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86-623: Zangskari dialect (Zanskari, Zaskari) is an endangered Tibetic language . It is a dialect of Ladakhi language . It is mostly spoken in the Zanskar region of the Kargil district of Ladakh , India and also by Buddhists in the upper reaches of Lahaul , Himachal Pradesh , and Paddar , Jammu and Kashmir . It is written using the Tibetan script . Zangskari is divided into four homogeneous groups, namely Oot ( Stod ) or Upper Zanskari spoken along

172-485: A community with special collective rights . Language can also be considered as scientific knowledge in topics such as medicine, philosophy, botany, and more. It reflects a community's practices when dealing with the environment and each other. When a language is lost, this knowledge is often lost as well. In contrast, language revitalization is correlated with better health outcomes in indigenous communities. During language loss—sometimes referred to as obsolescence in

258-470: A dominant position in a country. Speakers of endangered languages may themselves come to associate their language with negative values such as poverty, illiteracy and social stigma, causing them to wish to adopt the dominant language that is associated with social and economical progress and modernity . Immigrants moving into an area may lead to the endangerment of the autochthonous language. Dialects and accents have seen similar levels of endangerment during

344-433: A fraction of the world's linguistic diversity, therefore their picture of what human language is—and can be—will be limited. Some linguists consider linguistic diversity to be analogous to biological diversity, and compare language endangerment to wildlife endangerment . Linguists, members of endangered language communities, governments, nongovernmental organizations, and international organizations such as UNESCO and

430-655: A larger sign language or dispersal of the deaf community) can lead to the endangerment and loss of their traditional sign language. Methods are being developed to assess the vitality of sign languages. While there is no definite threshold for identifying a language as endangered, UNESCO 's 2003 document entitled Language vitality and endangerment outlines nine factors for determining language vitality: Many languages, for example some in Indonesia , have tens of thousands of speakers but are endangered because children are no longer learning them, and speakers are shifting to using

516-587: A quarter of Russia's population. Novosibirsk , Krasnoyarsk , and Omsk are the largest cities in the area. Because Siberia is a geographic and historic concept and not a political entity, there is no single precise definition of its territorial borders. Traditionally, Siberia spans the entire expanse of land from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific Ocean , with the Ural River usually forming

602-707: A region extending eastward from the Ural Mountains to the watershed between Pacific and Arctic drainage basins, and southward from the Arctic Ocean to the hills of north-central Kazakhstan and the national borders of both Mongolia and China. By this definition, Siberia includes the federal subjects of the Siberian Federal District , and some of the Ural Federal District , as well as Sakha (Yakutia) Republic , which

688-664: Is endangerment . Once a language has reached the endangerment stage, there are only a few speakers left and children are, for the most part, not learning the language. The third stage of language extinction is seriously endangered . During this stage, a language is unlikely to survive another generation and will soon be extinct. The fourth stage is moribund , followed by the fifth stage extinction . Many projects are under way aimed at preventing or slowing language loss by revitalizing endangered languages and promoting education and literacy in minority languages, often involving joint projects between language communities and linguists. Across

774-505: Is a part of the Far Eastern Federal District . Geographically, this definition includes subdivisions of several other subjects of Urals and Far Eastern federal districts, but they are not included administratively. This definition excludes Sverdlovsk Oblast and Chelyabinsk Oblast , both of which are included in some wider definitions of Siberia. Other sources may use either a somewhat wider definition that states

860-424: Is about 0.5 °C (32.9 °F). January averages about −20 °C (−4 °F) and July about +19 °C (66 °F), while daytime temperatures in summer typically exceed 20 °C (68 °F). With a reliable growing season, an abundance of sunshine and exceedingly fertile chernozem soils, southern Siberia is good enough for profitable agriculture , as was demonstrated in the early 20th century. By far

946-455: Is also sometimes referred to as language revival or reversing language shift . For case studies of this process, see Anderson (2014). Applied linguistics and education are helpful in revitalizing endangered languages. Vocabulary and courses are available online for a number of endangered languages. Language maintenance refers to the support given to languages that need for their survival to be protected from outsiders who can ultimately affect

