Veps language
Encyclopedia
The Veps language spoken by the Vepsians (also known as Veps), belongs to the Finnic
group of the Uralic languages
. Closely related to Finnish and Karelian, Veps is also written using Latin script.
According to Soviet
statistics, 12 500 people were self-designated ethnic Veps at the end of 1989.
According to the location of the people, the language is divided into three main dialect
s: Northern Veps (at Lake Onega
to the south of Petrozavodsk
, to the north of the river Svir
, including the former Veps National Volost
), Central Veps (in the Saint Petersburg
region and Vologda Oblast
), and Southern Veps (in the Saint Petersburg
region). The Northern dialect seems the most distinct of the three; however, it is still possible for speakers of one dialect group to understand those of another. Speakers of the Northern dialect call themselves “Ludi” (lüdikad), or lüdilaižed.
, five are derived from basic Latin letters by the addition of diacritical marks, and the final character is the apostrophe, which signifies palatalization
of the preceding sound.
:
.
Finnic languages
The term Finnic languages often means the Baltic-Finnic languages, an undisputed branch of the Uralic languages. However, it is also commonly used to mean the Finno-Permic languages, a hypothetical intermediate branch that includes Baltic Finnic, or the more disputed Finno-Volgaic languages....
group of the Uralic languages
Uralic languages
The Uralic languages constitute a language family of some three dozen languages spoken by approximately 25 million people. The healthiest Uralic languages in terms of the number of native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Mari and Udmurt...
. Closely related to Finnish and Karelian, Veps is also written using Latin script.
According to Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
statistics, 12 500 people were self-designated ethnic Veps at the end of 1989.
According to the location of the people, the language is divided into three main dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s: Northern Veps (at Lake Onega
Lake Onega
Lake Onega is a lake in the north-west European part of Russia, located on the territory of Republic of Karelia, Leningrad Oblast and Vologda Oblast. It belongs to the basin of Baltic Sea, Atlantic Ocean, and is the second largest lake in Europe after Lake Ladoga...
to the south of Petrozavodsk
Petrozavodsk
Petrozavodsk is the capital city of the Republic of Karelia, Russia. It stretches along the western shore of the Lake Onega for some . The city is served by Petrozavodsk Airport. Municipally, it is incorporated as Petrozavodsky Urban Okrug . Population:...
, to the north of the river Svir
Svir River
Svir is a river in the north-east of Leningrad Oblast, Russia. It flows from Lake Onega west to Lake Ladoga, thus connecting the two largest lakes of Europe. It is the largest river flowing into Lake Ladoga....
, including the former Veps National Volost
Veps National Volost
Veps National Volost was a municipal autonomy of North Vepses in Prionezhsky District of the Republic of Karelia, Russia. The autonomy was established on January 20, 1994, and it was discontinued in 2004. Its territorial centre was the village of Shyoltozero. Volost's population was 3,166 in...
), Central Veps (in the Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
region and Vologda Oblast
Vologda Oblast
Vologda Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . Its administrative center is Vologda. The largest city is Cherepovets.Vologda Oblast is rich in historic monuments, such as the magnificent Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery, Ferapontov Convent , medieval towns of Velikiy Ustyug and Belozersk, baroque...
), and Southern Veps (in the Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
region). The Northern dialect seems the most distinct of the three; however, it is still possible for speakers of one dialect group to understand those of another. Speakers of the Northern dialect call themselves “Ludi” (lüdikad), or lüdilaižed.
