Permic languages
| Permic | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution | foothills of the Ural Mountains in Russia |
| Ethnicity | Permians |
| Linguistic classification | Uralic
|
| Subdivisions | |
| Language codes | |
| Glottolog | perm1256 |
Distribution of the Permic languages at the beginning of the 20th century | |
The Permic or Permian languages are a branch of the Uralic language family. They are spoken in several regions to the west of the Ural Mountains within the Russian Federation. The total number of speakers is around 950,000, of which around 550,000 speak the most widely spoken language, Udmurt. Like other Uralic languages, the Permic languages are primarily agglutinative and have a rich system of grammatical cases. Unlike many other agglutinative languages, they do not have vowel harmony.
The earliest Permic language to be preserved in writing was Old Permic or Old Zyryan, in the 14th century.