French-Udmurt conversation guide

[benoit]

Hello
I would like to inform you about the recent release of the first French-Udmurt bilingual book.

Udmurt language is a Finno-Ugric language spoken in the present Russian Federation.
Here is an extract from the official press release from the website of the Tangyra organisation :

"On June, 8th 2007 the first book in Udmurt and French languages was released in Tartu (Estonia) – “Guide de Conversation Français-Oudmourte – Удмурт-Француз кылбугор” (French-Udmurt Conversation Guide). The initiator of the project is the Association “TANGYRA”, that launched the project in 2006. The project was supported by the Program of kindred nations (Hõimurahvuste programm, Estonia) and „Oshmes” organization of the Udmurts from Estonia. The main aim of the book is to foster friendship between Udmurt and French speaking people. This book aims at enabling both Udmurt-speaking and French speaking people to communicate between them.
The book is destined as well to French speaking people as to Udmurt speaking people, so information are given about the two languages and cultures.
The book contains a short description of the Udmurt and French people, alphabets and phonetics, the conversation guide itself with sentences for daily life, an elementary grammar of Udmurt and French languages and a short French-Udmurt and Udmurt-French dictionary in order to give the possibility to the reader to adapt and widen the content of the book as he wishes. In the beginning of every chapter there are cultural remarks about the following subject.
(...)
The team who created the book is international and consists in professionals and beginners: Udmurt language part was realized by Svetlana Edygarova, postgraduate student of the Tartu University, French language by Benoit Mantel, the president of the Association “TANGYRA”, the expert for French language is Eva Toulouze, doctor of philological sciences, the expert for Udmurt language is Vadim Danilov, postgraduate student of the Tartu University, graphics and design – Charlotte Giaquinta.
The team of the book believes that the French-Udmurt Conversation Guide will help many people to make discoveries and to find more friends."

For more information : tangyra@gmail.com

[CoBB]

It’s always nice to see such languages exposed. But guys, you got the Hungarian flag upside down!

Mindig öröm, ha az ilyen nyelvek több figyelmet kapnak. De srácok, fejjel lefelé van a magyar zászlótok!

[Passe-Cale]

Cool, j'avais même jamais entendu parler de cette langue!

J'imagine que tu es un des auteurs, félicitations!

[Egein]

Udmut!

I hate when finno-ugric languages are written in the cyrillic alphabet. Everything becomes ugly.

We can probably get a copy at my store!

[JackFrost]

Writing it in Cyrillic make sense in a country where Cyrillic is always used and taught.

[Varislintu]

It’s always nice to see such languages exposed. But guys, you got the Hungarian flag upside down!

Mindig öröm, ha az ilyen nyelvek több figyelmet kapnak. De srácok, fejjel lefelé van a magyar zászlótok!

At least the blue in the Finnish flag is a nice dark blue .

[Preno]

That's awesome, small languages should be publicized more. Especially if they're Uralic.

[greg-fr]

Hello
I would like to inform you about the recent release of the first French-Udmurt bilingual book.

C'est une excellente nouvelle pour l'oudmourte (Удмурт кыл) et le français.





Extrait du site Тангыра — Tangyra :

Le guide de conversation français-oudmourte n’est pas un guide ordinaire. L’objectif principal du livre est de créer des liens d’amitié entre des francophones et les locuteurs oudmourtes. Il n’y a pas beaucoup de touristes en Oudmourtie et peu d’Oudmourtes se rendent souvent en France, mais dans le monde d’aujourd’hui, il est devenu plus facile de se faire des amis lointains. Ainsi dans ce livre vous ne trouverez pas de thèmes comme « à l’hôtel », « à la poste », mais à la place des thèmes comme « L’amour et l’amitié », « Les conférences et les festivals ».

Bravo !

[benoit]

Tay, Merci, Thank you

@CoBB: Sorry for the Hungarian flag, it's fixed now. I'm more used to choose beautiful Finnish flags.

@egein: do you hate also when Finno-ugric languages are written in the latin alphabet ??? Or does it make them become beautiful ?
I think that Finno-ugric languages are beautiful whatever the alphabet we use to write them.
Though I especially like rovasiras and abur script as they are dedicated to some Hungarian and Komi.

[Egein]

I just think that they look much cooler in the latin alphabet.

[Loiks]

I just think that they look much cooler in the latin alphabet.

You're absolutely right! But there is a law in today's Putinist Russia that only Cyrillic alphabet can be used for writing officially, Latin is not allowed. Another thing is that those little nations are badly russianized and the Russian alphabet is more understandable for them. It's the same thing for instance why Livonian had to use Latvian spelling or Võro has to use Estonian spelling. It's about bilingualism and education.

My friend took Udmurt lessons at the University of Tallinn and I let her buy a textbook for me:

Игорь Ганеев, Юрий Перевозчиков
МАРЫМ, ЛЭСЯ...
Удмурт кыл нырысь кутскисьёслы
Удмуртский язык для начинающих
Udmurt for beginners

Ижевск „Удмуртия” 2005

[benoit]

"Marym les'a" is indeed a reference to learn Udmurt from an international point of view, as it is the only teaching book 100% in Udmurt. Every lesson/chapter is very much oriented to one of the main grammar features of the language.

The conversation guide (for French-speaking people) is more oriented to discussion and practical words and sentences for everyday life, though there is a grammar at the end.

