Ket language

Not to be confused with Bra–ket notation.

The Ket (/ˈkɛt/ KET) language, or more specifically Imbak and formerly known as Yenisei Ostyak (/ˈɒstiæk/ OSS-tee-ak), is a Siberian language long thought to be an isolate, the sole surviving language of a Yeniseian language family. It is spoken along the middle Yenisei basin by the Ket people.

Ket
Yenisei Ostyak
остыганна ӄаʼ ostɯɣanna qaʼ
Native to	Russia
Region	Krasnoyarsk Krai
Ethnicity	1,088 Ket (2021)
Native speakers	153 (2020)
Language family	Dené–Yeniseian? Yeniseian Ketic Ket
Dialects	Northern Central Southern
Writing system	Cyrillic
Language codes
ISO 639-3	ket
Glottolog	kett1243
ELP	Ket
Linguasphere	43-AAA-a
Map of pre-contact Yeniseian languages.
Ket is classified as Severely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

The language is threatened with extinction—the number of ethnic Kets that are native speakers of the language dropped from 1,225 in 1926 to 537 in 1989. According to the UNESCO census, this number has since fallen to 150. A 2005 census reported 485 native speakers, but this number is suspected to be inflated. According to a local news source, the number of remaining Ket speakers is around 10 to 20. Another Yeniseian language, Yugh, has recently become extinct.

History

Documentation

The earliest observations about the language were published by Peter Simon Pallas in 1788 in a travel diary (Путешествия по разным провинциям Русского Государства, Puteshestviya po raznim provintsiyam Russkogo Gosudarstva). Matthias Castrén was one of the last known to study the Kott language. Castrén lived beside the Kan river with five people of Kott, in which is believed were the last remaining people who spoke the language. In 1858, Castrén published the first grammar and dictionary (Versuch einer jenissei-ostjakischen und Kottischen Sprachlehre), which also included material on the Kott language. During the 19th century, the Ket were mistaken for a tribe of the Finno-Ugric Khanty. A. Karger in 1934 published the first grammar (Кетский язык Ketskij jazyk), as well as a Ket primer (Букварь на кетском языке Bukvar' na ketskom jazyke), and a new treatment appeared in 1968, written by A. Kreinovich.

Decline and current use

Ket people were subjected to collectivization in the 1930s. In the 1950s and 1960s, according to the recollections of informants, they were sent to Russian-only boarding schools, which led to the ceasing of language transmission between generations. Now, Ket is taught as a subject in some primary schools, but only older adults are fluent and few are raising their children with the language. Kellog, Russia, is the only place where Ket is still taught in schools. Special books are provided for grades second through fourth but after those grades there is only Russian literature to read that describes Ket culture. There are no known monolingual speakers as of 2006. A children's book, A Bit Lost by Chris Haughton, was translated into the language in 2013. Alexander Kotusov was a Ket folk singer and poet who died in 2019.

Only three localities, Kellog, Surgutikha and Maduika, retain a native Ket-speaking population in the present day. Other villages such as Serkovo and Pakulikha were destroyed in the second half of the 20th century, dispersing the local Ket population to nearby towns.

Dialects

Ket has three dialects: Southern, Central and Northern. All the dialects are very similar to each other and Kets from different groups are able to understand each other. The most common southern dialect was used for the standardized written Ket.

The three remaining Ket-majority localities natively speak different dialects. Southern Ket is spoken in Kellog, Central Ket in Surgutikha and Northern Ket in Maduika.

Phonology

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i	ɨ	u
Mid	ɛ	ə	ɔ
Open	a

Consonants

Vajda analyses Ket as having only 12 consonant phonemes:

		Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal		m	n		ŋ
Plosive	voiceless		t		k	q
	voiced	b	d
Fricative	central		s	ç			h
	lateral		ɮ

It is one of the few languages to lack both /p/ and /ɡ/, along with Arapaho, Goliath, Obokuitai, Palauan, and Efik, as well as classical Arabic and some modern Arabic dialects.

There is much allophony, and the phonetic inventory of consonants is essentially as below. This is the level of description reflected by the Ket alphabet.

			Bilabial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Nasal			m	n		ŋ
Plosive		voiceless	p	t		k	q	ʔ
		voiced	b	d		ɡ	ɢ
Fricative	central	voiceless		s	ç	(x)	(χ)	h
		voiced	β		ʝ	ɣ	ʁ
	lateral			ɮ
Flap				ɾ
Trill				r

Furthermore, all nasal consonants in Ket have voiceless allophones at the end of a monosyllabic word with a glottalized or descending tone (i.e. [m, n, ŋ] turn into [m̥, n̥, ŋ̥]), likewise, [ɮ] becomes [ɬ] in the same situation. Alveolars are often pronounced laminal and possibly palatalized, though not in the vicinity of a uvular consonant. /q/ is normally pronounced with affrication, as [𐞥χ].

