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| Homeland | |
| 3>
In recent times, linguists often place the Urheimat, meaning the 'original homeland', of the Proto-Uralic language in the vicinity of the Volga River, west of the Urals, close to the Urheimat of the Indo-European languages, or to the east and southeast of the Urals. Gy. Laszlo places its origin in the forest zone between the Oka River and central Poland. E.N. Setälä and M. Zsirai place it between the Volga and Kama Rivers. According to E. Itkonen, the ancestral area extended to the Baltic Sea. P. Hajdu has suggested a homeland in western and northwestern Siberia.[3]
[edit] Tags:Volga River,Indo-european Languages,Oka River,Poland,Volga,Kama Rivers,Baltic Sea,Siberia,Indo-european, | |
| Early attestations | |
| 3>
The first mention of a Uralic people is in Tacitus's Germania,[4] mentioning the Fenni (usually interpreted as referring to the Sami) and two other possibly Uralic tribes living in the farthest reaches of Scandinavia. 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.
[edit] Tags:Sami,Tacitus,Germania,Fenni,German, | |
| Uralic studies | |
| 3>
In 1671, Swedish scholar Georg Stiernhielm commented on the similarities of Lapp, Estonian and Finnish, and also on a few similar words between Finnish and Hungarian, while the German scholar Martin Vogel tried to establish a relationship between Finnish, Lapp and Hungarian. These two authors were thus 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 the Indo-European family.
In 1717, Swedish professor Olof Rudbeck proposed about 100 etymologies connecting Finnish and Hungarian, of which about 40 are still considered valid (Collinder, 1965). In the same year, the German scholar Johann Georg von Eckhart, in an essay published in Leibniz's Collectanea Etymologica, proposed for the first time a relation to the Samoyedic languages.
By 1770, all the languages belonging to the Finno-Ugric languages had been identified, almost 20 years before the traditional starting-point of Indo-European studies. 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 Ruhlen (1987) as due to "the wild unfettered Romanticism of the epoch". Still, in spite of this hostile climate, the Hungarian Jesuit János Sajnovics suggested a relationship between Hungarian and Lapp (Sami) in 1770, and in 1799, the Hungarian Sámuel Gyarmathi published the most complete work on Finno-Ugric to that date.
At the beginning of the 19th century, research on Uralic was thus more advanced than Indo-European research. But the rise of Indo-European comparative linguistics absorbed so much attention and enthusiasm that Uralic linguistics was all but eclipsed in Europe; in Hungary, the only European country that would have had a vested interest in the family (Finland and Estonia being under Russian rule), the political climate was too hostile for the development of Uralic comparative linguistics. Some progress was made, however, culminating in the work of the German linguist Josef Budenz, who for 20 years was the leading Uralic specialist in Hungary.
Another late-19th-century contribution is that of Hungarian linguist Ignác Halász, 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 Samoyed-Finno-Ugric relationship (i.e. the Uralic family).
During the 1990s, linguists Kalevi Wiik, Janos Pusztay, and Ago Künnap and historian Kyösti Julku announced a "breakthrough in Present-Day Uralistics", dating Proto-Finnic to 10,000 BC. The theory was almost entirely unsuccessful in the scientific community.[5]
[edit] Tags:Finnic,Hungarian,Samoyedic,Finnish,Estonian,Estonia,Finland,Hungary,Russia,Samoyedic Languages,Swedish,Georg Stiernhielm,Olof Rudbeck,Johann Georg Von Eckhart,Leibniz,Finno-ugric Languages,Indo-european Studies,Turkic,Jesuit,János Sajnovics,Kalevi Wiik,Janos Pusztay,Ago Künnap,Kyösti Julku,Finno-ugric,Ugric, | |
| Classification of languages | |
| 2>
Relative numbers of speakers of Uralic languages
Hungarian
56%
Finnish
20%
Estonian
4.2%
Erzya
2.8%
Moksha
2.5%
Mari
2%
Udmurt
1.9%
Komi
1.6%
Other
8.9%
The Uralic family currently comprises nine undisputed language groups. These are not necessarily primary branches of Uralic, but there is no consensus classification. (Some of the proposals are listed in the next section.) Obsolete names are displayed in italics.
Finnic (Fennic, Baltic Finnic, Balto-Finnic, Balto-Fennic)
Hungarian (Magyar)
Khanty (Ostyak, Handi, Hantõ)
Mansi (Vogul)
Mari (Cheremis)
Mordvinic (Mordvin, Mordvinian)
Permic (Permian)
Sami (Samic, Saamic, Lappic, Lappish)
Samoyedic (Samoyed)
There is also historical evidence of a number of extinct languages of uncertain affiliation:
Merya
Muromian
Meshcherian (until 16th century?)
