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Komi (коми кыв,komi kyv,IPA:[komikɨv]ⓘ), also known asZyran,Zyrian orKomi-Zyryan (зыран коми кыв,zyran komi kyv),[5] is the native language of theKomi (Zyrians). It is one of thePermic languages; the other regional varieties areKomi-Permyak,[6] which has official status, andKomi-Yazva.
Komi is spoken in theKomi Republic and other parts ofRussia such asNenetsia andYamalia. There were 285,000 speakers in 1994, which decreased to 160,000 in 2010.
It was formerly written in theOld Permic script created byStephen of Perm for liturgical purposes in the 14th century, though very few texts exist in this script. TheCyrillic script was introduced by Russian missionaries in the 17th century, replacing it. A tradition of secular works of literature in the modern form of the language dates back to the 19th century.
Komi has ten dialects: Syktyvkardin (Sysola), LowerEžva (Vychegda), CentralEžva (Vychegda), UpperEžva (Vychegda), Luz-let, UpperSysola,Pećöra,Iźva,Vym, and Udora dialects. Syktyvkardin is spoken in the region ofSyktyvkar and forms the model for the generic standard dialect of the language. Dialects are divided based primarily on their use of/v/ and/l/:[7]
Older */l/ remains unchanged in Upper Ežva and Pećöra dialects (also in most dialects of Komi-Permyak).
In Central dialects,/*l/ changed to/v/ syllable-finally; for instance, in literary Komi */kɨl/ →/kɨv/ "tongue".
In Northern dialects, changes of/l/ continued with complete vocalization of syllable-final/l/, resulting in long vowels.
The start of the change date to the 17th century. It is not seen in the oldest Komi texts from the 14th century, nor in loanwords from Komi toKhanty, dated to the 16th; though it fully occurred before Russian loanwords that entered the language in the 18th century as/l/ remains unchanged in these.
Some dialects are further distinguished based on the palatalized alveolars/dʲtʲ/, which haveunpacked in syllable-final position as clusters/jdjt/.[7]
There are no diphthongs, although vowel sequences can occur at morpheme boundaries.
The phoneme/ɨ/ is phonetically[ɯ̈], and/a/ is phonetically[ä]. There is noticeable positional allophony, depending on the surrounding consonants, however no allophone overlaps with another vowel phoneme.[8]
A sample of the Komi language words. Upper "Улица Коммунистическая" is in Russian, lower "Коммунистическӧй улича" is in Komi. Both mean "Communist street". This picture was taken inSyktyvkar, the capital ofKomi Republic
TheOld Permic script is the first writing system for Komi. It was invented in the 14th century by the missionaryStephen of Perm. The alphabet resembled medievalGreek andCyrillic. The script was also known as Anbur (Komi:𐍐𐍝𐍑𐍣𐍠, Анбур), named for the first 2 letters of the script, "an" & "bur" (𐍐 & 𐍑, respectively). It is no longer in use today, though it has receivedUnicode Support as "Old Permic" in recent times.[9] The script saw use in Komi-inhabited areas, primarily thePrincipality of Great Perm and parts ofBjarmaland.
In the 16th century, this alphabet was replaced by theRussian alphabet with certain modifications for affricates. In the 1920s, the language was written in theMolodtsov alphabet, which also derived from Cyrillic. In the 1930s, during theLatinisation in the Soviet Union, Komi was briefly written with a version of theLatin script. Since the 1940s it uses the Russian-based Cyrillic alphabet with the additional lettersІ, і andӦ, ӧ.
Komi has 17 cases, with a rich inventory of locative cases. Like other Uralic languages, Komi has no gender. Verbs agree with subjects in person and number (sg/pl). Negation is expressed with an auxiliary verb, which is inflected for person, number and tense.
Komi is an agglutinative language and adheres to asubject–object–verb order.[11] Most modern texts, however, possess asubject-verb-object word order, due to heavy Russian language influence and the resultingcalques.
The following sample text displays theAnbur, Cyrillic (modern) and Latin lyrical text from the Komi-Zyryanfolk song "Катшасинъяс" (Kačaśinjas, meaningDaisies).
The first verse of the song and the refrain, as written in the Anbur Script:
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