Kamassian language

Not to be confused with the Koybal dialect of Khakas.

Kamassian is an extinct Samoyedic language, included by convention in the Southern group together with Mator and Selkup (although this does not constitute an actual subfamily). It had two dialects, Kamassian (also known as Kamas) and Koibal. The last native speaker of the Kamassian dialect, Klavdiya Plotnikova, died in 1989. Kamassian was spoken in Russia, east of the Ural mountains, by Kamasins.

The term Koibal is also used as the ethnonym for the Kamas people who shifted to the Turkic Khakas language; the modern Koibal people are mixed Samoyed–Khakas–Yeniseian.

References

• Britannica, 1984 Edition, Vol. 18, p. 1025
• Wixman, Ronald. The Peoples of the USSR. p. 109

Footnotes

External links

• Kamassian-English glossary
• Kamassian-Russian dictionary (~300 words)
• M. Alexander Castrén's extensive book on the Samoyed grammar, including Kamassian (in German)