![Uralic languages ( ALL LANGUAGES )](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0a/Uralic_languages_%28_ALL_LANGUAGES_%29.png)
The Uralic languages (; sometimes called Uralian languages ) form a
language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in hist ...
of 38
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
s spoken by approximately 25million people, predominantly in Northern
Eurasia
Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago a ...
. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are
Hungarian (which alone accounts for more than half of the family's speakers),
Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finland
* Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland
* Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people
* Finnish cuisine
See also ...
, and
Estonian. Other significant languages with fewer speakers are
Erzya,
Moksha
''Moksha'' (; sa, मोक्ष, '), also called ''vimoksha'', ''vimukti'' and ''mukti'', is a term in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism for various forms of emancipation, enlightenment, liberation, and release. In its soteriology, ...
,
Mari,
Udmurt,
Sami
Acronyms
* SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft
* Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company
* South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise ...
,
Komi, and
Vepsian
Veps, or Vepsians (Vepsian language, Veps: ''vepsläižed''), are a Baltic Finns, Finnic people who speak the Veps language, which belongs to the Finnic languages, Finnic branch of the Uralic languages.
According to the 2002 census, there were 8 ...
, all of which are spoken in northern regions of
Scandinavia
Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion#Europe, subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, ...
and the
Russian Federation
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
.
The name "Uralic" derives from the family's original homeland (''
Urheimat
In historical linguistics, the homeland or ''Urheimat'' (, from German '' ur-'' "original" and ''Heimat'', home) of a proto-language is the region in which it was spoken before splitting into different daughter languages. A proto-language is the r ...
'')
commonly hypothesized to have been somewhere in the vicinity of the
Ural Mountains
The Ural Mountains ( ; rus, Ура́льские го́ры, r=Uralskiye gory, p=ʊˈralʲskʲɪjə ˈɡorɨ; ba, Урал тауҙары) or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western ...
.
Finno-Ugric
Finno-Ugric ( or ; ''Fenno-Ugric'') or Finno-Ugrian (''Fenno-Ugrian''), is a traditional grouping of all languages in the Uralic language family except the Samoyedic languages. Its formerly commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is ba ...
is sometimes used as a synonym for Uralic, though Finno-Ugric is widely understood to exclude the
Samoyedic languages
The Samoyedic () or Samoyed languages () are spoken around the Ural Mountains, in northernmost Eurasia, by approximately 25,000 people altogether. They derive from a common ancestral language called Proto-Samoyedic, and form a branch of the Urali ...
. Scholars who do not accept the traditional notion that Samoyedic split first from the rest of the Uralic family may treat the terms as synonymous.
History
Homeland
Proposed homelands of the
Proto-Uralic language
Proto-Uralic is the unattested reconstructed language ancestral to the modern Uralic language family. The hypothetical language is believed to have been originally spoken in a small area in about 7000–2000 BCE, and expanded to give differentia ...
include:
* The vicinity of the
Volga River
The Volga (; russian: Во́лга, a=Ru-Волга.ogg, p=ˈvoɫɡə) is the List of rivers of Europe#Rivers of Europe by length, longest river in Europe. Situated in Russia, it flows through Central Russia to Southern Russia and into the Cas ...
, west of the Urals, close to the Urheimat of the
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
, or to the east and southeast of the Urals. Historian
Gyula László places its origin in the forest zone between the
Oka River
The Oka (russian: Ока́, ) is a river in central Russia, the largest right tributary of the Volga. It flows through the regions of Oryol, Tula, Kaluga, Moscow, Ryazan, Vladimir and Nizhny Novgorod and is navigable over a large part of its ...
and central
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
. E. N. Setälä and M. Zsirai place it between the
Volga
The Volga (; russian: Во́лга, a=Ru-Волга.ogg, p=ˈvoɫɡə) is the List of rivers of Europe#Rivers of Europe by length, longest river in Europe. Situated in Russia, it flows through Central Russia to Southern Russia and into the Cas ...
and
Kama River
The Kama (russian: Ка́ма, ; tt-Cyrl, Чулман, ''Çulman''; udm, Кам) is a long[«Река ...]
s. According to E. Itkonen, the ancestral area extended to the
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain.
The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...
. Jaakko Häkkinen identifies Proto-Uralic with Eneolithic Garino-Bor (Turbin) culture 3,000–2,500 YBP located in the Lower Kama Basin.
* P. Hajdu has suggested a homeland in western and northwestern
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
.
*
Juha Janhunen
Juha Janhunen (born 12 February 1952 in Pori, Finland) is a Finnish linguist whose wide interests include Uralic and Mongolic languages. Since 1994 he has been Professor in East Asian studies at the University of Helsinki. He has done fieldwork on ...
suggests a homeland in between the
Ob and
Yenisei
The Yenisey (russian: Енисе́й, ''Yeniséy''; mn, Горлог мөрөн, ''Gorlog mörön''; Buryat: Горлог мүрэн, ''Gorlog müren''; Tuvan: Улуг-Хем, ''Uluğ-Hem''; Khakas: Ким суғ, ''Kim suğ''; Ket: Ӄук, ...
drainage areas in
Central Siberia
The Central Siberian Plateau (russian: Среднесибирское плоскогорье, Srednesibirskoye ploskogorye; sah, Орто Сибиир хаптал хайалаах сирэ) is a vast mountainous area in Siberia, one of the Gre ...
.
[
*In 2022, a group of scholars, including Janhunen, noted that early Uralic-speakers can be associated with hunter-gatherers in ]Western Siberia
Western Siberia or West Siberia (russian: Западная Сибирь, Zapadnaya Sibir'; kk, Батыс Сібір) is a part of the larger region of Siberia that is mostly located in the Russian Federation. It lies between the Ural region an ...
. The spread of Uralic languages may be linked, in part, due to the Seima-Turbino phenomenon
The Seima-Turbino phenomenon is a pattern of burial sites with similar bronze artifacts dated to ca. 2300-1700 BC (2017 dated from 2100 BC to 1900 BC, 2007 dated to 1650 BC onwards) found across northern Eurasia, particularly Siberia and Central ...
, but no conclusive evidence exists so far. According to Bjørn Rasmus G., the Proto-Uralic speakers may be associated with the Okunev culture
Okunev culture (russian: Окуневская культура , lit=Okunev culture, translit=Okunevskaya kul'tura, label=ru) was south Siberian archaeological culture of pastoralists of the early Bronze Age dated from the end of the 3rd millen ...
, and may have shown affinity to the earlier Botai and Tarim mummies
The Tarim mummies are a series of mummies discovered in the Tarim Basin in present-day Xinjiang, China, which date from 1800 BC to the first centuries BC, with a new group of individuals recently dated to between c. 2100 and 1700 BC.School of L ...
.
Early attestations
The first plausible mention of a people speaking a Uralic language is in Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historiography, Roman historians by modern scholars.
The surviving portions of his t ...
's ''Germania
Germania ( ; ), also called Magna Germania (English: ''Great Germania''), Germania Libera (English: ''Free Germania''), or Germanic Barbaricum to distinguish it from the Roman province of the same name, was a large historical region in north- ...
'' (c. 98 AD), mentioning the '' Fenni'' (usually interpreted as referring to the Sami
Acronyms
* SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft
* Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company
* South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise ...
) and two other possibly Uralic tribes living in the farthest reaches of Scandinavia. There are many possible earlier mentions, including the Iyrcae The Iyrcae ( grc, Ἱύρκαι) were an ancient nation on the north-east trade route described by Herodotus beyond the Thyssagetae.
