Characters of the comic book “Kung Fu Panda” started speaking Nenets language

This year final lesson of the club of Nenets language “Vada” took place in the representational office of Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug in Saint Petersburg. The club was formed owing to the initiative of scientists from Saint Petersburg – an ethnographer Alexandra Terekhina and an archeologist Alexander Volkovitskiy.

Students being interested in study and development of Nenets language gathered for lessons once a week, starting with October. Alexandra Terekhina suggested a creative task – to translate the comic book “Kung Fu Panda” to Nenets language. The participants of the club Yulia Serotetto, Anna Yaptik, Nechey Serotetto, Marta Okotetto, Lyubov Lapsui, Anastasia Okotetto, Anastasia Bobrikova, Anastasia Vanuito, Lidia Porokhnya and Vlada Okotetto actively worked on the translation. The ethnographer notes that a comic book is genre of not high literature language. Therefore, the participants of the club, following the characters’ style, tried to use colloquial expressions and interjections existing in the Yamal dialect. The students know native language, they were born in Yamal. They translated one of several adventures of Po and his friends. And something interesting is ahead. For the students it is more likely the first experience, and further they would like to try to create something on their own. This year final lesson was conducted in the New Year’s mood, as the representational office informs. The students shared their warm wishes and plans for the next year. They will go to vacation to their native Yamal and again will come back to the club “Vada” in February, where Alexandra Terekhina and Alexander Volkovitskiy will wait for them. As we should remind, the representational office of Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug in Saint Petersburg renders organizational and informational support of the club of Nenets language “Vada”.