Mansi language

Not to be confused with Mantsi language.
Mansi
маньси/моаньсь
Native to Russia
Region Khanty–Mansi
Ethnicity 12,300 Mansi (2010 census)[1]
Native speakers
 940 (2010 census)[1]
Uralic
  • Mansi
Dialects
Southern
Eastern
Northern
Western
Language codes
ISO 639-3 mns
Glottolog mans1258[2]

The Mansi language (also Vogul, although this is obsolete, and Maansi) is spoken by the Mansi people in Russia along the Ob River and its tributaries, in the Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug and Sverdlovsk Oblast. According to the 1989 census, there were 3,184 Mansi-speaking people in Russia.

The base dialect of the Mansi literary language is the Sosva dialect, a representative of the northern dialect; the discussion below is based on the standard language. Fixed word order is typical in Mansi. Adverbials and participles play an important role in sentence construction. The written language was first published in 1868 and was revised using a form of Cyrillic in 1937.

Varieties

Dialects of Mansi (and Khanty).
  Northern Mansi
  Western and Southern Mansi
  Eastern Mansi

Mansi is subdivided into four main dialect groups which are to a large degree mutually unintelligible, and therefore best considered four languages. A primary split can be set up between the Southern variety and the remainder. A number of features are also shared between the Western and Eastern varieties, while certain later sound changes have diffused between Eastern and Northern (and are also found in some neighboring dialects of Northern Khanty to the east).

Individual dialects are known according to the rivers their speakers live(d) on:[3]

Proto-Mansi

Southern Mansi (Tavdin) (†)


Core Mansi
Central Mansi
Western Mansi (†)

Pelym

North Vagilsk

South Vagilsk

Lower Lozva

Middle Lozva



Eastern Mansi (Kondin)

Lower Konda

Middle Konda

Upper Konda




Northern Mansi

Upper Lozva

Sosva

Sygva

Ob





Northern Mansi has strong Russian, Komi, Nenets, and Northern Khanty influence, and it forms the base of the literary Mansi language. There is no accusative case; that is, both the nominative and accusative roles are unmarked on the noun. */æ/ and */æː/ have been backed to [a] and [aː].

Western Mansi went extinct ca. 2000. It had strong Russian and Komi influences; dialect differences were also considerable.[4] Long vowels were diphthongized.

Eastern Mansi is spoken by 100–200 people. It has Khanty and Tatar influence. There is vowel harmony, and for */æː/ it has [œː], frequently diphthongized.

Southern Mansi was recorded from area isolated from the other Mansi varieties. Around 1900 a couple hundred speakers existed; in the 1960s it was spoken only by a few elderly speakers,[4] and it has since then gone extinct. It had strong Tatar influence and displayed several archaisms such as vowel harmony, retention of /y/ (elsewhere merged with */æ/), /tsʲ/ (elsewhere deaffricated to /sʲ/), /æː/ (elsewhere fronted to /aː/ or diphthongized) and /ɑː/ (elsewhere raised to /oː/).

Phonology

Mansi consonants[5]
Labial Alveolar (Alveolo-)
Palatal		 Post-
alveolar		 Velar
Plain Labialized
Nasals /m/
м		 /n/
н		 /nʲ/
нь		 /ŋ/
ӈ		 /ŋʷ/
ӈв
Stops /p/
п		 /t/
т		 /tʲ/
ть		 /k/
к		 /kʷ/
кв
Affricate /tsʲ/ [1]
~
/sʲ/
сь
Fricatives /s/
с		 /ʃ/ [2]
ш		 /x/ [3] /ɣ/
х г		 /xʷ/ [3] *ɣʷ [4]
хв (в)
Semivowels /j/
й		 /w/
ў, в
Laterals /l/
л		 /lʲ/
ль
Trill /r/
р

The inventory presented here is a maximal collection of segments found across the Mansi varieties. Some remarks:

  1. /tsʲ/ was only found in Southern Mansi and corresponds to /sʲ/ in the other varieties.
  2. /ʃ/ is absent in most dialects of the Northern and Eastern groups, having merged into /s/.
  3. The voiceless velar fricatives /x/, /xʷ/ are only found in the Northern group and the Lower Konda dialect of the Eastern group, resulting from spirantization of *k, *kʷ adjacent to original back vowels.
  4. According to Honti, a contrast between *w and *ɣʷ can be reconstructed, but this does not surface in any of the attested varieties.
  5. The labialization contrast among the velars dates back to Proto-Mansi, but was in several varieties strengthened by labialization of velars adjacent to rounded vowels. In particular, Proto-Mansi *yK → Core Mansi *æKʷ (a form of cheshirization).

