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Nenets (otherwise known as Yurak) is a member of the northern group of the * Samoyedic languages and is the only Samoyedic language spoken in Europe. Within Europe, where the majority of speakers live, it is found mainly in the Nenets National District (main town, Nar'yan Mar) in the Archangel Region. Further east, its territory extends across the tundra region of western Siberia as far as the lower Yenisey. Although its small number of speakers (34,665 in 1989) are spread over a huge territory approximately the size of Scandinavia, the Nenets language has remained astonishingly homogeneous. The reason for this is to be seen in the nomadic way of life of the Nenets. Two main dialects are distinguished: (i) Tundra Nenets, the only one to be spoken west of the Urals; and (ii) Forest Nenets. The differences are primarily phonetic but there are also lexical differences, mainly in respect of loanwords (of * Russian , * Komi or Ostyak origin). Our earliest knowledge of the language dates from the beginning of the 18th c. (word-lists collected by Philip Johann Strahlenberg, Johann Eberhard Fischer and others). Since 1937 an adaptation of the * Cyrillic alphabet has been used but earlier texts, consisting largely of folk tales collected by western travellers, were written in the Latin alphabet. 1968 . Samoyed Peoples and Languages , 2nd edn. Bloomington, IN . 1989 . Chrestomathia ... log in or subscribe to read full text