Urum language
Urum | |
---|---|
Урум | |
Pronunciation | [uˈrum] |
Native to | Georgia, Ukraine |
Ethnicity | Urums (Turkic-speaking Greeks) |
Native speakers | 190,000 (2000)[1] |
Dialects |
Tsalka
North Azovian
|
Cyrillic, Greek | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 |
uum |
Glottolog |
urum1249 [2] |
Urum is a Turkic language spoken by several thousand ethnic Greeks who inhabit a few villages in Georgia and Southeastern Ukraine. The Urum language is often considered a variant of Crimean Tatar.
The name Urum is derived from Rûm ("Rome"), the term for the Byzantine Empire in the Muslim world. The Ottoman Empire used it to describe non-Muslims within the empire. The initial vowel in Urum is prosthetic. Turkic languages originally did not have /ɾ/ in the word-initial position and so in borrowed words, it used to add a vowel before it. The common use of the term Urum appears to have led to some confusion, as most Turkish-speaking Greeks were called Urum. The Turkish-speaking population in Georgia is often confused with the distinct community in Ukraine.[3][4]
Sounds
Consonants
Labial | Dental | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Plosive | p | b | t | d | c | ÉŸ | k | É¡ | ||||||
Affricate | ts¹ | tʃ | dʒ | |||||||||||
Fricative | f | v | θ | ð ² | s | z | ʃ | ʒ | x | c | h | |||
Nasal | m | n | Å‹ | |||||||||||
Flap/Tap | ɾ | |||||||||||||
Lateral | l | |||||||||||||
Approximant | j |
(1) /ts/ is found only in loanwords.
(2) /θ/ and /ð/ are found only in loanwords from Greek.
Writing system
A few manuscripts are known to be written in Urum using Greek characters.[5] During the period between 1927 and 1937, the Urum language was written in reformed Latin characters, the New Turkic Alphabet, and used in local schools; at least one primer is known to have been printed. In 1937 the use of written Urum stopped. Alexander Garkavets uses the following alphabet:[6]
Ра | Б б | В в | Г г | Ғ ғ | Д д | (Δ δ) | Д′ д′ |
(Ђ ђ) | Е е | Ж ж | Җ җ | З з | И и | Й й | К к |
Л л | М м | Рн | Ң ң | О о | Ӧ ӧ | П п | Рр |
С Ñ | Т Ñ‚ | Т′ т′ | (Ћ Ñ›) | У у | Ó° Ó± | Î¥ Ï… | Ф Ñ„ |
Х х | Һ һ | Ц ц | Ч ч | Ш ш | Щ щ | Ъ ъ | Ы ы |
Ь ÑŒ | Ð Ñ | Ю ÑŽ | Я Ñ | Ѳ ѳ |
In an Urum primer issued in Kiev in 2008 the following alphabet is suggested: [7]
Ра | Б б | Ð’ в | Г г | Ò Ò‘ | Д д | Д' д' | Дж дж | |
Е е | З з | И и | Й й | К к | Л л | М м | Рн | |
О о | Ó¦ Ó§ | П п | Рр | С Ñ | Т Ñ‚ | Т' Ñ‚' | У у | |
Ó° Ó± | Ф Ñ„ | Ð¥ Ñ… | Ч ч | Ш ш | Ы Ñ‹ | Ð Ñ |
Publications
Very little has been published on the Urum language. There exists a very small lexicon,[8] and a small description of the language.[9] For Caucasian Urum, there is a language documentation project that collected a dictionary,[10] a set of grammatically relevant clausal constructions,[11] and a text corpus.[12] The website of the project contains issues about language and history.[13]
References
- ↑ Urum at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
- ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Urum". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
- ↑ Казаков, ÐлекÑей (December 2000). ПонтийÑкие греки (in Russian).
- ↑ Gordon, Raymond G. (ed.) (2005). "Ethnologue Report for Urum". Ethnologue: Languages of the World. SIL International.
- ↑ "Urum". Language Museum. Archived from the original on July 5, 2015.
- ↑ Гаркавець, ОлекÑандр (2000). УрумÑький Ñловник (pdf, html) (in Ukrainian and Urum). p. 632.
- ↑ Смолина, ÐœÐ°Ñ€Ð¸Ñ (2008). УрумÑкий Ñзык. Урум дили (приазовÑкий вариант). Учебное поÑобие Ð´Ð»Ñ Ð½Ð°Ñ‡Ð¸Ð½Ð°ÑŽÑ‰Ð¸Ñ… Ñ Ð°ÑƒÐ´Ð¸Ð¾Ð¿Ñ€Ð¸Ð»Ð¾Ð¶ÐµÐ½Ð¸ÐµÐ¼ (in Russian and Urum). p. 168. ISBN 966-8535-15-4.
- ↑ Podolsky, Baruch (1985). A Tatar - English Glossary. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. ISBN 3-447-00299-9.
- ↑ Podolsky, Baruch (1986). "Notes on the Urum Language". Mediterranean Language Review 2: 99–112.
- ↑ Skopeteas, Moisidi, Sella-Mazi, and Yordanoglu (2010). "Urum basic lexicon. Ms." (Pdf). University of Bielefeld.
- ↑ Verhoeven, Moisidi, and Yordanoglu (2010). "Urum basic grammatical structures. Ms." (PDF). University of Bremen.
- ↑ Skopeteas and Moisidi (2010). "Urum text collection. Ms." (PDF). University of Bielefeld.
- ↑ "Urum documentation project".
|
|
|