Mansi language
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Mansi маньси/моаньсь |
||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Russia | |
| Region: | Khantia-Mansia | |
| Total speakers: | 3,184 | |
| Language family: | Uralic Finno-Ugric Ugric Ob-Ugric Mansi |
|
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | ||
| ISO 639-3: | mns | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key. | ||
The Mansi language (also known as Vogul, though this name is now old-fashioned and largely disused), is a language of the Mansi people. It is spoken in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, along the Ob River and its tributaries, and parts of Sverdlovsk Oblast in Russia. According to the 1990 census, there were 3,184 Mansi-speaking people in Russia.
The Mansi language belongs to the Ob Ugric (Ob Ugrian) subfamily of the Finno-Ugric languages. It is subdivided into a number of dialects, which differ from each other significantly; in fact, the four main "dialects" (East, South, West and North Mansi) are mutually unintelligible - or were: some of them are extinct. The base dialect of the Mansi literary language is the Sosva dialect; 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 created in the 1930s using a form of the Russian alphabet.
Contents |
[edit] The alphabet
The Mansi alphabet:
А, Б, В, Г, Д, Е, Ё, Ж, З, И, Й, К, Л, М, Н, Ң, О, П, Р, С, Т, У, Ф, Х, Ц, Ч, Ш, Щ, Ъ, Ы, Ь, Э, Ю, Я
The Latin Mansi alphabet (1931):
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, Һ, I, J, K, L, Ļ, M, N, Ņ, Ŋ, O, P, R, S, S, T, Ţ, U, V, Z, Ь
[edit] Grammar
Mansi is an agglutinating language.
[edit] Article
In Mansi, no articles exist - neither definite, nor indefinite.
It means, that "cauldron", "the cauldron" and even "a cauldron" translates to simply "пут". (Of course, we can say the number of cauldrons with акв, or any other number: one cauldron - but this is not an article but a number.
[edit] Nouns
There is no grammatical gender. We distinguish between singular, dual and plural number. Six grammatical cases exist. Possession is expressed using possessive suffixes, for example -зм, which means "my".
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] Tenses
Mansi uses suffixes to express the tense. The tense suffix precedes the personal suffix.
| Tense | Suffix | Example |
| Present | -г (lat.[1] -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.
[edit] Moods
There are four moods: indicative, conditional, imperative and blandishing.
Indicative mood has no suffix. Imperative mood exists only in the second person.
 |
This section is a stub. You can help by expanding it. |
[edit] 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 |
[edit] Active/Passive voice
Verbs have active and passive voice. Active voice has no suffix; the suffix to express the passive is -ве-.
[edit] Verbal prefixes
As in Hungarian, verbal prefixes are used to modify the meaning of the verb in both concrete and abstract ways. For example, with the prefix эл- (away, off) the verb мина (go) becomes элмина, which means 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' |
[edit] 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).
[edit] Example
ам хул алысьлаңкве минасум. - I went fishing (literally "I fish catch went").
[edit] Comparison with Hungarian
Here are some invented sentences in Mansi (Latin transcription) and Hungarian.[2] They demonstrate well the relationship between Hungarian and Mansi.
| Mansi | Hungarian | English |
| Hurem né vituel huligel husz hul pugi. | Három nő a vízből hálóval húsz halat fog. | Three women are catching twenty fish with a net from the water. |
| Huremszáthusz hulachszäm ampem viten äli. | Háromszázhúsz hollószemű ebem vízen él. | The three hundred and twenty dogs of mine with raven eyes live on water. |
| Pegte lau lasinen manl tou szilna. | Fekete ló lassan megy a tó szélén. | A black horse is slowly walking on the shore of the lake. |
[edit] Notes
- ^ *lat.: With Latin script.
- ^ Note: The transcription is written with Hungarian orthography to provide a clearer comparison; if you do not know the correct pronunciation, see Hungarian alphabet.
[edit] Reference
- Nyelvrokonaink. Teleki László Alapítvány, Budapest, 2000.
- A világ nyelvei. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest
- Riese, Timothy. Vogul: Languages of the World/Materials 158. Lincom Europa, 2001. ISBN 3895862312
| Finno-Ugric languages | |||
| Ugric | Hungarian | Khanty | Mansi | ||
| Permic | Komi | Komi-Permyak | Udmurt | ||
| Finno-Volgaic | Mari | Erzya | Moksha | Merya† | Meshcherian† | Muromian† | ||
| Sami | Akkala Sami† | Inari Sami | Kemi Sami† | Kildin Sami | Lule Sami | Northern Sami | Pite Sami | Skolt Sami | Southern Sami | Ter Sami | Ume Sami | ||
| Baltic-Finnic | Estonian | Finnish | Ingrian | Karelian | Kven | Livonian | Ludic | Meänkieli | South Estonian | Veps | Votic | Võro † denotes extinct |
||
