Oudihé

Udege (autonymously "удиэ кэйэвэни" Udihe Keyeveni or "Udeγe") is a Northern Tungusic language of the Russian Far East spoken by traditional taiga hunter-gatherers known as "tiger-and-taiga people". The Udege were romanticized in Vladimir Arsenyev's "Dersu Uzala" (1923) — Dersu was an Udege hunter-guide. Severely endangered: only ~100 fluent speakers remain among ~1,500 ethnic Udege, with younger generations Russian-dominant. The Bikin Valley Udege community in Krasnyy Yar is the largest contemporary settlement and the focus of cultural preservation through the Bikin National Park established 2015. Linguistically, Udege has rich vowel harmony, complex spatial case morphology, and distinctive evidentiality marking.