Veps language
| Veps | |
|---|---|
| vepsän kel’ | |
| Native to | Russia |
| Region | Karelia, Ingria, Vologda Oblast, Veps National Volost |
| Ethnicity | 5,900 Veps (2010 census)[1] |
Native speakers | 1,600 (2010 census)[1] |
| Latin (Vepsian alphabet) | |
| Official status | |
Recognised minority language in | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | vep |
| Glottolog | veps1250 |
| ELP | Veps |
The Veps language (also known as Vepsian, natively as vepsän kel’, vepsän keli, or vepsä), spoken by the Vepsians (also known as Veps), belongs to the Finnic group of the Uralic languages. Closely related to Finnish and Karelian, Veps is also written using Latin script.
According to Soviet statistics, 12,500 people were self-designated ethnic Veps at the end of 1989.
According to the location of the people, the language is divided into three main dialects: Northern Veps (at Lake Onega to the south of Petrozavodsk, to the north of the river Svir, including the former Veps National Volost), Central Veps (in the Saint Petersburg region and Vologda Oblast), and Southern Veps (in the Saint Petersburg region). The Northern dialect seems the most distinct of the three; however, it is still mutually intelligible for speakers of Veps language. Speakers of the Northern dialect call themselves "Ludi" (lüdikad), or lüdilaižed.
In Russia, more than 350 children learn the Vepsian language in a total of 5 national schools.[3]
Classification and history
Veps is the easternmost surviving member of the Finnic languages. Having developed in relative isolation, the language lacks several features found in its relatives, such as consonant gradation and the length contrast in consonants. Original vowel length has mostly been lost as well (with the exception of Northern Veps, which retains ii and uu). At the same time, it retains a number of archaic features.
The closest relatives of Veps are Ludic and Livvi, which connect Veps to the wider Finnic dialect continuum.
Veps shows also characteristic innovations, such as the vocalization of original syllable-final *l, and the expansion of the local case system.
Phonology
Consonants
| Labial | Dental/ Alveolar |
Post- alveolar/ Palatal |
Velar | Glottal | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| plain | palat. | plain | palat. | plain | palat. | plain | palat. | |||
| Nasal | m | mʲ | n | nʲ | ||||||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | pʲ | t | tʲ | k | kʲ | |||
| voiced | b | d | dʲ | ɡ | ɡʲ | |||||
| Affricate | voiceless | ts | tʃ | |||||||
| voiced | dʒ | |||||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | sʲ | ʃ | |||||
| voiced | v | vʲ | z | zʲ | ʒ | h | hʲ | |||
| Approximant | l | lʲ | j | |||||||
| Trill | r | rʲ | ||||||||
Palatalization
In general, palatalizable consonants are palatalized allophonically before a front vowel. However, palatalized consonants also occur in other environments, especially word-finally or in word-final clusters.
There are some cases where the front vowel /i/ is preceded by a nonpalatalized consonant. In native Finnic vocabulary, this occurs where inflectional endings beginning with /i/ are attached to words with a stem ending in a nonpalatalized consonant. The consonant is not palatalized by /i/ in this case, but remains nonpalatalized by analogy with the other inflected forms. The vowel /i/ is backed to [ɨ] in this case, like in Russian, making it unclear whether the palatalization is a consequence of the front vowel, or the backing is the result of the lack of palatalization. Either analysis is possible.
Compare:
- nor' /norʲ/ ("young"), genitive singular noren /norʲen/, partitive plural norid /norʲid/
- nor /nor/ ("rope"), genitive singular noran /norɑn/, partitive plural norid /norid/ (or /norɨd/)
Russian loanwords have also introduced instances of nonpalatalized consonants followed by /i/, which are much more frequent in that language.
Vowels
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unr. | Rnd. | |||
| Close | i | y | (ɨ) | u |
| Mid | e | ø | o | |
| Open | æ | ɑ | ||
The status of /ɨ/ is marginal; it occurs as an allophone of /i/ after a non-palatalised consonant. See above under "Palatalization" for more information. It does not occur in the first syllable of a word.
Vowel harmony
Veps has vowel harmony like many other Finnic languages do, but in a much more limited form. Words are split into back-vowel and front-vowel words based on which vowels they contain:
- Back vowels: /ɑ/, /o/ and /u/
- Front vowels: /æ/, /ø/ and /y/
However, the front vowels can only occur in the first two syllables of a word. In a third or later syllable, and also sometimes in the second syllable, they are converted to the corresponding back vowel. Thus, vowel harmony only applies (inconsistently) in the second syllable, and has been lost elsewhere. It is not applied for inflectional endings except in a few exceptional cases, but it is retained more frequently in derivational endings.
For example:
- korged ("high", back-vowel harmony), genitive singular korktan, derived noun korktuz' ("height"); compare Finnish korkea, korkeus.
- pimed ("dark", back-vowel harmony), genitive singular pimedan, derived noun pimeduz' ("darkness"); compare Finnish pimeä, pimeys.
