The Komi language ( kv, коми кыв, ''komi kyv''), also known as Zyryan, Zyrian or Komi-Zyryan (Komi: коми-зырян кыв, komi-zyrjan kyv),
[Komi language](_blank)
''Britannica''. is one of the two regional varieties of the
pluricentric
A pluricentric language or polycentric language is a language with several interacting codified standard language, standard forms, often corresponding to different countries. Many examples of such languages can be found worldwide among the most-spo ...
Komi language, the other regional variety being
Permyak.
Komi is natively spoken by the
Komi peoples
The Komi ( kv, комияс, ' also ', also called Komi-Zyryans or Zyryans, are an indigenous Permian ethnic group whose homeland is in the northeast of European Russia around the basins of the Vychegda, Pechora and Kama rivers. They mos ...
native to the
Komi Republic
The Komi Republic (russian: Республика Коми; kv, Коми Республика), sometimes simply referred to as Komi, is a republic of Russia located in Eastern Europe. Its capital is the city of Syktyvkar. The population of th ...
and other parts of
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
such as
Nenetsia
The Nenets Autonomous Okrug (russian: Не́нецкий автоно́мный о́круг; Nenets: Ненёцие автономной ӈокрук, ''Nenjocije awtonomnoj ŋokruk'') is a federal subject of Russia and an autonomous okrug of Ar ...
and
Yamalia. There were 285,000 speakers in 1994, which decreased to 160,000 in 2010. Komi has a standardized form.
It was written in the
Old Permic alphabet
The Old Permic script ( kv, Важ Перым гижӧм, ), sometimes known by its initial 2 characters as Abur or Anbur, is a "highly idiosyncratic adaptation" of the Cyrillic script once used to write medieval Komi (a member of the Permic bran ...
(Komi: , Анбур, ''Anbur'') for liturgical purposes in the 14th century. The
Cyrillic script
The Cyrillic script ( ), Slavonic script or the Slavic script, is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic languages, Slavic, Turkic languages, Turkic, Mongolic languages, ...
was introduced by Russia missionaries in the 17th century, replacing the
Old Permic script
The Old Permic script ( kv, Важ Перым гижӧм, ), sometimes known by its initial 2 characters as Abur or Anbur, is a "highly idiosyncratic adaptation" of the Cyrillic script once used to write medieval Komi (a member of the Permic bra ...
. A tradition of secular works of literature in the modern form of the language dates back to the 19th century.
Dialects
Komi has ten dialects: Prisyktyvkarsky, Lower
Vychegdan, Central Vychegdan, Luzsko-letsky, Upper
Sysolan, Upper Vychegdan,
Pechoran,
Izhemsky,
Vymsky, and Udorsky. Prisyktyvkarsky is spoken in the region of
Syktyvkar and forms the model for the generic standard dialect of the language. Dialects are divided based primarily on their use of and :
[Bartens 2000, p. 47-49]
* Older * remains unchanged in upper Vychegdan and Pechoran dialects (also in most dialects of Komi-Permyak).
* In Central dialects, changed to syllable-finally; for instance, in literary Komi * → "tongue".
* In Northern dialects, changes of continued with complete vocalization of syllable-final , resulting in long vowels.
The start of the change date to the 17th century. It is not seen in the oldest Komi texts from the 14th century, nor in loanwords from Komi to
Khanty
The Khanty ( Khanty: ханти, ''hanti''), also known in older literature as Ostyaks (russian: остяки) are a Ugric indigenous people, living in Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug, a region historically known as "Yugra" in Russia, togethe ...
, dated to the 16th; though it fully occurred before Russian loanwords that entered the language in the 18th century as remains unchanged in these.
Some dialects are further distinguished based on the palatalized alveolars , which have
unpacked in syllable-final position as clusters .
[
]
Writing system
The Old Permic script
The Old Permic script ( kv, Важ Перым гижӧм, ), sometimes known by its initial 2 characters as Abur or Anbur, is a "highly idiosyncratic adaptation" of the Cyrillic script once used to write medieval Komi (a member of the Permic bra ...
is the first writing system for Komi. It was invented in the 14th century by the missionary Stepan Khrap. The alphabet resembled medieval Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
and Cyrillic. The script was also known as Anbur (Komi: , Анбур), named for the first 2 letters of the script, “''an''” & “''bur''” (𐍐 & 𐍑, respectively). It is no longer in use today, though it has received Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...
Support as “Old Permic” in recent times. The script saw use in Komi-inhabited areas, primarily the Principality of Great Perm and parts of Bjarmaland
Bjarmaland (also spelt ''Bjarmland'' and ''Bjarmia''; Latin: ''Biarmia''; Old English: ''Beormaland,'' Komi: Биармия ''Biarmia,'' Old Permic: 𐍑𐍙𐍐𐍒𐍜𐍙𐍐) was a territory mentioned in Norse sagas since the Vikin ...
