“Deer” as the Basic Concept of the Enets Language
Abstract
The article analyses the actual state of the Enets language that most likely risks to extinct in the context of globalization. The situation with the Enets language is one of the most disturbing not only because there are a little more than two hundred representatives of this ethnos left, where less than fifty people speak the Enets language, but also because the Enets language is a non-written language. This article considers ethno-social processes that are characteristic of Enets, analyses the prevalence of the Enets language provided by different sources in several time samples in the period from 1992 to 2017. The article also determines features of the Enets language and the role of the concept “deer” in the forest dialect of the Enets language; and it draws attention to the rights of the Enets in the language sphere that are guaranteed by the regional legislation. The study is summarized by several conclusions that predict the prompt disappearance of the Enets language and assume that without the restoration of reindeer breeding the revival of the Enets language is practically impossible.