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1032-655: Is culturally and politically considered European, since it is a part of Russia. Major geographical zones within Siberia include the West Siberian Plain and the Central Siberian Plateau . Eastern and central Sakha comprises numerous north–south mountain ranges of various ages. These mountains extend up to almost 3,000 metres (9,800 ft), but above a few hundred metres they are almost completely devoid of vegetation. The Verkhoyansk Range

1118-530: Is doubtful that the total early modern Siberian population exceeded 300,000 persons". The first mention of Siberia in chronicles is recorded in the year 1032. The city-state of Novgorod established two trade routes to the Ob River , and laid claim to the lands the Russians called Yugra . The Russians were attracted by its furs in particular. Novgorod launched military campaigns to extract tribute from

1204-425: Is high also in most of Primorye in the extreme south, where monsoonal influences can produce quite heavy summer rainfall. Researchers, including Sergei Kirpotin at Tomsk State University and Judith Marquand at Oxford University , warn that Western Siberia has begun to thaw as a result of global warming . The frozen peat bogs in this region may hold billions of tons of methane gas , which may be released into

1290-667: Is no longer visible. The Central Siberian Plateau is an ancient craton (sometimes named Angaraland ) that formed an independent continent before the Permian (see the Siberian continent ). It is exceptionally rich in minerals, containing large deposits of gold , diamonds , and ores of manganese , lead , zinc , nickel , cobalt , and molybdenum . Much of the area includes the Siberian Traps —a large igneous province . A massive eruptive period approximately coincided with

1376-603: Is several degrees warmer than in the East ( Irkutsk , or Chita ) where in the north an extreme winter subarctic climate (Köppen Dfd , Dwd , or Dsd ) prevails. But summer temperatures in other regions can reach +38 °C (100 °F). In general, Sakha is the coldest Siberian region, and the basin of the Yana has the lowest temperatures of all, with permafrost reaching 1,493 metres (4,898 ft). Nevertheless, Imperial Russian plans of settlement never viewed cold as an impediment. In

1462-473: Is the active volcano Klyuchevskaya Sopka , on the Kamchatka Peninsula . Its peak reaches 4,750 metres (15,580 ft). The West Siberian Plain, consisting mostly of Cenozoic alluvial deposits, is somewhat flat. In the mid-Pleistocene, many deposits on this plain resulted from ice dams which produced a large glacial lake . This mid- to late- Pleistocene lake blocked the northward flow of

1548-626: Is the city of Novosibirsk . Present-day Novosibirsk is an important business, science, manufacturing and cultural center of the Asian part of Russia. Omsk played an important role in the Russian Civil War serving as a provisional Russian capital, as well in the expansion into and governing of Central Asia . In addition to its cultural status, it has become a major oil-refining, education, transport and agriculture hub. Other historic cities of Siberia include Tobolsk (the first capital and

1634-623: The Ainu people ). Evidence from full genomic studies suggests that the first people in the Americas diverged from Ancient East Asians about 36,000 years ago and expanded northwards into Siberia, where they encountered and interacted with Ancient North Eurasians, giving rise to both Paleosiberian peoples and Ancient Native Americans , which later migrated towards the Beringian region, became isolated from other populations, and subsequently populated

1720-500: The Cambridge Handbook of Endangered Languages , there are four main types of causes of language endangerment: Causes that put the populations that speak the languages in physical danger, such as: Causes that prevent or discourage speakers from using a language, such as: Often multiple of these causes act at the same time. Poverty, disease and disasters often affect minority groups disproportionately, for example causing

1806-531: The Doda River , Zhung ( Gžun ) or Central Zanskari mostly spoken in Padum valley , Sham ( Gšam ) or Lower Zanskari spoken along the lower portions of Zanskar River and lastly Lungnak ( Luŋnag ) along the upper Zanskar River region. Endangered language Language shift most commonly occurs when speakers switch to a language associated with social or economic power or one spoken more widely, leading to

