Kamassian

Kamassian is an extinct language of the Samoyedic branch of the Uralic language family. It was spoken by the Kamass people along the Kama River in what is now Perm Krai, Russia.

Historically, the Kamass lived in the Volga-Kama region and engaged with neighboring Russian and Indigenous communities. Over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, the language fell from daily use as Kamass speakers shifted to Russian. The last native speakers died during the mid- to late 20th century.

Linguistically, Kamassian is classified within Samoyedic languages of Uralic. It shared features typical of Samoyedic languages, such as a primarily analytic morphology with extensive affixation and a subject–object–verb word order; its phonology and lexicon are known from field notes and subsequent documentation.

Documentation consists of word lists, grammars, and notes collected by linguists in the 19th and early 20th centuries, later supplemented by researchers who studied archival data. Because of limited sources, much about Kamassian remains unknown, and reconstructions rely on comparative study with other Samoyedic languages.

Today Kamassian is of interest to linguists studying the Uralic family, language contact, and the history of the Kamass people.