Northern Mansi
Northern Mansi is the sole surviving member of the Mansi languages, spoken in Russia in the Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug and Sverdlovsk Oblast.
Northern Mansi has strong Russian, Komi, Nenets, and Northern Khanty influence, and is the literary Mansi language. There is no accusative case; that is, both the nominative and accusative roles are unmarked on the noun. and have been backed to and.
This article focuses on the Severnaya Sosva dialect of Northern Mansi, considered the literary language.
Dialects
Dialects are named after the rivers their speakers originally lived next to. Mutual intelligibility between dialects can vary.- Sosva/Severnaya Sosva
- Sygva
- Upper Lozva
- '''Ob'''
Differences
Sosva dialect
Which could be considered the literary dialect of Northern Mansi, has several differentiating features:- The infinitive verb ending is, -ӈкве
- It uses сь for the sound in its written form.
Sygva dialect
- If the sound appears before or , it turns into , an example is two being '''тит'''
Upper Lozva dialect
- The infinitive verb ending is, -ӈкв
- It uses щ for the ' sound in its written form.
- The ' sound changes to ', in writing it is also changed from г' to 'й'''
Ob dialects
- The absence of the ' sound, subsidized with a ' sound
Examples
- Sosva: "Ханисьтан хум ханисьтаӈкве ха̄сыс, ханисьтахтын ня̄врам ханисьтахтуӈкве ат таӈхыс." — "A teacher could teach, but a student couldn’t study."
- Upper Lozva: "А̄йирищум иӈ ма̄нь, но̄х-яныймаӈкв ат паты" - "My daughter is still small, she won't grow up."
Phonology
Consonants
The inventory presented here is a maximal collection of segments found across the Mansi varieties. Some remarks:- /ɕ/ is an allophone of /sʲ/.
- 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.
Vowels
| Full | Reduced | |
| Close | 1, , | |
| Mid | 5 | |
| Open |
Remarks:
- ы/'и /i/ has a velar allophone before г' /ɣ/ and after х /x/.
- Long occurs as a rare and archaic phonetic variant of /eː/, cf. э̄ти ~ ӣти
- Long /eː/ and /oː/ can be pronounced as diphthongs and .
- у /u/ is found in unstressed syllables before в /w/, in the infinitive suffix -ункве /uŋkʷe/ and in obscured compound words.
- Reduced /ə/ becomes labialized or before bilabial consonants м /m/ and п /p/.
Alphabet
| А а | А̄ а̄ | Б б | В в | Г г | Д д | Е е | Е̄ е̄ | Ё ё | Ё̄ ё̄ | Ж ж |
| З з | И и | Ӣ ӣ | Й й | К к | Л л | М м | Н н | Ӈ ӈ | О о | О̄ о̄ |
| П п | Р р | С с | Т т | У у | Ӯ ӯ | Ф ф | Х х | Ц ц | Ч ч | Ш ш |
| Щ щ | Ъ ъ | Ы ы | Ы̄ ы̄ | Ь ь | Э э | Э̄ э̄ | Ю ю | Ю̄ ю̄ | Я я | Я̄ я̄ |
Grammar
Northern Mansi is an agglutinating, subject–object–verb language.Article
One way to express a noun's definiteness in a sentence is with articles, and Northern Mansi uses two articles. The Indefinite is derived from the demonstrative pronominal word ань, the definite is derived from the number аква/акв ; ань, акв. They both are used before the defined word. And if their adverbial and numeral meanings are to be expressed; ань always stands before the verb or a word with a similar function and is usually stressed, акв behaves the same and is always stressed.It's worth noting that the Northern Mansi newspaper, Lūimā sēripos, doesn't use the before-mentioned words as articles.
Definiteness can also be expressed by the third person singular possession marker, or in case of direct objects, using transitive conjugation. E.g. а̄мп → а̄мпе ; ха̄п → ха̄п на̄лув-нарыгтас ≠ ха̄п на̄лув-нарыгтастэ.
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 -ум, which means "my".Grammatical cases, declining
There are 5 ways the case suffix can change.Missing cases can be expressed using postpositions, such as халныл, саит, etc.
Possession
Possession is expressed with possessive suffixes, and the suffix change is determined by the last letter of a word.There are 5 ways that the suffixes can change:
Verbs
Northern Mansi conjugation has three persons, three numbers, two tenses, and five moods. Active and passive voices exist.There is no clear distinction between transitive and intransitive verbs.
