Southern or Tavda Mansi is an extinct

Uralic language The Uralic languages ( ), sometimes called the Uralian languages ( ), are spoken predominantly in Europe and North Asia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian. Other languages with speakers ab ...

spoken in

Russia 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 ...

in the

Sverdlovsk Oblast Sverdlovsk Oblast ( rus, Свердловская область, Sverdlovskaya oblastʹ, p=svʲɪrdˈlofskəjə ˈobləsʲtʲ) is a federal subject (an oblast) of Russia located in the Ural Federal District. Its administrative center is the c ...

. Its main records come from an area isolated from the other Mansi varieties along the river

Tavda Tavda () is a town in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia 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 acros ...

. Around 1900, about 200 speakers existed, but in the 1960s, it was spoken only by a few elderly speakers. It has since then become extinct. It had strong Tatar lexical influence and displayed several archaisms such as

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 ...

, retention of (elsewhere backed to or diphthongized), (elsewhere raised to ) and (elsewhere deaffricated to ). Russian researchers use the term "southern

dialect A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...

" () to describe the Tavda language.

Varieties and documentation

Southern Mansi was formerly spoken along a range to both the west and east 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.

. Wordlists of Southern Mansi have been recorded across this area in the 18th century from the towns of

Kungur Kungur () is a town in the southeast of Perm Krai, Russia, located in the Ural Mountains at the confluence of the rivers Iren and Shakva with the Sylva ( Kama's basin). Population: 62,173 ( 2023 Estimate). History Kungur was founded ...

, Verkhnyaya Tura and

Verkhoturye Verkhoturye () is a historical town and the administrative center of Verkhotursky District of Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia, located in the middle Ural Mountains on the left bank of the Tura River north of Yekaterinburg. Population: 7,815 ( ...

and from settlements along the

Chusovaya River The Chusovaya () is a river flowing in Perm Krai, Sverdlovsk Oblast and Chelyabinsk Oblast of Russia. A tributary of the Kama, which in turn is a tributary of the Volga, discharges into the Chusovskoy Cove of the Kamsky Reservoir. The river is r ...

and

Tagil River The Tagil () is a river in Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia. It is long, with a drainage basin of . The average discharge is . The river has its sources on the eastern slopes of the Ural Mountains, east of Verkhny Tagil. From there, the Tagil flows nort ...

. Only the Tavda dialect was met and recorded (from three villages: Janychkova, Chandyri and Gorodok) on the expeditions of the Hungarian linguist in 1888–1889 and the Finnish linguist in 1901–1906. During 1960s expeditions by Hungarian linguists, it, too, was found to be moribund, and is presumed to have become extinct shortly afterwards.

References

Sources

* * * Indigenous languages of Siberia Mansi languages Mansi Agglutinative languages Extinct languages of Asia {{Uralic-lang-stub