The vowel systems across Mansi show great variety. As typical across the Uralic languages, many more vowel distinctions were possible in the initial, stressed syllable than in unstressed ones. Up to 18–19 stressed vowel contrasts may be found in the Western and Eastern dialects, while Northern Mansi has a much reduced, largely symmetric system of 8 vowels, though lacking short **/e/ and long **/iː/:

Northern Mansi stressed vowels
UnroundedRounded
Close /i/
ы/и		 /u/, /uː/
у/ю
Mid /eː/
э/е		 /o/, /oː/
о/ё
Open /a/, /aː/
а/я
Northern Mansi unstressed vowels[5]
FullReduced
Close i
ы/и
Mid e
э/е		 ə
Open a
а/я

Alphabet

Main article: Mansi alphabet

The first publication of the written Mansi language was a translation of the Gospel of Matthew published in London in 1868. In 1932 a version of Latin alphabet was introduced with little success. The former Latin alphabet:

A, B, D, E, F, G, H, Һ, I, J, K, L, Ļ, M, N, Ņ, Ŋ, O, P, R, S, S, T, Ţ, U, V, Z, Ь

In 1937, Cyrillic replaced the Latin.

The highlighted letters, and Г with the value /a/, are used only in names and loanwords.
А
/a/		Б
/b/		В
/◌ʷ/		Г
/a/, /ɣ/		Д
/d/		Е
/ʲe/		Ё
/ʲo/		Ж
/ʒ/		З
/z/		И
/i/		Й
/j/		К
/k/		Л
/l/, /ʎ/		М
/m/		Н
/n/, /ɲ/		Ӈ
/ŋ/		О
/o/		П
/p/
Р
/r/		С
/s/		Т
/t/		У
/uː/		Ў
/w/		Ф
/f/		Х
/χ/		Ц
/t͡s/		Ч
/t͡ʃʲ/		Ш
/ʃ/		Щ
/ʃʲtʃʲ/		Ъ
/-/		Ы
/j/		Ь
/◌ʲ/		Э
/ə~ɤ/		Ә
/æ/		Ю
/ʲu/		Я
/ʲa/

Grammar

Mansi is an agglutinating, SOV language.[6]

Article

There are two articles in Mansi: definite ань (aɲ), which also means "now" when placed before verbs, and indefinite акв (akʷ), literally "one".[7]

Nouns

There is no grammatical gender. Mansi distinguishes between singular, dual and plural number. Six grammatical cases exist. Possession is expressed using possessive suffixes, for example -зм, which means "my".

Grammatical cases, declining

Example with: пут /put/ (cauldron)

casesing.dualplural
nom.пут
put		путыг
putɪɣ		путэт
putət
loc.путт
putt		путыгт
putɪɣt		путэтт
putətt
lat.путн
putn		путыгн
putɪɣn		путэтн
putətn
abl.путнэл
putnəl		путыгнэл
putɪɣnəl		путэтнэл
putətnəl
trans.путыг
putɪɣ		--
instr.путэл
putəl		путыгтэл
putɪɣtəl		путэтэл
putətəl

Missing cases can be expressed using postpositions, such as халнэл (χalnəl, 'of, out of'), саит (sait, 'after, behind'), etc.

Verbs

Mansi conjugation has three persons, three numbers, two tenses, and four moods. Active and passive voices exist.

Intransitive and transitive conjugations are distinguished. This means that there are two possible ways of conjugating a verb. When the speaker conjugates in intransitive, the sentence has no concrete object (in this case, the object is nothing or something like something, anything). In the transitive conjugation, there is a concrete object. This feature also exists in the other Ugric languages.

