Udmurt language

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Udmurt table (udmurt kyl)

Spoken in

Russia : Udmurt Republic , Kazakhstan
speaker approx. 464,000
Linguistic
classification
Official status
Official language in Udmurt RepublicUdmurt Republic Udmurtia (in Russia )
Language codes
ISO 639 -1

-

ISO 639 -2

udm

ISO 639-3

udm

The Udmurt language (older also Votyak language ; self-designation удмурт кыл - udmurt kyl ) belongs to the Permian branch of the Finno-Ugric languages and is spoken in Udmurtia in the western Ural region by around 464,000 people, the Udmurts . The self-designation Udmurt probably goes back to a word that meant "meadow man".

There are four dialect groups of Udmurt, the southern, northern, peripheral-southern and the Bessermjanski dialect (also Wessermjanski ), whereby the standard language is based on the southern and northern dialects. The language is closely related to the Komi language .

Udmurt is an agglutinating language with inflected elements. It has 15 cases and has no grammatical gender.

distribution

Of the total of around 637,000 Udmurts, around 72% speak Udmurt as their mother tongue (2002), while this proportion was 77% in 1989. Around 15,000 people speak Udmurt in Kazakhstan . The speakers are preferably representatives of the oldest generation and residents of rural areas. In the capital of Udmurtia, Izhevsk , it is easier to find people who can speak English than people who can speak Udmurt. The Udmurt is threatened with extinction.

However, there are enthusiasts among the younger Udmurts who are trying to stem the decline of the language. With this aim in mind, the Russian contribution to the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 in Baku, Party for Everybody , was sung partly on the Udmurt table by the Udmurt women's singing group Buranowskije Babuschki .

The importance of linguistic self-confidence and the development of Udmurt as a written language should not be overestimated when the first complete translation of the Bible into Udmurt was completed in 2013.

alphabet

In the 18th century, the Udmurt alphabet was developed based on the Cyrillic alphabet :

А а Б б В в Г г Д д Е е Ё ё Ж ж Ӝ ӝ З з
[⁠ a ⁠] [⁠ b ⁠] [⁠ v ⁠] [⁠ ɡ ⁠] [⁠ d ⁠] , [ D ] 1 [ É ] 3 , [ each ], [⁠ e ⁠] 2 [ ʲo ] 3 , [ jo ] [⁠ ʒ ⁠] [⁠ d͡ʒ ⁠] [⁠ z ⁠] , [ Z ] 1
Ӟ ӟ И и Ӥ ӥ Й й К к Л л М м Н н О о Ӧ ӧ
[ d͡ʑ ] [ ʲi ] 3 , [⁠ i ⁠] [⁠ i ⁠] [⁠ j ⁠] , [ i ] [⁠ k ⁠] [⁠ l ⁠] , [ L ] 1 [⁠ m ⁠] [⁠ n ⁠] , [ N ] 1 [⁠ o ⁠] [⁠ ʌ ⁠]
П п Р р С с Т т У у Ф ф 2 Х х 2 Ц ц 2 Ч ч
[⁠ p ⁠] [⁠ r ⁠] [⁠ s ⁠] , [ S ] 1 [⁠ t ⁠] , [ T ] 1 [⁠ u ⁠] [⁠ f ⁠] [⁠ x ⁠] [⁠ t͡s ⁠] [ t͡ɕ ]
Ӵ ӵ Ш ш Щ щ 2 Ъ ъ Ы ы Ь ь Э э Ю ю Я я
[⁠ t͡ʃ ⁠] [⁠ ʃ ⁠] [ ɕ ~ ɕtʲ͡ɕ ] [ (j) ] 4 [ ɨ ~ ə ~ ɯ ] [⁠ ʲ ⁠] [⁠ e ⁠] [ ʲu ] 3 , [ ju ] [ ʲa ] 3 , [ yes ]
  • 1 palatalized if these consonants are followed by я, е, и, ё, ю or ь.
  • 2 only in loan words or names
  • 3 has a palatalizing effect [ʲ] on д, т, з, с, л and н.
  • 4 mute, is required to distinguish palatalized consonants ([ dʲ tʲ zʲ sʲ lʲ nʲ ]) from non-palatalized consonants, if these are followed by [j] and a vowel, for example: [ zʲo ] and [ zjo ], written -зё - and -зъё-.

Four of the letters ( Ӝ ӝ, Ӟ ӟ, Ӥ ӥ, Ӵ ӵ) occur only in the Udmurt alphabet.

grammar

Official language of the Udmurt Republic

Although Udmurt is the official language of the Udmurt Republic, along with Russian , only a few newspapers and magazines appear in the Udmurt language; Udmurt radio and television programs are only broadcast a few hours a week. Since only a few teachers can teach in Udmurt and there is a lack of teaching materials such as school books, Russian is increasingly becoming the language of instruction. Only about a third of the Udmurt schoolchildren have lessons in their mother tongue in school, mostly in rural areas.

Since 1947 the subject Udmurtisch was represented in Izhevsk by a department in the philological faculty. Since 1992 there has been a professorship for Udmurt Philology at the Udmurt State University , where teachers of Udmurt language are trained.

literature

  • Eberhard Winkler: Udmurt Grammar (=  Societas Uralo-Altaica: Publications of the Societas Uralo-Altaica . No. 81 ). Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2011, ISBN 978-3-447-06518-4 .

Web links

Commons : Udmurt Language  - collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikipedia on Udmurt table

Remarks

  1. ↑ Rein Taagepera: The Finno-Ugric Republics and the Russian State , Routledge / Taylor & Francis 1999, ISBN 978-0-415-91977-7 . P. 277
  2. ↑ Website with songs by the Buranovsky Babushki
  3. ^ Catholic News Agency, Tuesday, July 15, 2014.