Native to Russia Native speakers 5,700 (2010 census) | Region Russian Far East ISO 639-3 eve | |
Ethnicity 21,800 Evens (2010 census) Language family Tungusic
Northern
Even | ||
The Even language /eɪˈvɛn/, also known as Lamut, Ewen, Eben, Orich, Ilqan (Russian: Эве́нский язы́к, earlier also Ламутский язы́к), is a Tungusic language spoken by the Evens in Siberia. It is spoken by widely scattered communities of reindeer herders from Kamchatka and the Sea of Okhotsk in the east to the River Lena in the west, and from the Arctic coast in the north to the River Aldan in the south. Even is an endangered language, with only some 5,700 speakers (Russian census, 2010). These speakers are specifically from the Magadan region, the Chukot region and the Koryak region. Dialects are Arman, Indigirka, Kamchatka, Kolyma-Omolon, Okhotsk, Ola, Tompon, Upper Kolyma, Sakkyryr, Lamunkhin.
In these regions where the Evens primarily reside, the Even language is generally implemented in pre-school and elementary school, alongside the national language, Russian. Where Even functioned primarily as an oral language communicated between reindeer herding brigades, textbooks began circulating throughout these educational institutions from around 1925 to 1995.
Syntax, of the Even language, follows the nominative case and SOV (subject-object-verb) word order, with the attribute preceding the dependent member.
Language contact
In some remote Arctic villages, such as Russkoye Ustye, whose population descended from Russian-Even intermarriage, the language spoken into the 20th century was a dialect of Russian with a strong Even influence.