Uralic languages

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The Uralic languages (pronounced /jʊ'ralɪk/) form a language family of about 30 languages spoken by approximately 20 million people. The name of the language family refers to the location of the family’s suggested Urheimat (homeland), which is often placed close to the Ural mountains. Countries that are home to a significant number of speakers of Uralic languages include: Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Norway, Romania, Russia, the Serbian province of Vojvodina, and Sweden. The healthiest Uralic languages, in terms of the number of native speakers and national identity, are Estonian, Finnish, and Hungarian.

Family Tree

While the internal structure of the Uralic family has been under debate since the family was originally proposed, two subfamilies, Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic, are consistently recognized as being distinct from one another. Their assumed ancestor language is Proto-Uralic, which is assumed to have split into Proto-Samoyed and Proto-Finno-Ugric.

Many efforts have been made to identify the relationship between the Uralic languages and languages generally thought to belong to the world’s other major language families. Probably the least controversial — though all such proposals currently remain controversial — is the relationship between the Uralic languages and Yukaghir; theories proposing a special relationship with the Altaic languages were formerly very popular, but have fallen out of favor in more recent decades.

Theories that include the Uralic family as a node in a proposed superfamily include the following:

• Eurasiatic
• Nostratic
• Proto-World
• Ural-Altaic
• Uralo-Dravidian
• Uralo-Indo-European or Indo-Uralic
• Uralo-Siberian
• Uralo-Yukaghir

Classification of Languages

The traditional classification of the Uralic languages is as follows. Obsolete names are displayed in italics.

Samoyedic

• Northern Samoyedic
• * Enets (Yenets, Yenisei-Samoyed) — Nearly extinct
• * Nenets (Yurak)
• * Nganasan (Tavgy, Tavgi, Tawgi, Tawgi-Samoyed)
• * Yurats
• Southern Samoyedic
• * Kamassian (Kamas) — Extinct (20th century)
• * Mator (Motor) — Extinct (19th century)
• * Selkup (Ostyak-Samoyed)

Finno-Ugric

• Ugric (Ugrian)
• * Hungarian
• ** Hungarian
• * Ob Ugric (Ob Ugrian)
• ** Khanty (Ostyak)
• ** Mansi (Vogul)
• Finno-Permic (Permian-Finnic)
• * Permic (Permian)
• ** Komi (Komi-Zyrian, Zyrian)
• ** Komi-Permyak
• ** Udmurt (Votyak)
• * Finno-Volgaic (Finno-Cheremisic, Finno-Mari, Volga-Finnic)
• ** Mari (Cheremisic)
• *** Mari (Cheremis)
• ** Mordvinic (Mordvin, Mordvinian)
• *** Erzya
• *** Moksha
• ** Extinct Finno-Volgaic languages of uncertain position
• ***Merya (17th century)
• ***Muromian
• ***Meshcherian
• ** Finno-Lappic (Finno-Saamic, Finno-Samic)
• *** Sami (Samic, Saamic, Lappic, Lappish)
• **** Western Sami (Western Samic)
• ***** Southern Sami
• ***** Ume Sami — Nearly extinct
• ***** Lule Sami
• ***** Pite Sami — Nearly extinct
• ***** Northern Sami
• **** Eastern Sami (Eastern Samic)
• ***** Kainuu Sami — Extinct
• ***** Kemi Sami — Extinct
• ***** Inari Sami
• ***** Akkala Sami — Extinct (21st century)
• ***** Kildin Sami
• ***** Skolt Sami
• ***** Ter Sami — Nearly extinct
• *** Baltic-Finnic (Balto-Finnic, Balto-Fennic, Finnic, Fennic)
• **** Estonian
• **** Finnish (including Meänkieli or Tornedalian Finnish, Kven Finnish, and Ingrian Finnish)
• **** Ingrian (Izhorian) — Nearly extinct
• **** Karelian
• ***** Karelian proper
• ***** Lude (Ludic, Ludian)
• ***** Olonets Karelian (Livvi, Aunus, Aunus Karelian, Olonetsian)
• **** Livonian (Liv) — Nearly extinct
• **** Veps (Vepsian)
• **** Võro (Voro, Võru, Voru; including Seto or Setu)
• **** Votic (Votian, Vod) — Nearly extinct

The term Volgaic, used to denote a branch previously believed to include Mari and Mordvinic, has now become obsolete. Modern linguistic research has shown that it was a geographic classification rather than a linguistic one. The Mordvinic languages are more closely related to the Finno-Lappic languages than they are to the Mari languages.