Tenses

Mansi uses suffixes to express the tense. The tense suffix precedes the personal suffix.

Tense Suffix Example
Present -г (lat.[8] -g) минагум (lat. minagum – I am going)
Past -с (lat. -s) минасум (minasum – I went)

The language has no future tense; the future is expressed in other ways.

Moods

There are four moods: indicative, conditional, imperative and precative.

Indicative mood has no suffix. Imperative mood exists only in the second person.

Personal suffixes

The suffixes are the following:

Person Singular Dual Plural
1st -ум -умен -ув
2nd -эн -эн -эн
3rd (no suffix) -ыг -эт

Thus, the conjugation of the verb мина (lat. mina [go]), in past tense (remember the suffix -с):

Person Singular Dual Plural
1st минасум (minasum) минасумен (minasumen) минасув (minasuv)
2nd минасэн минасэн минасэн
3rd минас минасыг минасэт

Active/Passive voice

Verbs have active and passive voice. Active voice has no suffix; the suffix to express the passive is -ве-.

Verbal prefixes

Verbal prefixes are used to modify the meaning of the verb in both concrete and abstract ways. For example, with the prefix эл- (el-) (away, off) the verb мина (mina) (go) becomes элмина (elmina), which means to go away. This is surprisingly close to the Hungarian equivalents: el- (away) and menni (to go), where elmenni is to go away

ēl(a) – 'forwards, onwards, away'

jōm- 'to go, to stride' ēl-jōm- 'to go away/on'
tinal- 'to sell' ēl-tinal- 'to sell off'

χot – 'direction away from something and other nuances of action intensity'

min- 'to go' χot-min- 'to go away, to stop'
roχt- 'to be frightened' χot-roχt- 'to take fright suddenly'

Numbers

# Northern Mansi Hungarian
1 аква (akʷa) egy
2 китыг (kitiɣ) kettő
3 хурум (xuːrəm) három
4 нила (ɲila) négy
5 ат (at) öt
6 хот (xoːt) hat
7 сат (saːt) hét
8 нёллов (ɲololow) nyolc
9 онтэллов (ontolow) kilenc
10 лов (low) tíz
20 хус (xus) húsz
100 сат (saːt/janiɣsaːt) száz
1000 сотэр (soːtər) ezer

Numbers 1 and 2 also have attributive forms: акв (1) and кит (2); compare with Hungarian két, and Old Hungarian "kit").

Example

ам хул алысьлаӈкве минасум. – I went fishing (literally "I fish catch went").

Comparison with Hungarian

Here are some invented sentences in Northern Mansi (IPA transcription) and Hungarian. They demonstrate well the relationship between Hungarian and Mansi.

Northern Mansi Approximate pronunciation using Hungarian spelling Hungarian English
ˈxuːrəm neː ˈwitnəl ˈxuːlpəl xus xuːl ˈpuːɣi. Húrem né vitnel húlpel husz húl púgi Három nő a vízből hálóval húsz halat fog. Three women are catching twenty fish with a net from the water.
ˈxuːrəm-saːt-xus ˈxulax-sam ˈampəm ˈwitn̩ ˈoːli Húrem-szát-husz hulah-szam ampem viten óli Háromszázhúsz hollószemű ebem vízen él. The three hundred and twenty dogs of mine with raven eyes live on water.
luː ˈlaːɕal ˈmini toː ˈseːln̩ Lú lásal mini tó szélen Ló lassan megy a tó szélén. A horse is slowly walking on the shore of the lake.

Notes

  1. 1 2 Mansi at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015)
  2. ↑ Nordhoff, Sebastian; Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2013). "Mansi". Glottolog. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
  3. ↑ Honti 1998, pp. 327–328.
  4. 1 2 Kálmán 1965, pp. 4–5.
  5. 1 2 Honti 1998, p. 335.
  6. ↑ Grenoble, Lenore A (2003). Language Policy in the Soviet Union. Springer. p. 14. ISBN 978-1-4020-1298-3.
  7. ↑ Мансийский (вогульский) язык, р. 200
  8. ↑
    • lat.: With Latin script.

References

External links

Mansi language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator
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