Southern Khanty is a Uralic language, frequently considered a dialect of a unified Khanty language, spoken by 56 people in 2010. It is considered to be extinct, its speakers having shifted starting in the 18th century to Russian or Siberian Tatar, but some speakers of the Kyshikov or Ust-Nazym dialect were found in its former territory. Speakers of Surgut Khanty have moved into the former territory of the Demyanka dialect. It was transitional between the Northern Khanty and Eastern Khanty dialect groups, but it is now a distinct language.
Classification
Southern and Northern Khanty share various innovations and can be grouped together as Western Khanty. These include loss of full front rounded vowels: *üü, *öö, *ɔ̈ɔ̈ > *ii, *ee, *ää (but *ɔ̈ɔ̈ > *oo adjacent to *k, *ŋ), loss of vowel harmony, fricativization of *k to /x/ adjacent to back vowels, and the loss of the *ɣ phoneme.
Dialects
Dialects of Southern Khanty:
- Upper Demjanka, Lower Demjanka, Konda, Cingali, Krasnojarsk
See also
- Southern Mansi language
References
Sources
- Bakró-Nagy, Marianne; Laakso, Johanna; Skribnik, Elena, eds. (2022-03-24). The Oxford Guide to the Uralic Languages. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oso/9780198767664.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-876766-4.
- Abondolo, Daniel (1998). "Khanty". In Abondolo, Daniel (ed.). The Uralic Languages.
- Honti, László (1998). "ObUgrian". In Abondolo, Daniel (ed.). The Uralic Languages.
