Linguistic genealogical classifications point to an early divergence of Nganasan and (perhaps to a lesser degree) Mator, with Enets–Nenets–Yurats and Kamas–Selkup forming internal branches.

[11] Below are two sentences in Nenets that demonstrate SOV word order and case in Samoyedic languages: SäxäkoSehekoboľńica-xanahospital-LOCmebe.

"[12]Nouns in Samoyedic languages do not have gender, but they are declined for number (singular, dual, and plural) as well as case.

[11] Vowel epenthesis is frequently used in Samoyedic languages to break up consonant clusters, particularly in the case of loanwords borrowed from Russian.

[13] Russian loanwords in Samoyedic languages include: колхоз ("collective farm"), машина ("car"), молоко ("milk"), Москва ("Moscow").

[13] At present, Samoyed territory extends from the White Sea to the Laptev Sea, along the Arctic shores of European Russia, including southern Novaya Zemlya, the Yamal Peninsula, the mouths of the Ob and the Yenisei, and into the Taimyr peninsula in northernmost Siberia.

[9] They are contiguous with the trans-Ural Ugric speakers and the cis-Ural Komi to the south, but they are cut off from the Baltic Finns by the Russians in the west.

Records up to the 18th century sporadically report several further entities such as "Abakan", "Kagmasin", "Soyot", though there is no clear evidence for any of these constituting separate languages, and all available data appears to be explainable as these having been simply early forms of Kamassian or Mator.