[edit] Tags:Khanty,Mansi,Mari,Mordvinic,Permic,Merya,Muromian,Meshcherian, | |
| Family tree | |
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All Uralic languages are thought to have descended, through independent processes of language change, from Proto-Uralic. The internal structure of the Uralic family has been debated since the family was first proposed. Doubts about the validity of most of the proposed higher-order branchings (grouping the nine undisputed families) are becoming more common.[6]
The traditional classification is as follows:[citation needed]
Samoyedic
Finno-Ugric
Ugric (Ugrian)
Hungarian
Ob-Ugric (Ob Ugrian)
Khanty
Mansi
Finno-Permic (Permian-Finnic)
Permic
Finno-Volgaic (Finno-Cheremisic, Finno-Mari)
Mari
Merya
Meshcherian
Mordvinic
Muromian
Finno-Lappic (Finno-Saamic, Finno-Samic)
Sami
Finnic
Three distinct subfamilies are usually recognized: Finno-Permic, Ugric and Samoyedic. It had formerly been widely accepted to group Finno-Permic and Ugric as the Finno-Ugric family, but especially in Finland there has been a growing tendency to cut the family tree lower by rejecting the Finno-Ugric intermediate protolanguage.[6][7] In more marked opposition to the traditionally accepted branching, a recent proposal unites Ugric and Samoyedic in an "East Uralic" group for which shared innovations can be noted.[8]
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-Lappic.[9] 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[6] 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.
[edit] Tags:Language Change,Ob-ugric,Finno-permic,Finno-volgaic,Finno-lappic,Volgaic, | |
| Lexical isoglosses | |
| 4>
Lexicostatistics has been used in defense of the traditional family tree. A recent re-evaluation of the evidence[10] 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:[11]
Uralic (*käktä "2", *wixti "5" / "10")
Samoyedic (*op "1", *ketä "2", *näkur "3", *tettə "4", *səmpəleŋkə "5", *məktut "6", *sejtwə "7", *wiət "10")
Finno-Ugric (*üki/*ükti "1", *kormi "3", *ńeljä "4", *wiiti "5", *kuuti "6", *luki "10")
Mansic
Mansi
Hungarian (hét "7"; replacement egy "1")
Finno-Khantic (reshaping *kolmi "3" on the analogy of "4")
Khanty
Finno-Permic (reshaping *käktä > *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
[edit] Tags:/,Lexicostatistics, | |
| Phonological isoglosses | |
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Another, more divergent from the standard, focusing on consonant isoglosses (which does not consider the position of the Samoyedic languages) is presented by Viitso (1997),[12] and refined in Viitso (2000)[13]:
Finno-Ugric
Western Finno-Ugric (Finno-Saamic) (consonant gradation)
Saamic
Finnic
Mari
Mordvinic
Permic-Ugric (*δ → *l)
Permic
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; *δ́ → δ 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.[8]
Finno-Ugric consonant developments after Viitso (2000); Samoyedic changes after Sammallahti (1988)
Saamic
Finnic
Mordvinic
Mari
Permic
Hungarian
Mansi
Khanty
Samoyedic
Medial lenition of *k
no
no
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
Medial lenition of *p, *t
no
no
yes
yes
yes
yes
no
no
no
Degemination
no
no
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
yes
no
Consonant gradation
yes
yes
no
no
no
no
no
no
yes
*δ
→ *δ
→ *t
→ *t
→ ∅
→ *l
→ l
→ *l
→ *l
→ *r
*δ́
*δ
→ *ĺ
→ ď <gy>, j
→ *ĺ
→ *j
→ *j
*s
*s
*s
*s
→ *š
*s
→ ∅
→ *t
→ *ɬ
→ *t
*š
→ *h
*š
*š
*ś
→ *ć
→ *s
*ś
*ś
→ s <sz>
→ *š
→ *s
→ *s
*ć
*ć
→ *s
→ *ś
*ć
→ č <cs>
*ć ~ *š
*ć
→ *s
Note: Proto-Khanty *ɬ in many of the dialects yields *t; it is assumed 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.[14]
[edit] Tags:Eastern, | |
| Possible relations with other families | |
| 2>
Many relationships between Uralic and other language families have been suggested, but none of these are generally accepted by linguists at the present time.
