Evenki Language - Language Shift and Multilingualism

Language Shift and Multilingualism

There is a large quantity of Russian loan words in Evenki, especially for technologies and concepts that were introduced by the Russian pioneers in Siberia. "Evenki is spoken in regions with heavy multilingualism. In their daily life the people come into contact with Russian, Buriat and Yakut, and each of these languages had had an impact on the Evenki language. Russian is the lingua franca of the region ... part of the Evenki population is bilingual, and part trilingual. All Evenki know Russian relatively well." In 1998 there were approximately 30,000 ethnic Evenkis living in Russia and about 1/3 of them spoke the language. Even a decade ago Bulatova was trying to warn speakers and linguists alike: "There is widespread loss of Evenki and the language can be considered seriously endangered". According to the 2002 Russian census, there are 35,527 citizens of the Russian Federation who identify themselves as ethnically Evenki, but only 7,580 speakers of the language.

In China, there is an ethnic population of 30,500 but only 19,000 are fluent in Evenki and there are only around 3,000 people who are monolingual in Evenki. Juha Janhunen investigated multilingualism in Hulunbuir (northern Inner Mongolia) and the adjoining section of Heilongjiang (e.g. Qiqihar) in 1996. He found that most Solons still spoke Evenki, and about half knew Daur language as well. Furthermore, Mongolian functioned as a lingua franca among members of all minority groups there, as they tended to do their education in Mongolian-medium schools. The only Evenki-speakers whom Janhunen knew not to speak Mongolian as a second language were the Reindeer Evenki (sometimes called "Yakut") in the northern part of Hulunbuir, who used Russian as their "language of intercultural communication". Janhunen predicted that all of these languages, including Mongolian, were likely to lose ground to Chinese in coming years. However Chaoke noted more than a decade later that the usage rate of Evenki remained quite high, and that it was still common to find Evenki-speakers who were proficient in three, four, or even five languages.

There is a small population of ethnic Evenki speakers in Mongolia as well, numbering around 1,000.

There is little information regarding revival efforts or Evenki's status now. In 1998, the language was taught in preschools and primary schools and offered as an option in 8th grade. Instruction as a second language is also available in the Institute of the Peoples of the North at Herzen University (the former St. Petersburg State Pedagogical University). In the 1980s, Christian missionaries working in Siberia translated the Bible into Evenki and a Christian group called the Global Recordings Network records Christian teaching materials in Evenki.