Nenets

a morainic ridge in the Malaia Zemlia Tundra, in the Northern European USSR. It extends in a meridional direction; it rises sharply over a marsh-ridden plain for 130–140 m. There are numerous lakes in the landlocked basins.

Nenets

the language of the Nentsi, who inhabit the territory from the Kola Peninsula to the right bank (lower course) of the Enisei.

Nenets belongs to the Samoyedic group of the Uralic family of languages. Nenets is spoken by more than 24,000 persons (1970 census). It is split into two dialects—Tundra and Forest—whose differences are chiefly phonetic. The principal phonetic feature of Tundra Nenets is the presence of two glottal stops (nasalized and nonnasalized). Suffixal agglutination is the basic method of expressing morphological meanings. A number of forms are made by regular sound alternation. Nenets has three numbers—singular, dual, and plural. Forms of declension include possessive person and predestinative person. The verb is characterized by an abundance of aspectual and modal forms, as well as subjective-objective and subjective-objectless conjugations. Postpositions are well developed. The noun in a predicative function is inflected for person, number, and tense. Dependent members precede subordinating members. The predicate usually ends the sentence. A Latin-based Nenets alphabet was created in 1932, as was a Russian-based Nenets alphabet in 1937.

REFERENCE

Tereshchenko, N. M. “Nenetskii iazyk.” In the collection Iazyki narodov SSSR, vol. 3. Moscow, 1966. (Includes references.)

N. M. TERESHCHENKO

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REFERENCE

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Synonyms for Nenets

noun a Uralic language spoken by a Samoyed of northern Siberia

Synonyms

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