[edit] Tags: | |
| Ural–Altaic | |
| 3>
Main article: Ural–Altaic languages
Theories proposing a close relationship with the Altaic languages 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 both sets of languages, as well as vowel harmony in some. For example, the word for "language" is similar in Estonian (keel) and Mongolian (хэл (hel)). These theories are now generally rejected[15] and most such similarities are attributed to coincidence or language contact, and a few to possible relationship at a deeper genetic level.
[edit] Tags: | |
| Indo-Uralic | |
| 3>
Main article: Indo-Uralic languages
The Indo-Uralic (or Uralo-Indo-European) theory suggests that Uralic and Indo-European 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. It is viewed as certain by a few linguists and as possible by a larger number.
[edit] Tags:Language Family, | |
| Uralic–Yukaghir | |
| 3>
Main article: Uralic–Yukaghir languages
The Uralic–Yukaghir theory identifies Uralic and Yukaghir 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.[16] Regardless, the theory is accepted by a few linguists and viewed as attractive by a somewhat larger number.
[edit] Tags: | |
| Eskimo–Uralic | |
| 3>
Main article: Eskimo–Uralic languages
The Eskimo–Uralic theory 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 is Bergsland 1959.
[edit] Tags: | |
| Uralo-Siberian | |
| 3>
Main article: Uralo-Siberian languages
Uralo-Siberian is an expanded form of the Eskimo–Uralic hypothesis. It associates Uralic with Yukaghir, Chukotko-Kamchatkan, and Eskimo–Aleut. It was propounded by Michael Fortescue in 1998.
[edit] Tags: | |
| Nostratic | |
| 3>
Main article: Nostratic languages
Nostratic associates Uralic, Indo-European, Altaic, and various other language families of Asia. The Nostratic theory was first propounded by Holger Pedersen in 1903 and subsequently revived by Vladislav Illich-Svitych and Aharon Dolgopolsky in the 1960s.
[edit] Tags: | |
| Eurasiatic | |
| 3>
Main article: Eurasiatic languages
Eurasiatic 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, Ainu, and Eskimo–Aleut. It was propounded by Joseph Greenberg in 2000–2002. Similar ideas had earlier been expressed by Björn Collinder (1965:30–34).
[edit] Tags: | |
| Uralo-Dravidian | |
| 3>
The theory that the Dravidian languages display similarities with the Uralic language group, suggesting a prolonged period of contact in the past,[17] is popular amongst Dravidian linguists and has been supported by a number of scholars, including Robert Caldwell,[18] Thomas Burrow,[19] Kamil Zvelebil,[20] and Mikhail Andronov.[21] This theory has, however, been rejected by some specialists in Uralic languages,[22] and has in recent times also been criticised by other Dravidian linguists such as Bhadriraju Krishnamurti.[23]
All of these theories are minority views at the present time in Uralic studies.
[edit] Tags: | |
| Other theories | |
| 3>
Various unorthodox comparisons have been advanced such as Finno-Basque and Hungaro-Sumerian. These are considered spurious by specialists.[24]
[edit] Tags: | |
| Typology | |
| 2>
Further information: Regular sound correspondences between Hungarian and other Uralic languages
Structural characteristics generally said to be typical of Uralic languages include:
[edit] Tags: | |
| Grammar | |
| 3>
extensive use of independent suffixes, aka agglutination.
a large set of grammatical cases 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
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 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.
the Uralic locative suffix exists in all Uralic languages in various cases, e.g., Hungarian superessive, Finnish essive (-na), North Sami essive, Erzyan inessive, and Nenets locative.
the Uralic lative suffix exists in various cases in many Uralic languages, e.g., Hungarian illative, Finnish lative (-s as in rannemmas), Erzyan illative, Komi approximative, and Northern Sami locative.
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.)
use of postpositions as opposed to prepositions (prepositions are uncommon).
possessive suffixes.
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.
Possession indicated with locative or dative constructions. 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 "At me is fish", or "I have a fish (some fish)". In Hungarian: "Van egy halam", literally "Is a fish_my", or "I have a fish", or "Nekem van..." ("To me is...").
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)".)
[edit] Tags: | |
| Phonology | |
| 3>
vowel harmony: this is present in many but by no means all Uralic languages. It exists in Hungarian and various Finnic languages and is present to some degree elsewhere (Mordvinic, Mari, Khanty, and Samoyedic). It is lacking in Sami and Permic.[25]
large vowel inventories. For example, some Selkup varieties have over twenty different monophthongs, and Estonian has over twenty different diphthongs.
