Khanty Language

Khanty Language

Khanty (Xanty), known previously as Ostyak, is the language of the Khant peoples. It is spoken in Khanty–Mansi and Yamalo-Nenets autonomous okrugs as well as in Aleksandrovsky and Kargosoksky districts of Tomsk Oblast in Russia. According to the 1994 Salminen and Janhunen study, there were 12,000 Khanty-speaking people in Russia.

The Khanty language has a large number of dialects. The western group includes the Obdorian, Ob, and Irtysh dialects. The eastern group includes the Surgut and Vakh-Vasyugan dialects, which, in turn, are subdivided into thirteen other dialects. All these dialects differ significantly from each other by phonetic, morphological, and lexical features to the extent that the three main "dialects" (northern, southern and eastern) are mutually unintelligible. Thus, based on their significant multifactorial differences, Eastern, Northern and Southern Khanty could be considered separate but closely related languages.