Yurats language
Extinct Samoyedic language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Yurats (Yurak) was a Samoyedic language spoken in the Siberian tundra west of the Yenisei River. It became extinct in the early 19th century, due to the expansion of the Nenets people.[1] Yurats was probably either a transitional variety connecting the Nenets and Enets languages of the Samoyedic family, or an archaic dialect of Enets.[2] While it is marginally closer to Enets rather than Nenets, it does not show a majority of either Enets or Nenets features.[3] Some eastern dialects of Tundra Nenets may have a Yurats substrate, as the Yurats were likely absorbed by the Tundra Nenets.[4] The uncertainty regarding the language's status is due to the scarcity of information about the language.[5] Nevertheless, Glottolog considers it to be a dialect of Tundra Nenets, as is the traditional assumption.[6]
