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, Russia, 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 linguistic genera, Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic, are consistently recognized as being distinct from one another. 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. Perhaps the most controversial is the relationship between the Uralic languages and Yukaghir language and maybe also the Altaic languages.

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

Classification of Languages

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

Samoyedic

Finno-Ugric

Modern linguistic research has shown that Volgaic languages is a geographical classification rather than a linguistic one, because the Mordvinic languages are more closely related to the Finno-Lappic languages than 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, Not in Hungarian.)
  • unique Uralic case system, from which all modern Uralic languages derive their case systems (Not in Hungarian.)
    • nominative singular has no case suffix
    • three-way distinction in the local case system; especially evident e.g. in Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian which have several sets of local cases
    • Uralic locative suffix exists in all Uralic languages in various cases, e.g. Hungarian superressive, Finnish essive, North Sami essive, Erzyan inessive, Nenets locative etc.
  • vowel harmony (recently lost in standard Estonian, but exists in dialects)
  • a lack of grammatical gender (This is Turkish, Persian, English, Armenian the same)
  • negative verb, (Not in Hungarian) which exists in all Uralic languages, e.g. Nganasan, Enets, Nenets, Kamassian, Komi, Meadow Mari, North Sami (and other Samic languages), Finnish, Estonian, Karelian, etc. (Some languages have lost personal suffixes, e.g. Hungarian.)
  • palatalization (In many langiuages, English, Slavic, etc...)
  • basic vocabulary of several dozen 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, 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 (In all agglutinating languages)
  • no possessive pronouns (In all agglutinating languages)
  • dual, which exists e.g. in Samoyedic, Ob Ugrian and Samic languages, not in Hungarian
  • plural markers -j (i) and -t have the same origin (e.g. in Finnish, Estonian, Erzya, Samic languages, Samoyedic languages). Hungarian, however, has -i and -k. In the old orthographies, the plural marker -k was also used in the Samic languages, that is quite different ones.
  • no verb "have" (In Hungarian the verb "have" exists)

Here some of the ground words in Finnish and Hungarian.

English Finnish Hungarian English Finnish Hungarian
father isa apa, atya mother äiti anya
brother veli fivér sister sisar,sairaanhoituja nõvér
leg jalka, jalan láb fire tuli tûz
earth maa, multa föld forest metsikkö, metsä erdõ
lake järvi, meri tó sea meri tenger
way tie, ajotie út path kuja, polku ösvény
god jumala isten luck onni szerencse
border raja határ grass ruoho tenger
family perhe család child lapsi gyerek
tooth hammas fog nose nemä orr
language puhekykky, kieli nyelv milk maito tej

Numbers

The numbers from 1 to 10 in Finnish, Estonian, North Sami, Erzya, Mansi, and Hungarian.

Number Finnish Estonian North Sami Erzya Mansi Hungarian
1 yksi üks okta vejke akva egy
2 kaksi kaks guokte kavto kityg kettő
3 kolme kolm golbma kolmo hurum három
4 neljä neli njeallje nile nila négy
5 viisi viis vihtta vete at öt
6 kuusi kuus guhtta koto hot hat
7 seitsemän seitse čieža sisem sat hét
8 kahdeksan kaheksa gávcci kavkso ńololov nyolc
9 yhdeksän üheksa ovcci vejkse ontolov kilenc
10 kymmenen kümme logi kemeń lov tíz

Selected cognates

The following is a 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 North Sami Saami Mari Komi Khanty Hungarian Nenets
heart sydäm- südam- čotta (gen. čoddaga) čâððam- šüm- śələm səm szív sēw
lap syli süli salla sâllâ šəl syl jöl öl -
vein suoni soon suotna (gen. suona) suodnâ šön sən jan ér tēn
go mennä (stem men-) minna (stem min-) mannat mânnâ- mija- mun- mən- megy, menni- min-
fish kala kala guolli guolle kol - kul hal xal'ä
hand käte- (nom. käsi) kät- giehta (gen. gieđa) giettâ kö ki köt kéz -
eye silmä silm čalbmi čal'bme šinča śin sem szem sew

Summarized: There are very few common words in the whole group. The only truely common feature, agglutination, is also characteristic for Sumerian, Basque, Persian, Turkish, Armenian, Etruscian, and other languages.

Bibliography

  • Collinder, Bjorn (1960), An Etymological Dictionary of the Uralic Languages, Stockholm.
  • Decsy, Jyula (1990), The Uralic Protolangage: A Comprehensive Reconstruction, Bloomington, Indiana.
  • Laakso, Johanna (1992), Uralilaiset kansat, Porvoo - Helsinki - Juva.
  • Redei, Karoly (ed.) (1986-88), Uralisches Etymologisches Worterbuch, Budapest.
  • Sauvageot, Aurelien (1930), Recherches sur le vocabulaire des langues ouralo-altaiques, Paris.
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