One of the most remarkable & least known scripts of medieval eastern Europe: OLD PERMIC
Old Permic script (Важ Перым гижӧм), sometimes also called ANBUR, was used to write medieval Komi, a Uralic language spoken by the Komi peoples in the northeastern European part of Russia. 1/6
Old Permic script (Важ Перым гижӧм), sometimes also called ANBUR, was used to write medieval Komi, a Uralic language spoken by the Komi peoples in the northeastern European part of Russia. 1/6
Old Permic was developed by the Russian missionary, St Stephen of Perm (Степан Храп, св. Стефан Пермский) in 1372. The name Anbur is derived from the names of the first 2 characters: An and Bur. The script is derived from Cyrillic, Greek, and runic-style Komi "Tamga" glyphs. 2/6
The script was in use until the 17th century, when it was superseded by Cyrillic script.
April 26, which is the feast day of Stephen of Perm, is celebrated as Old Permic Alphabet Day and there is a monument to the Old Permic script in Syktyvkar, capital of the Komi Republic. 3/6
April 26, which is the feast day of Stephen of Perm, is celebrated as Old Permic Alphabet Day and there is a monument to the Old Permic script in Syktyvkar, capital of the Komi Republic. 3/6
Old Permic inscriptions are among the oldest relics of any Uralic language.
Only one of them has earlier documents: Hungarian, which was written using the Old Hungarian script before 1000 AD.
Finnish as a written language is recorded only after the Reformation in 1543. 4/6
Only one of them has earlier documents: Hungarian, which was written using the Old Hungarian script before 1000 AD.
Finnish as a written language is recorded only after the Reformation in 1543. 4/6
The first grammar of the Komi language (in Cyrillic, not Old Permic script), was Matthias Castrén’s Elementa grammatices Syrjaenae, published in Helsinki in 1844. Castrén (1813–1852) was a Finnish ethnologist & philologist and a pioneer in the study of the Uralic languages. 5/6
The most important account of Old Permic is V. I. Litkin’s "Old Permic Language. Reading Texts, Grammar, Dictionary" [Древнепермский Язык. Чтение текстов, грамматика, словарь], published by the USSR Academy of Sciences in Moscow in 1952, printed in an edition of 1700 copies. 6/6
Komi is not an endangered language today. It is used by around 220000 native speakers, mainly living in the Komi Republic, a federal subject of Russia.
There are two principle variants, Komi-Zyrian, the most widely spoken dialect, shown in this primer...
There are two principle variants, Komi-Zyrian, the most widely spoken dialect, shown in this primer...
...and Komi-Permyak, also called Permyak, spoken in Komi-Permyak Okrug (where it has literary status), and shown in the primer here. A third variety, Komi-Yodzyak is spoken by a small, isolated group of Komi to the north-west of Perm Krai and south of the Komi Republic.
The Komi Republic has one of the most striking coat of arms of any Russian federal state. Reflecting the mythic beliefs of the Komi peoples, it features a bird of prey with the face below of the goddess Zarni An, and six unhorned elk heads representing power, generosity & beauty.
The other still extant Permic language is Udmurt, shown in the Soviet-era primer below. It's spoken by about 340 000 people in the republic of Udmurtia, and is written using the Cyrillic alphabet with the addition of 5 characters not used in Russian: Ӝ/ӝ, Ӟ/ӟ, Ӥ/ӥ, Ӧ/ӧ, and Ӵ/ӵ.
If you're planning on learning Udmurt, the good news is there is no gender distinction made in Udmurt nouns.....the bad news is that there are 15 cases for these nouns, including no less than seven locative cases. 1/2
Udmurt nouns are inflected - ie have different endings - for the inessive, illative, elative, egressive, terminative, prolative and allative locative cases. I am sure the professional linguists here will know better, but off-hand I can't think of another language with more. 2/2