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1892-676: The Late Carboniferous through Jurassic Verkhoyansk foldbelt , on the northwest by the Paleozoic Taymr foldbelt, and on the southeast, south and southwest by the Middle Silurian to Middle Devonian Baykalian foldbelt. A regional geologic reconnaissance study begun in 1932 and followed by surface and subsurface mapping revealed the Markova-Angara Arch ( anticline ). This led to the discovery of

1978-728: The Northwest Pacific Plateau . Other hotspots are Oklahoma and the Southern Cone of South America. Almost all of the study of language endangerment has been with spoken languages. A UNESCO study of endangered languages does not mention sign languages. However, some sign languages are also endangered, such as Alipur Village Sign Language (AVSL) of India, Adamorobe Sign Language of Ghana, Ban Khor Sign Language of Thailand, and Plains Indian Sign Language . Many sign languages are used by small communities; small changes in their environment (such as contact with

2064-636: The Ob and Yenisey rivers, resulting in a redirection southwest into the Caspian and Aral seas via the Turgai Valley . The area is very swampy, and soils are mostly peaty histosols and, in the treeless northern part, histels . In the south of the plain, where permafrost is largely absent, rich grasslands that are an extension of the Kazakh Steppe formed the original vegetation, most of which

2150-573: The Permian–Triassic extinction event . The volcanic event is one of the largest known volcanic eruptions in Earth's history . Only the extreme northwest was glaciated during the Quaternary , but almost all is under exceptionally deep permafrost, and the only tree that can thrive, despite the warm summers, is the deciduous Siberian Larch ( Larix sibirica ) with its very shallow roots. Outside

2236-684: The Soviet Union (especially in the 1930s and 1940s), the government used the Gulag state agency to administer a system of penal labour camps , replacing the previous katorga system. According to semi-official Soviet estimates, which did not become public until after the fall of the Soviet government in 1991, from 1929 to 1953 more than 14 million people passed through these camps and prisons, many of them in Siberia. Another seven to eight million people were internally deported to remote areas of

2322-593: The Taymyr Peninsula are believed to have been the last places on Earth to support woolly mammoths as isolated populations until their extinction around 2000 BC. At least three species of humans lived in southern Siberia around 40,000 years ago: H. sapiens , H. neanderthalensis , and the Denisovans . In 2010, DNA evidence identified the last as a separate species. Late Paleolithic southern Siberians appear to be related to Paleolithic Europeans and

2408-631: The Urals , which had been known of since the 11th century or earlier, while the name Siberia is first mentioned in Russian chronicles at the start of the 15th century in connection with the death of the khan Tokhtamysh , in "the Siberian land". Some sources say that "Siberia" originates from the Siberian Tatar word for 'sleeping land' ( Sib-ir ). A different hypothesis claims that the region

2494-526: The Yakuts , Tuvans , Altai , and Khakas , are Indigenous —along with the Mongolic Buryats , ethnic Koreans , and smaller groups of Samoyedic and Tungusic peoples (several of whom are classified as Indigenous small-numbered peoples by the Russian government), among many others. The origin of the name is uncertain. The Russian name Yugra was applied to the northern lands east of

2580-611: The national language (e.g. Indonesian ) in place of local languages. In contrast, a language with only 500 speakers might be considered very much alive if it is the primary language of a community, and is the first (or only) spoken language of all children in that community. Asserting that "Language diversity is essential to the human heritage", UNESCO's Ad Hoc Expert Group on Endangered Languages offers this definition of an endangered language: "... when its speakers cease to use it, use it in an increasingly reduced number of communicative domains, and cease to pass it on from one generation to

2666-426: The 16th century has led to perceptions of the region as culturally and ethnically European. Over 85% of its population are of European descent , chiefly Russian (comprising the Siberian sub-ethnic group), and Eastern Slavic cultural influences predominate throughout the region. Nevertheless, there exist sizable ethnic minorities of Asian lineage, including various Turkic communities—many of which, such as

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2752-472: The 21st century due to similar reasons. Language endangerment affects both the languages themselves and the people that speak them. This also affects the essence of a culture. As communities lose their language, they often lose parts of their cultural traditions that are tied to that language. Examples include songs, myths, poetry, local remedies, ecological and geological knowledge, as well as language behaviors that are not easily translated. Furthermore,

