Mansi languages
| Mansi | |
|---|---|
| маньси/моаньсь | |
| Native to | Russia |
| Region | Khantia-Mansia |
Native speakers | 2,746 (2002)[1] |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | mns |
The Mansi language (also Vogul, although this is obsolete) is a language of the Mansi people. It is spoken in territories of Russia along the Ob River and its tributaries, including the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug and the Sverdlovsk Oblast. According to the 1990 census, there were 3,184 Mansi-speaking people in Russia.
The Mansi language belongs to the Ob-Ugric subfamily of the Finno-Ugric languages. It is subdivided into four main dialects (East, South, West and North Mansi) which are mutually unintelligible, of which Southern and Western are extinct. The base dialect of the Mansi literary language is the Sosva dialect, a representative of the northern dialect area; the discussion below is based on the standard language. Fixed word order is typical for the Mansi language. Adverbials and participles play an important role in sentence construction. The written language was first published in 1868, and in 1937 was revised using a form of the Cyrillic alphabet.
Alphabet
The first publication of the written Mansi language was in a translation of the Gospel of Matthew, published in London in 1868. In 1937, the Cyrillic alphabet replaced the Latin.
| А /a/ |
Template:Highlight1|Б /b/ |
В /◌ʷ/ |
Г /ɡ/ |
Template:Highlight1|Д /d/ |
Е /ʲe/ |
Ё /ʲo/ |
Template:Highlight1|Ж /ʒ/ |
Template:Highlight1|З /z/ |
И /i/ |
Й /j/ |
К /k/ |
Л /l/, /ʎ/ |
М /m/ |
Н /n/, /ɲ/ |
Ӈ /ŋ/ |
О /o/ |
П /p/ |
| Р /r/ |
С /s/ |
Т /t/ |
У /uː/ |
Ў /w/ |
Template:Highlight1|Ф /f/ |
Х /χ/ |
Ц /t͡s/ |
Template:Highlight1|Ч /t͡ʃʲ/ |
Ш /ʃ/ |
Template:Highlight1|Щ /ʃʲtʃʲ/ |
Ъ /-/ |
Ы /ɪ/ |
Ь /◌ʲ/ |
Э /ə~ɤ/ |
Ә /æ/ |
Ю /ʲu/ |
Я /ʲa/ |
Grammar
Mansi is an agglutinating language.
Article
In Mansi, no articles exist - neither definite, nor indefinite.
It means that "cauldron", "the cauldron" and "a cauldron" all translate to "пут".
Nouns
There is no grammatical gender. Mansi distinguishes between singular, dual and plural number. Six grammatical cases exist. Possession is expressed using possessive suffixes, for example -зм, which means "my".
Grammatical cases, declining
Example with: пут (cauldron)
| case | sing. | dual | plural |
| nom. | пут | путыг | путэт |
| loc. | путт | путыгт | путэтт |
| lat. | путн | путыгн | путэтн |
| abl. | путнэл | путыгнэл | путэтнэл |
| trans. | путыг | - | - |
| instr. | путэл | путыгтэл | путэтэл |
Missing cases can be expressed using postpositions, such as халнэл (of, out of), саит (after, behind), etc.
Verbs
Mansi conjugation has three persons, three numbers, two tenses, and four moods. Active and passive voices exist.
Intransitive and transitive conjugations are distinguished. This means that there are two possible ways of conjugating a verb. When the speaker conjugates in intransitive, the sentence has no concrete object (in this case, the object is nothing or something like something, anything). In the transitive conjugation, there is a concrete object. This feature also exists in the other Ugric languages.
Tenses
Mansi uses suffixes to express the tense. The tense suffix precedes the personal suffix.
| Tense | Suffix | Example |
| Present | -г (lat.[2] -g) | минагум (lat. minagum - I am going) |
| Past | -с (lat. -s) | минасум (minasum - I went) |
The language has no future tense; the future is expressed in other ways.
Moods
There are four moods: indicative, conditional, imperative and blandishing.
Indicative mood has no suffix. Imperative mood exists only in the second person.
