Udmurt language

Udmurt language

Infobox Language
name=Udmurt
nativename= _ud. Удмурт кыл " _ud. Udmurt kyl"
states=Russia, Kazakhstan
region=Udmurtia
speakers=550,000 (1989 census)
familycolor=Uralic
fam2=Finno-Ugric
fam3=Finno-Permic
fam4=Permic
nation=Udmurtia
iso2=udm|iso3=udm

Udmurt ( _ud. удмурт кыл, " _ud. udmurt kyl") is a Finno-Permic language spoken by the Udmurts, natives of the Russian constituent republic of Udmurtia, where it is co-official with the Russian language. It is closely related to the Komi language, together with which it forms the group of Permic languages. It is written in the Cyrillic script with five additional characters. Linguistically, it is most closely related to Komi and Komi-Permyak.

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 (IPA|/dʲ tʲ zʲ sʲ lʲ n/) from unpalatalized consonants followed by /j/ if followed by a vowel; for example, IPA|/zʲo/ and IPA|/zjo/ are written -зё- and -зъё-, respectively.

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

Phonology

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

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.

Nouns

Specific noun types have no distinguishable formats; some words even belong to three categories: unicode|ӵилкит " _ud. čilkit" means "clean", "cleanness" and "clearly" as well. There are 15 cases in the language. In the singular first, second, and third person, the ordinary possessive declining suffixes, unicode|-е, -ед, -ез/-э, -эд, -эз " _ud. -e, -ed, -ez" sometimes change to unicode|-и, -ид, -из/-ӥ, -ӥд, -ӥз " _ud. -i, -id, -iz", especially in non-loanwords, such as unicode|кии " _ud. kii" (" _ud. ki + i", "my hand"), unicode|киид " _ud. kiid" (" _ud. ki + id", "your (sing.) hand") and unicode|кииз " _ud. kiiz" (" _ud. ki + iz", "her/his hand").

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

Verbs

In Udmurt, there are three modes. In indicative, there are 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 last two have distinguishable suffixes: unicode|-и-/-ӥ-/-я-/-а- " _ud. -i-/-a-" and unicode|-ем/-эм/-м " _ud. -em/-m".

yntax

The language has free word order.

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

Lexicon

Based on the style, about 10 to 30 percent of the Udmurt lexicon are loanwords. Many loanwords are from the Tatar language, as well as phonetics, the syntax and so on. Words related to technology, science and politics have been borrowed from Russian.
[

thumb|left|420_px|A_sample_of_the_Udmurt_language_words._Upper_ _ru. Добро пожаловать" is in Russian, lower " _ud. Гажаса ӧтиськом" is in Udmurt. Both mean "welcome". This picture was taken in Izhevsk, the capital of Udmurtia.]

External links

* [http://home.udmnet.ru/udmurt_kyl Udmurt Language] ru icon
* [http://library.finugor.ru/eng/?item=u&l=2 Literature]
* [http://udmurt.info Udmurtology: Udmurt Language, History and Culture] ru icon
* [http://egra.ru/udmurtology The First Udmurt Forum] ru icon
* [http://v4.udsu.ru/english/ Udmurt State University (has Udmurt Language Program for English speakers)]
* [http://www.omniglot.com/writing/udmurt.htm Udmurt language, alphabet and pronunciation]


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