{"id":91,"date":"2018-04-19T09:21:34","date_gmt":"2018-04-19T06:21:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/idel-ural.org\/?p=91"},"modified":"2019-07-27T16:48:33","modified_gmt":"2019-07-27T13:48:33","slug":"the-udmurt-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/idel-ural.org\/en\/archives\/the-udmurt-language\/","title":{"rendered":"The Udmurt Language"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Udmurt language belongs to the group of the Finno-Ugric\nlanguages. Although the Udmurts have been living in close interrelationship\nwith Turkishlanguage (Tartar, Baskir, Chuvash) and Slavonic-language (Russian)\nspeaking people for centuries, they preserved their linguistic (and cultural)\nindependence until recent times. However, due to the social and political\nchanges in the last century practically the entire Udmurt-language speaking\ncommunity has become (at least) bilingual (trilingual with Tartar in the\nSouthern areas). In the generation of the present grandparents there still can\nbe found, albeit very rarely, monolingual (Udmurt) speaking people.\nConsequently, present-day speakers are indigenous, bi- or trilingual people\nliving in minority position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
On the basis of empirical observations it seems that in the\nsecond part of the last century the nature of primary linguistic socialisation:\nthe acquisition of both the Russian and Udmurt languages happens in early\nchildhood, often simultaneously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The formation of the Udmurt literary language, the setting\nof linguistic norms started in the 18th century. The standard usage of the\nlanguage, however, is still not regulated in detail, since in consequence of\nthe established social-political circumstances the Udmurt language is not used\nat all or used only in a limited way on several domains of language usage in\nspite of the language revival endeavours which took off in the last decade.\nAmong others the education in the mother-tongue is also insufficient. Therefore\npresent-day speakers use their mother-tongue either only at the level of\ndialect or at the level of both dialect and standard language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The knowledge of Russian and Udmurt languages shows\nrecognisable differences among the generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
People over 60 considered their knowledge of Udmurt very\ngood but of Russian not that satisfactory. Only a couple of them declared a\nmastery of the Russian spoken language. The middle-aged speak nearly as good\nRussian as Udmurt, and they read and write better in Russian. The youngest\ngeneration<\/p>\n\n\n\n
understand, speak, write and read significantly better in\nRussian than in Udmurt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The speakers generally find the difference between the\ndialect spoken by them and the standard language significant. The oldest\ngeneration know the Udmurt standard language only very little, they can speak\nonly the dialect. The differences between the dialect and the standard language\nlistening comprehension and speaking fluency decrease among the younger\ngeneration but still prevail, so the knowledge of Udmurt in dialect is at a\nhigher level for all the generations than the knowledge of the literary Udmurt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The two main places of language acquisition for all speakers are their home and school, but there are recognisable divergences of language acquisition among the generations. At home the elderly speakers learnt only Udmurt, and so got to know Russian at school or later in their adult lives. Presently the simultaneous or successive (i.e. in succession) but always childhood language acquisition is typical of the method of language acquisition. The present-day youth and young middle-aged have been or are taught Russian as well or only Russian already by their parents in order to avoid being at a disadvantage at school. Language competence differs according to age: as in general the elderly are dominantly Udmurt speakers; the younger generations are balanced bilingual or dominantly Russian bilingual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The type of language acquisition is dependent upon the\nstatus of the languages involved: Udmurt has a lower acceptance in the society,\nfamiliarity with it does not help individual mobility, it does not offer useful\nknowledge in the areas of economy and trade. The speakers do not believe that\ntheir skills increase with the knowledge of more than one language or with\nstudying in their mother-tongue. All of these logically create a favourable\nsituation for subtractive bilingualism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The role of the school in the Udmurt language acquisition is\nsignificant for each generation, it comes directly after the home: as the\nschool is the place of learning literary Udmurt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A great part of the present-day youth cannot hand the Udmurt\nlanguage down to their children because of their own insufficient language\ncompetences. Therefore in the future the teaching of Udmurt and the education\nin the Udmurt language should be a much greater role given. Moreover,\ngrandparents still speaking a very fluent Udmurt could take on a significant\npart in language acquisition. However, under present-day circumstances both\npossibilities are mere illusions which cannot be realised without effective\nexternal support, institutional help and a definite raise in the prestige of\nthe language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the basis of the differences in number between the\nspeakers of the two contact languages and because of other circumstances that\nare not linguistic it cannot be expected that the use of the minority language\ndominates outside family circles. However, by now Russian also became a family\nlanguage beside (or instead of) Udmurt with the generation of the middle-aged\nand the urban population of the Udmurts playing a key role in it. On the whole,\nit is still the use of Udmurt that dominates in the family, but on the scenes\nof community life it is pushed into the background in the cases of all the\ngenerations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The place of residence and the demographic situation clearly\ndetermine whether a speaker has any chance to practice his mother-tongue.\nAccordingly, Udmurt is used generally in the largest proportion among the\nrespondents of the Southern and Central regions, and in the smallest proportion\namong the urban Udmurts. The use of Russian is the most typical of respondents\nin Izsevszk and speakers in the Northern region, but it is not exclusive as\napproximately 50% of them use both languages alike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is, however, difficult to make generalisations about\ncertain locations, as each of them can be considered unique. Sometimes the\nspeakers of the Southern region, other times the speakers of the Northern\nregion have more opportunities to speak Udmurt, as the choice of language in\nthe different locations of language usage is unique in every area of residence,\nin every village.