Udmurt language

Udmurt
удмурт кыл udmurt kyl
Native to	Russia
Region	Udmurtia
Ethnicity	Udmurts
Native speakers	340,000 (2010 census)
Language family	Uralic Permic Udmurt
Official status
Official language in	Udmurtia (Russia)
Language codes
ISO 639-2	udm
ISO 639-3	udm
Glottolog	udmu1245

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 a Cyrillic alphabet, including five characters not used in the Russian alphabet: Ӝ/ӝ, Ӟ/ӟ, Ӥ/ӥ, Ӧ/ӧ, and Ӵ/ӵ. Together with Komi and Komi-Permyak languages, it constitutes the Permic grouping. Among outsiders, it has traditionally been referred to by its Russian exonym, Votyak. Udmurt has borrowed vocabulary from the neighboring languages Tatar and Russian.

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

Dialects

Udmurt varieties can be grouped in three broad dialect groups:

• Northern Udmurt, spoken along Cheptsa River
• Southern Udmurt
• Besermyan, spoken by the strongly Turkified Besermyans

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 eight 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/.

Alphabet

The Udmurt alphabet is based on the Russian Cyrillic alphabet:

Udmurt alphabet

Uppercase	Lowercase	Transliteration	IPA	Letter name
А	а	a	[ɑ]	а
Б	б	b	[b]	бэ
В	в	v	[v]	вэ
Г	г	g	[g]	гэ
Д	д	d	[d]; palatal [dʲ] when followed by я, е, и, ё, ю or ь	дэ
Е	е	e, ye	[je]; [ʲe] when preceded by д, т, з, с, л, or н	е
Ё	ё	yo	[jo]; [ʲo] when preceded by д, т, з, с, л, or н	ё
Ж	ж	zh	[ʒ]	жэ
Ӝ	ӝ	dzh	[dʒ]	ӝэ
З	з	z	[z]; palatal [ʑ] when followed by я, е, и, ё, ю or ь	зэ
Ӟ	ӟ	j	[dʲʑ]	ӟе
И	и	i	[i]; [ʲi] when preceded by д, т, з, с, л, or н	и
Ӥ	ӥ	ï	[i]	точкаен и, точкаосын и ("dotted i")
Й	й	y	[j]	вакчи и ("short i")
К	к	k	[k]	ка
Л	л	l	[ɫ]; palatal [lʲ] when followed by я, е, и, ё, ю or ь	эл
М	м	m	[m]	эм
Н	н	n	[n]; palatal [nʲ] when followed by я, е, и, ё, ю or ь	эн
О	о	o	[o]	о
Ӧ	ӧ	ö	[ʌ] ~ [ə]	ӧ
П	п	p	[p]	пэ
Р	р	r	[r]	эр
С	с	s	[s]; palatal [ɕ] when followed by я, е, и, ё, ю or ь	эс
Т	т	t	[t]; palatal [tʲ] when followed by я, е, и, ё, ю or ь	тэ
У	у	u	[u]	у
Ф1	ф	f	[f]	эф
Х1	х	kh	[x]	ха
Ц1	ц	ts	[t͡s]	цэ
Ч	ч	ch	[t͡ɕ]	чэ
Ӵ	ӵ	tsh	[t͡ʃ]	ӵэ
Ш	ш	sh	[ʃ]	ша
Щ1	щ	shch	[ɕ], [ɕː]	ща
Ъ2	ъ	”	–	чурыт пус ("hard sign")
Ы	ы	y	[ɨ] ~ [ɯ]	ы
Ь	ь	’	[ʲ]	небыт пус ("soft sign")
Э	э	e	[e]	э
Ю	ю	yu	[ju]; [ʲu] when preceded by д, т, з, с, л, or н	ю
Я	я	ya	[jɑ]; [ʲa] when preceded by д, т, з, с, л, or н	я

• 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.

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 proclaiming "welcome" in Russian "добро пожаловать" /dɐbˈro pɐˈʐaləvətʲ/ (upper) and Udmurt "гажаса ӧтиськом" /gaʒasa ətʲiɕkom/ (lower). This picture was taken in Izhevsk, the capital of Udmurtia.

Media in Udmurt

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

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

The Bible was first completely translated into Udmurt in 2013.

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 2-296-07951-2. 

External links

• Udmurtology: Udmurt Language, History and Culture(Russian)
• Literature
• The First Udmurt Forum(Russian)
• Udmurt State University (has Udmurt Language Program for English speakers)
• Udmurt language, alphabet and pronunciation
• Vladimir Napolskikh. Review of Eberhard Winkler, Udmurt, München 2001 (Languages of the World. Materials 212)