2838-843: The Americas. During past millennia, different groups of nomads – such as the Enets , the Nenets , the Huns , the Xiongnu , the Scythians , and the Yugur – inhabited various parts of Siberia. The Afanasievo and Tashtyk cultures of the Yenisey valley and Altay Mountains are associated with the Indo-European migrations across Eurasia. The proto-Mongol Khitan people also occupied parts of

2924-678: The European Union are actively working to save and stabilize endangered languages. Once a language is determined to be endangered, there are three steps that can be taken in order to stabilize or rescue the language. The first is language documentation, the second is language revitalization and the third is language maintenance. Language documentation is the documentation in writing and audio-visual recording of grammar , vocabulary, and oral traditions (e.g. stories, songs, religious texts) of endangered languages. It entails producing descriptive grammars, collections of texts and dictionaries of

3010-1147: The Markovo Oil Field in 1962 with the Markovo—1 well, which produced from the Early Cambrian Osa Horizon bar - sandstone at a depth of 2,156 metres (7,073 ft). The Sredne-Botuobin Gas Field was discovered in 1970, producing from the Osa and the Proterozoic Parfenovo Horizon. The Yaraktin Oil Field was discovered in 1971, producing from the Vendian Yaraktin Horizon at depths of up to 1,750 metres (5,740 ft), which lies below Permian to Lower Jurassic basalt traps . The climate of Siberia varies dramatically, but it typically has warm but short summers and long, brutally cold winters. On

3096-704: The North-East Camps ) along the Kolyma and Norillag near Norilsk , where 69,000 prisoners lived in 1952. Major industrial cities of Northern Siberia, such as Norilsk and Magadan , developed from camps built by prisoners and run by former prisoners. Siberia spans an area of 13.1 million square kilometres (5,100,000 sq mi), covering the vast majority of Russia's total territory, and almost 9% of Earth's land surface (148,940,000 km , 57,510,000 sq mi). It geographically falls in Asia, but

3182-557: The Pacific coast, not the watershed, is the eastern boundary (thus including the whole Russian Far East), as well as all Northern Kazakhstan is its subregion in the south-west or a somewhat narrower one that limits Siberia to the Siberian Federal District (thus excluding all subjects of other districts). In Russian, 'Siberia' is commonly used as a substitute for the name of the federal district by those who live in

3268-622: The Russian Far East, and even Petropavlovsk in Kazakhstan and Harbin in China. Novosibirsk is the largest by population and the most important city for the Siberian economy; with an extra boost since 2000 when it was designated a regional center for the executive bureaucracy ( Siberian Federal District ). Omsk is a historic and currently the second largest city in the region, and since 1950s hosting Russia's largest oil refinery,

3354-467: The Siberian Khanate in the 16th century. First, groups of traders and Cossacks began to enter the area. The Russian army was directed to establish forts farther and farther east to protect new Russian settlers who migrated from Europe. Towns such as Mangazeya , Tara , Yeniseysk , and Tobolsk developed, the last becoming the de facto capital of Siberia from 1590. At this time, Sibir was

3440-575: The Soviet Union (including entire nationalities or ethnicities in several cases). Half a million (516,841) prisoners died in camps from 1941 to 1943 during World War II . At other periods, mortality was comparatively lower. The size, scope, and scale of the Gulag slave-labour camps remain subjects of much research and debate. Many Gulag camps operated in extremely remote areas of northeastern Siberia. The best-known clusters included Sevvostlag (

3526-410: The U.S. as experts aiming to share their knowledge and expand their skills". Eastern Siberia Siberia ( / s aɪ ˈ b ɪər i ə / sy- BEER -ee-ə ; Russian : Сибирь , romanized :  Sibir' , IPA: [sʲɪˈbʲirʲ] ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia , from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in

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3612-565: The ages. Historically, Siberia was defined as the whole part of Russia and North Kazakhstan to the east of Ural Mountains , including the Russian Far East . According to this definition, Siberia extended eastward from the Ural Mountains to the Pacific coast, and southward from the Arctic Ocean to the border of Central Asia and the national borders of both Mongolia and China. Soviet-era sources ( Great Soviet Encyclopedia and others) and modern Russian ones usually define Siberia as

