Chukchi
/ˈtʃʊktʃiː
/noun (plural same or Chukchis)
1A member of an indigenous people of extreme NE Siberia.The trek, by the way, was to meet the Chukchis in Siberia, who live the way their ancestors did 20,000 years ago....
- Competitions of these types are often performed following the reindeer sacrifices of the inland Chukchi and the sea-spirit sacrifices of the coastal Chukchi.
- The Chukchi regularly take about 140 whales a year for local consumption, and the Makah are allowed up to five.
2 [mass noun] The language of the Chukchi, which belongs to a small family also including Koryak.Since the 1950s, the most famous Chukchi writer has been Yuri Rytkheu, whose poems, novels, and short stories are written in both Chukchi and Russian....
- According to the Russian Census of 2002, about 7,700 of the 15,700 Chukchi people speak Chukchi; knowledge of the Chukchi language is decreasing, and most Chukchis now speak the Russian language
- For some, Russian is their first language, but the majority of Chukchis still consider Chukchi their native language, and it can be heard spoken in tundra and city alike.
adjective
Relating to the Chukchi or their language.He has traveled the world, collecting blood samples from people of far-flung cultures: Aborigines in Australia, the Chukchi tundra dwellers of Siberia, farmers in the hills of Afghanistan, and nomads in the deserts of Africa....
- The Siberian Husky was bred by the nomadic Chukchi tribes of Northeast Asia.
- In the 1960s and 1970s, the Soviet government abolished many native settlements, dispersed their former inhabitants, and made Russian the language of instruction in Chukchi schools.
Origin
Russian (plural).