Far back into the heart of European Russia, where wild flowers bloom extravagantly along the bleak river-sides of the Kama, there we find a time-honoured people, generally known as “Permians.” We usually divide them into two smaller branches, the Syryens, or Komi, and the Wotyaks, or Udmurt, the languages of which are no doubt akin to each other.
In this paper I have tried to mention the accent-characteristics exclusively seer in these two branches. Moreover, they have been reported to have many sub, dialects, such as Izma, Sysola, Udora, East and West Permyak, and Vycegda as the Syryen subdivided dialects, and Malmyz, Ufa, Glazov, Besserman, Malmyz-Urzum, Yelabuga, Kazan and Sarapul as the Wotyak subdivided dialects.
On scrutinizing each of these subdialects carefully, we are sure to come to a conclusion that no rule seems to be made available to describe its accent-condition satisfactorily. In the subdialects both of Izma and Sysola, the accent falls without exception on the first syllable, while in the subdialect of Udora it has the tendency to fall always on the penult syllable, and sometimes on the first syllable. However, in the subdialects of East and West Permyak and Vycegda, the case is somewhat different from the others. It seems to be a matter of chance on what syllable the acent may fall. Sometimes the accent seems to fall on the first syllable, sometimes on the last, and even sometimes on the penult, every time causing at least a slight change in the vowel tone in every syllable of the words. How they choose their accent is so fluctuating a matter that these subdialects give us an idea of what their older ancestors had as their accent-characteristics.
This accentual phenomenon can be ascertained further in many of the Wotyak subdialects. The subdialects of Malmyz-Urzum and Yelabuga have an accent on the last syllable, while the subdialect of Malmyz usually has it on the first syllable. The subdialects of Ufa, Glazov, and Besserman, on the other hand, are apt to show their eccents on the last but one syllable.
However, the case is somewhat different in the subdialects of Kazan and Sarapul. Many researchers have described the characteristics of the accent in these subdialects, but, strange to say, their opinions seldom have been consistent. They have had little in common. One says it seems to fall on the last syllable, while another holds an opinion that it tends to fall on the first syllable. This inconsistency seems to give us some clue to the characteristics of the Finno-Ugric accent.
As is seen above, the Permian languages show many accentual divergencies in their subdialects. However, on the other hand, there is also a tendency which we can say in the affirmative that an incessant endeavour has been shown to make the divergencies as little as possible: in Syryen, roughly speaking, the position where the accent falls seems to have become settled on the first syllable, while the language of Wotyak shows a general preference to let it stand on the last syllable. Nevertheless, there are some resistants. There are some subdialects in each of the languages which refuse to be joined into this common renovation.
These few remnants which are counted to be the resistants against this general movement remind us of, as it were, a legitimate child whose hereditary character has come down directly from the Finno-Ugric ancestors. In other words, some of these Permian subdialects are the only reflection which shows up the ancient phase of accent which the Finno-Ugric ancestors, or at least the ancient Permian ancestors, seemed to have. From these facts, I have come to the conclusion, I should say, that, when the Syryen and the Wotyak languages were much more closely related, the characteristics of their accent were not those of an immovable accent but those of a movable accent, which they have already forgotten at the earliest stage of their history.
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