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> [l], palatalized <'l> [lʲ], and palatal <lj> [ʎ], where <'l> has a primary alveolar articulation, while <lj> has a primary palatal articulation. Original Uralic palatalization is phonemic, independent of the following vowel and traceable to the millennia-old Proto-Uralic. It is different from Russian palatalization, which is of more recent origin. The Finnic languages have lost palatalization, but the eastern varieties 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.
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.
[edit] Tags: | |
| Lexicography | |
| 3>
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.
[edit] Tags: | |
| Example sentence | |
| 3>
Estonian philologist Mall Hellam provided an example of an entire sentence that is mutually intelligible among the three most widely-spoken Uralic languages of Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian, and traceable to the common ancestor of the three languages.[26] [27]
The sentence reads:[27]
Estonian: Elav kala ujub vee all.
Finnish: Elävä kala ui veden alla.
Hungarian: Eleven hal úszik a víz alatt.
English: The living fish swims underwater
Although the common origin is easy to notice, University of Edinburgh linguist Geoffrey Pullum, who speaks some Finnish, is suspicious of claims of mutual intelligibility; in a post on his blog, he reported that a Finnish friend of his living in Hungary claimed that neither Finns nor Hungarians could understand the other language's version of the sentence.[28] Nevertheless, each word is traceable to Proto-Uralic, not a more recent loanword.
[edit] Tags: | |
| Selected cognates | |
| 2>
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. In general, Finnic languages, and of them Finnish is considered to be the most conservative of the Uralic languages[citation needed], especially with regard to vocalism. (An example is porsas ("pig"), loaned from Proto-Indo-European *porḱos or pre-Proto-Indo-Iranian *porśos, unchanged since loaning save for loss of palatalization, *ś → s.)
English
Proto-Uralic
Finnish
Estonian
North Sami
Inari Sami
Erzya
Mari
Komi
Khanty
Mansi
Hungarian
Tundra Nenets
'fire'
*tuli
tuli (tule-)
tuli
dolla
tulla
tol
tul
tyl-
–
–
–
tu
'fish'
*kala
kala
kala
guolli
kyeli
kal
kol
–
kul
kul
hal
xalʲa
'nest'
*pesä
pesä
pesa
beassi
peesi
pize
pəžaš
poz
pel
pitʲii
fészek
pʲidʲa
'hand, arm'
*käti
käsi (käte-)
käsi
giehta
kieta
ked´
kit
ki
köt
kaat
kéz
–
'eye'
*śilmä
silmä
silm
čalbmi
čalme
śel´me
šinča
śin
sem
sam
szem
sæw°
'fathom'
*süli
syli
süli
salla
solla
sel´
šülö
syl
ɬöl
täl
öl
tʲíbʲa
'vein / sinew'
*sïxni
suoni (suone-)
soon
suotna
suona
san
šün
sën
ɬan
taan
ín
te'
'bone'
*luwi
luu
luu
–
–
lovaža
lu
ly
loγ
luw
–
le
'liver'
*mïksa
maksa
maks
–
–
makso
mokš
mus
muγəl
maat
máj
mud°
'urine'
*kunśi
kusi (kuse-)
kusi
gožža
kužža
–
kəž
kudź
kos-
końć-
húgy
–
'to go'
*meni-
mennä (men-)
minema
mannat
moonnađ
–
mija-
mun-
mən-
men-
megy-/men-
mʲin-
'to live'
*elä-
elää (elä-)
elama
eallit
eelliđ
–
ila-
ol-
–
–
él-
jilʲe-
'to die'
*kaxli-
kuolla (kuol-)
koolema
–
–
kulo-
kola-
kul-
kol-
kool-
hal-
xa-
'to wash'
*mośki-
–
mõskma1
–
–
muśke-
muška-
myśky-
–
–
mos-
masø-
1Võro dialect
(Orthographical notes: The hacek denotes postalveolar articulation ('ž' [ʒ], 'š' [ʃ], 'č' [t͡ʃ]), while the acute denotes a secondary palatal articulation ('ś' [sʲ]). The Finnish letter 'y' and the letter 'ü' in other languages represent a high close rounded vowel [y]. The letter 'đ' in the Sami languages represents a voiced dental fricative [ð]. The vowels 'ä' and 'ö' are the fronted [æ] and [ø], respectively.
[edit] Tags: | |
zote monety |