They were distinguished by their mode of hunting, climbing a tree to survey their game, and then pursuing it with t ...
(perhaps related to Yugra) described by Herodotus
Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria ( Italy). He is known f ...
living in what is now European Russia, and the Budini
The Budini (Ancient Greek: Βουδίνοι; ''Boudínoi'') was a group of people (a tribe) described by Herodotus and several later classical authors. Described as nomads living near settled Gelonians, Herodotus located them east of the Tanais ri ...
, described by Herodotus as notably red-haired (a characteristic feature of the Udmurts
The Udmurts ( udm, Удмуртъёс, ) are a Permian ( Finnic) ethnic group in Eastern Europe, who speak the Udmurt language. In the course of history, Russian-speakers have referred to them as ' (), Otyaks, Wotyaks or Votyaks.
Etymology
The ...
) and living in northeast Ukraine and/or adjacent parts of Russia. In the late 15th century, European scholars noted the resemblance of the names ''Hungaria'' and '' Yugria'', the names of settlements east of the Ural. They assumed a connection but did not seek linguistic evidence.
Uralic studies
The affinity of Hungarian and Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finland
* Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland
* Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people
* Finnish cuisine
See also ...
was first proposed in the late 17th century. Three candidates can be credited for the discovery: the German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
scholar Martin Vogel Martin may refer to:
Places
* Martin City (disambiguation)
* Martin County (disambiguation)
* Martin Township (disambiguation)
Antarctica
* Martin Peninsula, Marie Byrd Land
* Port Martin, Adelie Land
* Point Martin, South Orkney Islands
Austral ...
, the Swedish
Swedish or ' may refer to:
Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically:
* Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland
** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...
scholar Georg Stiernhielm
Georg Stiernhielm (August 7, 1598 – April 22, 1672) was a Swedish civil servant, mathematician, linguist and poet.
Life
Stiernhielm was born on the family estate Gammelgården in the village Svartskär in Vika parish in Dalarna where his fathe ...
and the Swedish courtier Bengt Skytte. Vogel's unpublished study of the relationship, commissioned by Cosimo III
Cosimo III de' Medici (14 August 1642 – 31 October 1723) was Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1670 until his death in 1723, the sixth and penultimate from the House of Medici. He reigned from 1670 to 1723, and was the elder son of Grand Duke Ferdinan ...
of Tuscany, was clearly the most modern of these: he established several grammatical
In linguistics, grammaticality is determined by the conformity to language usage as derived by the grammar of a particular variety (linguistics), speech variety. The notion of grammaticality rose alongside the theory of generative grammar, the go ...
and lexical
Lexical may refer to:
Linguistics
* Lexical corpus or lexis, a complete set of all words in a language
* Lexical item, a basic unit of lexicographical classification
* Lexicon, the vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge
* Lex ...
parallels between Finnish and Hungarian as well as Sami
Acronyms
* SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft
* Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company
* South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise ...
. Stiernhielm commented on the similarities of Sami, Estonian and Finnish, and also on a few similar words between Finnish and Hungarian. These authors were the first to outline what was to become the classification of the Finno-Ugric, and later Uralic family. This proposal received some of its initial impetus from the fact that these languages, unlike most of the other languages spoken in Europe, are not part of what is now known as the Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
family. In 1717, Swedish professor Olof Rudbeck proposed about 100 etymologies connecting Finnish and Hungarian, of which about 40 are still considered valid. Several early reports comparing Finnish or Hungarian with Mordvin, Mari or Khanty were additionally collected by Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz . ( – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat. He is one of the most prominent figures in both the history of philosophy and the history of ma ...
and edited by his assistant Johann Georg von Eckhart
Johann Georg von Eckhart (7 September 1664 – 9 February 1730) was a German historian and linguist.
Biography
Eckhart was born at Duingen in the Principality of Calenberg. After preparatory training at Schulpforta, he went to Leipzig, where a ...
.
In 1730, Philip Johan von Strahlenberg
Philip, also Phillip, is a male given name, derived from the Greek (''Philippos'', lit. "horse-loving" or "fond of horses"), from a compound of (''philos'', "dear", "loved", "loving") and (''hippos'', "horse"). Prominent Philips who popularize ...
published his book (''The Northern and Eastern Parts of Europe and Asia''), surveying the geography, peoples and languages of Russia. All the main groups of the Uralic languages were already identified here. Nonetheless, these relationships were not widely accepted. Hungarian intellectuals especially were not interested in the theory and preferred to assume connections with Turkic tribes, an attitude characterized by Merritt Ruhlen
Merritt Ruhlen (May 10, 1944 – January 29, 2021) was an American linguist who worked on the classification of languages and what this reveals about the origin and evolution of modern humans. Amongst other linguists, Ruhlen's work was recognized ...
as due to "the wild unfettered Romanticism
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
of the epoch". Still, in spite of this hostile climate, the Hungarian Jesuit
, image = Ihs-logo.svg
, image_size = 175px
, caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits
, abbreviation = SJ
, nickname = Jesuits
, formation =
, founders ...
János Sajnovics
János Sajnovics de Tordas et Káloz ( Tordas, 12 May 1733 – Pest, 4 May 1785) was a Hungarian linguist and member of the Jesuit order. He is best known for his pioneering work in comparative linguistics, particularly his systematic demonstr ...
travelled with Maximilian Hell
Maximilian Hell ( hu, Hell Miksa) (born Rudolf Maximilian Höll; May 15, 1720 – April 14, 1792) was an astronomer and an ordained Jesuit priest from the Kingdom of Hungary.
Biography
Born as Rudolf Maximilian Höll in Selmecbánya, Hont Co ...
to survey the alleged relationship between Hungarian and Sami. Sajnovics published his results in 1770, arguing for a relationship based on several grammatical features. In 1799, the Hungarian Sámuel Gyarmathi
Sámuel Gyarmathi ( hu, Gyarmathi Sámuel) (July 15, 1751, Kolozsvár — March 4, 1830, Kolozsvár) was a Hungarian linguist, born in Cluj (then Kolozsvár, Transylvania). He is best known for his systematic demonstration of the comparative hist ...
published the most complete work on Finno-Ugric to that date.
Up to the beginning of the 19th century, knowledge on the Uralic languages spoken in Russia had remained restricted to scanty observations by travelers. Already Finnish historian Henrik Gabriel Porthan
Henrik Gabriel Porthan (1739 in Viitasaari – 1804 in Turku) was a professor and rector at the Royal Academy of Turku. He was a scholar sometimes known as ''The Father of Finnish History''.
Biography
He was born at Viitasaari in Tavastland, ...
had stressed that further progress would require dedicated field missions. One of the first of these was undertaken by Anders Johan Sjögren
Anders Johan Sjögren (also spelled Andreas Johan Sjögren; May 8, 1794 in Iitti, Finland – January 18, 1855 in St. Petersburg, Russia) was a Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finl ...
, who brought the Vepsians
Veps, or Vepsians ( Veps: ''vepsläižed''), are a Finnic people who speak the Veps language, which belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic languages.
According to the 2002 census, there were 8,240 Veps in Russia. Of the 281 Veps in Ukraine ...
to general knowledge and elucidated in detail the relatedness of Finnish and Komi. Still more extensive were the field research expeditions made in the 1840s by Matthias Castrén
Matthias Alexander Castrén (2 December 1813 – 7 May 1852) was a Finnish Swedish ethnologist and philologist who was a pioneer in the study of the Uralic languages. He was an educator, author and linguist at the University of Helsinki. Castré ...