.
In the 16th century, this alphabet was replaced by the Russian alphabet
The Russian alphabet (russian: ру́сский алфави́т, russkiy alfavit, , label=none, or russian: ру́сская а́збука, russkaya azbuka, label=none, more traditionally) is the script used to write the Russian language. I ...
with certain modifications for affricates. In the 1920s the language was written in the Molodtsov alphabet
The Komi language, a Uralic language spoken in the north-eastern part of European Russia, has been written in several different alphabets. Currently, Komi writing uses letters from the Cyrillic script. There have been five distinct stages in the h ...
, which also derived from Cyrillic. In the 1930s, during the Latinisation in the Soviet Union
In the USSR, latinisation or latinization (russian: латиниза́ция, ') was the name of the campaign during the 1920s–1930s which aimed to replace traditional writing systems for all languages of the Soviet Union with systems that wo ...
, Komi was briefly written with a version of the Latin script
The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Italy ...
. Since the 1940s it uses the Russian-based Cyrillic alphabet with additional letters '' І, і'' and '' Ӧ, ӧ''.
Letters particular to the Molodtsov alphabet
The Komi language, a Uralic language spoken in the north-eastern part of European Russia, has been written in several different alphabets. Currently, Komi writing uses letters from the Cyrillic script. There have been five distinct stages in the h ...
include ԁ, ԃ, ԅ, ԇ, ԉ, ԋ, ԍ, ԏ, most of which represent palatalized consonants.
Phonology
Consonants
Vowels
Grammar
Komi has 17 cases, with a rich inventory of locative cases. Like other Uralic languages, Komi has no gender. Verbs agree with subjects in person and number (sg/pl). Negation is expressed with an auxiliary verb, which is inflected for person, number and tense.
Komi is an agglutinative language and adheres to a subject–object–verb
Subject ( la, subiectus "lying beneath") may refer to:
Philosophy
*'' Hypokeimenon'', or ''subiectum'', in metaphysics, the "internal", non-objective being of a thing
**Subject (philosophy), a being that has subjective experiences, subjective con ...
order.
Sample text
The following sample text displays the Anbur, Cyrillic (modern) and Latin lyrical text from the Komi-Zyryan folk song
Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be c ...
“Kačaśinjas” ( Daisies).
The first verse of the song and the refrain, as written in the Anbur Script:
:'
The second verse and refrain, as written in the Zyryan Cyrillic Alphabet:
:''Эмöсь лунвылын мичаджык муяс,'' ''Сэнi кывтöны визувджык юяс.'' ''Сöмын мыйлакö пыр медся матыс'' ''Эзысь лысваöн дзирдалысь асыв.'' ''Катшасинъяс,'' ''Катшасинъяс,'' ''Мыйла восьсаöсь пыр тiян синъяс?''
The third and final verse and refrain, as written in the modern Latin Alphabet:
:''Una śylankyv tatyś mi kyvlim,'' ''Kodös śiöny raďejtan nyvly.'' ''Lovja dźoridźyś myj burys śurö'' ''Syly puktyny kudria jurö.'' ''Kačaśinjas,'' ''Kačaśinjas,'' ''Myjla vośsaöś pyr tijan śinjas?''
Notes
Bibliography
*
*Abondolo, Daniel (2015). ''The Uralic Languages''. Routledge
*R. M. Batalova. 1993. Komi(-Zyryanskij) Jazyk. In V. N. Jartseva (ed.), Jazyki Mira: Ural'skie Jazyki, 214–229. Moskva: Nauka.
* Fed'un'ova, G.V. ''Önija komi kyv'' ('The Modern Komi Language'). Morfologia/Das’töma filologijasa kandidat G.V.Fed'un'ova kipod ulyn. Syktyvkar: Komi n’ebög ledzanin, 2000. 544 pp. .
External links
*
Books in Komi-Zyrian from Finno-Ugric Electronic Library
(by the Finno-Ugric Information Center in Syktyvkar, Komi Republic
The Komi Republic (russian: Республика Коми; kv, Коми Республика), sometimes simply referred to as Komi, is a republic of Russia located in Eastern Europe. Its capital is the city of Syktyvkar. The population of th ...
(interface in Russian and English, texts in Mari, Komi, Udmurt, Erzya and Moksha
''Moksha'' (; sa, मोक्ष, '), also called ''vimoksha'', ''vimukti'' and ''mukti'', is a term in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism for various forms of emancipation, enlightenment, liberation, and release. In its soteriology, ...
languages))
Komi–Russian & Russian–Komi Online Dictionaries
Tarabukin I.I. Komi–Russian Phraseological Dictionary.
Komi Grammar. (in Russian)
Komi-language courses
{{Authority control
Komi
Languages of Russia
Komi Republic