3698-465: The area between the Laptev Sea and East Siberian Sea . Since 1988, experimentation at Pleistocene Park has proposed to restore the grasslands of prehistoric times by conducting research on the effects of large herbivores on permafrost, suggesting that animals, rather than climate, maintained the past ecosystem. The nature reserve park also conducts climatic research on the changes expected from

3784-607: The atmosphere. Methane is a greenhouse gas 22 times more powerful than carbon dioxide . In 2008 a research expedition for the American Geophysical Union detected levels of methane up to 100 times above normal in the atmosphere above the Siberian Arctic , likely the result of methane clathrates being released through holes in a frozen "lid" of seabed permafrost around the outfall of the Lena and

3870-506: The central one is officially referred to as " Siberian "; the other two are the Ural and Far Eastern federal districts, named for the Ural and Russian Far East regions that correspond respectively to the western and eastern thirds of Siberia in the broader sense. Siberia is known for its long, harsh winters, with a January average of −25 °C (−13 °F). Although it is geographically in Asia, Russian sovereignty and colonization since

3956-480: The cities or to other countries, thus dispersing the speakers. Cultural dominance occurs when literature and higher education is only accessible in the majority language. Political dominance occurs when education and political activity is carried out exclusively in a majority language. Historically, in colonies, and elsewhere where speakers of different languages have come into contact, some languages have been considered superior to others: often one language has attained

4042-635: The coldest inhabited point in the Northern hemisphere. Each town also frequently reaches 30 °C (86 °F) in the summer, giving them, and much of the rest of Russian Siberia, the world's greatest temperature variation between summer's highs and winter's lows, often well over 94–100+ °C (169–180+ °F) between the seasons. Southwesterly winds bring warm air from Central Asia and the Middle East. The climate in West Siberia (Omsk, or Novosibirsk)

4128-560: The continent of Siberia/Angaraland , which fused to Euramerica during the Late Carboniferous , as part of the formation of Pangea . The Siberian Traps were formed by one of the largest-known volcanic events of the last 251 million years of Earth's geological history . Their activity continued for a million years and some scientists consider it a possible cause of the " Great Dying " about 250 million years ago, – estimated to have killed 90% of species existing at

4214-524: The contributions of linguists globally. Ethnologue's 2005 count of languages in its database, excluding duplicates in different countries, was 6,912, of which 32.8% (2,269) were in Asia, and 30.3% (2,092) in Africa. This contemporary tally must be regarded as a variable number within a range. Areas with a particularly large number of languages that are nearing extinction include: Eastern Siberia , Central Siberia , Northern Australia , Central America , and

4300-461: The cycles of language death and emergence of new languages through creolization as a continuous ongoing process. A majority of linguists do consider that language loss is an ethical problem, as they consider that most communities would prefer to maintain their languages if given a real choice. They also consider it a scientific problem, because language loss on the scale currently taking place will mean that future linguists will only have access to

4386-470: The definition of the territory of Siberia a potentially controversial subject. In the eastern extent of Siberia there are territories which are not clearly defined as either Siberia or the Far East , making the question of "what is Siberia?" one with no clear answer, and what is a "Siberian", one of self-identification . The most populous city of Siberia, as well as the third most populous city of Russia,

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4472-408: The dispersal of speaker populations and decreased survival rates for those who stay behind. Among the causes of language endangerment cultural, political and economic marginalization accounts for most of the world's language endangerment. Scholars distinguish between several types of marginalization: Economic dominance negatively affects minority languages when poverty leads people to migrate towards

4558-403: The district itself, but less commonly used to denote the federal district by people residing outside of it. Due to the different interpretations of Siberia, starting from Tyumen , to Chita , the territory generally defined as 'Siberia', some people will define themselves as 'Siberian', while others not. A number of factors in recent years, including the fomenting of Siberian separatism have made