![[icon]](/wiki/File:Wiki_letter_w_cropped.svg){kind=small} | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (June 2008) |
Personal suffixes
The suffixes are the following:
| Person | Singular | Dual | Plural |
| 1st | -ум | -умен | -ув |
| 2nd | -эн | -эн | -эн |
| 3rd | (no suffix) | -ыг | -эт |
Thus, the conjugation of the verb мина (lat. mina [go]), in past tense (remember the suffix -с):
| Person | Singular | Dual | Plural |
| 1st | минасум (minasum) | минасумен (minasumen) | минасув (minasuv) |
| 2nd | минасэн | минасэн | минасэн |
| 3rd | минас | минасыг | минасэт |
Active/Passive voice
Verbs have active and passive voice. Active voice has no suffix; the suffix to express the passive is -ве-.
Verbal prefixes
Verbal prefixes are used to modify the meaning of the verb in both concrete and abstract ways. For example, with the prefix эл- (el-) (away, off) the verb мина (mina) (go) becomes элмина (elmina), which means to go away. This is surprisingly close to the Hungarian equivalents: el- (away) and menni (to go), where elmenni is to go away
ēl(a) - 'forwards, onwards, away'
| jōm- 'to go, to stride' | ēl-jōm- 'to go away/on' |
| tinal- 'to sell' | ēl-tinal- 'to sell off' |
χot - 'direction away from something and other nuances of action intensity'
| min- 'to go' | χot-min- 'to go away, to stop' |
| roχt- 'to be frightened' | χot-roχt- 'to take fright suddenly' |
Numbers
| # | Mansi | Hungarian |
| 1 | аква (akʷa) | egy |
| 2 | китыг (kitiɣ) | kettő |
| 3 | хурум (χūrəm) | három |
| 4 | нила (ńila) | négy |
| 5 | ат (at) | öt |
| 6 | хот (χōt)) | hat |
| 7 | сат (sāt) | hét |
| 8 | нёллов (ńololow) | nyolc |
| 9 | онтэллов (ontolow) | kilenc |
| 10 | лов (low) | tíz |
| 20 | хус (χus) | húsz |
| 100 | сат (sāt/janiɣsāt) | száz |
| 1000 | сотэр (sōtər) | ezer |
Numbers 1 and 2 also have attributive forms: акв (1) and кит (2; compare with Hungarian két, and Old Hungarian "kit").
Example
ам хул алысьлаңкве минасум. - I went fishing (literally "I fish catch went").
Comparison with Hungarian
Here are some invented sentences in Northern Mansi (IPA transcription) and Hungarian. They demonstrate well the relationship between Hungarian and Mansi.
| Mansi | Approximate pronunciation using Hungarian spelling | Hungarian | English |
| ˈxuːrəm neː ˈβitnəl ˈxuːlpəl xus xuːl ˈpuːɣi. | Húrem né vitnel húlpel husz húl púgi | Három nő a vízből hálóval húsz halat fog. | Three women are catching twenty fish with a net from the water. |
| ˈxuːrəm-saːt-xus ˈxulax-sam ˈampəm ˈβitn̩ ˈoːli | Húrem-szát-husz huleh-szem empem viten óli | Háromszázhúsz hollószemű ebem vízen él. | The three hundred and twenty dogs of mine with raven eyes live on water. |
| luː ˈlaːʃal ˈmini toː ˈseːln̩ | Lú lásel mini tó szélen | Ló lassan megy a tó szélén. | A horse is slowly walking on the shore of the lake. |
Notes
- ^ www.suri.ee
- ^ *lat.: With Latin script.
References
- Nyelvrokonaink. Teleki László Alapítvány, Budapest, 2000.
- A világ nyelvei. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest
- Kálmán, Béla. 1965. Vogul Chrestomathy. Indiana University Publications. Uralic and Altaic Series, Vol. 46. Mouton, The Hague. [In English.]
- Munkácsi, Bernát and Béla Kálmán. 1986. Wogulisches Wörterbuch. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest. [In German and Hungarian.]
- Riese, Timothy. Vogul: Languages of the World/Materials 158. Lincom Europa, 2001. ISBN 3895862312
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