Veps language

Veps
vepsän kel’
Native to	Russia
Region	Karelia, Ingria, Vologda Oblast, Veps National Volost
Ethnicity	Veps
Native speakers	3,610  (2010 census)[1]
Language family	Uralic Finnic Eastern Veps
Writing system	Latin (Vepsian alphabet)
Official status
Recognised minority language in	Republic of Karelia[2]
Language codes
ISO 639-3	vep

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 possible for speakers of one dialect group to understand those of another. 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]

Grammar

Veps is an agglutinating language.

Nouns

A Soviet textbook for native speakers of Veps printed in the 1930s.

There are 23 grammatical cases, it's more than in other Finnic languages.

Personal pronouns

The personal pronouns are of Finno-Ugric origin:

Numbers

Writing system

The modern Vepsian alphabet is a Latin alphabet.^[4] 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.

Language example

Road sign in Shyoltozero in Russian and Veps.

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.^[5]

(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).^[6]

See also

• The Rjurik Lonin Veps Ethnographic Museum in Šoutar’v (Shyoltozero)

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Veps language.

Veps edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Veps language test of Wiktionary at Wikimedia Incubator

• The Peoples of the Red Book: THE VEPS
• St.Petersburg Veps society
• St.Petersburg Veps society forum
• Veps language corpus and dictionary (in Russian)
• Vepsian textbooks from 1930s