4644-517: The earliest is GIDS (Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale) proposed by Joshua Fishman in 1991. In 2011 an entire issue of Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development was devoted to the study of ethnolinguistic vitality, Vol. 32.2, 2011, with several authors presenting their own tools for measuring language vitality. A number of other published works on measuring language vitality have been published, prepared by authors with varying situations and applications in mind. According to

4730-485: The east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states since the centuries-long conquest of Siberia , which began with the fall of the Khanate of Sibir in the late 16th century and concluded with the annexation of Chukotka in 1778. Siberia is vast and sparsely populated, covering an area of over 13.1 million square kilometres (5,100,000 sq mi), but home to roughly

4816-480: The extreme northwest, the taiga is dominant, covering a significant fraction of the entirety of Siberia. Soils here are mainly turbels , giving way to spodosols where the active layer becomes thicker and the ice-content lower. The Lena-Tunguska petroleum province includes the Central Siberian platform (some authors refer to it as the "Eastern Siberian platform"), bounded on the northeast and east by

4902-517: The gradual decline and eventual death of the endangered language. The process of language shift is often influenced by factors such as globalisation, economic authorities, and the perceived prestige of certain languages. The ultimate result is the loss of linguistic diversity and cultural heritage within affected communities. The general consensus is that there are between 6,000 and 7,000 languages currently spoken. Some linguists estimate that between 50% and 90% of them will be severely endangered or dead by

4988-416: The languages, and it requires the establishment of a secure archive where the material can be stored once it is produced so that it can be accessed by future generations of speakers or scientists. Language revitalization is the process by which a language community through political, community, and educational means attempts to increase the number of active speakers of the endangered language. This process

5074-399: The linguistic literature—the language that is being lost generally undergoes changes as speakers make their language more similar to the language that they are shifting to. For example, gradually losing grammatical or phonological complexities that are not found in the dominant language. Generally the accelerated pace of language endangerment is considered to be a problem by linguists and by

5160-474: The local population, but often met resistance, such as two campaigns in 1187 and 1193 mentioned in chronicles that were defeated. After Novgorod was annexed by Moscow , the newly emerging centralized Russian state also laid claim to the region, with Ivan III of Russia sending expeditionary forces to Siberia in 1483 and 1499–1500. The Russians received tribute, but contact with the tribes ceased after they left. The growing power of Russia began to undermine

5246-615: The mid-17th century, Russia had established areas of control that extended to the Pacific Ocean. Some 230,000 Russians had settled in Siberia by 1709. Siberia became one of the destinations for sending internal exiles . Exile was the main Russian punitive practice with more than 800,000 people exiled during the nineteenth century. The first great modern change in Siberia was the Trans-Siberian Railway , constructed during 1891–1916. It linked Siberia more closely to

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5332-553: The most commonly occurring climate in Siberia is continental subarctic (Koppen Dfc , Dwc , or Dsc ), with the annual average temperature about −5 °C (23 °F) and an average for January of −25 °C (−13 °F) and an average for July of +17 °C (63 °F), although this varies considerably, with a July average about 10 °C (50 °F) in the taiga–tundra ecotone . The business -oriented website and blog Business Insider lists Verkhoyansk and Oymyakon , in Siberia's Sakha Republic , as being in competition for

5418-597: The name might be a combination of two words with Turkic origin, su 'water' and bir 'wild land'. Another account sees the name as the ancient tribal ethnonym of the Sihirtia or Sirtya (also Syopyr [sʲɵpᵻr])), a hypothetical Paleo-Asiatic ethnic group assimilated by the Nenets . Mongolist György Kara posits that the toponym Siberia is derived from a Mongolic word sibir , cognate with modern Buryat sheber 'dense forest'. Siberia in Paleozoic times formed

5504-436: The name of a fortress at Qashliq , near Tobolsk. Gerardus Mercator , in a map published in 1595, marks Sibier both as the name of a settlement and of the surrounding territory along a left tributary of the Ob . Other sources contend that the Sibe , an Indigenous Tungusic people , offered fierce resistance to Russian expansion beyond the Urals. Some suggest that the term "Siberia" is a russification of their ethnonym. By

