Nivkh (Нивхгу/Nivxgu)
Nivkh or Gilyak is a language isolate spoken by about 1,000 people
in Outer Manchuria along the Amgun and Amur rivers and part of Sakhlin
Island. There are three main dialects: Amur, East Sakhlin and North
Sakhlin, with only limited mutally intelligibilty between them.
Nivkh is unrelated to any other language, though is sometimes included
in the Paleosiberian group of languages for convenience. Nivkhs living
along the Amur river call themselves Nivh, while those on Sakhlin
are known as N’ivhgn-N’igvn, meaning ‘man’. The term Gilyak is
the name given to the Nivkhs by the neighbouring Manchus.
Nivkh first appeared in writing in the 1880s in a Nivkh-Nanai primer
compiled by a missionary. A Latin-based alphabet for Nivkh was used
between 1931 and 1953, when a switch was made to the Cyrillic alphabet.
Cyrilic alphabet for Nivkh
The blue letters are only used for Russian loanwords.
Information about Nivkh pronunciation compiled by Wolfram Siegel
Links
Information about the Nivkh language and people
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nivkh_language
http://www.eki.ee/books/redbook/nivkhs.shtml
http://www.peoples.org.ru/eng_nivh.html
Sound Materials of the Nivkh Language
http://ext-web.edu.sgu.ac.jp/hidetos/HTML/SMNStitle.html