Votian

Votic language is a Finnic language spoken only by few people in Russian Kingissepp district. However there are significant collections of folklore kept mainly in Russia, Finland and Estonia. Moreover Votic songs are still sung by some Estonians and there are people trying to revitalize North-Eastern dialects of Estonia, which have been interpreted as Estonian dialects of strong Votic influence or even entirely independent Finnic dialects.

The current project will focus on grammatical analyse of all those dialects spoken both in Russia and Estonia.

Its main source is "Votic grammar" (Vadja keele grammatika) by Paul Ariste  (Tartu, 1948.). Thus the orthography  used for samples follows the one of that book, with few exceptions:
 * Small capital letters like  ʙ, ᴅ, ɢ  etc. are replaced with their big counterparts  B, D, G .
 *  ɑ, ɑ̈  are replaced with  a, ä .

Samples found elsewhere (in "Dictionary of Votic language" (Словарь водского языка - Vadja keele sõnaraamat) by Elna Adler  and  Merle Leppik  etc.) are reverted to the transcription of Ariste.

Orthography of Votian names and toponyms follows those of Ariste and "Dictionary of Votic language" (Словарь водского языка - Vadja keele sõnaraamat).

Votian morphemes are represented by  transdialectal morpho-phonemic writing.

If the source dialect  is not refferred to, then the sample is most likely originated from  Kattila dialect.

Syllabus

 * Introduction to Votian dialects
 * Dialects
 * Phonology
 * Orthography
 * Morphophonology
 * Vowel harmony
 * Consonant stem
 * Consonant gradation


 * Morphology
 * Verb moods, voices and tenses
 * Imperative
 * 2. person
 * Introduction to Votian morphophonology
 * 1. & 3. person
 * Prohibition
 * Indefinite voice
 * Indicative
 * Present tense
 * Negation
 * Indefinite voice
 * Medial voice
 * Answering commands
 * Imperfect tense
 * Negation
 * Indefinite voice
 * Conditional
 * Potential-future


 * Answering questions
 * Nouns and their derivation
 * Cases
 * Plural nominative
 * External locative cases
 * Plural
 * Main cases: subject, object and predicative;  total  and  partial 
 * Genitive, accusative, instructive
 * Partitive
 * Internal locative cases
 * Abessive
 * Comitatives
 * Essive
 * Exessive
 * Translative
 * Prolative
 * Lative
 * Terminative
 * Postpositions and prepositions
 * Pronouns: interrogative, demonstrative, indefinite
 * Personal and reflexive pronouns
 * Possessive suffixes
 * Reciprocal pronouns
 * Compound sentences
 * Adverbs and their derivation
 * Adjectives and their derivation
 * Comparison of adverbs and adjectives
 * Numerals
 * Verbs and their derivation
 * Compound verb expressions
 * Non-finite verb
 * Agent and participles
 * Verbal nouns: gerund and infinitives
 * Auxiliary verbs
 * Copula and compound tenses
 * Syntax and agreement
 * Vocabulary

Audio samples

 * Eesti Keele Instituudi fonoteek (Institute of the Estonian Language)