LWM 158: Vogul (Mansi)

Vogul (Mansi)

Timothy Riese
University of Vienna

The Vogul language (endogenous name: Mansi) is spoken by approximately 3.000 speakers in northwestern Siberia. Together with Ostyak, it forms the Ob-Ugrian branch of the Finno-Ugrian language family and is generally considered to be closest relative of Hungarian. In the introductory section general information on the Vogul people and their sociolinguistic situation is given. The dialect described in the following sections on Vogul phonology, morphology, and syntax is the Northern one, spoken by the greatest majority of modern Voguls and forming the basis for the literary language. Vogul is in the most respects a typical agglutinative language and its grammar is relatively straightforward, i.e. unencumbered with major rules of inflection. In this study particular care is taken to place (Northern) Vogul in a general Finno-Ugrian and a complete Vogul context. This means that although the major emphasis lies on the synchronic description of (Northern) Vogul, the discussion is supplemented by obervations of a historical nature to show to which extent (Northern) Vogul has adhererd to general Finno-Ugrian patterns and to which extent it has diverged both from the related languages and other Vogul dialects. This study closes with a (Northern) Vogul folklore text with an interlinear transcription and translation

ISBN 9783895862311. Languages of the World/Materials 158. 92pp. 2001.