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Kamas | |
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Kaŋmažən šəkət | |
Native to | Russia |
Region | Sayan Mountains |
Ethnicity | 2 Kamasins (2021) |
Extinct | 1989, with the death of Klavdiya Plotnikova |
Dialects | Koibal Kamas
|
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | xas |
xas | |
Glottolog | kama1351 kama1378 |
ELP | Kamas |
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Kamas (Kaŋmažən šəkət) is an extinct Samoyedic language, formerly spoken by the Kamasins. It is included by convention in the Southern group together with Mator and Selkup (although this does not constitute a subfamily). The last native speaker of Kamas, Klavdiya Plotnikova, died in 1989. Kamas was spoken in Russia, north of the Sayan Mountains, by Kamasins. The last speakers lived mainly in the village of Abalakovo, where they moved from the mountains in the 18th-19th centuries.[3] Prior to its extinction, the language was strongly influenced by Turkic and Yeniseian languages.
The term Koibal is used as the ethnonym for the Kamas people who shifted to the Turkic Khakas language.[citation needed] The modern Koibal people are mixed Samoyed–Khakas–Yeniseian. The Kamas language was documented by Kai Donner in his trips to Siberia along with other Samoyedic languages, but the first documentation attempts started in the 1740s.[4] In 2016 the university of Tartu published a Kamas e-learning book.[4] The grammar and vocabulary of Kamas are well documented.[5]
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