Negidals

Negidals (Negidal: элькан бэйэнин, elkan bayenin, "local people"; негидальцы, negidaltsy) are an indigenous ethnic group in the Khabarovsk Krai in Russia, who live along the Amgun River and Amur River. The ethnonym "Negidal" is a Russian rendering of the Ewenki term ngegida, which means "coastal people". Negidals are an indigenous ethnic group inhabiting the lower reaches of Amgun River (formerly also living in the Amur River region) in Priamurye, Russian Far East. Nowadays, the majority of Negidals live in Ulchskiy District and, to a lesser extent, in Imeni Poliny Osipenko District (mostly in Vladimirovka village) in Khabarovsk Krai; a number of Negidal families also live in Nikolayevsky, Nanaisky and other districts.Negidals have been a small indigenous community in the Russian Far East since the first population censuses, as demonstrated by the Negidal Population Table. A major drawback of most censuses is the insufficient coverage of the Negidal population, in particular, the Soviet censuses listied Evenks and Orochs as Negidals in certain cases: According to the 2002 census, there were 567 Negidals in Russia, 147 of whom still spoke the Negidal language. According to the 2010 census, there were 513 Negidals in Russia, 75 of whom still spoke the Negidal language. After the fall of the USSR, according to the 2001 census, 52 Ukrainian citizens identified themselves as Negidals. Of these, 31 declared Negidal as their native language, 11 are Russian-speaking and for 9 the mother tongue is another language. The Negidal language belongs to the Tungusic language family and is closely related to the Evenki language. Negidal alphabet was introduced in 2009 but is scarcely, if ever, used. The majority of Negidals living in Russia speak the Russian language. Negidal has two dialects – Upper Negidal (Verkhovskoj) and the now seemingly extinct Lower Negidal (Nizovskoj); the dialectal division corresponds with the subethnic division into Lower and Upper Negidals, the two subgroups having local cultural, traditional, and linguistic differences.