The Old Permic script ( kv, Важ Перым гижӧм,
𐍮𐍐𐍕 𐍟𐍔𐍠𐍨𐍜 𐍒𐍣𐍕𐍩𐍜, ''Važ Perym gužom''), sometimes known by its initial 2 characters as Abur or Anbur, is a "highly idiosyncratic adaptation" of 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, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking co ...
once used to write medieval
Komi (a member of the
Permic
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 within the Russian Federation. The total number of speakers is around 950,000, of which around 550,00 ...
branch of
Finno-Ugric
Finno-Ugric ( or ; ''Fenno-Ugric'') or Finno-Ugrian (''Fenno-Ugrian''), is a traditional grouping of all languages in the Uralic language family except the Samoyedic languages. Its formerly commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is ba ...
languages).
History
The script was introduced by a
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
missionary, Stepan Khrap, also known as Saint
Stephen of Perm (Степан Храп, св. Стефан Пермский) in 1372. The name ''Abur'' is derived from the names of the first two characters: ''An'' and ''Bur''. The script derived from
Cyrillic and
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 ...
, with
Komi "
Tamga
A tamga or tamgha (from otk, 𐱃𐰢𐰍𐰀, tamga, lit=stamp, seal; tr, damga; mn, tamga; ; ); an abstract seal or stamp used by Eurasian nomads and by cultures influenced by them. The tamga was normally the emblem of a particular tribe, ...
" signs, the latter being similar in the appearance to
rune
Runes are the letters in a set of related alphabets known as runic alphabets native to the Germanic peoples. Runes were used to write various Germanic languages (with some exceptions) before they adopted the Latin alphabet, and for specialised ...
s or
siglas poveiras
The siglas poveiras (, "signs of Póvoa"; also known as marcas) is a proto-writing system that has been used by the local community of Póvoa de Varzim in Portugal for many generations.
The siglas were primarily used as a signature for family coa ...
because they were created by incisions rather than by usual writing. The inclusion of the latter aided the script to greater acceptance among the medieval Permic speakers of the time.
The script was in use until the 17th century, when it was superseded by 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, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking co ...
. Abur was also used as cryptographic writing for the
Russian language.
April 26, which is the feast day of
Stephen of Perm, is celebrated as Old Permic Alphabet Day.
Significance
The Abur inscriptions are among the oldest relics of the
Uralic languages
The Uralic languages (; sometimes called Uralian languages ) form a language family of 38 languages spoken by approximately 25million people, predominantly in Northern Eurasia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian (w ...
. Only one of them has earlier documents:
Hungarian, which had been written using the
Old Hungarian script
The Old Hungarian script or Hungarian runes ( hu, Székely-magyar rovás, 'székely-magyar runiform', or ) is an alphabetic writing system used for writing the Hungarian language. Modern Hungarian is written using the Latin-based Hungarian alph ...
first before the Latin script was used after 1000.
For comparison, an isolated
birch bark letter, found in
Novgorod and written in
Cyrillic in a
Finnic language
The Finnic (''Fennic'') or more precisely Balto-Finnic (Balto-Fennic, Baltic Finnic, Baltic Fennic) languages constitute a branch of the Uralic language family spoken around the Baltic Sea by the Baltic Finnic peoples. There are around 7 mi ...
, has been dated to the beginning of the 13th century and
Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finland
* Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland
* Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people
* Finnish cuisine
See also ...
as a written language
appeared only after the
Reformation
The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...
in 1543.
Characters
Lytkin's 1952 work is often considered the authoritative source of documentation for this script.
[Лыткин, В. И. 1952. Древнепермский язык: чтение текстов, грамматика, словарь. Москва] There are 24 primary characters, along with 10 secondary characters that are subordinate to the primary characters. There are also some combining marks that may have been used for phonological purposes, in addition to some combining letters from Latin and Cyrillic that have been found as well. Spaces, middle dots, and semi-apostrophes have also been seen as punctuation in documents. A Cyrillic combining
titlo
Titlo is an extended diacritic symbol initially used in early Cyrillic and Glagolitic manuscripts, e.g., in Old Church Slavonic and Old East Slavic languages. The word is a borrowing from the Greek "", "title" (compare dated English '' tittle' ...
is used to indicate numerals.
Unicode
Old Permic (U+10350–1037F) was added to the
Unicode
Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, wh ...
Standard in June 2014 with the release of version 7.0.
References
External links
*
*
{{list of writing systems
Permic script, Old
1372 introductions
Obsolete writing systems