«Букварь для вотяцких детей Сарапульского уезда»: графико-орфографические и фонетические особенности

The article describes the vowel and consonant features of the “Primer book for Votyak children of the Sarapul districtˮ (1913). It is practically impossible to consider the phonetic isoglosses of this written record without taking into account its graphic and spelling system; therefore, the article also pays special attention to the graphics and orthography of the source material. The phonetic features are described by comparing the vowel and consonant system of the primer with the vowel and consonant system of the modern Udmurt literary language, adding, whenever available, correspondences from the dialect dictionary by Y. Wichmann [Wichmann 1987], the materials for which were collected at the end of the 19th century. Furthermore, corresponding modern forms from the audio dictionaries based on 2013 field data are also indicated. Such a comparison makes it possible to try to determine the archaic or innovative nature of each identified feature. The analysis shows that most of the phonetic features of the primer, both innovative and archaic, are characteristic of modern dialects of the Southern dialect zone. It follows that this record was most likely written in one of the dialects located on the border of the Middle and Central-Southern dialects of the Udmurt language, i. e. its present-day counterpart would be the dialect of the northern part of the Malopurginsky district of the Udmurt Republic. However, it turns out to be difficult to locate it more precisely at the moment as, unfortunately, this area is described by dialectologists rather poorly today.