The goal of the project is to provide innovative descriptive resources for and modern linguistic analysis of two related Ob-Ugric languages Khanty (Ostyak) and Mansi (Vogul). Both languages are highly endangered: of the many Mansi dialects only the Northern one survives, and the percentage of native speakers is under 20% (out of ca. 8000 ethnic Mansi), the majority of them above 50 years of age. Khanty has a better percentage of native speakers (about 30% out of ca. 22.000), and some better preserved dialects, but the Southern dialects are already lost. In most Ob-Ugric speaker communities, transmission of the language to the youngest generations has ceased, so both languages are in ultimate danger of extinction (detailed sociolinguistic survey in Skribnik – Koshkaryova 1996).

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