Uralic languages
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The Uralic languages form a language family of about 30 languages spoken by approximately 20 million people. The name of the language family references the location of the family’s suggested Urheimat, 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.
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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 hypothetical ancestor, which may not have existed as a unified language, is Proto-Uralic.
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:
Classification of Languages
The traditional classification of the Uralic languages is as follows. Obsolete names are displayed in italics.
- Northern Samoyedic
- Southern Samoyedic
- Ugric (Ugrian)
- 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)
- Extinct Finno-Volgaic languages of uncertain position
- Finno-Lappic (Finno-Saamic, Finno-Samic)
- Sami (Samic, Saamic, Lappic, Lappish)
- Western Sami (Western Samic)
- Southern Sami (Southern Samic)
- Lule Sami
- Pite Sami — Nearly extinct
- Southern Sami
- Ume Sami — Nearly extinct
- Northern Sami (Northern Samic)
- Southern Sami (Southern Samic)
- Central-Eastern Sami (Central-Eastern Samic)
- Central Sami (Central Samic)
- Kainuu Sami — Extinct
- Kemi Sami — Extinct
- Eastern Sami (Eastern Samic)
- Inari Sami
- Akkala Sami — Nearly extinct
- Kildin Sami
- Skolt Sami
- Ter Sami — Nearly extinct
- Central Sami (Central Samic)
- Western Sami (Western Samic)
- Baltic-Finnic (Balto-Finnic, Finnic, Fennic)
- Estonian
- Finnish (including Meänkieli or Tornedalen Finnish, Kven Finnish, and Ingrian Finnish)
- Izhorian (Ingrian) — 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)
- Seto (Setu)
- Votic (Votian, Vod) — Nearly extinct
- Sami (Samic, Saamic, Lappic, Lappish)
- Mari (Cheremisic)
- Permic (Permian)
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: 24 cases (or more)
- 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 personal suffixes, e.g., Hungarian.)
- palatalization (lost only in standard Finnish, but still found in the eastern dialects).
- 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 syntatic structures.
- 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, where the singular is in the partitive case: cf. English "ten (bits) of news" = "kymmenen uutista"; "neljä solmua" = literally "four of-a-knot".)
- 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 | Finnish | Estonian | Võro | North Sami | Inari Sami | Erzya | Mari | Komi | Khanty | Hungarian | Nenets |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| heart | sydän, sydäm- | süda, südam- | süä, süäm- | čotta, čoddaga | - | śed´ej (also dialects in śäd´ej and śed´eŋ) | šüm- | śələm | səm | szív | sēw |
| lap | syli | süli | salla, sala | solla | sel´ (also dialects in säl´) | šəl | syl | jöl | öl | - | |
| vein | suoni | soon | suuń, soonõ- | suotna, suona | suona | san | šön | sən | jan | ín 'sinew, tendon' | tēn |
| go | mennä, men- | minna, min- | minnäq, min- | mannat | moonnađ | - | mija- | mun- | mən- | menni, megy | min- |
| fish | kala | kala | kala | guolli, guoli | kyeli | kal | kol | - | kul | hal | xal'ä |
| hand | käsi, käte- gen. käden, part. kättä | käsi, kät- gen. käe, part. kätt | käsi, kät- gen. käe, part. kätt | giehta, gieđa | kieta | ked´ | kö | ki | köt | kéz | - |
| eye | silmä | silm, silma- | silm, silmä- | čalbmi, čalmmi | čalme, šalme | śel´me (also dialects in śäl´me) | šinča | śin | sem | szem | sew |
| leg | jalka | jalg | jalg | juolgi, juolggi | jyel´gi | jalgo 'on foot' | jol | gyalog 'on foot' | |||
| leg | láb | laamp(a) (Selkup) | |||||||||
| father | isä | isa | esä | áhčči, áhči | eeči | ős 'ancestor' | niiśe | ||||
| fire | tuli | tuli, tule- | tuli, tulõ- | dolla | tulla | tol | tul | ti̮l | tűz | tuu | |
| tooth | 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 (1960), An Etymological Dictionary of the Uralic Languages, Stockholm.
- Décsy, Gyula (1990), The Uralic Protolanguage: A Comprehensive Reconstruction, Bloomington, Indiana.
- 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.
External links
- Ethnologue’s Uralic Family Tree (http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=713)
- The Untenability of the Finno-Ugrian Theory from a Linguistic Point of View (http://www.acronet.net/~magyar/english/1997-3/JRNL97B.htm) by Dr. László Marácz, a minority opinion on the language family.
- "The Ugric-Turkic Battle": A Critical Review (http://www.kirj.ee/esi-l-lu/l37-2-1.pdf) (PDF) by Angela Marcantonio (Rome), Pirjo Nummenaho (Naples) and Michela Salvagni (Rome)
- Linguistic Shadow-Boxing (http://homepage.univie.ac.at/Johanna.Laakso/am_rev.html) by Johanna Laakso — A book review of Angela Marcantonio’s "The Uralic language family. Facts, myths and statistics"ar:أورالية
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