Tone

Descriptions of Ket vary widely in the number of contrastive tones they report: as many as eight and as few as zero have been counted. Given this wide disagreement, whether or not Ket is a tonal language is debatable, although recent works by Ket specialists Edward Vajda and Stefan Georg defend the existence of tone.

In tonal descriptions, Ket does not employ a tone on every syllable but instead uses one tone per word. Following Vajda's description of Southern Ket, the five basic tones are as follows:

Tone name	Glottalized	High-even	Rising falling	Falling	Rising high-falling
Tone contour	[˧˦ˀ] (34’)	[˥] (5)	[˩˧.˧˩] (13.31)	[˧˩] (31)	[˩˧.˥˧] (13.53)
Example	кеʼт [kɛˀt] 'person'	сюль [súl] 'blood'	сюуль [su᷈ːl] ([sǔûl]) 'hand sled'	ӄай [qâj] 'elk'	бънтан [bʌ̌nta᷇n] 'mallard duck'

The glottalized tone features pharyngeal or laryngeal constriction, or a full glottal stop that interrupts the vowel.

Georg's 2007 description of Ket tone is similar to the above, but reduces the basic number of tonemes to four, while moving the rising high-falling tone plus a variant to a class of tonemes only found in multisyllabic words. With some exceptions caused by certain prefixes or clitics, the domain of tones in a multisyllabic word is limited to the first two syllables.

Orthography

In the 1930s a Latin-based alphabet was developed and used:

A a	Ā ā	Æ æ	B ʙ	C c	D d	E e	Ē ē
Ə ə	F f	G g	H h	Ꜧ ꜧ	I i	Ī ī	J j
K k	L l	Ļ ļ	M m	N n	Ņ ņ	Ŋ ŋ	O o
Ō ō	P p	Q q	R r	S s	Ş ş	T t	U u
Ū ū	V v	Z z	Ƶ ƶ	Ь ь

In the 1980s a new, Cyrillic-based, alphabet was created:

А а	Б б	В в	Г г	Ӷ ӷ	Д д	Е е	Ё ё
Ж ж	З з	И и	Й й	К к	Ӄ ӄ	Л л	М м
Н н	Ӈ ӈ	О о	Ө ө	П п	Р р	С с	Т т
У у	Ф ф	Х х	Ц ц	Ч ч	Ш ш	Щ щ	Ъ ъ
Ә ә	Ы ы	Ь ь	ʼ	Э э	Ю ю	Я я

Cyrillic	Latin	IPA
A	A	a
Б	B	b
В	V	v
Г	G	g, ɣ
Ӷ		ɢ, ʀ
Д	D	d
Е	E	e, ɛ
Ё	Ē	ə, jɔ
Ж	Ƶ	ʐ
З	Z	z
И	I	i
Й	Ī	j
К	K	k
Ӄ	Q	q
Л	L; Ļ	l; lʲ
М	M	m
Н	N; Ņ	n; nʲ
Ӈ	Ŋ	ŋ
О	O	ɔ
Ө	Ō	o
П	P	p
Р	R	r; rʲ
С	S	s; sʲ
Т	T	t
У	U	u
Ф	F	f
Х	H	h, x
Ц		t͡s
Ч		t͡ʂ
Ш		ʃ
Щ		ɕ
Ъ		ʌ
ʼ		◌ˀ
Ә	Ə	ə
Ы	Ь	ɨ
Ь		◌ʲ
Э		ɛ
Ю		u, ju
Я		a, ja

Grammar

Ket is classified as a synthetic language. Verbs use prefixes, while suffixes are rare. Nevertheless, incorporation is well-developed. The division between morphemes is based on fusion. Sandhi are common as well. The basic word order is subject-object-verb SOV. The name marking is of Ezāfe-type, the same as in predication.

Examples of sentences

• bu du-taRɔt 'He lies/sleeps';
• ətn en dʌŋ-ɔtn 'We are walking already';
• bu ətn d-il'-daŋ-s' 'He attracted us'.

Morphology

Nouns have nominative basic case (subjects and direct objects) and a system of secondary cases for spatial relations. The three noun classes are: masculine, feminine and inanimate.

Unlike neighbouring languages of Siberia, Ket makes use of verbal prefixes. Ket has two verbal declensions, one prefixed with d- and one with b-. The second-person singular prefixes on intransitive verbs are [ku-, ɡu-].