Nouns
| Case | Singular | Plural |
| Nominative | nado (sister-in-law) | nadod |
| Genitive | nadon | nadoid'en or nadoiden |
| Accusative | nadon, nado (in some cases) | nadod |
| Partitive Partitive In linguistics, the partitive is a word, phrase, or case that divides something into parts. For example, in the English sentence I'll have some coffee, some is a partitive determiner because it makes the noun phrase some coffee refer to a subset of all coffee... |
nadod | nadoid |
| Translative | nadoks | nadoikš |
| Abessive | nadota | nadoita |
| Comitative | nadonke | nadoidenke |
| Inessive | nados | nadoiš |
| Elative Elative Elative has two slightly differing meanings in the grammar of two language groups:*Elative case, a grammatical case in, e.g., the Finno-Ugric languages*Elative , a category of comparison similar to the superlative in, e.g., the Semitic languages... |
nadospäi | nadoišpäi |
| Illative | nadoho | nadoihe |
| Adessive | nadol | nadoil |
| Ablative | nadolpäi | nadoilpäi |
| Allative | nadole | nadoile |
| Essive-Instructive | nadon | nadoin |
| Prolative | nadodme | nadoidme |
| Approximative I | nadonno | nadoidenno |
| Approximative II | nadonnoks | nadoidennoks |
| Egressive Egressive In human speech, egressive sounds are sounds by which the air stream is created by pushing air out through the mouth or nose. The three types of egressive sounds are pulmonic egressive , glottalic egressive , and lingual egressive... |
nadonnopäi | nadoidennopäi |
| Terminative I | mechasai 'till the forest' | mecoihesai 'till the forests' |
| Terminative II | nadolesai | nadoilesai |
| Terminative III | noressai 'from young days' | |
| Aditive I | mechapäi 'in the direction of the forest' | mecoihepäi 'in the direction of the forests' |
| Aditive II | nadolepäi | nadoilepäi |
Personal pronouns
The personal pronouns are of Finno-Ugric origin:| Veps | English |
| minä | I |
| sinä | you |
| hän | he/she/it |
| mö | we |
| tö | you (plural) |
| hö | they |
Numbers
| Number | Veps |
| 1 | üks' |
| 2 | kaks' |
| 3 | koume |
| 4 | nell' |
| 5 | viž |
| 6 | kuz' |
| 7 | seičeme |
| 8 | kahesa |
| 9 | ühesa |
| 10 | kümne |
| 11 | üks'toštkümne |
| 12 | kaks'toštkümne |
| 20 | kaks'kümne |
| 34 | koumekümne nell' |
| 100 | sada |
| 1000 | tuha |
Writing system
The modern Vepsian alphabet is a Latin-based alphabet. It consists of a total of twenty-nine characters: twenty-three are from the basic modern Latin alphabetBasic modern Latin alphabet
The International Organization for Standardization basic Latin alphabet consists of the following 26 letters:By the 1960s it became apparent to the computer and telecommunications industries in the First World that a non-proprietary method of encoding characters was needed...
, five are derived from basic Latin letters by the addition of diacritical marks, and the final character is the apostrophe, which signifies palatalization
Palatalization
In linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate....
of the preceding sound.
| Majuscule Forms (also called uppercase or capital letters) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| A A A is the first letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet. It is similar to the Ancient Greek letter Alpha, from which it derives.- Origins :... |
B B B is the second letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet. It is used to represent a variety of bilabial sounds , most commonly a voiced bilabial plosive.-History:... |
C C Ĉ or ĉ is a consonant in Esperanto orthography, representing the sound .Esperanto orthography uses a diacritic for all four of its postalveolar consonants, as do the Latin-based Slavic alphabets... |
Č C Ĉ or ĉ is a consonant in Esperanto orthography, representing the sound .Esperanto orthography uses a diacritic for all four of its postalveolar consonants, as do the Latin-based Slavic alphabets... |
D D D is the fourth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.- History :The Semitic letter Dâlet may have developed from the logogram for a fish or a door. There are various Egyptian hieroglyphs that might have inspired this. In Semitic, Ancient Greek, and Latin, the letter represented ; in the... |
E E E is the fifth letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet. It is the most commonly used letter in the Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Latin, Norwegian, Spanish, and Swedish languages.-History:... |
F F F is the sixth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The origin of ⟨f⟩ is the Semitic letter vâv that represented a sound like or . Graphically, it originally probably depicted either a hook or a club... |
G G G is the seventh letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The letter 'G' was introduced in the Old Latin period as a variant of ⟨c⟩ to distinguish voiced, from voiceless, . The recorded originator of ⟨g⟩ is freedman Spurius Carvilius Ruga, the first Roman to open a fee-paying school,... |
H H H .) is the eighth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The Semitic letter ⟨ח⟩ most likely represented the voiceless pharyngeal fricative . The form of the letter probably stood for a fence or posts.... |
I I I is the ninth letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:In Semitic, the letter may have originated in a hieroglyph for an arm that represented a voiced pharyngeal fricative in Egyptian, but was reassigned to by Semites, because their word for "arm" began with that sound... |
