Udmurt language


Udmurt 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 the Cyrillic alphabet with the addition of five characters not used in the Russian orthography: Ӝ/ӝ, Ӟ/ӟ, Ӥ/ӥ, Ӧ/ӧ, and Ӵ/ӵ. Together with Komi and Komi-Permyak languages, it constitutes the Permic grouping of the Uralic family. Among outsiders, it has traditionally been referred to by its Russian exonym, Votyak. Udmurt has borrowed vocabulary from neighboring languages Tatar and Russian.
Ethnologue estimates 550,000 native speakers in an ethnic population of 750,000 in the former USSR.

Dialects

Udmurt varieties can be grouped in three broad dialect groups:
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.
Udmurt is written using a modified version of the Russian Cyrillic alphabet:
UppercaseLowercaseTransliterationIPALetter name
Ааaа
Ббbбэ
Ввvвэ
Ггgгэ
Ддd, ď; palatal when followed by я, е, и, ё, ю or ьдэ
Ееe, je; when preceded by д, т, з, с, л, or не
Ёёjo; when preceded by д, т, з, с, л, or нё
Жжžжэ
Ӝӝdžӝэ
Ззz, ź; palatal when followed by я, е, и, ё, ю or ьзэ
Ӟӟdźӟе
Ииi; when preceded by д, т, з, с, л, or ни
Ӥӥï when preceded by д, т, з, с, л, or нточкаен и, точкаосын и
Ййjвакчи и
Ккkка
Ллl, ľ; palatal when followed by я, е, и, ё, ю or ьэл
Ммmэм
Ннn, ń; palatal when followed by я, е, и, ё, ю or ьэн
Ооoо
Ӧӧöӧ
Ппpпэ
Ррrэр
Ссs, ś; palatal when followed by я, е, и, ё, ю or ьэс
Ттt, ť; palatal when followed by я, е, и, ё, ю or ьтэ
Ууuу
Ф1фfэф
Х1хhха
Ц1цcцэ
Ччćчэ
Ӵӵčӵэ
Шшšша
Щ1щščща
Ъ2ъ––чурыт пус
Ыыyы
Ьь–небыт пус
Ээe, ėэ
Ююju; when preceded by д, т, з, с, л, or ню
Яяja; when preceded by д, т, з, с, л, or ня

The language does not distinguish between long and short vowels and does not have vowel harmony.
The consonants are restricted to loanwords, and are traditionally replaced by respectively.

Grammar

Udmurt is an agglutinating language. It uses affixes to express possession, to specify mode, time, and so on.
No gender distinction is made in nouns or in personal pronouns

Cases

Udmurt has fifteen cases: eight grammatical cases and seven locative cases.
There is no congruency between adjectives and nouns in neutral Udmurt noun phrases, i.e. there is no adjective declension as in the inessive noun phrase бадӟым гуртын, 'in a large/big village'.
*Of all the locative cases, personal pronouns can only inflect in the allative.

Plural

There are two types of nominal plurals in Udmurt. One is the plural for nouns -ос/-ëс and the other is the plural for adjectives -эсь/-есь.

Nominal plural

The noun is always in plural. In attributive plural phrases, the adjective is not required to be in the plural:
The plural marker always comes before other endings in the morphological structure of plural nominal.

Predicative plural

As in Hungarian, if the subject is plural, the adjective is always plural when it functions as the sentence's predicative:
Udmurt pronouns are inflected much in the same way that their referent nouns are. However, personal pronouns are only inflected in the grammatical cases and cannot be inflected in the locative cases.

Pronouns

Personal pronouns

Somewhat like in English, Udmurt personal pronouns are used to refer to human beings only. However, the third person singular can be referred to it. The nominative case of personal pronouns are listed in the following table:

Interrogative pronouns

Udmurt interrogative pronouns inflect in all cases. However, the inanimate interrogative pronouns 'what' in the locative cases have the base form кыт-. The nominative case of interrogative pronouns are listed in the following table:

Verbs

Udmurt verbs are divided into two conjugation groups, both having the infinitive marker -ны.
There are three verbal moods in Udmurt: indicative, conditional and imperative. There is also an optative mood used in certain dialects. The indicative mood has four tenses: present, future, and two past tenses. In addition there are four past tense structures which include auxiliary verbs. Verbs are negated by use of an auxiliary negative verb that conjugates with personal endings.
The basic verbal personal markers in Udmurt are :
*The present tense in Udmurt in all but the third person, is marked with -сько-/-сько-.

Syntax

Udmurt is an SOV language.

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.
proclaiming "welcome" in Russian "добро пожаловать" /dɐbˈro pɐˈʐaləvətʲ/ and Udmurt "гажаса ӧтиськом" /gaʒasa ətʲiɕkom/. This picture was taken in Izhevsk, the capital of Udmurtia.
The Udmurt language itself, together with the Tatar language, influenced the language of the Udmurt Jews, in the dialects of which the words of Finno-Ugric and Turkic origin there were recorded.

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.
In 2013, the film company "Inwis kinopottonni" produced a film in the Udmurt language called Puzkar.
The Bible was first completely translated into Udmurt in 2013.