Wiktionary talk:About Votic

Vowel lengthening in the genitive singular
I've found that sources differ on whether the stem-final vowel lengthens in the genitive singular in Votic. The first of the two sources on this project page has a short vowel, so that the nominative and genitive end in the same vowel. But the second source, which is a very complete and detailed dictionary of Votic, seems to consistently indicate the genitive with lengthening of the stem vowel. I also found this source, which says that in general there is no length distinction. But this may be a dialect difference for all I know, which is difficult because most Votic dialects are now extinct. So which form should we show in inflection tables and headword lines? —CodeCat 14:06, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

This source says that in Jõgõperä Votic the genitive and partitive had their vowel shortened, but the former only in the last century. This Wikiversity page writes the ending as -n but says that this -n really indicates vowel lengthening. Further down it also notes that Jõgõperä Votic has shortened the vowel. So this may be a specific dialect thing that happens to stand out only because there are so few Votic speakers left. Of course, if only one relatively divergent dialect survives, then that would seem to be the norm; it seems possible that the wider part of Votic, while it still existed, had a long vowel. —CodeCat 14:14, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
 * We know that most early 20th century Votic certainly had long vowels. Now that only the Jõgõperä and Luuditsa dialects remain though, the situation might well be different, as noted in the Rozhasnkiy papers you linked.
 * On the other hand, literary Votic as developed since the 90s ~ early 00s should probably be our main guideline, and as far as I know, long vowels are generally in use there. Cf. e.g. --Tropylium (talk) 14:53, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
 * But what is the standard for literary Votic exactly? It seems that different sources still disagree.
 * They do, it seems.
 * The Votic grammar in Russian is a teaching material, so it could be expected to teach a standard. At the same time, the dictionary is very comprehensive and indicates lots of dialectal variations, but has long vowels. I can't figure out what rules it uses to lemmatise words though, it seems a little inconsistent at times in how it applies sound changes, in particular outcomes of weak-grade -d-. It doesn't seem to use any particular dialect as the lemma at least from what I can see, it just uses whatever has the most attestations or something? —CodeCat 15:37, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
 * I noticed that the grammar document has a section at the end to discuss eastern Votic, which indicates that it uses western Votic as the standard for the rest of the words. It shows the genitive with lengthening of the consonant rather than the vowel, but the partitive still has the long vowel. —CodeCat 15:44, 15 March 2015 (UTC)
 * It's strange that that only indicates gemination in the partitive; from the I've seen it reported for the genitiv just as well (and moreover as half-long consonants, not as full gemination, but in 100 years that contrast could well have fallen apart).
 * Lemmatization in Vadja keele sõnaraamat is covered in chapter 7 of the introduction. They list quite a few rules, the most important being:
 * Western Votic forms are preferred over Eastern Votic forms
 * an etymologically native or older form is preferred over forms loaned from / influenced by Ingrian
 * the Kattila dialect form is preferred if further variation is found within Votic.
 * --Tropylium (talk) 02:30, 16 March 2015 (UTC)