Udmurt language

Udmurt (удмурт кыл, udmurt kyl) is a Uralic language, part of the Permic subgroup, spoken by the Udmurt natives of the Russian constituent republic of Udmurtia, where it is co-official with Russian. It is written using the Cyrillic alphabet with the addition of five characters not used in the Russian orthography: Ӝ/ӝ, Ӟ/ӟ, Ӥ/ӥ, Ӧ/ӧ, and Ӵ/ӵ. Together with Komi and Permyak languages, it constitutes the Permic grouping of the Uralic family. Among outsiders, it has traditionally been referred to by its Russian exonym, Votyak. Udmurt has borrowed vocabulary from neighboring languages Tatar and Russian.

Distribution of the Udmurt language.
Udmurt
удмурт кыл udmurt kyl
Native toRussia
RegionUdmurtia
EthnicityUdmurts
Native speakers
324,000 in Russian Federation, ethnic population: 554,000, total users in all countries: 335,730 (2010 census)[1]
Official status
Official language in
 Russia
Language codes
ISO 639-2udm
ISO 639-3udm
Glottologudmu1245
ELPUdmurt[2]

Ethnologue estimates 550,000 native speakers (77%) in an ethnic population of 750,000 in the former USSR (1989 census).[3]

Dialects

Udmurt varieties can be grouped in three broad dialect groups:

A continuum of intermediate dialects between Northern and Southern Udmurt is found, and literary Udmurt includes features from both areas. Besermyan is more sharply distinguished.

The differences between the dialects are regardless not major, and mainly involve differences in vocabulary, largely attributable to the stronger influence of Tatar in the southern end of the Udmurt-speaking area. A few differences in morphology and phonology still exist as well, e.g.

  • Southern Udmurt has an accusative ending -ыз /-ɨz/, contrasting with northern -ты /-tɨ/.
  • Southwestern Udmurt distinguishes an eighth vowel phoneme /ʉ/.
  • Besermyan has /e/ in place of standard Udmurt /ə/ (thus distinguishing only six vowel phonemes), and /ɵ/ in place of standard Udmurt /ɨ/.

Orthography
Main article: Udmurt alphabets

Udmurt is written using a modified version of the Russian Cyrillic alphabet:

UppercaseLowercaseTransliteration[4]IPALetter name
Ааa[ɑ]а
Ббb[b]бэ
Ввv[v]вэ
Ггg[ɡ]гэ
Ддd, ď[d]; palatal [dʲ] when followed by я, е, и, ё, ю or ьдэ
Ееe, je[je]; [ʲe] when preceded by д, т, з, с, л, or не
Ёёjo[jo]; [ʲo] when preceded by д, т, з, с, л, or нё
Жжž[ʒ]жэ
Ӝӝdž[d͡ʒ]ӝэ
Ззz, ź[z]; palatal [ʑ] when followed by я, е, и, ё, ю or ьзэ
Ӟӟdź[d͡ʑ]ӟе
Ииi[i]; [ʲi] when preceded by д, т, з, с, л, or ни
Ӥӥï[i] when preceded by д, т, з, с, л, or нточкаен и, точкаосын и ("dotted i")
Ййj[j]вакчи и ("short i")
Ккk[k]ка
Ллl, ľ[ɫ]; palatal [ʎ] when followed by я, е, и, ё, ю or ьэл
Ммm[m]эм
Ннn, ń[n]; palatal [ɲ] when followed by я, е, и, ё, ю or ьэн
Ооo[o]о
Ӧӧö[ʌ ~ ə]ӧ
Ппp[p]пэ
Ррr[r]эр
Ссs, ś[s]; palatal [ɕ] when followed by я, е, и, ё, ю or ьэс
Ттt, ť[t]; palatal [tʲ] when followed by я, е, и, ё, ю or ьтэ
Ууu[u]у
Ф1фf[f]эф
Х1хh[x]ха
Ц1цc[t͡s]цэ
Ччć[t͡ɕ]чэ
Ӵӵč[t͡ʃ]ӵэ
Шшš[ʃ]ша
Щ1щšč[ɕ(ː)]ща
Ъ2ъ––чурыт пус ("hard sign")
Ыыy[ɨ ~ ɯ]ы
Ьь–[ʲ]небыт пус ("soft sign")
Ээe, ė[e]э
Ююju[ju]; [ʲu] when preceded by д, т, з, с, л, or ню
Яяja[jɑ]; [ʲɑ] when preceded by д, т, з, с, л, or ня
  • 1 Only used in Russian loanwords and names.
  • 2 Silent, but required to distinguish palatalized consonants (/dʲ tʲ zʲ sʲ lʲ n/) from unpalatalized consonants followed by /j/ if followed by a vowel; for example, /zʲo/ and /zjo/ are written -зё- and -зъё-, respectively.

