Article

Name: Linguistic features of the archaic Even epic “Өmcheni”

Authors: S. I. Sharina

The Institute for Humanities Research and Indigenous Studies of the North of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Yakutsk, Russia

In the section Язык фольклорных произведений

Abstract:

Folklore serves as a vital resource for both language restoration and preservation. While fragments of the Even epic tradition have previously served as illustrative examples in grammatical and dialectal studies, a comprehensive analysis of a complete narrative remains lacking. This paper presents a linguistic analysis of the archaic Even epic, the nimkan, titled “Өmcheni” (“The Lonely Man”), which has not yet been introduced into scholarly discourse. The primary focus is on the dialectal attribution of the epic. Recorded in 1961 in the Ust-Yansky District of Yakutia by the Even scholar V. D. Lebedev from the storyteller Innokenty Sleptsov, the text provides a unique window into a critically endangered idiom: the Ust-Yansky dialect, which lacks a systematic description. Applying methods of observation, description, and dialectological analysis, this study identifies the distinctive phonetic, morphological, and lexical features of the text. The analysis confirms that the dialectal characteristics of the epic align with the Western dialect of the Even language, while also revealing several unique idiosyncrasies crucial for the accurate classification of dialect data. Overall, the text of “Өmcheni” has been found to exemplify the authentic speech of the Ust-Yansky Evens, effectively capturing both the territorial specifics of the dialect and the distinctive features of the folklore language.

Keywords: Even language, archaic epic “Өmcheni”, Ust-Yansky dialect, phonetic, morphological, lexical features

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