(1813–1852) and Antal Reguly
Antal Reguly ( hu, Reguly Antal, 1819–1858) was a Hungarian linguist and ethnographer notable for his contribution to the study of Uralic languages. In 1843-4 he became the first ethnographer to visit the Mansi (Vogul) people to collect d ...
(1819–1858), who focused especially on the Samoyedic and the Ob-Ugric languages
The Ob-Ugric languages are a commonly proposed branch of the Uralic languages, grouping together the Khanty (Ostyak) and Mansi (Vogul) languages. Both languages are split in numerous and highly divergent dialects. They, along with Hungarian, ar ...
, respectively. Reguly's materials were worked on by the Hungarian linguist Pál Hunfalvy (1810–1891) and German Josef Budenz
Josef Budenz (Hungarian: József Budenz) (13 June 1836–15 April 1892) was a German comparative linguist specializing in Finno-Ugric who researched the origins of the Hungarian language.
Early life and education
József Budenz graduated ...
(1836–1892), who both supported the Uralic affinity of Hungarian. Budenz was the first scholar to bring this result to popular consciousness in Hungary, and to attempt a reconstruction of the Proto-Finno-Ugric grammar and lexicon. Another late-19th-century Hungarian contribution is that of Ignácz Halász (1855–1901), who published extensive comparative material of Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic in the 1890s, and whose work is at the base of today's wide acceptance of the inclusion of Samoyedic as a part of Uralic. Meanwhile, in the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland
The Grand Duchy of Finland ( fi, Suomen suuriruhtinaskunta; sv, Storfurstendömet Finland; russian: Великое княжество Финляндское, , all of which literally translate as Grand Principality of Finland) was the predecessor ...
, a chair for Finnish language and linguistics at the University of Helsinki
The University of Helsinki ( fi, Helsingin yliopisto, sv, Helsingfors universitet, abbreviated UH) is a public research university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but founded in the city of Turku (in Swedish ''Åbo'') in 1640 as the ...
was created in 1850, first held by Castrén.
In 1883, the Finno-Ugrian Society
Finno-Ugrian Society (french: Société Finno-Ougrienne, fi, Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura) is a Finnish learned society, dedicated to the study of Uralic and Altaic languages. It was founded in Helsinki in 1883 by the proposal of professor Otto ...
was founded in Helsinki on the proposal of Otto Donner
Otto Donner (15 December 1835, Kokkola – 17 September 1909, Helsinki) was a Finnish linguist and politician.
Biography
He was professor of Sanskrit and Comparative Indo-European linguistics at the University of Helsinki, but also studied ...
, which would lead to Helsinki overtaking St. Petersburg as the chief northern center of research of the Uralic languages. During the late 19th and early 20th century (until the separation of Finland from Russia following the Russian Revolution
The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and ad ...
), the Society hired many scholars to survey the still less known Uralic languages. Major researchers of this period included Heikki Paasonen (studying especially the Mordvinic languages
The Mordvinic languages, also known as the Mordvin, Mordovian or Mordvinian languages (russian: мордовские языки, ''mordovskiye yazyki''),
are a subgroup of the Uralic languages, comprising the closely related Erzya language and Mok ...
), Yrjö Wichmann (studying Permic
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 550,00 ...
), Artturi Kannisto (Mansi
Mansi may refer to:
People
* Mansi people, an indigenous people living in Tyumen Oblast, Russia
** Mansi language
* Giovanni Domenico Mansi
Gian (Giovanni) Domenico Mansi (16 February 1692 – 27 September 1769) was an Italian prelate, theolog ...
), Kustaa Fredrik Karjalainen (Khanty
The Khanty ( Khanty: ханти, ''hanti''), also known in older literature as Ostyaks (russian: остяки) are a Ugric indigenous people, living in Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug, a region historically known as "Yugra" in Russia, togethe ...
), Toivo Lehtisalo ( Nenets), and Kai Donner ( Kamass). The vast amounts of data collected on these expeditions would provide edition work for later generations of Finnish Uralicists for more than a century.
Classification
The Uralic family comprises nine undisputed groups with no consensus classification between them. (Some of the proposals are listed in the next section.) An agnostic approach treats them as separate branches.[
Obsolete or native names are displayed in italics.
* Finnic (Fennic, Baltic Finnic, Balto-Finnic, Balto-Fennic)
* Hungarian (Magyar)
* ]Khanty
The Khanty ( Khanty: ханти, ''hanti''), also known in older literature as Ostyaks (russian: остяки) are a Ugric indigenous people, living in Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug, a region historically known as "Yugra" in Russia, togethe ...
(''Ostyak, Handi, Hantõ'')
* Mansi
Mansi may refer to:
People
* Mansi people, an indigenous people living in Tyumen Oblast, Russia
** Mansi language
* Giovanni Domenico Mansi
Gian (Giovanni) Domenico Mansi (16 February 1692 – 27 September 1769) was an Italian prelate, theolog ...
(''Vogul'')
* Mari (''Cheremis'')
* Mordvinic (Mordvin, Mordvinian)
* Permic
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 550,00 ...
(Permian)
* Sami
Acronyms
* SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft
* Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company
* South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise ...
(Saami, Samic, Saamic, ''Lappic, Lappish'')
* Samoyedic (Samoyed)
There is also historical evidence of a number of extinct languages of uncertain affiliation:
* Merya Merya may refer to:
* Merya people
* Merya language, an extinct language
* Merya (Tanzanian ward)
See also
* Meryan (disambiguation)
* Merja (disambiguation), pronounced "Merya"
* Meria (disambiguation)
* Marya The Marya are a tribe in western Er ...
* Muromian
The Volga Finns (sometimes referred to as Eastern Finns) are a historical group of indigenous peoples of Russia living in the vicinity of the Volga, who speak Uralic languages. Their modern representatives are the Mari people, the Erzya and th ...
* Meshcherian (until 16th century?)
Traces of Finno-Ugric substrata, especially in toponymy, in the northern part of European Russia have been proposed as evidence for even more extinct Uralic languages.
Traditional classification
All Uralic languages are thought to have descended, through independent processes of language change
Language change is variation over time in a language's features. It is studied in several subfields of linguistics: historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, and evolutionary linguistics. Traditional theories of historical linguistics identify ...
, from Proto-Uralic
Proto-Uralic is the unattested reconstructed language ancestral to the modern Uralic language family. The hypothetical language is believed to have been originally spoken in a small area in about 7000–2000 BCE, and expanded to give different ...
. The internal structure of the Uralic family has been debated since the family was first proposed. Doubts about the validity of most or all of the proposed higher-order branchings (grouping the nine undisputed families) are becoming more common.
A traditional classification of the Uralic languages has existed since the late 19th century. It has enjoyed frequent adaptation in whole or in part in encyclopedias, handbooks, and overviews of the Uralic family. Otto Donner's model from 1879 is as follows:
* Ugric
The Ugric or Ugrian languages ( or ) are a proposed branch of the Uralic language family. The name Ugric is derived from Ugrians, an archaic exonym for the Magyars (Hungarians) and Yugra, a region in northwest Russia.
Ugric includes three ...
(Ugrian)
** Hungarian
** Ob-Ugric (Ob-Ugrian)
*** Khanty
The Khanty ( Khanty: ханти, ''hanti''), also known in older literature as Ostyaks (russian: остяки) are a Ugric indigenous people, living in Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug, a region historically known as "Yugra" in Russia, togethe ...
