Tavda Mansi Language
the analysed corpora of an extinct dialect of Mansi language
Mansi people
Finno-Ugric ancestry
The Mansi people are descended from the Ugric people (in the family of Finno-Ugric languages, as Hungarians and Khanty folks), who populated the western area of the Ural. Mostly the northwestern surrounding country of Perm was the urheimat until the Ugric branches split up and moved farther in various directions. Around 500 AD the Mansi and Khanty groups settled down in Western Siberia, reaching from the Khazakh steppe up to the Arctic Ocean. Due to the areal dispersity the people got into connection less and less, but the style of living determined the slow motion and mixing with the Siberian indigenous people. First a mongoloid group of native people got assimilated, then many other followed them.
Tavda Mansi people
The separation of the Southern branch could happen in the early stage of formation of Mansi subgroups. The southern dialectpreserved a lot of archaic elements what lets us presume the early split, and explains and legitimates the important post of the dialect.
As the ancestors of Southern Mansi people started to wander even more to the south. In the 16th century they arrived into the busy steppe area onto the shore of the Tavda River, where Turkic people, like Siberian Tatars settled. They surrounded them and started to live in symbiosis, that meant mostly a big influence of Tatar culture and language on the Southern Mansi people and on their tongue.
Extinction
In the 17th century the Russian conquered the Siberian Mansi territories. A telling affect betided the Mansi culture in life and on the level of the language usage too. Due to the southern location of their land they started to cultivate the productive soil. The biggest income was from the land and from the trade with Tatar and Russian people. The strong interaction with the overwhelming Russians caused a cultural identity change and the language started to incept their language leading to multilingualism and mixing. During the first decades of the 20th century the Tavda Mansi people disappeared, and their unique language became extinct.
Southern Mansi language
The Mansi language is a group of several dialects or more likely separate languages that constitute a dialect continuum in every divison of the Mansi dialects and territories. The Tavda Mansi language was spoken in the valleys of the Tavda River and its side branches. Concerning its location and dialectal position, it lay at the southernmost top of a dialectal triangle close to the Western and Eastern Mansi languages and the farthest from the Northern Mansi dialect, what was the only survivor of the 20th century, but nowadays seriously endangered with less than 1000 native speakers. The Tatar and Russian made a huge impact on the Southern Mansi language, even though many ancient elements and features got preserved in it, albeit they vanished from other dialects. A demonstration of the mutual incomprehensibility between the farthes dialects:
Sources:
Bakró-Nagy Marianne (2012): 19th century fieldwork methodology in Southern Mansi and the reliability of data
Honti László (1975): System der paradigmatischen Suffixmorphemen des wogulischen Dialektes an der Tawda. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest.
Kannisto, Artturi – Liimola, Matti (1951, 1955, 1956, 1958, 1959, 1963): Wogulische Volksdichtung I-VI. Band. Suomalais-Ugrilaisen Seuran Toimituksia; Mémoires de la Société Finno-ougrienne, Helsinki.
Klima László (2012): Szemelvények a finnugor történelem korai forrásaiból. Budapest
Munkácsi Bernát (1894): A vogul nyelvjárások szóragozásukban ismertetve. Budapest.
Munkácsi Bernát – Kálmán Béla (1892–1921, 1952, 1963): Vogul népköltési gyűjtemény I-IV, II/1, II/2, III/1, III/2, IV/1, IV/2. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest.
Rombandeeva, E. I. (1976): Мансийский язык. (Mansijskij jazyk) In: Основы финно-угорского языкознания. Марийский, пермский и угорские языки. - Москва, Наука. 229-239
Sipőcz Katalin – Dolovai Dorottya (1998, 2001): A manysik (vogulok). In: Csepregi Márta szerk.: Finnugor kalauz. Panoráma, Budapest. 48–59.
The Red Book of the Peoples of the Russian Empire (online): The Mansis
Southern Tavda Mansi original text
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šåk mātíŋiś sōs ińíkin, såprú sōsú, pīś ålə́m kǻlək kunä́k åləst, möŋ tok ǟ ålǻntəu. mö́ŋək mä́ńči ńilmú jorkúlåləu: šǟt åt-lo̰ amaĺt́åktǻləp ätä́mət ǟ so̰wə.
(Filimon Haritonič Matukov (1889) - VNGy 4. 408. p.)
Northern Mansi translation
ań sōχ mōtaľə jēmtəs, ruśiγ jēmtsuw, χumľe mōləχ ōləm māχum ōlsət, toχ mān at ōluw. mānki māńśi lātəŋuw joruwluw: sāt atpan lāwəltəne χum ōluŋkwe at pati.
(translated by Norbert Szilágyi)
English translation
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“Everything develops differently now: we were becoming Russians.
As the old people lived, we are not that way anymore.
We forget the Mansi language of our own:
there is no 150 people out there who could speak it.”
(translated by Marianne Bakró-Nagy)