- hüvä ("good", front-vowel harmony), illative singular hüväha, derived noun hüvüz' ("goodness"); compare Finnish hyvään. hyvyys.
- päiv ("day", front-vowel harmony), genitive singular päivän, illative singular päivhan; compare Finnish päivä, päivään.
- pä ("head", back-vowel harmony), illative singular päha; compare Finnish päähän.
- keza ("summer", back-vowel harmony); compare Finnish kesä.
- vävu ("son-in-law", back-vowel harmony); compare Finnish vävy.
- üldüda ("to rise", front-vowel harmony in second syllable, back-vowel in third); compare Finnish yltyä.
- küzuda ("to ask", back-vowel harmony); compare Finnish kysyä.
Orthography
The modern Vepsian alphabet is a Latin alphabet.[6] It consists of a total of twenty-nine characters: twenty-two are from the basic modern Latin alphabet, six are derived from basic Latin letters by the addition of diacritical marks, and the final character is the apostrophe, which signifies palatalization of the preceding sound.
| Majuscule Forms (also called uppercase or capital letters) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A | B | C | Č | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | R | S | Š | Z | Ž | T | U | V | Ü | Ä | Ö | ' |
| Minuscule Forms (also called lowercase or small letters) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| a | b | c | č | d | e | f | g | h | i | j | k | l | m | n | o | p | r | s | š | z | ž | t | u | v | ü | ä | ö | ' |
Veps orthography is largely phonemic, and represents each phoneme with one letter. Palatalized consonants are single phonemes and thus the combination of a letter and a following apostrophe is a single combined letter for this purpose. The following table shows the correspondences between letters and phonemes:
|
|
|
Palatalization of consonants before front vowels is not indicated in the orthography, so that plain consonant letters can represent both types of consonant depending on what vowel follows. For a following letter ⟨i⟩ this is ambiguous, however: it can be preceded by both types of consonants, as noted above in the phonology section. Whether a consonant before the letter ⟨i⟩ is palatalized or not cannot be determined from the orthography and must be learned for each word.
Grammar
Veps is an agglutinating language, like other Finnic languages. The preservation of the Proto-Finnic weak-grade consonants *d and *g in all positions, along with the loss of consonant gradation, has made Veps morphology relatively simple compared to the other Finnic languages. There are fewer different inflectional classes, and inflections of nominals and verbs alike can be predicted from only a few basic principal parts.
Nouns
Veps has 23 grammatical cases, more than other Finnic languages. It preserves the basic set of Finnic cases shared by most Finnic languages, including the six locative cases. However, several more cases have been added that generally have no counterpart in the others.
| Case | Singular ending |
Plural ending |
Meaning/use |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic/grammatical cases | |||
| Nominative | ∅ | -d | Subject, object of imperative |
| Accusative | -n | -d | Complete (telic) object |
| Genitive | -n | -iden | Possession, relation |
| Partitive | -d, -t (-da) | -id | Partial object, indefinite amount |
| Interior ("in") locative cases | |||
| Inessive | -s (-š) | -iš | In, inside |
| Illative | -hV, -ze (-že) | -ihe, -iže | In, into |
| Elative | -späi (-špäi) | -išpäi | Out of |
| Exterior ("on") locative cases | |||
| Adessive | -l | -il | On, upon, on top of |
| Allative | -le (-lle) | -ile | Onto |
| Ablative | -lpäi | -ilpäi | Off, from (top, surface) |
| Approximate ("at, near") locative cases | |||
| Approximative I | -nno | -idenno | At, by, near |
| Approximative II | -nnoks | -idennoks | To, towards |
| Egressive | -nnopäi | -idennopäi | From |
| Terminative (?) locative cases | |||
| Terminative I | -hVsai, -zesai (-žesai) | -ihesai, -ižesai | Till, until, up to |
| Terminative II | -lesai (-llesai) | -ilesai | ? |
| Terminative III | -ssai (-ššai?) | — | From? |
| Additive (?) locative cases | |||
| Additive I | -hVpäi, -zepäi (-žepäi) | -ihepäi, -ižepai | In the direction of, towards |
| Additive II | -lepäi (-llepäi) | -ilepäi | ? |
| Other cases | |||
| Essive-instructive | -n | -in | Being, acting as, with, by means of |
| Translative | -ks (-kš) | -ikš | Becoming, turning into |
| Abessive | -ta | -ita | Without, lacking |
| Comitative | -nke | -idenke | With, in company of, in combination with |
| Prolative | -dme, -tme (-dame) | -idme | ? |
Notes:
- "V" indicates a copy of whatever vowel the genitive singular stem ends with, replacing a i, ä, ö, ü with e, a, o, u. For example, for the illative singular: mecan > mecha, noren > norehe, pöudon > pöudho, pän > päha. Note that the stem-final vowel itself can disappear in these forms, but the rule applies the same.