Typology

Structural characteristics generally said to be typical of Uralic languages include:

• extensive use of independent suffixes, a.k.a. agglutination.
• a large set of grammatical cases (13–14 cases on average), e.g.:
• * Erzya: 12 cases
• * Estonian: 14 cases
• * Finnish: 15 cases (or more)
• * Hungarian: 18 cases (and some more case-like suffixes)
• * Inari Sami: 9 cases
• * Komi: 27 cases
• * Moksha: 13 cases
• * Nenets: 7 cases
• * North Sami: 7 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 sounds (-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.
• * Uralic locative suffix exists in all Uralic languages in various cases, e.g., Hungarian superessive, Finnish essive, North Sami essive, Erzyan inessive, and Nenets locative.
• * Uralic lative suffix exists in various cases in many Uralic languages, e.g., Hungarian illative, Finnish lative, Erzyan illative, Komi approximative, and Northern Sami locative.
• vowel harmony (recently lost in standard Estonian, but exists in dialects).
• a lack of grammatical gender.
• negative verb, which exists in almost all Uralic languages, e.g., Nganasan, Enets, Nenets, Kamassian, Komi, Meadow Mari, Erzya (in the first preterite, the conjunctional, optative and imperative moods, sometimes there are alterations in choice of negative verb stems), North Sami (and other Samic languages), Finnish, Estonian, Karelian, etc. (Some innovative languages have lost this feature, e.g., Hungarian.)
• palatalization of consonants; in this context, palatalization means a secondary articulation, where the middle of the tongue is tense. For example, pairs like [ɲ] - [n], or [c] - [t] are contrasted in Hungarian, as in hattyú [hɒccuː] "swan". Some Sami languages, for example Skolt Sami, distinguish three degrees: plain [l], palatalized <'l> [lʲ], and palatal [λ], where <'l> has a primary alveolar articulation, while has a primary palatal articulation. Palatalization is lost only in standard Finnish, but still found in the Eastern dialects. Russian palatalization is different, as it is more of an offglide rather than a feature of the consonant itself, and involves considerable affrication with 't' and 'd'.
• lack of tonality.
• lots of postpositions (prepositions are very rare).
• 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.
• possessive suffixes.
• no possessive pronouns.
• dual, which exists, e.g., in the Samoyedic, Ob Ugrian and Samic languages.
• plural markers -j (i) and -t (-d) have a common origin (e.g., in Finnish, Estonian, Erzya, Samic languages, Samoyedic languages). Hungarian, however, has -i- before the possessive suffixes and -k elsewhere. In the old orthographies, the plural marker -k was also used in the Samic languages.
• no verb for "have". Note that all Uralic languages have verbs with the meaning of "own" or "possess", but these words are not used in the same way as English "have". Instead, the concept of "have" is indicated with alternative syntactic structures. For example, Finnish uses existential clauses; the subject is the possession, the verb is "to be" (the copula), and the possessor is grammatically a location and in the adessive case: "Minulla on kala", literally "I_on is fish", or "I have a fish (some fish)". In addition, Finnish can also employ possessive suffixes, e.g. "Minulla on kalani", literally "I_on is fish_my", or "I do have my own fish". In Hungarian: "Van egy halam", literally "Is a fish_my", or "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 inaccurate for Finnish and Estonian, where the singular is in the partitive case, such that the number points to a part of a larger mass, like "four of knot(s)".)
• the stress is always on the first syllable, except for the Mari, Udmurt and Komi-Permyak languages. The Erzya language can vary its stress in words to give specific nuances to sentential meaning.

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.