*** Mansi
Mansi may refer to:
People
* Mansi people, an indigenous people living in Tyumen Oblast, Russia
** Mansi language
* Giovanni Domenico Mansi
Gian (Giovanni) Domenico Mansi (16 February 1692 – 27 September 1769) was an Italian prelate, theolog ...
* Finno-Permic (Permian-Finnic)
** Permic
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 550,00 ...
** Finno-Volgaic (Finno-Cheremisic, Finno-Mari)
*** Volga-Finnic
**** Mari
**** Mordvinic
*** Finno-Lappic (Finno-Saamic, Finno-Samic)
**** Sami
Acronyms
* SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft
* Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company
* South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise ...
**** Finnic
At Donner's time, the Samoyedic languages
The Samoyedic () or Samoyed languages () are spoken around the Ural Mountains, in northernmost Eurasia, by approximately 25,000 people altogether. They derive from a common ancestral language called Proto-Samoyedic, and form a branch of the Urali ...
were still poorly known, and he was not able to address their position. As they became better known in the early 20th century, they were found to be quite divergent, and they were assumed to have separated already early on. The terminology adopted for this was "Uralic" for the entire family, "Finno-Ugric
Finno-Ugric ( or ; ''Fenno-Ugric'') or Finno-Ugrian (''Fenno-Ugrian''), is a traditional grouping of all languages in the Uralic language family except the Samoyedic languages. Its formerly commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is ba ...
" for the non-Samoyedic languages (though "Finno-Ugric" has, to this day, remained in use also as a synonym for the whole family). Finno-Ugric
Finno-Ugric ( or ; ''Fenno-Ugric'') or Finno-Ugrian (''Fenno-Ugrian''), is a traditional grouping of all languages in the Uralic language family except the Samoyedic languages. Its formerly commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is ba ...
and Samoyedic are listed in ISO 639-5
ISO 639-5:2008 "Codes for the representation of names of languages—Part 5: Alpha-3 code for language families and groups" is a highly incomplete international standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). It wa ...
as primary branches of Uralic.
The following table lists nodes of the traditional family tree that are recognized in some overview sources.
Little explicit evidence has however been presented in favour of Donner's model since his original proposal, and numerous alternate schemes have been proposed. Especially in Finland, there has been a growing tendency to reject the Finno-Ugric intermediate protolanguage. A recent competing proposal instead unites Ugric and Samoyedic in an "East Uralic" group for which shared innovations can be noted.[Häkkinen, Jaakko 2009]
''Kantauralin ajoitus ja paikannus: perustelut puntarissa''
– ''Suomalais-Ugrilaisen Seuran Aikakauskirja 92''.
The Finno-Permic grouping still holds some support, though the arrangement of its subgroups is a matter of some dispute. Mordvinic is commonly seen as particularly closely related to or part of Finno-Samic. The term '' Volgaic'' (or ''Volga-Finnic'') was used to denote a branch previously believed to include Mari, Mordvinic and a number of the extinct languages, but it is now obsolete and considered a geographic classification rather than a linguistic one.
Within Ugric, uniting Mansi with Hungarian rather than Khanty has been a competing hypothesis to Ob-Ugric.
Lexical isoglosses
Lexicostatistics
Lexicostatistics is a method of comparative linguistics that involves comparing the percentage of lexical cognates between languages to determine their relationship. Lexicostatistics is related to the comparative method but does not reconstruct a ...
has been used in defense of the traditional family tree. A recent re-evaluation of the evidence[Michalove, Peter A. (2002) The Classification of the Uralic Languages: Lexical Evidence from Finno-Ugric. In: Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen, vol. 57] however fails to find support for Finno-Ugric and Ugric, suggesting four lexically distinct branches (Finno-Permic, Hungarian, Ob-Ugric and Samoyedic).
One alternate proposal for a family tree, with emphasis on the development of numerals, is as follows:[
* Uralic ( "2", "5" / "10")
** Samoyedic (*op "1", *ketä "2", *näkur "3", *tettə "4", *səmpəleŋkə "5", *məktut "6", *sejtwə "7", *wiət "10")
** Finno-Ugric ( "1", "3", "4", "5", "6", "10")
*** Mansic
**** Mansi
**** Hungarian (''hét'' "7"; replacement ''egy'' "1")
*** Finno-Khantic (reshaping *kolmi "3" on the analogy of "4")
**** Khanty
**** Finno-Permic (reshaping *kektä > *kakta)
***** Permic
***** Finno-Volgaic (*śećem "7")
****** Mari
****** Finno-Saamic (*kakteksa, *ükteksa "8, 9")
******* Saamic
******* Finno-Mordvinic (replacement *kümmen "10" (*luki- "to count", "to read out"))
******** Mordvinic
******** Finnic
]
Phonological isoglosses
Another proposed tree, more divergent from the standard, focusing on consonant isoglosses (which does not consider the position of the Samoyedic languages) is presented by Viitso (1997),[Viitso, Tiit-Rein. Keelesugulus ja soome-ugri keelepuu. Akadeemia 9/5 (1997)] and refined in Viitso (2000):[Viitso, Tiit-Rein. Finnic Affinity. Congressus Nonus Internationalis Fenno-Ugristarum I:
Orationes plenariae & Orationes publicae. (2000)]
* Finno-Ugric
** Saamic–Fennic (consonant gradation
Consonant gradation is a type of consonant mutation (mostly lenition but also assimilation) found in some Uralic languages, more specifically in the Finnic, Samic and Samoyedic branches. It originally arose as an allophonic alternation betw ...
)
*** Saamic
*** Fennic
** Eastern Finno-Ugric
***Mordva
***(node)
**** Mari
**** Permian–Ugric (*δ > *l)
***** Permian
***** Ugric (*s *š *ś > *ɬ *ɬ *s)
****** Hungarian
****** Khanty
****** Mansi
The grouping of the four bottom-level branches remains to some degree open to interpretation, with competing models of Finno-Saamic vs. Eastern Finno-Ugric (Mari, Mordvinic, Permic-Ugric; *k > ɣ between vowels, degemination of stops) and Finno-Volgaic (Finno-Saamic, Mari, Mordvinic; *δʲ > *ð between vowels) vs. Permic-Ugric. Viitso finds no evidence for a Finno-Permic grouping.
Extending this approach to cover the Samoyedic languages suggests affinity with Ugric, resulting in the aforementioned East Uralic grouping, as it also shares the same sibilant developments. A further non-trivial Ugric-Samoyedic isogloss is the reduction *k, *x, *w > ɣ when before *i, and after a vowel (cf. *k > ɣ above), or adjacent to *t, *s, *š, or *ś.[
Finno-Ugric consonant developments after Viitso (2000); Samoyedic changes after Sammallahti (1988)
*Note: Proto-Khanty *ɬ in many of the dialects yields *t; Häkkinen assumes this also happened in Mansi and Samoyedic.
The inverse relationship between consonant gradation and medial lenition of stops (the pattern also continuing within the three families where gradation ''is'' found) is noted by Helimski (1995): an original allophonic gradation system between voiceless and voiced stops would have been easily disrupted by a spreading of voicing to previously unvoiced stops as well.
]
Honkola, et al. (2013)
A computational phylogenetic
Computational phylogenetics is the application of computational algorithms, methods, and programs to phylogenetic study by Honkola, et al. (2013) classifies the Uralic languages as follows. Molecular clock, Estimated divergence dates from Honkola, et al. (2013) are also given.
