Nivkh people
The Niwchen (historical Russian name: Gilyaks ) are among the indigenous peoples of the Russian North, Siberia and the Russian Far East. According to the 2002 census, the number of its members is 5,162 people. Half of them inhabited the north of the island Sakhalin. According to them, several ships were named.
Language
Their language, Niwchische heard, as well as the Koryak language and ketische to no genetic unit forming Paleo-Siberian languages , a group of isolated languages of Siberia. The language was verschriftlicht in the era of the Soviet Union. The most famous writer is niwchische Tschuner Taksami.
Way of life
Part of the Niwchen operates reindeer husbandry with seasonal change of residence, but without nomadism. The main livelihood is fishing. The earlier significant fur farming is largely passes through the economic decline to a halt. Even the hunting of marine mammals is practiced.
The greatest threat to the survival of the Niwchen currently assumes that the international oil companies Exxon and Shell, which build massive offshore oil drilling projects on the island. These had already repeatedly caused a mass death of fish. Since the beginning of 2005, the Niwchen have therefore held several non-violent protest wave against the oil companies, together with other indigenous peoples of Sakhalin.
The elected representatives of the Niwchen, Alexei Limanso, 2005, as a guest of infoe eV guest in Germany and the Netherlands.
Areas of distribution and relationship to other language families
The Niwchische (or Gilyak ) is like the jenissejische Ket, the Tschuktscho - Kamtschadalische, the Tungusic languages and the Ainu of the northern Eurasian languages with steadily dwindling habitat and corresponding permanent reduction in the number of speakers. Janhunen takes as a result of the historically better documented neighboring language families found that in earlier times Proto - Niwchisch on the mainland had its origin, and wider dissemination. Only later it was then pushed there and the possibility of Sakhalin been settled, where it then as Ainu against the Japanese in the climatically little favorable areas under harsh conditions could survive unchallenged to this day.
Niwchisch is counted by Joseph Greenberg of his proposed macro family "Eurasia table ". The justification of this macro family is controversial among linguists, although mainly the genetic relationship between Indo-European, Uralic (including Jukagirisch ) and Altai is at the forefront of interest and only rarely in comparison, relatively little explored Niwchische. However, speak to a former representative of Indo-European and Uralic - Urverwandtschaft Jukagirischem and of the latter with Siberian languages (except the Jenissejischen ) as Kortlandt 2004 for a genetic connection of Niwchischen with the Eurasian or at least parts of it. However, Niwchisch be clearly distinguished from the surrounding language families such as the subdivisions of (macro - ) Altaic as a separate genetic entity.