The verb can conjugate in a Definite and Indefinite way which depends on if the sentence has an object, which the action depicted by the verb refers to directly.
Personal suffixes
Personal suffixes are attached after the verbal marker. The suffixes are the following:| Singular | Dual | Plural | |
| 1st person | -ум | -ме̄н | -в |
| 2nd person | -ын | -ы̄н | -ы̄н |
| 3rd person | -ø | -ø | -ыт |
Tenses
Tenses are formed with suffixes except for the future.Present tense
The tense suffix precedes the personal suffix. The form of the present tense suffix depends on the character of the verbal stem, as well as moods. Tense conjugation is formed with the suffixes -эг, -э̄г, -и, -э, -э̄, -г, or -в. In the following examples, the tense suffix is in bold and the personal ending is in italic.| Singular | Dual | Plural | |
| 1st person | рӯпитэ̄гум | рӯпитыме̄н | рӯпитэ̄в |
| 2nd person | рӯпитэ̄гын | рӯпитэгы̄н | рӯпитэгы̄н |
| 3rd person | рӯпиты | рӯпитэ̄г | рӯпитэ̄гыт |
The present tense suffix -э̄г is used if the following personal marker contains a consonant or a highly reduced vowel; the suffix -эг is used if the following personal marker has a stronger vowel, as it is the case in 2nd person dual and plural. 1st person dual has no tense marker but rather a ы' between the verb stem and personal ending.
Verb stems that end in a vowel, have -г as verbal marker. Verb stems that end with the vowel у have -в' as verbal marker.
3rd person dual has no personal ending. If the verbal stem ends in a vowel, the tense suffix becomes -ыг.
1st person plural personal ending is -в if the verbal stems ends in a consonant; the personal ending becomes -ув if the verbal stem ends in a vowel.
Past tense
The past tense suffix if the verb stem is monosylabalic is -ыс- and if the verb is polysyllabic it is -ас-:| Сяр ма̄ньлат каснэ хум Евгений Глызин о̄лыс. | The youngest participant in the competition was Jevgeni Glizin. |
| Ёська мо̄лхо̄тал урт рӯпитас. | Joseph worked at the mountain yesterday. |
| Singular | Dual | Plural | |
| 1st person | рӯпитасум | рӯпитасаме̄н | рӯпитасув |
| 2nd person | рӯпитасын | рӯпитасы̄н | рӯпитасы̄н |
| 3rd person | рӯпитас | рӯпитасы̄г | рӯпита̄сыт |
3rd person dual in past tense has a -ы̄г personal ending.
The 1st person plural personal suffix turns into -ув.
Future "tense"
To represent the Future, the verb патуӈкве is used as an auxiliary verb conjugated in the Present Indicative:| Тав кӯтювытыл рӯпитаӈкве паты. | He will work with dogs. |
Definiteness
Verbs can conjugate two ways to show agreement with the sentence's object.Indefinite conjugation
In Indefinite verb conjugations, no object is present. Any suffix does not represent it.Definite conjugation
In Definite verb conjugations there are three ways the verb can represent the direct object's number.| Singular Object | Singular | Dual | Plural |
| 1st person | рӯпитылум | рӯпитыламēн | рӯпитылув |
| 2nd person | рӯпитылын | рӯпитылы̄н | рӯпитылы̄н |
| 3rd person | рӯпитытэ | рӯпитытэ̄н | рӯпитыяныл |
The singular object is expressed with the -ыл- suffix which changes depending on the mood and tense.
| Dual Object | Singular | Dual | Plural |
| 1st person | рӯпитыягум | рӯпитыягмēн | рӯпитыягув |
| 2nd person | рӯпитыягын | рӯпитыягы̄н | рӯпитыягы̄н |
| 3rd person | рӯпитыяге | рӯпитыягēн | рӯпитыяга̄ныл |
The dual object is expressed with the -ыяг- suffix which changes depending on the mood and tense.
| Plural Object | Singular | Dual | Plural |
| 1st person | рӯпитыянум | рӯпитыянмēн | рӯпитыянув |
| 2nd person | рӯпитыянын or рӯпитыян | рӯпитыяны̄н or рӯпитыян | рӯпитыяны̄н or рӯпитыян |
| 3rd person | рӯпитыянэ | рӯпитыянанэ̄н or рӯпитыянэ̄н | рӯпитыяна̄ныл or рӯпитыя̄ныл |
The plural object is expressed with the -ыян- suffix which changes depending on the mood and tense.