Siberian Ingrian Finnish

Siberian Ingrian Finnish
mejjen kiel', oma kiel', suomen kiel'
Native to	Russia
Region	Western Siberia
Ethnicity	Siberian Finns, Estonians
Native speakers	At least 15, may know ~ 100 (2022)[1]
Language family	Uralic Finnic Northern Finnic Siberian Ingrian Finnish
Writing system	Latin, Cyrillic
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	sibe1253
Settlements where Siberian Ingrian Finnish speakers lived or still live as of 2022

Siberian Ingrian Finnish (Russian: Сибирский ингерманландский идиом) is a Lower Luga Ingrian Finnish – Lower Luga Ingrian (Izhorian) mixed language.^[2][3] The ancestors of the speakers of this language migrated from the Rosona River [ru] area to Siberia in 1803–1804. Most native speakers of this language live in Ryzhkovo or nearby, as well as in Omsk and Tallinn (Estonia).

History[edit]

In the autumn of 1802, due to disobedience to their landowners, several dozen people with their families from the villages of Vanakülä [ru; et; fi], Malaya Arsiya, Bolshaya Arsiya, Volkovo [ru; uk; fi], Mertvitsa, Fedorovka [ru; uk; fi], and Variva were exiled to Siberia.^[4][5] They arrived in the Kamyshinskaya volost of the Tobolsk Governorate in 1804.^[6]

When the settlers founded the village, the name of the settlement was Chukhonskaya village (Russian: деревня Чухонская).^[7] The settlement also became known as Ryzhkovo (Russian: Рыжково). Here, Siberian Ingrian Finnish as a language of communication was formed based on the Ingrian Finnish and Ingrian dialects of the villages of the lower reaches of the Luga River among migrants in the first decades of the 19th century.^[8]

In the second half of the 1840s, Ryzhkovo became a place of exile for people of the Lutheran confession. In April 1846, there was a fire in Ryzhkovo.^[9] After the fire, 20 families of Ingrian Finns moved north to the Tara Uezd of the Tobolsk Governorate. Here on the Bugen River, among forests and swamps, they founded a settlement named Bugene. This settlement was later renamed Finy [ru]. In the vicinity of Bugene, by the end of the 19th century, 3 villages (Orikovo, Matveevka (Välikülä), Larionovka (Unkurin külä)) appeared, which were founded by the Ingrian Finns.^[10]

In 1849, another group of Ingrian Finns from Ryzhkovo in the Panovskaya volost, west of Ryzhkovo, founded the village of Boiarka. A new Lutheran colony (Om' koloniya) appeared on the banks of the Om River, in 1863. The following villages were part of this colony: Staraya Riga [ru] village, Stary Revel [ru] village (Viron külä), Gelsingfors [ru] (Ruotsin külä), Narva village (Suomen külä). The village of Narva was meant for the Ingrian Finns from Ryzhkovo. Settlers from the Ingrian Finnish village of Narva in 1895 founded the village of Ivanovka [ru].^[11]

The Siberian Ingrian Finnish speakers made rather long migrations in Siberia. In the 19th century, part of the Siberian Ingrian Finnish speakers migrated to a distance of two thousand kilometers to the village of Verkhny Suetuk [ru; et] beyond the river Yenisey (now Krasnoyarsk Krai), and Ingrian peasants from the village of Finy founded a settlement not far from Altai, on the banks of the Kulunda River, 500 km from Omsk.^[12]

History of studying Siberian Ingrian Finnish[edit]

The first mentions of the exiles from western Ingria and about their first colony - the village of Ryzhkovo appeared in the two articles in 1844^[13] and in 1846^[14] in the newspaper "Maamiehen Ystävä" [fi], which was published in the Grand Duchy of Finland. Matthias Castrén's article^[15] was one of the first publications about the exiled Finns in Siberia. In this article, Ingrian Finns were also mentioned. The next publication was a book of memoirs^[16] by the Lutheran pastor Johannes Granö [fi], who lived and worked in the Finnish settlements in Siberia at the end of the 19th century. The historiographic description of the Siberian Finnish settlements was continued by the sons of pastor Granö, Johannes Gabriel Granö^[17] and Paavo Granö.^[18][19] From the second half of the 20th century to the beginning of the 21st century, appeared several publications by Finnish researchers (Alpo Juntunen,^[20][21] Juha Saari,^[22] Max Engman^[23]) based on documents from the Finnish archives about the Lutherans exiled to Siberia.

