Wepsi language
| Vepsian (vepsän kel ') | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Spoken in |
Russia | |
| speaker | 1,640 | |
| Linguistic classification |
|
|
| Official status | ||
| Recognized minority / regional language in |
 Karelia , Russia
|
|
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639 -1 |
- |
|
| ISO 639 -2 |
fiu (other Finnish-Ugr. languages) |
|
| ISO 639-3 | ||
The Wepsische language (vepsän kel ') is the language of the Wepsen . It belongs to the Baltic Sea Finnish branch of the Finno-Ugric languages and in 2010 was only spoken by around 1,640 people east of Saint Petersburg and on Lake Ladoga .
features
There are significant differences to the related Finnish and Karelian :
- The vowel harmony was almost completely abandoned in Wepsi.
- In Wepsic, the vowels in the end of many words are omitted, e.g. B. nahk (leather, Finnish: nahka), toh (birch bark, Finnish: tuohi). In many cases, vowels also disappeared within the word, e.g. B. maksta (pay, Finnish: maksaa).
- Diphthongs and long vowels are in many cases shortened in Wepsi, e.g. B. jä (ice cream, Finnish: jää), joda (drink, Finnish: juoda), ak (old woman, Finnish: akka)
- Likewise, the level change typical of the other Baltic Finnish languages is missing (change of the consonant of the word stem depending on the type of the following syllable).
- With 24 cases, Wepsic has perhaps the greatest wealth of forms within the Finno-Ugric languages.
- There is a fourth past perfect tense , which is unusual in the other Finno-Ugric languages.
History of the Wepsi language
The written tradition of the Wepsis is very sparsely documented. The earliest evidence is folklore collections from non-native speakers from the 19th century. Wepsic is a Baltic Finnish language that remained without writing until the 20th century. It was not until the beginning of the 1930s that the Institute for Language and Thought of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR created a wepsish written language that was officially in use from 1932 to 1937.
The fact that there is no change of level and no vowel harmony in Wepsi - as well as in Livi - could possibly be an indication that the Wepsen lived on the edge of the Baltic Finnish-speaking area and separated relatively early as an independent tribe from the linguistically related tribes. According to various Russian chronicles, the Wepsen lived around the year 1000 on the White Lake (Beloje Osero) and between Lake Ladoga and Lake Onega .
Some medieval Russian documents from the Novgorod area contain expressions that may be of Wepsic origin, but more detailed investigations are not possible because at that time the differences between Wepsic and the most closely related languages - Finnish, Wotish and Karelian - were only minor and words from these languages can occasionally be found in old Russian documents. Therefore it is not possible to present phonetics in terms of the history of language. The fact that there are loanwords from the Wepsi language in the north-western dialects of the Syrian language, which were adopted before the 14th century, could be an indication that contacts between Wepsen and Syrian existed before this time .
The syntax and morphology of the Wepsi language were strongly influenced by Russian, for example several Russian prepositions and suffixes - such as -nik in kala nik (fisherman) or mes nik (hunter) - were adopted. Many Russian loan words in Wepsi refer to terms from modern industrial society, so the word molot'ilk (threshing machine) comes from the Russian molotilka with the same meaning.
In the 20th century, however, efforts were made to find new wepsish words for some modern terms, e.g. B. ezivajeh (prologue), kulund (sound), openuzmes (scientist) from the words openuz (learned) and mez (human), känd (case), lebukod'i (holiday home). In the 1930s there were 35,000 Wepsen. In 1959, in a census of 16,000 Wepsen, 46.1% gave Wepsi as their mother tongue, in 1979 of 8,000 only 38.5%. In the 2010 census, 1,640 of 5,940 Wepsen stated Wepsish as their mother tongue.
literature
The first grammar of the Wepsi language, which was written until the 20th century, was published in French in 1875 by the Hungarian linguist Károly Újfalvy. It was not until the 1930s that a written language based on the Latin alphabet was created for the Wepsi language. The first wepsi book - a reader - appeared in 1932. A total of about forty books - most of them school books - were printed in wepsi language. In addition to the teacher F. A. Andreev, who was considered to be the most important wepsic writer, N. I. Bogdanov, M. M. Hämäläinen and A. M. Michkiev were also involved as authors in their writing and editing. In the 1930s there were 57 Wepsis-speaking primary schools with 3,328 students. In 1934 F. A. Andreev published a Wepsische grammar with the title Vepskijan kelen grammatik and in 1936 a Wepsisch-Russian dictionary, but already from 1937 it was not allowed to publish any more literature in Wepsisch.
It was not until the 1990s that the wepsi language was allowed to be used again in literature. In 1991 the alphabet for Wepsic was published by M. Zaitseva and M. Mullonen. Since then, poems, children's books and short stories have appeared in wepsis. In 1994 the poetry collection 33. Koumekümne koume by Nikolai Abramow (1961-2016), who was considered one of the most important Wepsi authors and since 1993 also published the newspaper Kodima in Petrozavodsk , was published. In 2000 Rjurik Lonin published the collection Minun rahvan fol'klor, a compilation of poems, fairy tales and stories. Nina Zaitseva (Zaiceva) published a Bible for children in 1996 in Wepsi and also wrote various children's books. In 2003 her book Kodimaa, Vepsämaa was published, which contains poems by various writers. Igor Brodski published the first Wepsi novel in 2002 under the title Kalarand .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Законодательные акты: О государственной поддержке карельского, вепсского и финского яКелев в Рабикев варлке .
- ^ Peter Hajdú: The Uralic languages and literatures. Hamburg 1987, p. 126.
- ↑ Arvo Laanest: Introduction to the Baltic Finnish languages. Hamburg 1982, p. 66.
- ↑ Arvo Laanest: Introduction to the Baltic Finnish languages. Hamburg 1982, p. 35.
- ↑ Gyula Decsy: Introduction to the Finno-Ugric linguistics. Wiesbaden 1965, p. 55.
- ↑ Gyula Decsy: Introduction to the Finno-Ugric linguistics. Wiesbaden 1965, p. 188.
- ↑ Gyula Decsy: Introduction to the Finno-Ugric linguistics. Wiesbaden 1965, p. 57.
- ^ Peter Hajdú: The Uralic languages and literatures. Hamburg 1987, p. 125.
- ↑ Ethnologue: Veps
- ^ Peter Hajdú: The Uralic languages and literatures. Hamburg 1987, p. 574.
- ↑ Gyula Decsy: Introduction to the Finno-Ugric linguistics. Wiesbaden 1965, p. 52.
- ^ Peter Hajdú: The Uralic languages and literatures. Hamburg 1987, p. 575.
- ↑ Arvo Laanest: Introduction to the Baltic Finnish languages. Hamburg 1982, p. 67.
- ↑ Gyula Decsy: Introduction to the Finno-Ugric linguistics. Wiesbaden 1965, p. 56.
- ↑ The Wepsen.