Sub-project Nenets

The Nenets language belongs to the Samoyedic branch of the Uralic languages, its closest relatives being Enets and Nganasan.

Nenets can be divided into two major varieties: Tundra and Forest Nenets. Tundran Nenets is further divided into a Western, Central and Eastern group.

The INEL project is working on an eastern Tundra dialect, Taimyr-Nenets (spoken in the western part of the Taimyr Peninsula and the basin of the lower Yenisei) and Forest-Nenets (widespread in the forest tundra and taiga zones along the Pur and Agan rivers and in the area of Lake Numto). In total, about 44,000 people reported speaking a variety of Nenets in the last Russian census in 2010, but only about 2,000 of them belong to the Forest Nenets.