elements into the present. A difference in reported material origin with Chukotko-Koryak languages in declensional and conjugational paradigms is the result of convergent development under conditions of a Chukotko-Kamchatkan Sprachbund. Incorporation goes against word structure (not more than one root morpheme), thus Itelmen did not take it on. Reduplication of a root, inherent to all the languages of the Chukotko-Kamchatkan group, was able to develop in Itelmen apart from the influence of contact. Russian borrowings in Itelmen already started to appear in the 17th century. Among the Russian words that were borrowed, in some cases replacing Itelmen words, adjectives and adverbs predominate and even preserve Russian morphology: vostr-oy sharp-NOM.MASC.SG, krasn-oy red-NOM.MASC.SG, sinny-oy blue-NOM.MASC.SG, svez-oy fresh-NOM.MASC.SG, etc. Borrowed verbs adapt in accordance with the demands of Itelmen morphology: Itel. stara'lkas (Rus. starat'sya) means 'to try', Itel. otkaza'lkas (Rus. otkazyvat'sya) 'to deny,' It. napraves means 'to cook food'. To speak of Russian borrowings in Itelmen today is hardly possible, because all Itelmens speak Russian much better than their native language. Syntax The Itelmen language is an agglutinative language, it has affixes for nouns and verbs, and most of its affixes are suffixes. Its basic word order is subject–object–verb, numerals and demonstratives are placed before the noun they modify, although adjectives can be placed before or after the noun they modify. Orthography Itelmen is not standardized and does not have a separate literary variety. A retelling of Itelmen mythology was written in Russian by Krasheninnikov. Folk language (only recordings from the 20th century survive, in the western language) does not show special characteristics compared to the conversational language. Writing based on Latin graphemes was introduced in 1932 (an alphabet book and arithmetic textbook were published). Teaching from the alphabet book of 1932 (authored by ethnographer Elizabeth Porfirevna Orlova and co-produced by a group of Itelmen students) lasted several years, but after alphabets for "Northern" languages were transformed into Cyrillic at the end of the 1930s, Itelmen writing was abolished. Itelmen became an unwritten language again and remained that way for almost a half-century. The modern Itelmen alphabet was created in 1984 on a Cyrillic basis and in 1988 was confirmed by the Russian Ministry of Education. A second Itelmen alphabet book was created in 1988. An Itelmen-Russian/Russian-Itelmen dictionary and second-grade textbook were also published. In 1993 the Itelmen alphabet book was republished. Itelmen has been taught as a subject in elementary grades, but