The Permic or Permian languages are a branch of the Uralic language family. They are spoken in several regions to the west of the

Ural Mountains The Ural Mountains ( ),; , ; , or simply the Urals, are a mountain range in Eurasia that runs north–south mostly through Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the river Ural (river), Ural and northwestern Kazakhstan.

within the

Russian Federation Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. The total number of speakers is around 950,000, of which around 550,000 speak the most widely spoken language, Udmurt. Like other Uralic languages, the Permic languages are primarily agglutinative and have a rich system of grammatical cases. Unlike many other agglutinative languages, they do not have

vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is a phonological rule in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – must share certain distinctive features (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is typically long distance, meaning tha ...

. The earliest Permic language to be preserved in writing was Old Permic or Old Zyryan, in the 14th century.

Classification

The extant Permic languages are: * Udmurt (Votyak) * Komi (Zyryan) * Permyak (Komi-Permyak) * Yazva (Komi-Yazva) The Permic languages have traditionally been classified as

Finno-Permic languages The Finno-Permic or Finno-Permian languages, sometimes just Finnic languages, are a proposed subdivision of the Uralic languages which comprise the Finnic languages, Balto-Finnic languages, Sámi languages, Mordvinic languages, Mari language, Per ...

, along with the Finnic, Saami, Mordvin, and Mari languages. The Finno-Permic and Ugric languages together made up the Finno-Ugric family. However, this taxonomy has more recently been called into question, and the relationship of the Permic languages to other Uralic languages remains uncertain.

History

The word ''Permian'' can be traced back philologically to the Russian word ''Perem'' (Перемь) or ''Perm'' (Пермь) which is found in medieval Russian chronicles. The word was initially used to designate certain territories, including the lower reaches of the Dvina River, as well as the area bounded by the

Pechora Pechora (; ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, town in the Komi Republic, Russia, located on the Pechora (river), Pechora River, west of and near the northern Ural Mountains. The area of the town is . Population: History Pechor ...

Vychegda The Vychegda (; ) is a river in the European part of Russia, a tributary of the Northern Dvina. Its length is about . Its source is approximately west of the northern Ural Mountains. It flows roughly in a western direction, through the Komi Re ...

and Kama rivers in the north, west and south, and the

Urals The Ural Mountains ( ),; , ; , or simply the Urals, are a mountain range in Eurasia that runs north–south mostly through Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the river Ural (river), Ural and northwestern Kazakhstan.

in the east, which was incorporated into the Russian state in the late 15th century. The word ''Permian'' was then used to designate the non-Russian peoples who lived in there, which mostly included the Zyrians, and the Russians later began using the appellation ''Zyrian''. From the 19th century, the word ''Permian'' was used in scholarly writing to designate the Zyrians and the Udmurts.

Phonology

Proto-Uralic word roots have been subject to particularly heavy reduction in the Permic languages. * Original geminates *pp, *tt, *kk were reduced to single voiceless stops *p, *t, *k. * Between vowels, original single *p, *t, *k as well as *w and *x were lost entirely. * Second-syllable vowels were lost entirely. This was obscured in Udmurt by adding ''-ы'' to certain words. (PU *lumi "snow" → Udm ''лымы'' vs PU *lämi "broth" → Udm ''лым'' ). * The sibilants *s, *ś, *š have remained distinct from each other in all positions, but were voiced to *z, *ž, *ź between voiced sounds. * Consonant clusters were largely simplified: in particular nasal + stop/affricate clusters yield voiced stops/affricates, and stop + sibilant clusters yield voiceless sibilants. A peculiarity of Permic is the occurrence of the voiced consonants such as *b, *g word-initially even in inherited vocabulary, apparently a development from original PU voiceless consonants. The Proto-Permic consonant inventory is reconstructed as: This inventory is retained nearly unchanged in the modern-day Permic languages. Komi has merged original into and undergone a word-final a change → in many dialects, while Udmurt has changed word-initially → or . is retained only in some Udmurt dialects; in other Permic varieties it has become next to

back vowel A back vowel is any in a class of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the highest point of the tongue is positioned relatively back in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be c ...

s, next to central vowels, next to

front vowel A front vowel is a class of vowel sounds used in some spoken languages, its defining characteristic being that the highest point of the tongue is positioned approximately as far forward as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction th ...

s. In later Russian loanwords, the consonants may occur. The consonant was marginal and occurred only word-initially or after a word-initial , generally traceable to diphthongization of the close back vowel of the 2nd series. An exceptional word is the numeral "six", , which in Komi is the only native word root with an initial cluster. Literary Komi and literary Udmurt both possess a seven-vowel system . These are however not related straightforwardly, and numerous additional vowels are required for Proto-Permic, perhaps as many as 15 altogether. The reconstruction of Proto-Permic vocalism and its development from Proto-Uralic has always been a puzzling topic, for which there are several models. There is general agreement on the existence of two series of

close vowel A close vowel, also known as a high vowel (in U.S. terminology), is any in a class of vowel sounds used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned approximately as close as possible to ...

s, one of which results in modern in literary Udmurt and literary Komi-Zyryan, the other in correspondences of Udmurt to Komi (but in the Komi-Yazva language). Proposed distinguishing factors for these include length (),

tenseness In phonology, tenseness or tensing is, most generally, the pronunciation of a sound with greater muscular effort or constriction than is typical. More specifically, tenseness is the pronunciation of a vowel with less centralization (i.e. either ...

() and

height Height is measure of vertical distance, either vertical extent (how "tall" something or someone is) or vertical position (how "high" a point is). For an example of vertical extent, "This basketball player is 7 foot 1 inches in height." For an e ...

(). Here is the vowel table used in Wiktionary:

Morphophonology

Noun

roots A root is the part of a plant, generally underground, that anchors the plant body, and absorbs and stores water and nutrients. Root or roots may also refer to: Art, entertainment, and media * ''The Root'' (magazine), an online magazine focusin ...

in the Permic languages are predominantly monosyllabic and invariable with the canonical shape (C)VC. CV roots, such as Udmurt ву /ʋu/, Komi and Permyak ва /ʋa/ 'water', and (C)VCC roots, such as Udmurt урт /urt/, Komi орт /ort/ 'soul', exist as well. In Udmurt, there are furthermore a number of bisyllabic roots, mostly of the shape (C)VCɯ. In noun roots with certain final clusters, the second consonant surfaces only when followed with a vowel in inflected or derived forms : Udmurt has similar alternation for a number of other clusters of the shape ''voiced consonant''+/m/, while Komi-Zyryan adds a number of clusters of the shape ''voiced consonant''+/j/. The verb root for 'to come': Udmurt лыкты- , Komi локты- also shows alternation to plain /k/ in e.g. the imperative (in Udmurt only dialectally).Bartens 2000, p. 178

References

Bibliography

* * * * * *

External links

* ''S. K. Belykh.'
Swadesh list for Permic languages

Permic languages
{{DEFAULTSORT:Permic Languages Languages of Russia