Concerning alphabets, the latin one is convenient (especially without diacritic signs)* for using it with computers. Therefore I prefer it too.
But like for French, the latin alphabet lacks many signs to transcript all the sounds. French and Udmurt languages would need a dozen more letters just to write all the consonants sounds. The ciryllic alphabet in that way is a (very) little more convenient as it can transcript a bit more sounds.
Regarding History, Udmurt language has never used another alphabet than the ciryllic one. The neighbouring Tatars used different alphabets in their history before being forced by Moscow some years ago to use the ciryllic one instead of the latin one. Though some streets in Kazan still have their names written with latin letters.



*by the way, I think the Finnish or Estonian way to write double vowel is more convenient than the Hungarian way

[Sergei]

I wonder what percentage of those Udmurts actually speak Udmurt and not Russian in everyday situations...
As for the alphabet, why not Cyrillic? It's a part of Russia after all.

[Loiks]

*by the way, I think the Finnish or Estonian way to write double vowel is more convenient than the Hungarian way

The Hungarian words would become veeeery long if long vowels were written with doubled letters.

[darkina]

*by the way, I think the Finnish or Estonian way to write double vowel is more convenient than the Hungarian way

The Hungarian words would become veeeery long if long vowels were written with doubled letters.

Double vowels hurt my eyes Stylish signs above the letter are much more elegant. If I go into the depths of my mind, I think that's the first reason that made me fascinated by Hungarian.

[CoBB]

Double vowels hurt my eyes Stylish signs above the letter are much more elegant. If I go into the depths of my mind, I think that's the first reason that made me fascinated by Hungarian.

I like acute accents too. One less keystroke per long vowel and less space occupied. I wish we’d use the same system for consonants too.

Én is szeretem az ékezeteket – eggyel kevesebb gombnyomás minden hosszú magánhangzó, és kevesebb helyet foglal. Bárcsak ugyanezt a rendszert használnánk a mássalhangzóknál is!

Én is szeretem az ékezeteket – eǵyel keveseb́ gombnyomás minden hośzú magánhangzó, és keveseb́ helyet foglal. Bárcsak ugyanezt a rendszert használnánk a máśalhangzóknál is!

[darkina]

Double vowels hurt my eyes Stylish signs above the letter are much more elegant. If I go into the depths of my mind, I think that's the first reason that made me fascinated by Hungarian.

I like acute accents too. One less keystroke per long vowel and less space occupied. I wish we’d use the same system for consonants too.

Én is szeretem az ékezeteket – eggyel kevesebb gombnyomás minden hosszú magánhangzó, és kevesebb helyet foglal. Bárcsak ugyanezt a rendszert használnánk a mássalhangzóknál is!

Én is szeretem az ékezeteket – eǵyel keveseb́ gombnyomás minden hośzú magánhangzó, és keveseb́ helyet foglal. Bárcsak ugyanezt a rendszert használnánk a máśalhangzóknál is!

I'm not sure, consonants with diacritics are really cute but double consonants are powerful, and it's good that they show their power visually

[Loiks]

Acute is nice but macron like in Latvian and Livonian is ugly. In Livonian there are even other signs and macron combined: ǟ ȱ ȭ, that's really ugly, I'd prefer doubled letters.

[Lada]

I wonder what percentage of those Udmurts actually speak Udmurt and not Russian in everyday situations...
As for the alphabet, why not Cyrillic? It's a part of Russia after all.

I met an Udmurt man, actually if not his girlfreind, he wouldn't remember that he is Udmurt. We had a converstaion about "pure russians" and he said that he's a pure Russian, and his girlfriend said: Don't you remember what was written in your Soviet passport? You are Udmurt

[benoit]

I wonder what percentage of those Udmurts actually speak Udmurt and not Russian in everyday situations...

You can find some answer in the book... provided you can speak French.
If English can be of better help for you, here are some information that you can find in the book about it :
- There are about 630 000 Udmurts living in Udmurtia and 170 000 living out of Udmurtia (according to what people declare of their nationality in the last census).
- 2/3 of the population of the Republic is Russian
- the recent influence of russian language on udmurt language has become since the last century a simple substitution, as Udmurt language lacks of prestige compared to Russian
- Almost all the Udmurts are today bilingual (russian-udmurt) but the Udmurts who live in the city usually don't speak much but understand the language. - We estimate that 60% of Udmurts speak udmurt in the daily life.
- there are few places in the cities where it's possible to discover Udmurt culture, which has been better preserved (including language) in the countryside
- movies are not anymore doubled in udmurt as it was in the 80's
- there are almost not any schools and kindergarden using Udmurt language in the cities

As for the alphabet, why not Cyrillic? It's a part of Russia after all.

The alphabet is one of the oldest and most visible influence of russian language.
(NB: However, in the 20's and 30's, the Soviet Union of Lenin, Stalin and his linguist Marr wanted to replace cyrillic by latin alphabets for the minorities living in the Union.)

I met an Udmurt man, actually if not his girlfreind, he wouldn't remember that he is Udmurt. We had a converstaion about "pure russians" and he said that he's a pure Russian, and his girlfriend said: Don't you remember what was written in your Soviet passport? You are Udmurt

That reminds me the situation of Indians in the USA. Many of them feel very american and very patriotic to their country as they consider themselves as the most ancient inhabitants of the place. And because of prestige, most of them declared that their nationality was american (it's possible to declare more than 1 nationality in american census only since the late 80's).

The Udmurts are perhaps the last Indians of Europe ...