This piece is a part of our large series focusing on the languages that are not discussed nearly as much as they should be. This list includes languages with their own unique scripts, such as Georgian or Armenian, as well as languages using extended Cyrillic and Latin. We’re preparing this series using research on extended Cyrillic which we conducted in partnership with Type Journal.

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About the language

Udmurt is a Uralic language spoken along the Kama river and in the Middle Urals. It is distantly related to languages such as Finnish and Hungarian. Although Udmurt is taught in schools, UNESCO lists it as an endangered language, since in most areas of life Udmurts use Russian.

First documents

In 1726, while travelling from Siberia to St. Petersburg, German scientist Daniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt passed through the lands inhabited by the Northern Udmurts and described their traditional dress and dwelling in his diary, as well as compiled a short dictionary of the Udmurt language. Messerschmidt’s diary, containing nearly 400 words written down in Latin, is the first ever written document in Udmurt. However, the diary was never published and up until 2001 existed merely as a handwritten text.

Facsimile of a manuscript describing the Udmurt village of Yuska visited by Messerschmidt

Swedish officer, prisoner of war Philip Johan von Strahlenberg, who was allowed to accompany Messerschmidt on his expedition, got back to Sweden in 1730 and published a book titled North and Eastern Parts of Europe and Asia. It is the first ever printed document that mentioned Udmurt words — they were also written down using the Latin script.

Pages from the North and Eastern Parts of Europe and Asia book

First grammar

In 1769, a poem in Udmurt appeared in a multi-language compilation addressing the arrival of Catherine the Great to Kazan. Published six years later, the first Udmurt grammar used Cyrillic with almost all the letters of the Russian alphabet of the time (except for ф, х, щ, ѳ, ѵ), as well as a number of additional characters (g, ê, î, ї, ô). Over the next half century, a few more dictionaries providing different versions of the Cyrillic alphabet arrived, but Udmurt translations of Gospel of Mark and Gospel of Matthew published in 1847-1849 used the alphabet that was almost entirely identical to the alphabet from the 1775 grammar.

The first Udmurt Grammar

Modern alphabet

An alphabet that served as a basis for the modern Udmurt Cyrillic was first used by a Votyak (which is the former term for Udmurt) dictionary published in Kazan in 1897. This is when this Russian alphabet with the addition of 8 letters then started to be utilised for educational literature.

An alphabet used by an Udmurt paper first published in 1915, Voinais’ Ivor (Military News), was different from the dictionary’s alphabet in five letters: it didn’t feature the Уу with a breve, the Ии with a diaeresis, the Іi and Јј, but it did feature the Ыы with a breve.

Voinais’ Ivor (Military News)

In the first edition of the textbook Udmurt Kylrad’yan (The Udmurt Grammar) published in 1924, the alphabet already looked nearly the same as the alphabet Udmurts use today. The Udmurt Cyrillic, adopted in 1937, was only different when it comes to the letters Фф, Хх, Цц and Щщ (which were only used in loan words) now becoming part of the alphabet. The modern Udmurt alphabet features 38 letters: 33 of them are the same that the Russian alphabet has, 4 letters represent sounds which are exclusively Udmurt, while the И with a diaeresis is read the same as the Russian И, but it doesn’t palatalise the preceding consonant.

Tynad eshesyd (Your friend) book, 1963. Image: National Library of the Udmurt Republic

Poems by Musa Jalil, 1960. Image: National Library of the Udmurt Republic

Vae kyrӟalom, eshes (Let’s sing, comrades) lyrics collection. Image: National Library of the Udmurt Republic

The curriculum of the Udmurt language and literature, 1932. Image: National Library of the Udmurt Republic

Textbook of mathematics for secondary schools, 1932. Image: National Library of the Udmurt Republic

Udmurt calendar dictionary. Daria Ivanova’s Student Project, 2023

Failed latinization

During the latinization process taking place in the USSR in the late 1920s and the early 1930s, linguists developed a unified Komi-Udmurt Latin alphabet. The Komi started using it, while the Udmurts kept using Cyrillic — the administration of the Udmurt Autonomous Oblast was unhappy with both the reform itself and the lack of funding for its implementation.

Udmurt Latin, 1931

Besermyan variety alphabet

As the Besermyan variety of Udmurt is vastly different in its phonetics from the standard Udmurt language, a separate alphabet was developed for it — there is no Жж and Чч with diaereses, but there is the letter Өө. The first Besermyan dictionary was published in 2013, and the first ever fiction book in Besermyan, Vortcha Madyos (Tales of the Vortsa village), saw the light of day in 2021. The second book issued in Besermyan was a translation of The Little Prince, printed at the Edition Tintenfaß publishing house. Unlike dictionaries, the books didn’t use the letter Оо with a diaeresis.

Whilst language activists use this alphabet on social media, linguists keep working on and introducing new projects. For instance, according to one of those projects, the Besermyan alphabet should include all 38 letters of Udmurt and four additional characters.

In bolder styles, it may be necessary to adjust the internal white space in Өө by reducing the thickness of the oval and the horizontal stroke. If this is not done, the sign will appear too dark.

It is important to use the Cyrillic rather than the Latin breve in Ўў.