- In endings beginning with s or z or a group of consonants containing s or z, this changes to š/ž if the last preceding vowel is i. This always occurs in the plural forms.
- The partitive, allative, terminative II, additive II and prolative singular cases have longer endings that are used with a few frequently-used pronouns, ken "who" and mi "what".
Principal parts
Nouns have four principal parts, which all other forms can be derived from by replacing the endings:
- Nominative singular: Forms no other forms.
- Partitive singular: Forms the prolative singular. Can usually be formed from the genitive singular by replacing -n with -d, but some words have an unpredictable form with -t and a different stem.
- Genitive singular: When -n is removed, forms all remaining singular forms, and the nominative and accusative plural.
- Illative singular: Forms the illative, terminative I and additive I singular. The illative singular is predictably formed from the genitive singular stem, so it's not a principal part as such.
- Partitive plural: When -d is removed, forms all remaining plural forms.
 | This article is missing information about section. (April 2015) |
The illative singular stem is the same as the genitive singular stem, except that the final vowel is dropped in some cases. The vowel is retained if at least one of these is the case, and dropped otherwise:
- The final vowel is a diphthong.
- The nominative singular is of the form "consonant-vowel-consonant-vowel".
- The genitive singular has 1 or 3 syllables.
- There is contraction of a syllable in the genitive singular stem (compared to the nominative stem), e.g. nom sg vauged > gen sg vauktan (contraction -ged > -kt-), nom sg lambaz > gen sg lambhan (contraction -az > -h-).
Thus:
| Nom sg | Gen sg | Ill sg | Rules |
|---|---|---|---|
| voi | voin | voihe | 1, 3 |
| kukoi | kukoin | kukoihe | 1 |
| tullei | tullein | tulleihe | 1 |
| pä | pän | päha | 3 |
| vezi | veden | vedehe | 2 |
| labid | labidon | labidoho | 3 |
| piring | piringon | piringoho | 3 |
| tervhuz' | tervhuden | tervhudehe | 3 |
| vauged | vauktan | vauktaha | 4 |
| kaste | kastken | kastkehe | 4 |
| kondi | kondjan | kondjaha | 4 |
| nor' | noren | norhe | None |
| kädetoi | kädetoman | kädetomha | None |
If the genitive singular stem has h before the final vowel, then the ending -ze (-že after i) is used, and the vowel is never dropped:
| Nom sg | Gen sg | Ill sg | Rules |
|---|---|---|---|
| veneh | venehen | veneheze | 3 |
| laineh | lainhen | lainheze | 4 |
| lomineh | lominehen | lomineheze | None |
| lambaz | lambhan | lambhaze | 4 |
| madokaz | madokhan | madokhaze | 3, 4 |
Adjectives
![[icon]](/wiki/File:Wiki_letter_w_cropped.svg){kind=small} | This section is empty. You can help by adding to it. (April 2015) |
Verbs
Negative verb
| Present | Imperative | |
|---|---|---|
| 1st person singular | en | |
| 2nd person singular | ed | ala |
| 3rd person singular | ei | algha |
| 1st person plural | em | algam |
| 2nd person plural | et | algat |
| 3rd person plural | ei | algha |
Pronouns
The personal pronouns are of Finno-Ugric origin:
| Veps | English |
|---|---|
| minä | I |
| sinä | you |
| hän | he/she/it |
| mö | we |
| tö | you (plural) |
| hö | they |
Numbers
| Number | Veps |
|---|---|
| 1 | üks' |
| 2 | kaks' |
| 3 | koume |
| 4 | nel'l' |
| 5 | viž |
| 6 | kuz' |
| 7 | seičeme |
| 8 | kahesa |
| 9 | ühesa |
| 10 | kümne |
| 11 | üks'toštkümne |
| 12 | kaks'toštkümne |
| 20 | kaks'kümne |
| 34 | koumekümne nel'l' |
| 100 | sada |
| 1000 | tuha |
Language example
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
- [Kaik mehed sünduba joudajin i kohtaižin, ühtejiččin ičeze arvokahudes i oiktusiš. Heile om anttud mel’ i huiktusentund i heile tariž kožuda toine toiženke kut vel’l’kundad.] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)[7]
- (English version: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood).[8]
See also
References
- ^ a b Veps at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
- ^ "Законодательные акты - Правительство Республики Карелия". gov.karelia.ru.
- ^ "09.12.2004 - The Vepsian Culture Society in Karelia celebrates its 15th anniversary". gov.karelia.ru.
- ^ Грамматика вепсского языка (page 24), M. I. Zaitseva, 1981
- ^ Грамматика вепсского языка (page 17), M. I. Zaitseva, 1981
- ^ "The government of the Republic of Karelia approved the Veps language alphabet". Retrieved 2011-01-08.
- ^ "Mehen oiktuziden ühthine deklaracii" (PDF). Retrieved 2010-05-15.
- ^ "Universal Declaration of Human Rights". Retrieved 2010-06-01.
External links
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