;Uralic (5300 YBP
Before Present (BP) years, or "years before present", is a time scale used mainly in archaeology, geology and other scientific disciplines to specify when events occurred relative to the origin of practical radiocarbon dating in the 1950s. Becau ...
)
* Samoyedic
*Finno-Ugric
Finno-Ugric ( or ; ''Fenno-Ugric'') or Finno-Ugrian (''Fenno-Ugrian''), is a traditional grouping of all languages in the Uralic language family except the Samoyedic languages. Its formerly commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is ba ...
(3900 YBP
Before Present (BP) years, or "years before present", is a time scale used mainly in archaeology, geology and other scientific disciplines to specify when events occurred relative to the origin of practical radiocarbon dating in the 1950s. Becau ...
)
**Ugric
The Ugric or Ugrian languages ( or ) are a proposed branch of the Uralic language family. The name Ugric is derived from Ugrians, an archaic exonym for the Magyars (Hungarians) and Yugra, a region in northwest Russia.
Ugric includes three ...
(3300 YBP)
*** Hungarian
*** Ob-Ugric (1900 YBP)
****Khanty
The Khanty ( Khanty: ханти, ''hanti''), also known in older literature as Ostyaks (russian: остяки) are a Ugric indigenous people, living in Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug, a region historically known as "Yugra" in Russia, togethe ...
****Mansi
Mansi may refer to:
People
* Mansi people, an indigenous people living in Tyumen Oblast, Russia
** Mansi language
* Giovanni Domenico Mansi
Gian (Giovanni) Domenico Mansi (16 February 1692 – 27 September 1769) was an Italian prelate, theolog ...
** Finno-Permic (3700 YBP)
***Permian
The Permian ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system which spans 47 million years from the end of the Carboniferous Period million years ago (Mya), to the beginning of the Triassic Period 251.9 Mya. It is the last period of the Paleoz ...
**** Udmurt
**** Komi
*** Finno-Volgaic
**** Mari (3200 YBP)
****(core branch)
***** Erzya (2900 YBP) ( Mordvinic)
***** Finno-Saami
******Sami
Acronyms
* SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft
* Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company
* South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise ...
(800 YBP)
****** Finnic (1200 YBP)
Typology
Structural characteristics generally said to be typical of Uralic languages include:
Grammar
* extensive use of independent suffixes (agglutination
In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes, each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative lang ...
)
* a large set of grammatical case
A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers ( determiners, adjectives, participles, and numerals), which corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a nominal group in a wording. In various languages, nomin ...
s marked with agglutinative suffixes (13–14 cases on average; mainly later developments: Proto-Uralic is reconstructed with 6 cases), e.g.:
** Erzya: 12 cases
** Estonian: 14 cases (15 cases with instructive)
** Finnish: 15 cases
** Hungarian: 18 cases (together 34 grammatical cases and case-like suffixes)
** Inari Sami: 9 cases
** Komi: in certain dialects as many as 27 cases
** Moksha: 13 cases
** Nenets: 7 cases
** North Sami: 6 cases
** Udmurt: 16 cases
** Veps: 24 cases
* unique Uralic case system, from which all modern Uralic languages derive their case systems.
** nominative singular has no case suffix.
** accusative and genitive suffixes are nasal consonant
In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast majorit ...
s (''-n'', ''-m'', etc.)
** three-way distinction in the local case system, with each set of local cases being divided into forms corresponding roughly to "from", "to", and "in/at"; especially evident, e.g. in Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian, which have several sets of local cases, such as the "inner", "outer" and "on top" systems in Hungarian, while in Finnish the "on top" forms have merged to the "outer" forms.
** the Uralic locative suffix exists in all Uralic languages in various cases, e.g. Hungarian superessive, Finnish essive
In grammar, the essive case, or similaris case, (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case.O'Grady, William, John Archibald, Mark Aronoff, and Janie Rees-Miller. "Morphology: The Analysis of Word Structure." Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction. 6th ...
(''-na''), North Sami essive
In grammar, the essive case, or similaris case, (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case.O'Grady, William, John Archibald, Mark Aronoff, and Janie Rees-Miller. "Morphology: The Analysis of Word Structure." Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction. 6th ...
, Erzyan inessive, and Nenets locative.
** the Uralic lative suffix exists in various cases in many Uralic languages, e.g. Hungarian illative
In grammar, the illative case (; abbreviated ; from la, illatus "brought in") is a grammatical case used in the Finnish, Estonian, Lithuanian, Latvian and Hungarian languages. It is one of the locative cases, and has the basic meaning of "int ...
, Finnish lative (''-s'' as in ''ulos'' 'out' and ''rannemmas'' 'more towards the shore'), Erzyan illative
In grammar, the illative case (; abbreviated ; from la, illatus "brought in") is a grammatical case used in the Finnish, Estonian, Lithuanian, Latvian and Hungarian languages. It is one of the locative cases, and has the basic meaning of "int ...
, Komi approximative, and Northern Sami locative.
* a lack of grammatical gender
In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nouns ...
, including one pronoun for both ''he'' and ''she''; for example, ''hän'' in Finnish, ''tämä'' in Votic, ''tämā'' or ''ta'' (short form for tämā) in Livonian, ''tema'' or ''ta'' (short form for tema) in Estonian, ''sijə'' in Komi, ''ő'' in Hungarian.
* negative verb
Dryer defined three different types of negative markers in language. Beside negative particles and negative affixes, negative verbs play a role in various languages. The negative verb is used to implement a clausal negation. The negative predic ...
, which exists in almost all Uralic languages (notably absent in Hungarian)
* use of postpositions as opposed to prepositions (prepositions are uncommon).
* possessive suffix
In linguistics, a possessive affix (from la, affixum possessivum) is an affix (usually suffix or prefix) attached to a noun to indicate its possessor, much in the manner of possessive adjectives.
Possessive affixes are found in many languages o ...
es
** the genitive
In grammar, the genitive case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can al ...
is also used to express possession in some languages, e.g. Estonian ''mu koer'', colloquial Finnish
Colloquial or spoken Finnish () refers to the unstandardized spoken variety of the Finnish language, in contrast with the standardized form of the language (). It is used primarily in personal communication and varies somewhat between the differen ...
''mun koira'', Northern Sami
Northern may refer to the following:
Geography
* North, a point in direction
* Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe
* Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States
* Northern Province, Sri Lanka
* Northern Range, a ...
''mu beana'' 'my dog' (literally 'dog of me'). Separate possessive adjective Possessive determiners (from la, possessivus, translit=; grc, κτητικός / ktētikós - en. ktetic
Lallu) are determiners which express possession. Some traditional grammars of English refer to them as possessive adjectives, though they ...
s and possessive pronouns, such as ''my'' and ''your'', are rare.
* dual, in the Samoyedic, Ob-Ugric and Samic languages and reconstructed for Proto-Uralic
* plural
The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...
markers -j (i) and -t (-d, -q) have a common origin (e.g. in Finnish, Estonian, Võro, Erzya, Samic languages, Samoyedic languages). Hungarian, however, has -i- before the possessive suffixes and -k elsewhere. The plural marker -k is also used in the Samic languages, but there is a regular merging of final -k and -t in Samic, so it can come from either ending.
