Yurats language

{{Short description|Extinct Samoyedic language}}{{Distinguish|text=Nenets languages, also called Yurak}}{{Infobox language

| name = Yurats

| nativename =

| states = Russia

| region = west of the Yenisey, Gyda Peninsula

| extinct = early 19th century

| ref = {{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/title/ocm47983733 |title=Encyclopedia of the world's endangered languages |date=2007 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-56331-4 |editor-last=Moseley |editor-first=Christopher |location=London |chapter=Europe and North Asia |oclc=ocm47983733}}

| familycolor = Uralic

| fam2 = Samoyedic

| fam3 = (core)

| fam4 = Enets–Nenets

| iso3 = rts

| glotto = yura1256

| glottoname = Yurats

| altname = Yurak

| ethnicity = Yurats

| map2 = Lang Status 01-EX.svg

| mapcaption2 = {{center|{{small|Yurats is classified as Extinct by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger of Disappearing (2001)}}}}

}}

Yurats (Yurak) was a Samoyedic language spoken in the Siberian tundra west of the Yenisei River. It became extinct in the early 19th century, due to the expansion of the Nenets people. Yurats was probably either a transitional variety connecting the Nenets and Enets languages of the Samoyedic family, or an archaic dialect of Enets.{{cite book

|first=Juha

|last=Janhunen

|authorlink=Juha Janhunen

|title=Samojedischer Wortschatz

|year=1977

|page=8

|series=Castreanumin toimitteita

|volume=17

|location=Helsinki

|isbn=951-45-1161-1

|issn=0355-0141

}} While it is marginally closer to Enets rather than Nenets, it does not show a majority of either Enets or Nenets features.{{Cite book |last=Salminen |first=Tapani |title=The Uralic languages |date=2023 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-138-65084-8 |editor-last=Abondolo |editor-first=Daniel Mario |edition=2nd |series=Routledge Language Family |location=London New York |page=103 |chapter=Demography, endangerment, and revitalization |editor-last2=Valijärvi |editor-first2=Riitta-Liisa}} Some eastern dialects of Tundra Nenets may have a Yurats substrate, as the Yurats were likely absorbed by the Tundra Nenets.{{Cite web |date=2019-02-11 |title=Endangered languages in Northeast Asia: report |url=http://www.helsinki.fi/~tasalmin/nasia_report.html#Yurats |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190211093750/http://www.helsinki.fi/~tasalmin/nasia_report.html#Yurats |archive-date=February 11, 2019 |access-date=2024-06-23 |website=University of Helsinki}} The uncertainty regarding the language's status is due to the scarcity of information about the language.{{Cite book |last=Siegl |first=Florian |url=https://www.sgr.fi/sust/sust267/sust267.pdf |title=Materials on Forest Enets, an Indigenous Language of Northern Siberia |date=2013 |publisher=Société Finno-Ougrienne |isbn=978-952-5667-46-2 |location=Helsinki |page=35 |via=Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura}} Nevertheless, Glottolog considers it to be a dialect of Tundra Nenets, as is the traditional assumption.{{Cite web |title=Glottolog 5.0 - Yurats |url=https://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/yura1256 |access-date=2024-06-20 |website=glottolog.org}}