Phonology

The language does not distinguish between long and short vowels and does not have vowel harmony.

Labial Alveolar Post-
alveolar		 Alveolo-
palatal		 Palatal Velar
plain lat. plain lat.
Plosive voiceless p t k
voiced b d ɡ
Affricate voiceless (t͡s) t͡ʃ t͡ɕ
voiced (d͡z) d͡ʒ d͡ʑ
Fricative voiceless (f) s ʃ ɕ (x)
voiced v z ʒ ʑ
Nasal m n ɲ ŋ
Approximant l j ʎ
Trill r

The consonants /f x t͡s/ are restricted to loanwords, and are traditionally replaced by /p k t͡ɕ/ respectively.

Front Central Back
Unrounded Round
Close i ɨ u
Mid e ə o
Open a

Grammar
Main article: Udmurt grammar
Udmurt language textbook, 1898 (in Russian) Букварь для вотскихъ дѣтей

Udmurt is an agglutinating language. It uses affixes to express possession, to specify mode, time, and so on.

No gender distinction is made in nouns or in personal pronouns

Cases

Udmurt has fifteen cases: eight grammatical cases and seven locative cases.

There is no congruency between adjectives and nouns in neutral Udmurt noun phrases, i.e. there is no adjective declension as in the inessive noun phrase бадӟым гуртын, 'in a large/big village' (cf. Finnish inessive phrase isossa kylässä 'in a large/big village', in which iso 'big/large' is inflected according to the head noun).

Udmurt cases
CaseSuffixExampleTranslation
Grammatical
nominative–гурт
/gurt/		village
genitive -лэн
/ɫen/		гуртлэн
/gurtɫen/		of a village / village's
accusative-эз/-ез/-ты/-ыз
/ez/jez/tɨ/ɨz/		гуртэз
/gurtez/		village (as an object)
ablative -лэсь
/ɫeɕ/		гуртлэсь
/gurtɫeɕ/		from a village
dative -лы
/ɫɨ/		гуртлы
/gurtɫɨ/		to a village
instrumental -эн/-ен/-ын
/en/jen/ɨn/		гуртэн
/gurten/		by means of a village
abessive -тэк
/tek/		гурттэк
/gurtːek/		without a village
adverbial -я
/jɑ/		гуртъя
/gurtjɑ/		in a village way
Locative cases*
inessive-ын
/ɨn/		гуртын
/gurtɨn/		in a village
illative-э/-е/-ы
/e/je/ɨ/		гуртэ
/gurte/		into a village (or house)
elative-ысь
/ɨɕ/		гуртысь
/gurtɨɕ/		from a village
egressive-ысен
/ɨɕen/		гуртысен
/gurtɨɕen/		starting from a village
terminative-озь
/oʑ/		гуртозь
/gurtoʑ/		end up at a village
prolative-этӥ/-етӥ/-ытӥ/-тӥ
/eti/jeti/ɨti/ti/		гуртэтӥ
/gurteti/		along a village
allative-лань
/ɫɑɲ/		гуртлань
/gurtɫɑɲ/		towards a village

*Of all the locative cases, personal pronouns can only inflect in the allative (also called approximative).

Plural

There are two types of nominal plurals in Udmurt. One is the plural for nouns -ос/-ëс and the other is the plural for adjectives -эсь/-есь.

Nominal plural

The noun is always in plural. In attributive plural phrases, the adjective is not required to be in the plural:

Attributive plural
Udmurt English
чебер(есь) нылъëс (the) beautiful girls

The plural marker always comes before other endings (i.e. cases and possessive suffixes) in the morphological structure of plural nominal.

Morphological order
Udmurt English
нылъëслы to the girls
гуртъëсазы to/in their villages

Predicative plural

As in Hungarian, if the subject is plural, the adjective is always plural when it functions as the sentence's predicative:

Attributive plural
Udmurt English
нылъëс чебересь the girls are beautiful
толъёс кузесь the winters are cold

Udmurt pronouns are inflected much in the same way that their referent nouns are. However, personal pronouns are only inflected in the grammatical cases and cannot be inflected in the locative cases.

Personal pronouns

Somewhat like in English, Udmurt personal pronouns are used to refer to human beings only. However, the third person singular can be referred to it. The nominative case of personal pronouns are listed in the following table:

Personal pronouns
Udmurt English
Singular
мон /mon/ I
тон /ton/ you
со /so/ she or he or it
Plural
ми /mi/ we
тӥ /ti/ you
соос /soːs/ they

Interrogative pronouns

Udmurt interrogative pronouns inflect in all cases. However, the inanimate interrogative pronouns 'what' in the locative cases have the base form кыт-. The nominative case of interrogative pronouns are listed in the following table:

Interrogative pronouns (nominative case)
Udmurt English
Singular
ма /mɑ/ what
кин /kin/ who
Plural
маос /mɑos/ what
кинъëс /kinjos/ who

Verbs

Udmurt verbs are divided into two conjugation groups, both having the infinitive marker -ны.