In 1968–1969, the only expedition to Siberian Finnish settlements to study Siberian Finnish dialects was made by Vieno Zlobina from the Petrozavodsk State University.^{[24][25][26][27]} The Finnish researcher Ruben Nirvi got acquainted with Zlobina's Siberian language materials and made more accurate conclusions^[24][28] about the Siberian Ingrian Finnish language. Information about the Siberian Finns is also in the publications of Estonian scientists (Jüri Viikberg [et],^[29][30] Anu Korb,^[31][32][33] Aivar Jürgenson [et]^{[34][35][36][37]}).

A detailed study of the Siberian Ingrian Finnish language was begun at the beginning of the 21st century by Russian scientists. Daria Sidorkevich from the Institute for Linguistic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences researched and documented the Siberian Ingrian Finnish language in 2008 - 2014.^[3][38] A PhD thesis^[2] about the language was written by Daria Sidorkevich in 2013 - 2014. The Siberian Ingrian Finnish language was also researched and documented by Mehmet Muslimov from the Institute for Linguistic Studies of the RAS, Fedor Rozhanskiy from the University of Tartu and Natalia Kuznetsova^[39][40] from the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore.

Name[edit]

The term Siberian Ingrian Finnish (Russian: Сибирский ингерманландский идиом) for the language of the descendants of settlers from Ingria was introduced by Russian linguists and appeared in Sidorkevich's scientific works.^[2][3] Natalia Kuznetsova uses a similar term in her articles: "Siberian Ingrian/Finnish" or "the mixed Siberian Ingrian/Finnish variety".^[39][40] The Glottolog language database also uses the name Siberian Ingrian Finnish.^[41]

Vieno Zlobina in her articles^[26][27] introduced the term "корлаки" or "korlakat" (English: Korlaks) to refer to a group of people using the Siberian Ingrian Finnish language. Currently, this name is known and used in Finland. From this name came one of the names of this language: language of Korlaks (Russian: корлакский язык, Finnish: korlakan kieli). The speakers of Siberian Ingrian Finnish have never used the name "корлаки" or "korlakat" (English: Korlaks) as a self-name^[42] (although some speakers knew the term^[43]).

Phonology[edit]

Vowels[edit]

The Siberian Ingrian Finnish language has the following vowels:^[44]

Diphthongs[edit]

The number of diphthongs in Siberian Ingrian Finnish is less than in Votic, some dialects of Ingrian (Izhorian), Estonian and Finnish. Diphthongs of Siberian Ingrian Finnish are shown in the table:^[45]

Within a diphthong, a combination of front and back vowels is unacceptable (a, o, u vs. ä, ö, ü), except for the vowels: i and e, which can combine with both front vowels and back vowels.^[45] The symbol "*" in the table above means that these diphthongs are theoretically possible in Siberian Ingrian Finnish, but the words containing these sounds have not yet been found in the audio data.^[46] The gray color in the cells of the table means that such a combination of vowels in diphthongs is completely impossible.

Consonants[edit]

The consonant inventory of Siberian Ingrian Finnish is distinguished by a large number of various phonemes that appeared in the language as a result of the reduction of vowels and as a result of borrowings from other languages. The Siberian Ingrian Finnish language has the following consonant sounds:^[47]

Additional series of consonant sounds[edit]

These consonant sounds appear in word-final position. The appearance of these consonant sounds is the result of vowel reduction in word-final position. Siberian Ingrian Finnish has the following additional series of consonant sounds:^[48]

• Aspirated consonant sounds - " ᵊ ", at this moment, aspiration appears unstable.
• Palatalized consonant sounds - " ' ".
• Labialized consonant sounds - " ᵒ ".
• Palatalized and labialized consonant sounds - " 'ᵒ ".

The additional series of consonant sounds are shown in the table:^[49]

The symbol "*" in the two tables above means that these consonant sounds are possible in Siberian Ingrian Finnish, but the words containing these sounds have not yet been found in the audio data.^[48]

Examples of words with these additional consonant sounds are shown below.

Sound p': ennemp' - earlier, vanemp' - eldest.

Sound pp': krampp' - hook(hanger).GEN.

Sound pᵒ: ampᵒ - shoot.IPF.3SG.

