taymyr peninsula of Nenetsia (Russian Federation), though some speakers can be found in the Dudinka region as well. Russian is used as a second language, but in day-to-day life Nganasan predominates. Some speakers are trilingual, even quadrilingual in Russian, Baykha Enets and Tundra Nenets. Ethnic pride is very strong amongst the Nganasan, with those ethnic Nganasan not speaking the language well being looked down upon. Traditional shamanistic religion.

The South Samoyedic group consists of Selkup, as well as two extinct languages, Kamass and Mator.