There are three verbal moods in Udmurt: indicative, conditional and imperative. There is also an optative mood used in certain dialects. The indicative mood has four tenses: present, future, and two past tenses. In addition there are four past tense structures which include auxiliary verbs. Verbs are negated by use of an auxiliary negative verb that conjugates with personal endings.

The basic verbal personal markers in Udmurt are (with some exceptions):

Personal endings of verbs
Person Ending
Singular
1st -Ø
2nd -д
3rd -з
Plural
1st -мы
2nd -ды
3rd -зы
Example conjugation: тодыны (conjugation I)
Person Udmurt English
Singular
1st тодӥсько* I know
2nd тодӥськод* you know
3rd тодэ he/she knows
Plural
1st тодӥськомы we know
2nd тодӥськоды you know
3rd тодо they know

*The present tense in Udmurt in all but the third person, is marked with -(ӥ)сько-/-(и)сько-.

Syntax

Udmurt is an SOV language.

Lexicon

Depending on the style, about 10 to 30 percent of the Udmurt lexicon consists of loanwords. Many loanwords are from the Tatar language, which has also strongly influenced Udmurt phonology and syntax.

A bilingual sign in Izhevsk proclaiming "welcome" in Russian ("добро пожаловать") and Udmurt ("гажаса ӧтиськом").

The Udmurt language itself, together with the Tatar language, influenced the language of the Udmurt Jews, in the dialects of which the words of Finno-Ugric and Turkic origin there were recorded.[5][6][7][8]

Media in Udmurt

Eurovision runners-up Buranovskiye Babushki, a pop group composed of Udmurt grandmothers, sing mostly in Udmurt.[9]

The romantic comedy film Berry-Strawberry, a joint Polish-Udmurt production, is in the Udmurt language.

In 2013, the film company "Inwis kinopottonni" produced a film in the Udmurt language called Puzkar ("nest").[10]

The Bible was first completely translated into Udmurt in 2013.[11]

Bibliography
  • Kel'makov, Valentin; Sara Hännikäinen (2008). Udmurtin kielioppia ja harjoituksia (in Finnish) (2nd ed.). Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura. ISBN 978-952-5150-34-6.
  • Moreau, Jean-Luc (2009). Parlons Oudmourte. Paris: L'Harmattan. ISBN 978-2-296-07951-9.

References
  1. Udmurt at Ethnologue (23nd ed., 2020)
  2. Endangered Languages Project data for Udmurt.
  3. Ethnologue code=UDM Archived October 9, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  4. "BGN/PCGN romanization of udmurt". Retrieved 24 March 2012.
  5. Altyntsev A.V., "The Concept of Love in Ashkenazim of Udmurtia and Tatarstan", Nauka Udmurtii. 2013. № 4 (66), pp. 131–132. (Алтынцев А.В., "Чувство любви в понимании евреев-ашкенази Удмуртии и Татарстана". Наука Удмуртии. 2013. №4. С. 131–132: Комментарии.) (in Russian)
  6. Goldberg-Altyntsev A.V., "A short ethnographic overview of the Ashkenazic Jews' group in Alnashsky District of Udmurt Republic". Die Sammlung der wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten der jungen jüdischen Wissenschaftler. Herausgegeben von Artur Katz, Yumi Matsuda und Alexander Grinberg. München, Dachau, 2015. S. 51.
  7. Гольдберг-Алтынцев А.В., "Краткий этнографический обзор группы ашкеназских евреев в Алнашском районе Удмуртской Республики / пер. с англ. яз. А.Й. Каца." Jewish studies in the Udmurt Republic: Online. Part 1. Edited by A. Greenberg. February 27, 2015 published. P. 3. (in Russian)
  8. Goldberg-Altyntsev A.V., "Some characteristics of the Jews in Alnashsky District of Udmurt Republic." The youth. The creativity. The science. Edited by V. Cox, A. Katz and A. Greenberg. Trenton, 2014, p. 28. (גאלדבערג-אלטינצעוו א.ו., ". איניגע באזונדערהייטן פון די יידן אין אלנאשסקער רייאן פון ודמורטישע רעפובליק" The youth. The creativity. The science. = Die Jugend. Die Kreativität. Die Wissenschaft. = נוער. יצירתיות. מדע Edited by V. Cox, A. Katz and A. Greenberg. Trenton, 2014. P. 28.) (in Yiddish)
  9. Omelyanchuk, Olena (7 March 2012). "Buranovskiye Babushki to represent Russia in Baku". European Broadcasting Union. Retrieved 12 April 2015.
  10. "Пузкар (удмурт кино)".
  11. "First Bible in Udmurt – arrives this week!". United Bible Societies. Retrieved 12 April 2015.
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