J J Ĵ or ĵ is a letter in Esperanto orthography representing the sound .While Esperanto orthography uses a diacritic for its four postalveolar consonants, as do the Latin-based Slavic alphabets, the base letters are Romano-Germanic... |
K K K is the eleventh letter of the English and basic modern Latin alphabet.-History and usage:In English, the letter K usually represents the voiceless velar plosive; this sound is also transcribed by in the International Phonetic Alphabet and X-SAMPA.... |
L L Ł or ł, described in English as L with stroke, is a letter of the Polish, Kashubian, Sorbian, Łacinka , Łatynka , Wilamowicean, Navajo, Dene Suline, Inupiaq, Zuni, Hupa, and Dogrib alphabets, several proposed alphabets for the Venetian language, and the ISO 11940 romanization of the Thai alphabet... |
M M M is the thirteenth letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The letter M is derived from the Phoenician Mem, via the Greek Mu . Semitic Mem probably originally pictured water... |
N N N is the fourteenth letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.- History of the forms :One of the most common hieroglyphs, snake, was used in Egyptian writing to stand for a sound like English ⟨J⟩, because the Egyptian word for "snake" was djet... |
O O O is the fifteenth letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet.The letter was derived from the Semitic `Ayin , which represented a consonant, probably , the sound represented by the Arabic letter ع called `Ayn. This Semitic letter in its original form seems to have been inspired by a... |
P P P is the sixteenth letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.-Usage:In English and most other European languages, P is a voiceless bilabial plosive. Both initial and final Ps can be combined with many other discrete consonants in English words... |
R R R is the eighteenth letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The original Semitic letter may have been inspired by an Egyptian hieroglyph for tp, "head". It was used for by Semites because in their language, the word for "head" was rêš . It developed into Greek Ρ and Latin R... |
S S S is the nineteenth letter in the ISO basic Latin alphabet.-History: Semitic Šîn represented a voiceless postalveolar fricative . Greek did not have this sound, so the Greek sigma came to represent... |
Š Š The grapheme Š, š is used in various contexts, usually denoting the voiceless postalveolar fricative. In the International Phonetic Alphabet this sound is denoted with , but the lowercase š is used in the Americanist phonetic notation, as well as in the Uralic Phonetic Alphabet.For use in computer... |
Z Z Z is the twenty-sixth and final letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.-Name and pronunciation:In most dialects of English, the letter's name is zed , reflecting its derivation from the Greek zeta but in American English, its name is zee , deriving from a late 17th century English dialectal... |
Ž Ž The grapheme Ž is formed from Latin Z with the addition of caron . It is used in various contexts, usually denoting the voiced postalveolar fricative, a sound similar to English g in mirage, or Portuguese and French j... |
T T T is the 20th letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet. It is the most commonly used consonant and the second most common letter in the English language.- History :Taw was the last letter of the Western Semitic and Hebrew alphabets... |
U U U is the twenty-first letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-History:The letter U ultimately comes from the Semitic letter Waw by way of the letter Y. See the letter Y for details.... |
V V V is the twenty-second letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet.-Letter:The letter V comes from the Semitic letter Waw, as do the modern letters F, U, W, and Y. See F for details.... |
Ü Ü Ü, or ü, is a character which can be either a letter from several extended Latin alphabets, or the letter U with an umlaut or a diaeresis... |
Ä Ä "Ä" and "ä" are both characters that represent either a letter from several extended Latin alphabets, or the letter A with an umlaut mark or diaeresis.- Independent letter :... |
Ö Ö "Ö", or "ö", is a character used in several extended Latin alphabets, or the letter O with umlaut to denote the front vowels or . In languages without umlaut, the character is also used as a "O with diaeresis" to denote a syllable break, wherein its pronunciation remains an unmodified .- O-Umlaut... |
' Apostrophe The apostrophe is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritic mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet or certain other alphabets... |
| Minuscule Forms (also called lowercase or small letters) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| a | b | c | č | d | e | f | g | h | i | j | k | l | m | n | o | p | r | s | š | z | ž | t | u | v | ü | ä | ö | ' |
Language example
Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human RightsUniversal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly . The Declaration arose directly from the experience of the Second World War and represents the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled...
:
.