* Possessions are expressed by a possessor in the adessive or dative case, the verb "be" (the copula, instead of the verb "have") and the possessed with or without a possessive suffix. The grammatical subject of the sentence is thus the possessed. In Finnish, for example, the possessor is in the adessive case
In grammar, an adessive case ( abbreviated ; from Latin '' adesse'' "to be present (at)": ''ad'' "at" + ''esse'' "to be") is a grammatical case generally denoting location at, upon, or adjacent to the referent of the noun; the term is most frequent ...
: "Minulla on kala", literally "At me is fish", i.e. "I have a fish", whereas in Hungarian, the possessor is in the dative case
In grammar, the dative case (abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "Maria Jacobo potum dedit", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob a ...
, but appears overtly only if it is contrastive, while the possessed has a possessive ending indicating the number and person of the possessor: "(Nekem) van egy halam", literally "(To me ative is a fish-my" ("(For me) there is a fish of mine"), i.e. "(As for me,) I have a fish".
* expressions that include a numeral are singular if they refer to things which form a single group, e.g. "négy csomó" in Hungarian, "njeallje čuolmma" in Northern Sami, "neli sõlme" in Estonian, and "neljä solmua" in Finnish, each of which means "four knots", but the literal approximation is "four knot". (This approximation is accurate only for Hungarian among these examples, as in Northern Sami the noun is in the singular accusative
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘th ...
/genitive
In grammar, the genitive case (abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can al ...
case and in Finnish and Estonian the singular noun is in the partitive In linguistics, the partitive is a word, phrase, or case that indicates partialness. Nominal partitives are syntactic constructions, such as "some of the children", and may be classified semantically as either set partitives or entity partitives ba ...
case, such that the number points to a part of a larger mass, like "four of knot(s)".)
Phonology
* Vowel harmony
In phonology, vowel harmony is an Assimilation (linguistics), assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is t ...
: this is present in many but by no means all Uralic languages. It exists in Hungarian and various Baltic-Finnic languages, and is present to some degree elsewhere, such as in Mordvinic, Mari, Eastern Khanty, and Samoyedic. It is lacking in Sami, Permic and standard Estonian, while it does exist in Võro
Võro may refer to:
* Võro people, an ethnic group of Estonia
* Võro language
Võro ( vro, võro kiilʼ, link=no , et, võru keel) is a language belonging to the Finnic branch of the Uralic languages. Traditionally, it has been con ...
and elsewhere in South Estonian
South Estonian, spoken in south-eastern Estonia, encompasses the Tartu, Mulgi, Võro and Seto varieties. There is no academic consensus on its status, as some linguists consider South Estonian a dialect group of Estonian whereas other linguist ...
, as well as in Kihnu Island subdialect of North Estonian. (Although double dot diacritics are used in writing Uralic languages, the languages do not exhibit Germanic umlaut, a different type of vowel assimilation.)
* Large vowel inventories. For example, some Selkup varieties have over twenty different monophthong
A monophthong ( ; , ) is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation. The monophthongs can be contrasted with diphthongs, wh ...
s, and Estonian has over twenty different diphthong
A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech o ...
s.
* Palatalization of consonants; in this context, palatalization means a secondary articulation, where the middle of the tongue is tense. For example, pairs like – or – are contrasted in Hungarian, as in ''hattyú'' "swan". Some Sami languages, for example Skolt Sami, distinguish three degrees: plain palatalized , and palatal , where has a primary alveolar articulation, while has a primary palatal articulation. Original Uralic palatalization is phonemic, independent of the following vowel and traceable to the millennia-old Proto-Uralic
Proto-Uralic is the unattested reconstructed language ancestral to the modern Uralic language family. The hypothetical language is believed to have been originally spoken in a small area in about 7000–2000 BCE, and expanded to give different ...
. It is different from Slavic palatalization, which is of more recent origin. The Finnic languages
The Finnic (''Fennic'') or more precisely Balto-Finnic (Balto-Fennic, Baltic Finnic, Baltic Fennic) languages constitute a branch of the Uralic language family spoken around the Baltic Sea by the Baltic Finnic peoples. There are around 7 mi ...
have lost palatalization, but several of them have reacquired it, so Finnic palatalization (where extant) was originally dependent on the following vowel and does not correlate to palatalization elsewhere in Uralic.
* Lack of phonologically contrastive tone.
* In many Uralic languages, the stress is always on the first syllable, though Nganasan shows (essentially) penultimate stress, and a number of languages of the central region (Erzya, Mari, Udmurt and Komi-Permyak) synchronically exhibit a lexical accent. The Erzya language can vary its stress in words to give specific nuances to sentential meaning.
Lexicography
Basic vocabulary of about 200 words, including body parts (e.g. eye, heart, head, foot, mouth), family members (e.g. father, mother-in-law), animals (e.g. viper, partridge, fish), nature objects (e.g. tree, stone, nest, water), basic verbs (e.g. live, fall, run, make, see, suck, go, die, swim, know), basic pronouns (e.g. who, what, we, you, I), numerals (e.g. two, five); derivatives increase the number of common words.
Selected cognates
The following is a very brief selection of cognates in basic vocabulary across the Uralic family, which may serve to give an idea of the sound changes involved. This is not a list of translations: cognates have a common origin, but their meaning may be shifted and loanwords may have replaced them.
Orthographical notes: The hacek denotes postalveolar articulation ( , , ) (In Northern Sami, ( ), while the acute denotes a secondary palatal articulation ( , , ) or, in Hungarian, vowel length. The Finnish letter and the letter in other languages represent the high rounded vowel ; the letters and are the front vowels and .
As is apparent from the list, Finnish is the most conservative of the Uralic languages presented here, with nearly half the words on the list above identical to their Proto-Uralic reconstructions and most of the remainder only having minor changes, such as the conflation of *ś into /s/, or widespread changes such as the loss of *x and alteration of *ï. Finnish has even preserved old Indo-European borrowings relatively unchanged as well. (An example is ''porsas'' ("pig"), loaned from Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...
''*porḱos'' or pre- Proto-Indo-Iranian ''*porśos'', unchanged since loaning save for loss of palatalization, *ś > s.)
Mutual intelligibility
The Estonian philologist Mall Hellam proposed cognate sentences that she asserted to be mutually intelligible among the three most widely spoken Uralic languages: Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian:
* et, Elav kala ujub vee all.
* fi, Elävä kala ui veden alla.
* hu, Eleven hal úszik a víz alatt.
* en, A living fish swims underwater.
However, linguist Geoffrey Pullum
Geoffrey Keith Pullum (; born 8 March 1945) is a British and American linguist specialising in the study of English. He is Professor Emeritus of General Linguistics at the University of Edinburgh.
Pullum is a co-author of ''The Cambridge Gram ...
reports that neither Finns nor Hungarians could understand the other language's version of the sentence.
Comparison
No Uralic language has exactly the idealized typological profile of the family. Typological features with varying presence among the modern Uralic language groups include:
Notes:
# Clearly present only in Nganasan.
# Vowel harmony is present in the Uralic languages of Siberia only in some marginal archaic varieties: Nganasan, Southern Mansi
The Mansi languages are spoken by the Mansi people in Russia along the Ob River and its tributaries, in the Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug, and Sverdlovsk Oblast. Traditionally considered a single language, they constitute a branch of the Ural ...
and Eastern Khanty.
#Only recently lost in modern Estonian
# A number of umlaut processes are found in Livonian.
# In Komi, but not in Udmurt.
Proposed relations with other language families
Many relationships between Uralic and other language families have been suggested, but none of these is generally accepted by linguists at the present time: All of the following hypotheses are minority views at the present time in Uralic studies.