5590-455: The next. That is, there are no new speakers, adults or children." UNESCO operates with four levels of language endangerment between "safe" (not endangered) and "extinct" (no living speakers), based on intergenerational transfer: "vulnerable" (not spoken by children outside the home), "definitely endangered" (children not speaking), "severely endangered" (only spoken by the oldest generations), and "critically endangered" (spoken by few members of

5676-400: The north coast, north of the Arctic Circle , there is a very short (about one month long) summer. Almost all the population lives in the south, along the route of the Trans-Siberian Railway . The climate in this southernmost part is humid continental climate (Köppen Dfa/Dfb or Dwa/Dwb ) with cold winters but fairly warm summers lasting at least four months. The annual average temperature

5762-482: The number of speakers of a language. UNESCO seeks to prevent language extinction by promoting and supporting the language in education, culture, communication and information, and science. Another option is "post-vernacular maintenance": the teaching of some words and concepts of the lost language, rather than revival proper. As of June 2012 the United States has a J-1 specialist visa , which allows indigenous language experts who do not have academic training to enter

5848-626: The oldest generation, often semi-speakers ). UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger categorises 2,473 languages by level of endangerment. Using an alternative scheme of classification, linguist Michael E. Krauss defines languages as "safe" if it is considered that children will probably be speaking them in 100 years; "endangered" if children will probably not be speaking them in 100 years (approximately 60–80% of languages fall into this category) and "moribund" if children are not speaking them now. Many scholars have devised techniques for determining whether languages are endangered. One of

5934-407: The only kremlin in Siberia), Tomsk (formerly a wealthy merchant's town) and Irkutsk (former seat of Eastern Siberia's governor general, near lake Baikal). Other major cities include: Barnaul , Kemerovo , Krasnoyarsk , Novokuznetsk , Tyumen . Wider definitions of geographic Siberia also include the cities of: Chelyabinsk and Yekaterinburg in the Urals, Khabarovsk and Vladivostok in

6020-514: The paleolithic Jōmon people of Japan. Ancient DNA analysis has revealed that the oldest fossil known to carry the derived KITLG allele, which is responsible for blond hair in modern Europeans, is a 17,000 year old Ancient North Eurasian specimen from Siberia. Ancient North Eurasian populations genetically similar to Mal'ta–Buret' culture and Afontova Gora were an important genetic contributor to Native Americans, Europeans, Ancient Central Asians, South Asians, and some East Asian groups (such as

6106-406: The rapidly industrialising Russia of Nicholas II ( r.  1894–1917 ). Around seven million Russians moved to Siberia from Europe between 1801 and 1914. Between 1859 and 1917, more than half a million people migrated to the Russian Far East. Siberia has extensive natural resources: during the 20th century, large-scale exploitation of these took place, and industrial towns cropped up throughout

6192-557: The region. At 7:15 a.m. on 30 June 1908, the Tunguska Event felled millions of trees near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River (Stony Tunguska River) in central Siberia. Most scientists believe this resulted from the air burst of a meteor or a comet. Even though no crater has ever been found, the landscape in the (sparsely inhabited) area still bears the scars of this event. In the early decades of

6278-751: The region. In the 13th century, during the period of the Mongol Empire , the Mongols conquered a large part of this area. With the breakup of the Golden Horde , the autonomous Khanate of Sibir was formed in the late-15th century. Turkic-speaking Yakut migrated north from the Lake Baikal region under pressure from the Mongol tribes from the 13th to 15th centuries. Siberia remained a sparsely populated area. Historian John F. Richards wrote: "it

6364-558: The reintroduction of grazing animals or large herbivores, hypothesizing that a transition from tundra to grassland would lead to a net change in energy emission to absorption ratios. According to Vasily Kryuchkov, approximately 31,000 square kilometers of the Russian Arctic has subjected to severe environmental disturbance. The term "Siberia" has both a long history and wide significance, and association. The understanding, and association of "Siberia" have gradually changed during

