Arin language

Arin is an extinct Yeniseian language formerly spoken in Russia by the Arin people along the Yenisei River, predominantly on its western shore, between Yeniseysk and Krasnoyarsk, north of the Minusinsk region. However, it has been suggested that the Arin people had historically occupied a larger geographical range. It became extinct in the 18th century, with the death of Arzamas Loskutov, who was an informant for Gerhard Friedrich Müller in 1731, and for a Cossack adventurer named Ivan Kovrigin on November 27, 1735. It is believed that the term Ar or Ara was used by speakers of Arin to refer to themselves. It is classified as belonging to the Arinic branch, being its only attested language. The closest known relative of Arin, Pumpokol, has been suggested to be similar to the language of the ruling elite of the Xiongnu, as well as that of the Jie ruling class of the Later Zhao dynasty. Hydronyms associated with Arin have the suffixes -set, -igai, -lat, -zat, -zet and -sat (meaning "river") and -kul'/-kul (meaning "water"). These hydronyms, along with Khanty folklore telling of an eastern people known as the ar-jäx "Ar people", indicate that Arin may have once been spread out as far west as the Ob. One notable aspect of the Arin phonology is the correspondence of words starting with the word-initial k- and words in other Yeniseian languages that start with a bare vowel. For example, the Arin word kul (meaning 'water') corresponds to the Ket word uˑl’ and the Kott word ûl.