Udmurt (удмурт кыл, udmurt kyl) is a Finno-Permic language spoken by the Udmurts, natives of the Russian constituent republic of Udmurtia, where it is coofficial with the Russian language. It is written in the Cyrillic script with five additional characters. Together with Komi and Komi-Permyak languages, it constitutes the Permic grouping. Among outsiders, it has traditionally been referred to by its Russian name, Votyak. Udmurt has borrowed vocabulary from the neighboring languages Tatar and Russian.

[edit] Alphabet

The Udmurt alphabet is based on the Russian Cyrillic alphabet. From top to bottom: letters, their names (in Russian for Ӥ, Й, Ъ and Ь), and their pronunciation in IPA:

• ¹ If followed by я, е, и, ё, ю or ь.
• ² Only used in Russian loanwords and names.
• ³ If preceded by д, т, з, с, л, or н.
• ⁴ 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.

Four of these characters (Ӝ/ӝ, Ӟ/ӟ, Ӥ/ӥ, Ӵ/ӵ) are unique to the Udmurt alphabet.

[edit] Phonology

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

[edit] Grammar

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

There is no grammatical gender.

[edit] Nouns

Udmurt language textbook (in Russian)

Some words can be used as nouns, adjectives, and adverbs without a change in form. For example, ӵилкит čilkit means "cleanliness", "clean", and "clearly".

There are 15 cases in the language. In the first, second, and third persons singular, the ordinary possessive suffixes, -е, -ед, -ез/-э, -эд, -эз -e, -ed, -ez sometimes change to -и, -ид, -из/-ӥ, -ӥд, -ӥз -i, -id, -iz, especially in native vocabulary, such as кии kii (ki + i, "my hand"), киид kiid (ki + id, "your (sing.) hand") and кииз kiiz (ki + iz, "her/his hand").

The third person singular possessive suffix also acts as a definite article: удмурт кылӥз чебер udmurt kyliz č´eber ("the Udmurt language is nice" - literally "Udmurt language's nice"). An affirmative plural adjective takes the -есь/-эсь -eś suffix, толъёс кузесь toljos kuźeś ("the winters are cold").

[edit] Verbs

In Udmurt, there are three moods. The indicative mood has four tenses: present, future, and two past tenses with an evidentiality distinction: "preterite" (the speaker personally observed the past event) and "perfect" (the speaker did not personally observe the past event). (The conventionally used designations "preterite" and "perfect" are used with denotations which are divergent from their usual meanings in the grammar of other languages.) The last two have distinguishable suffixes: -и-/-ӥ-/-я-/-а- -i-/-a- and -ем/-эм/-м -em/-m.

This section requires expansion.

[edit] Syntax

The language has free word order.

The copular verb (вань vań, - "to be") is omitted if the sentence is in the present tense: туннэ киӵе нунал? tunne kiče nunal? ("What day is it today?"). If the sentence expresses possession, the vań can be part of the predicate: тӥ палан нюлэсъёс ваня? ti palan ńulesjos vańa? ("At you (plur.), are there forests?")

[edit] Lexicon

Based 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. Words related to technology, science and politics have been borrowed from Russian.

A bilingual sign proclaiming "welcome" in Russian (upper) and Udmurt (lower). This picture was taken in Izhevsk, the capital of Udmurtia.

[edit] Bibliography

Jean-Luc Moreau. Parlons Oudmourte. Paris: L'Harmattan, 2009, ISBN 2-296-07951-2.

[edit] External links

Udmurt language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Udmurt Language(Russian)
• Literature
• Udmurtology: Udmurt Language, History and Culture(Russian)
• The First Udmurt Forum(Russian)
• Udmurt State University (has Udmurt Language Program for English speakers)
• Udmurt language, alphabet and pronunciation
• Uralistica - the world of finno-ugric and samoyed peoples