6450-661: The social structure of one's community is often reflected through speech and language behavior. This pattern is even more prominent in dialects. This may in turn affect the sense of identity of the individual and the community as a whole, producing a weakened social cohesion as their values and traditions are replaced with new ones. This is sometimes characterized as anomie . Losing a language may also have political consequences as some countries confer different political statuses or privileges on minority ethnic groups, often defining ethnicity in terms of language. In turn, communities that lose their language may also lose political legitimacy as

6536-619: The southernmost portion of its western boundary, and includes most of the drainage basin of the Arctic Ocean . It is further defined as stretching from the territories within the Arctic Circle in the north to the northern borders of Kazakhstan , Mongolia , and China in the south, although the hills of north-central Kazakhstan are also commonly included. The Russian government divides the region into three federal districts (groupings of Russian federal subjects ), of which only

6622-502: The speakers. However, some linguists, such as the phonetician Peter Ladefoged , have argued that language death is a natural part of the process of human cultural development, and that languages die because communities stop speaking them for their own reasons. Ladefoged argued that linguists should simply document and describe languages scientifically, but not seek to interfere with the processes of language loss. A similar view has been argued at length by linguist Salikoko Mufwene , who sees

6708-471: The time. The region has paleontological significance, as it contains bodies of prehistoric animals from the Pleistocene Epoch , preserved in ice or permafrost . Specimens of Goldfuss cave lion cubs , Yuka the mammoth and another woolly mammoth from Oymyakon , a woolly rhinoceros from the Kolyma , and bison and horses from Yukagir have been found. Remote Wrangel Island and

6794-478: The title of the Northern Hemisphere's Pole of Cold . Oymyakon is a village which recorded a temperature of −67.7 °C (−89.9 °F) on 6 February 1933. Verkhoyansk , a town further north and further inland, recorded a temperature of −69.8 °C (−93.6 °F) for three consecutive nights: 5, 6 and 7 February 1933. Each town is alternately considered the Northern Hemisphere's Pole of Cold –

6880-567: The winter, southern Siberia sits near the center of the semi-permanent Siberian High , so winds are usually light in the winter. Precipitation in Siberia is generally low, exceeding 500 millimetres (20 in) only in Kamchatka , where moist winds flow from the Sea of Okhotsk onto high mountains – producing the region's only major glaciers , though volcanic eruptions and low summer temperatures allow only limited forests to grow. Precipitation

6966-457: The world is not known, and it is not well defined what constitutes a separate language as opposed to a dialect. Estimates vary depending on the extent and means of the research undertaken, and the definition of a distinct language and the current state of knowledge of remote and isolated language communities. The number of known languages varies over time as some of them become extinct and others are newly discovered. An accurate number of languages in

7052-418: The world was not yet known until the use of universal, systematic surveys in the later half of the twentieth century. The majority of linguists in the early twentieth century refrained from making estimates. Before then, estimates were frequently the product of guesswork and very low. One of the most active research agencies is SIL International , which maintains a database, Ethnologue , kept up to date by

7138-413: The world, many countries have enacted specific legislation aimed at protecting and stabilizing the language of indigenous speech communities . Recognizing that most of the world's endangered languages are unlikely to be revitalized, many linguists are also working on documenting the thousands of languages of the world about which little or nothing is known. The total number of contemporary languages in

7224-420: The year 2100. The 20 most common languages , each with more than 50 million speakers, are spoken by 50% of the world's population, but most languages are spoken by fewer than 10,000 people. The first step towards language death is potential endangerment . This is when a language faces strong external pressure, but there are still communities of speakers who pass the language to their children. The second stage

7310-486: Was extensively glaciated in the Pleistocene, but the climate was too dry for glaciation to extend to low elevations. At these low elevations are numerous valleys, many of them deep and covered with larch forest, except in the extreme north where the tundra dominates. Soils are mainly turbels (a type of gelisol ). The active layer tends to be less than one metre deep, except near rivers. The highest point in Siberia

7396-563: Was named after the Sibe people . The Polish historian Jan Chyliczkowski has proposed that the name derives from the Proto-Slavic word for 'north' (cf. Russian север sever ), as in Severia . Anatole Baikaloff has dismissed this explanation. He said that the neighboring Chinese, Turks, and Mongolians, who have similar names for the region, would not have known Russian. He suggested that

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