Etymological Notes on the Ethnonymy of the Lower Yenisei

Abstract

The article discusses the etymology of several ethnonyms and tribal names of the peoples of the Taimyr Peninsula and the Lower Yenisei region. It searches for the origin of the ethnonym Yuraki which is presently used as the name and self-name of the East (Taimyr) Nenets and previously (before the 17th century) referred to a separate Samoyedic ethnolinguistic group. The probable source is a proto-Ket plural form *d’ər’ɛŋ with the same meaning that passed through the Selkup mediation and ultimately overlapped with the same Evenki root ďuk- which serves to denote the Yughs. The article also summarizes the existing evidence on the history of the Yuraks as a separate people. The author hypothesizes for the similar (from Ket through Selkup) origin of such ethnonyms and hydronyms as zemshaki, imbaki, Imbak river. The Ket (in G. F. Müller’s notes) ethnonym Dýingden ‘Samoyeds of the Taz’ receives a possible explanation as “people of lakes (= tundra)” or “people of the sea”. The Nganasan clan name Ngamtus’o is attributed to the Nenets clan name Nyamdasi / Nemdaziny ‘Hornless,’ premised on the legend about the ancestors of the Ngamtusu’o arriving from the Taz river. The meaning ‘hornless’ might be related to other generic names of this region and thus explained as “not having a sultan on the hood”. The Nganasan and Enets words aśa, ośa, denoting the Dolgans, probably go back to the mention of the Evenki clan name Osei attested in Russian sources. Finally, the paper offers an improved etymology of the ethnonym Tungus, the first part of which can be interpreted as the Ket root meaning ‘stone,’ that refers to the Tungus (Evenki) as residents of the right (high, mountainous) bank of the Yenisei.

Keywords

• lower yenisei
• taimyr
• samoyedic languages
• evenki language
• ket language
• ethnonymy
• etymology