The language is frequently called simply “Yukaghir,” without qualifications. Vladimir Jochelson believed that the word “Yukaghir” was an exonym of Tungus origins (dyuke ghir “ice / cold people”). Sometimes, scholars used the terms “the Tundra dialect of Yukaghir” and the “Forest dialect of Yukaghir”; researchers, however, note significant differences between the two, and mutual understanding between speakers of these two idioms is very difficult, if at all possible.

It is hard to give an estimate of the exact number of Forest Nenets, since in both federal and regional official statistics, apart from the 1926-1927 Soviet Polar Census Expidions, they are united with the Tundra Nenets and are recorded as one ethnic group. Besides, the members of one Forest Nenets family may live together in one nomad camp, but be registered as living in different settlements. In case of intermarriages of the Forest Nenets with other indigenous Arctic ethnic groups, the ethnicity of children is difined by the ethnicity of the father.