Permic languages

Permic
Geographic distribution	Ural Mountains in the Russian federation
Linguistic classification	Uralic Finno-Ugric Finno-Permic Permic
Subdivisions	Komi Permyak Udmurt
Language codes
ISO 639-2 / 5	fiu

Permic languages are a subgroup of the Finno-Ugric language family. They are spoken in the Ural Mountains of Russia.

• Komi (Komi-Zyrian, Zyrian)
• Komi-Permyak
• Udmurt (Votyak)

Phonology

The Proto-Permic consonant inventory is reconstructed as:

		Labial	Alveolar		Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar
			Plain	Pal.
Plosives and affricates	Voiceless	p	t	tʲ	t͡ʃ	t͡ɕ	k
	Voiced	b	d	dʲ	d͡ʒ	d͡ʑ	ɡ
Fricatives	Voiceless		s	sʲ	ʃ
	Voiced	v	z	zʲ	ʒ
Nasals		m	n	nʲ			ŋ
Approximants		w	l	lʲ		j
Trill			r

This inventory is retained nearly unchanged in the modern-day Permic languages. Komi has undergone a change *l → /v/, /enwiki/w/ in many dialects, while Udmurt has changed word-initially *r → /d͡ʒ/. *ŋ is retained only in some Udmurt dialects; elsewhere it has become /m/ next to back vowels, /nʲ/ near front vowels.

In later Russian loanwords, the consonants /f x t͡s/ can occur.

Literary Komi and literary Udmurt both possess a seven-vowel system /i ɨ u e ə o a/. These are however not related straightforwardly, and numerous additional vowels are required for Proto-Permic, perhaps as many as 15 altogether. The reconstruction of Proto-Permic vocalism and its development from Proto-Uralic has always been a puzzling topic, for which there are several models. There is general agreement on the existence of two series of close vowels, one of which results in modern /i ɨ u/ in literary Udmurt and literary Komi-Zyrian, the other in correspondences of Udmurt /e ɨ u/ to Komi /e ə o/ (but long /iː ʉː uː/ in the Komi-Yodzyak language). Proposed distinguishing factors for these include length (*u, *uː), tenseness (*ʊ, *u) and height (*u, *o).

Bibliography

Bartens, Raija (2000). Permiläisten kielten rakenne ja kehitys (in Finnish). Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura. ISBN 952-5150-55-0.