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Kamas language
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. It has been noted that at present a few activists still have knowledge of the Kamasin language, however.[3] 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.[4] 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.[5] In 2016 the university of Tartu published a Kamas e-learning book.[5]Linguists managed to record about 1,550 words of the Kamasin language. The grammar and vocabulary of Kamas are well documented.[6] HistoryThe Kamasins had never been a large group, and they lived a nomadic life, living next to Turkic and Yeniseian tribes. In the middle of the 17th century, Sayan Samoyeds started to assimilate into Turkic peoples and Kamas was the only one to survive until investigators came, such as Castrén and Kai Donner. Due to many hardships in Russia, Kai Donner was virtually certain that he would be the last one to investigate the Kamas language before it went extinct. Already in the middle of the 20th century it was thought Kamas had died. However it was later found there was still one speaker of Kamas left: Klavdiya Plotnikova. The Kamas speakers also assimilated into the Russians, as well as being turkicized. In the 20th century half of the Kamass people were born to Russian mothers, due to a higher death-rate of girls, which caused much influence to come from the Russian language. After the Russian Civil War, usage of the Kamas language started to fall drastically.[7] DialectsKamas had two dialects: Kamas (also known as Kamass) and Koibal. However, the Koibal dialect is not well documented and only about 600 words of it are known, without any text or grammar. The Kamass dialect also had two sub-dialects, "Fat" and "Eagle", which mainly differed in phonology. The Eagle dialect was the most dominant Kamass dialect.[7]
PhonologyThe phonological account of Kamas is very basic, due to unclear data labeling by K. Donner and Castren. It is uncertain whether Kamas had primary vowel length, consonant gemination, and palatal stops or affricates as different phonemes. It varied widely between speakers. However, there are audio recordings of the last native speaker.[8] Kamas has both palatalized and palatal phonemes. Consonants
K. Donner also mentioned a sound ϑ (θ) and a f sound that was used in loanwords. Kamas also had aspiration.[6]
Vowels
PhonotacticsThe maximal syllable structure is CVCC. The only type of cluster allowed in the coda is ʔC. An example of this would be naʔb (duck). Palatalization only occurs in front of vowels. Three consonants do not occur word initially: the trill r, the velar nasal, and the glottal stop.[5] VariationsThe last Kamas speakers had some variations in their speech and a few vowels and consonants were slightly different depending on the speaker, for example:[6] oo ~ ee ə ~ ɯ x ~ k͔´ b ~ β (w) GrammarKamas is an agglutinative language and it has many flective markers.[5][7] Kamas has 7 cases:
The plural ending is -zaŋ ~ -zeŋ ~ -saŋ ~ -seŋ. However, there are a few irregularities : ešši 'child', esseŋ 'children', bulan 'moose' and genitive bulaan.
VerbsThere are three tenses and moods in Kamas: conditional, imperative, future, present tense, past tense and optative. The conditional is formed by -na ~ -ne after vowels and -ta ~ -te ~ -da ~ -de after consonants. The second component is -ze which comes after the personal ending. kandamze 'I would go'.
NegativesIn Kamas a verb is made negative by adding the word e ~ i with the main verb. Examples with the word šo- 'come':
Word formationFactitive verbs have the ending aa: ešši 'child': eššā = make children. Deverbal nouns have the ending (ǝ)š: am- 'eat': amǝš 'food'. Instrumental nouns have the ending (p)zan or (p)zǝn: kaj = close, kajzan = lid. Syntax
Kamas is a nominative type language, and the common structure of a Kamas sentence includes the subject, the object, the adverbial modifier, and a predicate. The subject is in the nominative case. The indefinite object is often expressed by using the nominative but the definite object with the accusative case. The adverbial modifier can also be expressed with adverbs or nouns in the form of local or instrumental cases. The predicate in Kamas can be preceded by gerundial verb forms, which indicates the manner or tense of an action that is expressed by the predicate. Composite sentences are not used in the Kamas language. Instead of sentences which are complex Kamas uses simple sentences with gerundial verbal constructions in which case it has no need to use conjunctions or a sequence of several simple sentences. In Kamas the subject and predicate must both agree in the person and in number. Words which typically are used in attributive positions: (demonstrative pronouns, pronominal adjectives, and numerals) can also function as argument expressions. There are also no prepositions in Kamas, instead postpositions are used and the head of a postposition, usually is marked with a genitive (-ǝn/-n). However, there are also primary postpositions which can govern the lative case. The word order in Kamas is SOV (subject-object-verb), but the word order VO occurs when using an imperative. Clauses which introduce a situation, the locative adverbial often precedes the subject. In clauses which a new subject appears in a place which is given there is a reverse order. In Kamas the third person, zero copula predication varies with the usage of the verb i- 'be'. Kamas direct objects are subject to differential object agreement and to differential object marking. Subordinating conjunctions in Kamas are kamǝn 'when' and paka 'while', which is a borrowing from Russian пока.[5][7] Examples of Kamas(examples in the UPA script)[5] d͔aγaibᵊ knife-1SG sēləbiə̑m, grind-PST-1SG sēlᵊnnᵊ grind-PTC p͑im stone-ACC bɯn water-LAT ɯštᵊbiəm. drop-PST-1SG ťš́a˱‘ otter I sharpened my knife, I dropped the sharpening stone into the water.—Fishotter ťăbaktǝrla’bǝm speak-DUR.PRES-1SG ĭmbi what popalo happened (Russian) I tell what has happened dĭgǝttǝ then măna me-OBL kumbii’ bring-PST-3PL kazān Russian.GEN turānǝ house-LAT Then they took me to Aginskoe dĭn there măna me-OBL kros cross embii’ put-PST-3PL there they put a cross to me (probably 'baptized me') Examples of the Koibal dialect
Basic phrasesBasic phrases in Kamas:[8]
ReferencesCitations
Sources
External links
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