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Having higher education qualification is not favourable to\nthe Udmurt language usage: only people with primary qualification use Udmurt\nalone or mainly in the communication with different discussion partners and in\nthe various locations. Accordingly, the written usage of the language, which is\nfrequent among the younger and more educated respondents, is characterised by\nthe dominance of the Russian language.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the whole, it can be stated that nearly half of the\nrespondents use both Russian and Udmurt alike. The exclusive or predominant use\nof the Udmurt language is mostly typical of the language usage of the elderly.\nBy comparison, the usage of the Udmurt language among the middle-aged and the\nyouth shows a sharp decline. The exclusively Udmurt communication among the\nmiddle-aged has reached a minimum level. The proportion of people using both\nlanguages is slightly higher in the group of the middle-aged than among the\nelderly, but around the same – almost half of the groups – as in the age group\nof the under 30.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The use of the Russian language shows different proportions\nin the age groups: parallel to the decrease of age the use of Russian increases\nfollowing the decline in the use of the Udmurt language. So Udmurt is not\nsucceeded by the usage of both languages but the predominant or exclusive use\nof Russian. In the age group of the under 30 there are people who speak only\nRussian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Accordingly, the easier language is Udmurt for the older\ngenerations and Russian for the younger ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From the viewpoint of the future survival of the language\nthat would be promising if the number of people using both languages did not\nfall, if the bilingualism of this considerable size group showed a relative\nstability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the data indicates that the decrease of age is\nfollowed by a decline in the proportion of people speaking both languages and\nby an increase in the proportion of those who use exclusively or predominantly\nRussian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The proportion of those who speak only the standard form of\nUdmurt is insignificant, the overwhelming majority speak only in dialect or in\ndialect as well. However, the age differences are characteristic: the use of\ndialect is less and less present among the younger speakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The recipients favour Udmurt when discussing family matters,\npersonal feelings and life, while they consider it proper to use Russian when\nspeaking about social issues. It deserves, however, attention that among the\nyouth the proportion of those who prefer speaking in Udmurt has already halved.\nThey are the ones who do not experience language change, probably in connection\nwith their less frequent language use. In their opinion there is no subject\nthat can be discussed better in Udmurt. The young people are also those – in\naddition to the speakers in the Southern region – who see the future of the\nUdmurt language in the most pessimistic way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The education of Udmurt is considered important\nindependently from the age of the respondents, around fifty percentage of them\nshare the opinion that everybody should learn Udmurt in the Udmurt Republic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The spoken language characterised by frequent changes of\ncode due to the everyday use of both languages is looked on as inappropriate.\nIt is possible, that this attitude also contributes to the fact that on certain\ndomains of language usage Udmurt is forced into the background.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is not typical any more that somebody is rebuked for\nspeaking Udmurt in a public area. One possible explanation is a positive change\nin the social public thinking, the other is the less frequent use of the Udmurt\nlanguage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the basis of the above characterised language usage and\nrelation with the language I compiled a general index of language usage, which\nillustrates the summary of the individual examined groups’ language usage. The\nindex was defined on the basis of the weighted evaluation of selected issues\nconcerning language usage and relation with a language. The following graph\nillustrates this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Concerning the speakers’ choice of grammatical variables the following can be stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The judgement on certain dialectal phenomena is influenced\nby the dialectal background, but not to a decisive degree. In the judgments on\nseveral grammatical variables with dialectal background there are no\nirreconcilable differences among those respondents who live in various\ndialectal areas. The use of the dialectal variants shows a decreasing tendency\nmainly among the young.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The opinion about those linguistic phenomena that can be explained by the Russian contact effect – morphological, syntactic and lexicological variables – is not uniform. The speakers generally consider the characteristically Russian structures also good, the young to a larger extent than the elderly people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Between an Udmurt word of the language revival and its\nequivalent Russian loan word the speakers tend to choose the common Russian\nloan word, while they usually regard the Udmurt word also appropriate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the case of certain variants of some variables- loan verbs, morphological variables with dialectal background – the spontaneous linguistic form strongly deviates from the literary norm taught at school and used in the media. It might not be too bold to assume that the use of the Udmurt language in as many domains of language usage and with as many discussion partners as possible could be helped, if the use of non-standard linguistic variables – either with dialectal background or Russian borrowings – were not connected with institutionally negative value judgement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a final conclusion it can be stated that since the rival\nof the Udmurt language in respect of usage is the Russian language that has\nhigh reputation and long literary history and consequently a set standard, only\nan Udmurt language used in a wide circle of functions and with a set standard\ncan be a match for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The acquisition and use of this language, however, cannot be\nimagined without its widespread usage at schools. It is extremely important\nthat the speakers do not change to monolingual Russian communication, but use\nand be able to use both languages in as many domains as possible. Accordingly,\npaying attention to the language usage of those speakers who use both languages\nis worth and necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Zsuzsanna Salánki, Eötvös Loránd University Faculty of Arts. Budapest, 2007.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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