Sound ppᵒ: piippᵒ - tube, kirppᵒ - flea.

Sound tᵊ: pöütᵊ (weak aspiration) - table, luutᵊ (weak aspiration) - broom.

Sound t': praht' - garbage, laht' - open (adverb), leht' - leaf, sheet, unoht' - forget.IPF.3SG.

Sound tᵒ: rohtᵒ - medicine, maitᵒ - milk, lintᵒ - bird, tultᵒ - come.PAS.PTCP, tahtᵒ - want.IPF.3SG, pantᵒ - put.PAS.PTCP.

Sound t'ᵒ: näht'ᵒ - to see.PAS.PTCP.SG, pest'ᵒ - wash.PAS.PTCP.SG.

Sound zz': grizz' - gnaw.IPF.3SG.

Sound š': tovariš' - comrade.

Sound ss'ᵒ: püss'ᵒ - gun (rifle).

Sound kk': säkk' - bag (sack), tükk' - field.

Sound r' or r'ᵒ: höür' (höür'ᵒ) - steam (vapor).

Sound rrᵊ: kuərrᵊ - sour cream.

Grammar[edit]

Pronouns[edit]

Personal pronouns[edit]

The personal pronouns of Siberian Ingrian Finnish are shown in the table:^[50]

Personal pronouns are the only part of speech for which there is an accusative case (plural only).

Numerals[edit]

The names of cardinal numbers 1 to 19:^[51]

The names of cardinal numbers twenty, thirty etc.^[51]: number from the first ten + ten.PRT (kümmen-t). For example:

30 - koltkümment

42 - nelikümment kaks

The ordinal numbers:^[52]

1. 1st - ensimäjn
2. 2nd - toin
3. 3rd - kolmas
4. 4th - nell'äs
5. 5th - vijjes
6. 6th - kuvves

Nouns[edit]

Nouns in Siberian Ingrian Finnish are inflected by 10 cases and 2 numbers (singular and plural).^[53][54] There are 5 stems for the formation of nouns:

• Main stem (a word in the nominative case, singular);
• Partitive stem singular PRT.SG (for the formation of a word in the partitive case, singular);
• Illative stem singular ILL.SG (for the formation of a word in the illative case, singular);
• Oblique stem singular OBL.SG (for the formation of words in all oblique cases and for the formation of a word in the nominative case, plural);
• Oblique stem plural OBL.PL (for the formation of words in all cases, in plural, except the formation of words in the nominative case, plural).

All possible stems,^[53] all possible suffixes^[54] and an example of the declension paradigm of the word kukk^[55] "flower" are shown in the table below:

The declension paradigm of the word kukk also includes the words: piippᵒ "tube", huntt' "wolf", rankk "heavy", penkk' "bench", harakk "magpie", kant "trunk" etc.^[55] Siberian Ingrian Finnish has at least 16 declension paradigms for nouns.^[56]

Verbs[edit]

Verbs in Siberian Ingrian Finnish have finite and non-finite forms. Verbs in finite form have the following grammatical categories: mood, tense, person, number, and polarity item. Non-finite verb forms: infinitive, supine, impersonal verbs, and participle.^[57][58]

The example of a verb paradigm is shown in the table:^[59]

Samples[edit]

In the video, an example of speech in Siberian Ingrian Finnish, a woman says that her mother had an old Lutheran liturgical book (she called it "Jumalan kiriə") in Finnish. The book had a sheet with an alphabet and a picture. The picture was a girl, a dog, and a story. The story was that there was no food and the dog found a piece of bread and gave it to the girl, and that the dog's name was Veikᵒ.

All examples are shown below from Sidorkevich 2014.^[2]

References[edit]

Sources[edit]

• Sidorkevich, Daria (2012). "Ингерманландцы в Сибири: этническая идентичность в многоэтничном окружении". Acta Linguistica Petropolitana (in Russian). 8 (1): 194–285 – via CyberLeninka.
• Sidorkevich, Daria (2014). Язык ингерманландских переселенцев в Сибири: структура, диалектные особенности, контактные явления. Дисс. канд. филол. наук (PhD thesis) (in Russian). Saint Petersburg: The Institute for Linguistic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

External links[edit]

• Working Repository of Siberian Ingrian Finnish contains audio, video and annotations under a free license (CC BY)
• Siberian Ingrian Finnish Talking Dictionary