Uralic-Yukaghir
The Uralic–Yukaghir hypothesis identifies Uralic and Yukaghir
The Yukaghirs, or Yukagirs ( (), russian: юкаги́ры) are a Siberian ethnic group people in the Russian Far East, living in the basin of the Kolyma River.
Geographic distribution
The Tundra Yukaghirs live in the Lower Kolyma region ...
as independent members of a single language
family. It is currently widely accepted that the similarities between Uralic and Yukaghir languages are due to ancient contacts. Regardless, the hypothesis is accepted by a few linguists and viewed as attractive by a somewhat larger number.
Eskimo-Uralic
The Eskimo–Uralic hypothesis associates Uralic with the Eskimo–Aleut languages. This is an old thesis whose antecedents go back to the 18th century. An important restatement of it was made by Bergsland (1959).
Uralo-Siberian
Uralo-Siberian is an expanded form of the Eskimo–Uralic hypothesis. It associates Uralic with Yukaghir, Chukotko-Kamchatkan
The Chukotko-Kamchatkan or Chukchi–Kamchatkan languages are a language family of extreme northeastern Siberia. Its speakers traditionally were indigenous hunter-gatherers and reindeer-herders. Chukotko-Kamchatkan is endangered. The Kamchatkan ...
, and Eskimo–Aleut. It was propounded by Michael Fortescue in 1998. It is currently the most supported hypothesis regarding close relatives of Uralic. Modern supporters include Morris Swadesh, Juha Janhunen
Juha Janhunen (born 12 February 1952 in Pori, Finland) is a Finnish linguist whose wide interests include Uralic and Mongolic languages. Since 1994 he has been Professor in East Asian studies at the University of Helsinki. He has done fieldwork on ...
and Häkkinen. Michael Fortescue (2017) presents new linguistic evidence along with several genetic studies which support a common origin of the included groups, with a suggested homeland somewhere in Northeast Asia
Northeast Asia or Northeastern Asia is a geographical subregion of Asia; its northeastern landmass and islands are bounded by the Pacific Ocean.
The term Northeast Asia was popularized during the 1930s by American historian and political scient ...
.
Ural-Altaic
Theories proposing a close relationship with the Altaic languages
Altaic (; also called Transeurasian) is a controversial proposed language family that would include the Turkic languages, Turkic, Mongolic languages, Mongolic and Tungusic languages, Tungusic language families and possibly also the Japonic la ...
were formerly popular, based on similarities in vocabulary as well as in grammatical and phonological features, in particular the similarities in the Uralic and Altaic pronouns and the presence of agglutination
In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes, each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative lang ...
in both sets of languages, as well as vowel harmony
In phonology, vowel harmony is an Assimilation (linguistics), assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is t ...
in some. For example, the word for "language" is similar in Estonian (''keel'') and Mongolian (''хэл'' (''hel'')). These theories are now generally rejected and most such similarities are attributed to language contact or coincidence.
Indo-Uralic
The Indo-Uralic
Indo-Uralic is a controversial hypothetical language family consisting of Indo-European languages, Indo-European and Uralic languages, Uralic.
The suggestion of a genetic relationship (linguistics), genetic relationship between Indo-European a ...
(or "Indo-Euralic") hypothesis suggests that Uralic and Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
are related at a fairly close level or, in its stronger form, that they are more closely related than either is to any other language family.
Uralo-Dravidian
The hypothesis that the Dravidian languages
The Dravidian languages (or sometimes Dravidic) are a family of languages spoken by 250 million people, mainly in southern India, north-east Sri Lanka, and south-west Pakistan. Since the colonial era, there have been small but significant ...
display similarities with the Uralic language group, suggesting a prolonged period of contact in the past, is popular amongst Dravidian linguists and has been supported by a number of scholars, including Robert Caldwell
Robert Caldwell (7 May 1814 – 28 August 1891) was a missionary for London Missionary Society. He arrived in India at age 24, studied the local language to spread the word of Bible in a vernacular language, studies that led him to author a tex ...
, Thomas Burrow
Thomas Burrow (; 29 June 1909 – 8 June 1986) was an Indologist and the Boden Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Oxford from 1944 to 1976; he was also a fellow of Balliol College, Oxford during this time. His work includes ''A Dravidi ...
, Kamil Zvelebil
Kamil Václav Zvelebil (November 17, 1927 – January 17, 2009) was a Czech scholar in Indian literature and linguistics, notably Tamil, Sanskrit, Dravidian linguistics and literature and philology.
Life and career
Zvelebil studied at the Cha ...
, and Mikhail Andronov. This hypothesis has, however, been rejected by some specialists in Uralic languages, and has in recent times also been criticised by other Dravidian linguists, such as Bhadriraju Krishnamurti
Bhadriraju Krishnamurti (19 June 1928 – 11 August 2012) was an Indian linguist, specialized in Dravidian languages. He was born in Ongole (Andhra Pradesh). He was Vice Chancellor of Hyderabad Central University from 1986 to 1993 and founded the ...
.
Nostratic
Nostratic
Nostratic is a controversial hypothetical macrofamily, which includes many of the indigenous language families of Eurasia, although its exact composition and structure vary among proponents. It typically comprises Kartvelian, Indo-European and U ...
associates Uralic, Indo-European, Altaic, Dravidian, and various other language families of Asia. The Nostratic hypothesis was first propounded by Holger Pedersen in 1903 and subsequently revived by Vladislav Illich-Svitych
Vladislav Markovich Illich-Svitych (russian: Владисла́в Ма́ркович И́ллич-Сви́тыч, also transliterated as Illič-Svityč; September 12, 1934 – August 22, 1966) was a Soviet linguist and accentologist. He was a fo ...
and Aharon Dolgopolsky
Aharon Dolgopolsky, also spelled Aron ( he, אהרון דולגופולסקי, russian: Арон Борисович Долгопольский; 18 November 1930 – 20 July 2012) was a Russian-Israeli linguist who is known as one of the modern fo ...
in the 1960s.
Eurasiatic
Eurasiatic
Eurasiatic is a proposed language macrofamily that would include many language families historically spoken in northern, western, and southern Eurasia.
The idea of a Eurasiatic superfamily dates back more than 100 years. Joseph Greenberg's prop ...
resembles Nostratic in including Uralic, Indo-European, and Altaic, but differs from it in excluding the South Caucasian languages, Dravidian, and Afroasiatic and including Chukotko-Kamchatkan, Nivkh
Nivkh or Amuric or Gilyak may refer to:
* Nivkh people
The Nivkh, or Gilyak (also Nivkhs or Nivkhi, or Gilyaks; ethnonym: Нивхгу, ''Nʼivxgu'' (Amur) or Ниғвңгун, ''Nʼiɣvŋgun'' (E. Sakhalin) "the people"), are an indigenous et ...
, Ainu, and Eskimo–Aleut. It was propounded by Joseph Greenberg
Joseph Harold Greenberg (May 28, 1915 – May 7, 2001) was an American linguist, known mainly for his work concerning linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages.
Life Early life and education
Joseph Greenberg was born on ...
in 2000–2002. Similar ideas had earlier been expressed by Heinrich Koppelmann in 1933 and by Björn Collinder
Erik Alfred Torbjörn "Björn" Collinder (22 July 1894 – 20 May 1983) was a Swedish linguist who was Professor of Finno-Ugric Languages at Uppsala University.