Ket makes significant use of incorporation. Incorporation is not limited to nouns, and can also include verbs, adverbs, adjectives, and bound morphemes found only in the role of incorporated elements. Incorporation also occurs as both a lexicalized process – the combination of verb and incorporate being treated as a distinct lexical element, with a meaning often based around the incorporated element – and a paradigmatic one, where the incorporation is performed spontaneously for particular semantic and pragmatic effect Forms of incorporation include:

• Nominal incorporation, most commonly used to describe the instrumental part of an action, but sometimes used to describe patients instead. Instrumental incorporation doesn't affect the transitivity of the verb (though there are examples where this form of incorporation is used to describe agentless changes of state), while patient incorporation can make a transitive verb intransitive. Patient incorporation is usually used for patients that are wholly effected by an action (such as being brought into existence by it); more generally affected patients are typically incorporated only when significantly defocused or backgrounded.
• Verbal incorporation, more specifically the incorporation of verbal infinitives (rather than roots) into the verb complex. This form of incorporation is used to signify aspect and form causatives. Incorporated infinitives may bring incorporated elements of their own into the verb as well.
• Adjectival incorporation, with an incorporated adjective describing the target or final state of an action.
• Adverbial incorporation, where a local adverb is used to describe the direction or path of a movement.

Lexicon

Loanwords

Ket has many loanwords from Russian, such as mora 'sea'; there are also loanwords from other languages such as Selkup, for example: the word qopta 'ox' comes from the Selkup word qobda. Ket also has some Mongolian words, such as saˀj 'tea' from Mongolian tsaj. There are also words from Evenki, for example: the word saˀl 'tobacco' is possibly borrowed from Evenki sâr 'tobacco'.

Literature

• Georg, Stefan (2007). A Descriptive Grammar of Ket (Yenisei-Ostyak). Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. doi:10.1163/ej.9781901903584.i-328. ISBN 978-90-04-21350-0.
• Karger, N. K. (1934). Кетский язык. — Языки и письменность народов Севера. Vol. Ч. III. Moscow, Leningrad.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Kotorova, Elizaveta, and Andrey Nefedov (eds.) (2015). Comprehensive Ket Dictionary / Большой словарь кетского языка (2 vols). Languages of the World/Dictionaries (LW/D) 57. Munich: Lincom Europa.
• Kreinovich, E. A. (1968). Кетский язык. — Языки народов СССР. Т. V., Leningrad.
• Vajda, Edward J. (2000). Ket Prosodic Phonology. Languages of the World. Vol. 15. Munich: Lincom Europa.
• Vajda, Edward J. (2001). Yeniseian Peoples and Languages: A History of Yeniseian Studies With an Annotated Bibliography and a Source Guide. Psychology Press. ISBN 0700712909.
• Vajda, Edward J. (2004). Ket (PDF). Languages of the World. Munich: Lincom Europa. ISBN 3-89586-221-5.
• Vajda, E.; Zinn, M. (2004). Morfologicheskii slovar ketskogo glagola: na osnove iuzhno-ketskogo dialekta. = Morphological dictionary of the Ket verb: Southern dialect /.
• Vajda, Edward J.; Kari, J.; Potter, B. (2010). "Siberian Link with Na-Dene Languages The Dene–Yeniseian Connection". Anthropological Papers of the University of Alaska, new series. Vol. 5. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Fairbanks, Department of Anthropology. pp. 33–99.

Further reading

• Kotorova, Elizaveta; Nefedov, Andrey (2019). "Preserving Endangered Knowledge in a Dictionary: The Case of Ket". Anthropological Linguistics. 61 (1): 103–113. doi:10.1353/anl.2019.0012.
• Nefedov, Andrey (2023). "Ket". In Behnke, Anja; Wagner-Nagy, Beáta (eds.). Clause Linkage in the Languages of the Ob-Yenisei Area. Empirical Approaches to Linguistic Theory. Vol. 23. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. pp. 209–247. doi:10.1163/9789004684775_006. ISBN 978-90-04-68477-5.

External links

• Endangered Languages of the Indigenous Peoples of Siberia – The Ket Language
• Ket language vocabulary with loanwords (from the World Loanword Database)
• Filtchenko, Andrei. 2001. Ket Language
• Georg, Stefan. 2006. A Descriptive Grammar of Ket (Yenisei-Ostyak). Folkestone, Kent: Global Oriental. ISBN 978-1-901903-58-4
• Kazakevich, Olga, et al. 2006?. Multimedia Database of Ket Language, Moscow State (Lomonosov) University
• Lueders, Ulrich. Books: Language Description, Ket: Vajda. Publisher's announcement on LINGUIST List
• Vajda, Edward J. 2000. Ket and other Yeneseic Peoples
• Vajda, Edward J. 2006. The Ket People – Google Video Archived 3 March 2007 at the Wayback Machine
• Table of contents and ordering information for The Dene–Yeniseian Connection.
• Notices and news items on Dene–Yeniseian
• Viikberg, Jüri. Kets. In The Red Book of the Peoples of the Russian Empire, NGO Red Book, ISBN 9985-9369-2-2 (Wikipedia article)
• Ket basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
• Silent Extinction: Language Loss Reaches Crisis Levels