English	Proto-Uralic	Finnish	Estonian	Võro	North Sami	Inari Sami	Erzya	Mari	Komi	Khanty	Hungarian	Nenets
heart	*śüδɜm	sydän, sydäm-	süda, südam-	süä, süäm-	čotta, čoddaga	-	śed´ej (also dialects in śäd´ej and śed´eŋ)	šüm-	śələm	səm	szív	sēw
lap	*sülɜ	syli	süli		salla, sala	sollâ	sel´ (also dialects in säl´)	šəl	syl	jöl	öl	-
vein	*suonɜ	suoni	soon	suuń, soonõ-	suotna, suona	suonâ	san	šön	sən	jan	ín 'sinew, tendon'	tēn
go	*min-	mennä, men-	minna, min-	minnäq, min-	mannat	moonnâđ	-	mija-	mun-	mən-	menni, megy	min-
fish	*kala	kala	kala	kala	guolli, guoli	kyeli	kal	kol	-	kul	hal	xal'ä
hand	*kätɜ	käsi, käte- gen. käden, part. kättä	käsi, kät- gen. käe, part. kätt	käsi, kät- gen. käe, part. kätt	giehta, gieđa	kietâ	ked´	kö	ki	köt	kéz	-
eye	*śilma	silmä	silm, silma-	silm, silmä-	čalbmi, čalmmi	čalme, šalme	śel´me (also dialects in śäl´me)	šinča	śin	sem	szem	sew
leg	*jalka	jalka	jalg	jalg	juolgi, juolggi	jyel´gi	jalgo 'on foot'	jol			láb (gyalog 'on foot')
father	*iśa	isä	isa	esä	áhčči, áhči	eeči					ős 'ancestor'	niiśe
fire	*tulɜ	tuli	tuli, tule-	tuli, tulõ-	dolla	tullâ	tol	tul	ti̮l		tűz	tuu
tooth	*piŋ	pii	pii		bátni *	pääni *	pej (also dialects with peŋ and päj)	püj	piń	pöŋk, peŋk	fog

* May not be etymologically of the same origin.

Bibliography

• Abondolo, Daniel (ed., 1998), The Uralic Languages, London and New York, ISBN 0-415-08198-X.
• Collinder, Björn (1957), Survey of the Uralic Languages, Stockholm.
• Collinder, Björn (1960), An Etymological Dictionary of the Uralic Languages, Stockholm.
• Décsy, Gyula (1990), The Uralic Protolanguage: A Comprehensive Reconstruction, Bloomington, Indiana.
• Hajdu, Péter, (1963), Finnugor népek és nyelvek, Gondolat kiadó, Budapest [Transl. G. F. Cushing as Finni-Ugrian Languages and Peoples (1975), André Deutsch, London].
• Laakso, Johanna (1992), Uralilaiset kansat (Uralic Peoples), Porvoo – Helsinki – Juva, ISBN 951-0-16485-2.
• Rédei, Károly (ed.) (1986-88), Uralisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (Uralic Etymological Dictionary), Budapest.
• Sammallahti, Pekka, Matti Morottaja (1983): Säämi – suoma – säämi škovlasänikirje (Inari Sami – Finnish – Inari Sami School Dictionary). Helsset/Helsinki: Ruovttueatnan gielaid dutkanguovddaš/Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus, ISBN 951-9475-36-2.
• Sammallahti, Pekka (1993): Sámi – suoma – sámi sátnegirji (Northern Sami – Finnish – Northern Sami Dictionary). Ohcejohka/Utsjoki: Girjegiisá, ISBN 951-8939-28-4.
• Sauvageot, Aurélien (1930), Recherches sur le vocabulaire des langues ouralo-altaïques (Research on the Vocabulary of the Uralo-Altaic Languages), Paris.
• Önija komi kyv. (Modern Komi language) Morfologia/Das’töma filologijasa kandidat G.V.Fed'un'ova kipod ulyn. — Syktyvkar: Komi n’ebög ledzanin, 2000. — 544 s. ISBN 5-7555-0689-2.

See also

• Altaic languages
• Indo-European languages
• Language family
• List of languages

External links

• [Ethnologue’s Uralic Family Tree]
• [The Untenability of the Finno-Ugrian Theory from a Linguistic Point of View] by Dr. László Marácz, a minority opinion on the language family.
• ["The Ugric-Turkic Battle": A Critical Review] (PDF) by Angela Marcantonio (Rome), Pirjo Nummenaho (Naples) and Michela Salvagni (Rome)
• [Linguistic Shadow-Boxing] by Johanna Laakso — A book review of Angela Marcantonio’s "The Uralic language family. Facts, myths and statistics"
• [The Finno-Ugrics], The Economist, Dec. 20, 2005

 

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