Biography
Collinder was born in Sundsvall, Sweden on 22 July 1894. After gaining a ...
in 1965.
Uralic skepticism
The linguist Angela Marcantonio has argued against the validity of several subgroups of the Uralic family, as well against the family itself, claiming that many of the languages are no more closely related to each other than they are to various other Eurasian languages (e.g. Yukaghir or Turkic), and that in particular Hungarian is a language isolate.
Marcantonio's proposal has been strongly dismissed by most reviewers as unfounded and methodologically flawed. Problems identified by reviewers include:
* Misrepresentation of the amount of comparative evidence behind the Uralic family, by arbitrarily ignoring data and mis-counting the number of examples known of various regular sound correspondences
* After arguing against the proposal of a Ugric subgroup within Uralic, claiming that this would constitute evidence that Hungarian and the Ob-Ugric languages have no relationship at all
* Excessive focus on criticizing the work of early pioneer studies on the Uralic family, while ignoring newer, more detailed work published in the 20th century
* Criticizing the evidence for the Uralic family as unsystematic and statistically insignificant, yet freely proposing alternate relationships based on even scarcer and even less systematic evidence.
A more ambiguous review comes from linguist Edward Vajda
Edward J. Vajda (Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, September 10, 1958 as Edward M. Johnson; changed his name in 1981) is a historical linguist at Western Washington University.
He is known for his work on the proposed Dené–Yeniseian language fam ...
, who does not, however, specialize in Uralic languages. Although he also rejects all of the book's new proposals (including the author's dismissal of Uralic as a language family), he agrees that Marcantonio has raised a number of worthwhile questions that both Uralicists and non-Uralicists should aim to answer seriously.
Other comparisons
Various unorthodox comparisons have been advanced. These are considered at best spurious fringe-theories by specialists:
*Finno-Basque
* Hungarian-Etruscan
* Sino-Uralic languages
Sino-Uralic or Sino-Finnic is a proposed language family consisting of the Sinitic languages (Chinese) and the Uralic languages. Sino-Uralic is proposed as an alternative to the Sino-Tibetan family and thus is in opposition to the mainstream Sin ...
* Cal-Ugrian theory
*Dené-Finnish (Sino-Tibetan
Sino-Tibetan, also cited as Trans-Himalayan in a few sources, is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 billion native speakers of Chinese languages. ...
, Na-Dené
Na-Dene (; also Nadene, Na-Dené, Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit, Tlina–Dene) is a family of Native American languages that includes at least the Athabaskan languages, Eyak, and Tlingit languages. Haida was formerly included, but is now considere ...
and Uralic)
* Alternative theories of Hungarian language origins
The Hungarian language is a member of the Uralic language family. The Hungarian Academy of Sciences and scientific support worldwide accept this conclusion. However, there is a history of other theories from before and after the Uralic connectio ...
See also
*List of Uralic languages
Uralic is a language family located in Northern Eurasia, in the countries of Finland, Estonia, Hungary (where Uralic languages are spoken by the majority of the population), in other countries Uralic languages are spoken by a minority of the pop ...
Notes
References
* Abondolo, Daniel M. (editor). 1998. ''The Uralic Languages''. London and New York: Routledge. .
*
* Collinder, Björn. 1955. ''Fenno-Ugric Vocabulary: An Etymological Dictionary of the Uralic Languages.'' (Collective work.) Stockholm: Almqvist & Viksell. (Second, revised edition: Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag, 1977.)
* Collinder, Björn. 1957. ''Survey of the Uralic Languages.'' Stockholm.
* Collinder, Björn. 1960. ''Comparative Grammar of the Uralic Languages.'' Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell
* Comrie, Bernhard. 1988. "General Features of the Uralic Languages." In ''The Uralic Languages'', edited by Denis Sinor, pp. 451–477. Leiden: Brill.
* Décsy, Gyula. 1990. ''The Uralic Protolanguage: A Comprehensive Reconstruction.'' Bloomington, Indiana.
* Hajdu, Péter. 1963. ''Finnugor népek és nyelvek.'' Budapest: Gondolat kiadó.
* Helimski, Eugene. ''Comparative Linguistics, Uralic Studies. Lectures and Articles.'' Moscow. 2000. (russian: link=no, Хелимский Е.А. Компаративистика, уралистика. Лекции и статьи. М., 2000.)
* Laakso, Johanna. 1992. ''Uralilaiset kansat'' ('Uralic Peoples'). Porvoo – Helsinki – Juva. .
*.
* Napolskikh, Vladimir. The First Stages of Origin of People of Uralic Language Family: Material of Mythological Reconstruction. Moscow, 1991. (russian: link=no, Напольских В. В. Древнейшие этапы происхождения народов уральской языковой семьи: данные мифологической реконструкции. М., 1991.)
* Rédei, Károly (editor). 1986–88. ''Uralisches etymologisches Wörterbuch'' ('Uralic Etymological Dictionary'). Budapest.
*
External classification
* Sauvageot, Aurélien. 1930. ''Recherches sur le vocabulaire des langues ouralo-altaïques'' ('Research on the Vocabulary of the Uralo-Altaic Languages'). Paris.
Linguistic issues
* Künnap, A. 2000. ''Contact-induced Perspectives in Uralic Linguistics.'' LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 39. München: LINCOM Europa. .
* Wickman, Bo. 1955. ''The Form of the Object in the Uralic Languages.'' Uppsala: Lundequistska bokhandeln.
Further reading
* Bakró-Nagy, Marianne. "The Uralic Languages". In: ''Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire'', tome 90, fasc. 3, 2012. Langues et littératures modernes. Moderne taal en letterkunde. pp. 1001–1027. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3406/rbph.2012.8272; www.persee.fr/doc/rbph_0035-0818_2012_num_90_3_8272
* (2015).
The Language Contact Situation in Prehistoric Northeastern Europe"
''The Linguistic Roots of Europe: Origin and Development of European Languages''. Copenhagen Studies in Indo-European 6. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press
Museum Tusculanum Press (Danish: ''Museum Tusculanums Forlag'') is an independent academic press historically associated with the University of Copenhagen, publishing mainly in the humanities, social sciences and theology. It was founded in 1975 as ...
, 2015. pp. 77-102.
External links
"The Finno-Ugrics"
''The Economist'', December 20, 2005
* Kulonen, Ulla-Maija
Origin of Finnish and related languages.
''thisisFINLAND'', Finland Promotion Board. Cited 30.10.2009.
*
*Syrjänen, Kaj, Lehtinen, Jyri, Vesakoski, Outi, de Heer, Mervi, Suutari, Toni, Dunn, Michael, … Leino, Unni-Päivä. (2018). lexibank/uralex: UraLex basic vocabulary dataset (Version v1.0) ata set Zenodo.
"Rebel" Uralists
"The 'Ugric-Turkic battle': a critical review"
by Angela Marcantonio, Pirjo Nummenaho, and Michela Salvagni
by Johanna Laakso
Johanna Laakso (born 1962 in Helsinki) is a Finnish linguist and Finno-Ugrist based at the University of Vienna.
Biography
Laakso studied Finno-Ugric languages, Finnic languages and general linguistics at the University of Helsinki from 1979 to 1 ...
– a book review of Angela Marcantonio's ''The Uralic Language Family: Facts, Myths and Statistics''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Uralic Languages
Agglutinative languages
Language families
Languages of Russia
Languages of Finland
Languages of Hungary
Languages of Estonia