Komi-Permyak Language - Dialects

Dialects

All the Komi-Permyak dialects are easily intelligible with one another and to some extent with the Komi-Zyrian dialects.

The Komi-Permyak dialects are geographically divided into 4 main groups :

• Central (dialects: Kudymkar, Uliś Ińva, Ńerdva, Öń)
• North (dialects: Köć, Kös, Lup)
• East (Yaźva dialect)
• West (Źuźdin dialect)

Earlier there was a southern group too, in the Obva river basin, but now it is fast entirely extinct. Its only remain, the Nerdva dialect, is regarded usually together with the central group, which in so way became "southern".

The central (new southern) and northern groups of Komi-Permyak are spoken in Komi Okrug of Perm Krai, where the language was standardized in 1920s. The modern standard is based on Kudymkar dialect of the central group, but many elements of northern dialects were included too, so that the "literary language" has significant differences in its morphological system from the "main" dialect.

The central dialects, spoken in Ińva river basin, differ considerably from all the other Komi-Permyak dialects due to the general shift of etymological /l/ to /v/, /w/ and finally to the lack of the consonant, that has provoked the huge changes in morphology.

The differences between the Kudymkar and Uliś Ińva dialects are mainly in accentuation: the Uliś Ińva has a phonological stress (the Öń too), whereas the Kudymkar dialect (like as Ńerdva) has a morphological one. The Ńerdva dialect retains the etymological /l/. The same can be said about the Öń dialect (recently extinct), that had connections with the eastern Permian.

The northern group of the Permian dialects (upon Kösva, Kama and Lup rivers) was under a strong Zyrian influence on all the levels. The Köć and Kös dialects are closely related with some Syktyv dialects of Zyrian, whereas the Lup dialect for a long time was in tenuous connections with the Upper Ezhva dialect.

The Komi-Permyak standard language refers only to the central and northern groups of the Komi-Permyak dialects. They can be called as proper Permian dialects. The other two groups are marginal.

An only relic of the eastern Permian is the Yaźva dialect, ca. 200 speakers of the ca. 900 ethnical Komis in Krasnovishersky District of Perm Krai. In early 2000s (decade) it was standardized by authority of the krai. The dialect has archaic system of vowels (including /ö/, /ü/ and /ʌ/), while its accentuation is similar to Uliś Ińva's and its lexical system likes the Northern Permian one.

The Western Permian group is presented by another marginal dialect, Źuźdin (ca. 1000 person living in Kirov Oblast near the border of Komi Okrug).