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Indo-Uralic languages
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Indo-Uralic is a hypothetical language family consisting of Indo-European and Uralic.
A genetic relationship between Indo-European and Uralic was first proposed by the Danish linguist Vilhelm Thomsen in 1869 (Pedersen 1931:336) but was received with little enthusiasm. Since then, the predominant opinion in the linguistic community has remained that the evidence for such a relationship is insufficient. However, a minority of eminent linguists has always taken the contrary view (e.g.
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Indo-Uralic is a hypothetical language family consisting of Indo-European and Uralic.
A genetic relationship between Indo-European and Uralic was first proposed by the Danish linguist Vilhelm Thomsen in 1869 (Pedersen 1931:336) but was received with little enthusiasm. Since then, the predominant opinion in the linguistic community has remained that the evidence for such a relationship is insufficient. However, a minority of eminent linguists has always taken the contrary view (e.g. Henry Sweet, Holger Pedersen, Björn Collinder, and Jochem Schindler), making it hard to dismiss the relationship out of hand.
There are two distinct questions here (cf. Greenberg 2005:325):
(1) Are Indo-European and Uralic genetically related?
(2) If so, do Indo-European and Uralic constitute a valid genetic node? The Eurasiatic and Nostratic hypotheses both consider Indo-European and Uralic (or Uralic-Yukaghir) to be genetically related. However, the Indo-Uralic hypothesis in the strict sense is something different from this: it holds that Indo-European and Uralic have an especially close genetic relationship; it does not necessarily include assertions that Indo-European and Uralic are related to any other language families.
At the same time, most of the prominent supporters of a relationship between Indo-European and Uralic have also supported their relationship to additional language families, leading some to regard Indo-Uralic as a subset of the larger Nostratic hypothesis.
The following article focuses on question (1), genetic relationship, and only treats incidentally of question (2), possible relation to other language families.
Geography of the proposed Indo-Uralic family
The Dutch linguist Frederik Kortlandt supports a model of Indo-Uralic in which the original Indo-Uralic speakers lived north of the Caspian Sea, and the Proto-Indo-European speakers began as a group that branched off westward from there to come into geographic proximity with the Northwest Caucasian languages, absorbing a Northwest Caucasian lexical blending before moving farther westward to a region north of the Black Sea where their language settled into canonical Proto-Indo-European (2002:1). Allan Bomhard suggests a similar schema in Indo-European and the Nostratic Hypothesis (1996). Alternatively, the common protolanguage may have been located north of the Black Sea, with Proto-Uralic moving northwards with the climatic improvement of post-glacial times.
History of the Indo-Uralic hypothesis
An authoritative if brief and sketchy history of early Indo-Uralic studies can be found in Holger Pedersen’s Linguistic Science in the Nineteenth Century (1931:336-338). Although Vilhelm Thomsen first raised the possibility of a connection between Indo-European and Finno-Ugric in 1869 (336), "he did not pursue the subject very far" (337). The next important statement in this area was that of Nicolai Anderson in 1879. However, Pedersen reports, the value of Anderson’s work was "impaired by its many errors" (337). The great English phonetician Henry Sweet argued for kinship between Indo-European and Finno-Ugric in his semi-popular book The History of Language in 1900 (see especially Sweet 1900:112-121). Sweet’s treatment awakened "[g]reat interest" in the question, but "his space was too limited to permit of actual proof" (Pedersen 1931:337). A somewhat longer study by K.B. Wiklund appeared in 1906 and another by H. Paasonen in 1908 (i.e. 1907) (ib.). Pedersen considered that these two studies sufficed to settle the question and that, after them, "it seems unnecessary to doubt the relationship further" (ib.).
Sweet considered the relationship to be securely established, stating (1900:120; "Aryan" = Indo-European, "Ugrian" = Finno-Ugric):
- If all these and many other resemblances that might be adduced do not prove the common origin of Aryan and Ugrian, and if we assume that the Ugrians borrowed not only a great part of their vocabulary, but also many of their derivative syllables, together with at least the personal endings of their verbs from Aryan, then the whole fabric of comparative philology falls to the ground, and we are no longer justified in inferring from the similarity of the inflections in Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit that these languages have a common origin.
The most extensive attempt to establish sound correspondences between Indo-European and Uralic to date is that of the late Slovenian linguist Bojan Cop. It was published as a series of articles in various academic journals from 1970 to 1989 under the collective title Indouralica. The topics to be covered by each article were sketched out at the beginning of "Indouralica II". Of the projected 18 articles only 11 appeared. These articles have not been collected into a single volume and thereby remain difficult of access.
Sound correspondences
Among the sound correspondences which Cop did assert were (1972:162):
Uralic m n l r = Indo-European m n l r.
Uralic j w = Indo-European i? u?.
Uralic sibilants (presumably s š s) = Indo-European s.
Uralic word-initial voiceless stops (presumably p t c c k) = Indo-European word-initial voiceless stops (presumably p t k ), also Indo-European s followed by one of these stops.
Uralic word-initial voiceless stops (presumably p t c c k) = Indo-European word-initial voiced aspirates (presumably ).
Uralic ? = Indo-European g and ng.
History of opposition to the Indo-Uralic hypothesis
The history of early opposition to the Indo-Uralic hypothesis does not appear to have been written. It is clear from the statements of supporters such as Sweet that they were facing considerable opposition and that the general climate of opinion was against them, except perhaps in Scandinavia.
Perhaps the best-known critique of more recent times is that of Jorma Koivulehto, issued in a series of carefully formulated articles. Koivulehto’s central contention is that all of the lexical items claimed to be Indo-Uralic can be explained as loans from Indo-European into Uralic (see below for examples).
Arguments for relationship between Indo-European and Uralic
Morphological
The most common arguments in favour of a relationship between Indo-European and Uralic are based on seemingly common elements of morphology, such as the pronominal roots (*m- for first person; *t- for second person; *i- for third person), case markings (accusative *-m; ablative/partitive *-ta), interrogative/relative pronouns (*kw- 'who?, which?'; *y- 'who, which' to signal relative clauses) and a common SOV word order. Other, less obvious correspondences are suggested, such as the Indo-European plural marker *-es (or *-s in the accusative plural *--s) and its Uralic counterpart *-t. This same word-final assibilation of *-t to *-s may also be present in Indo-European second-person singular *-s in comparison with Uralic second-person singular *-t. Compare, within Indo-European itself, *-s second-person singular injunctive, *-si second-person singular present indicative, *-tHa second-person singular perfect, *-te second-person plural present indicative, *tu 'you' (singular) nominative, *tei 'to you' (singular) enclitic pronoun. These forms suggest that the underlying second-person marker in Indo-European may be *t and that the *u found in forms such as *tu was originally an affixal particle.
Indeed, the Finnish verb conjugation system does appear suspiciously Indo-European-like, and similarities to the verb conjugation systems of Latin, Russian, the Baltic languages, and so forth have been noted for years. While the lexicon of a language might receive very heavy influx from even an unrelated language (such as Arabic words into Persian, Italian into Maltese, or most strikingly, Chinese into Korean, Japanese, Thai, and Vietnamese), entire verb conjugation systems would not be expected to be borrowed.
Lexical
A second type of evidence advanced in favor of an Indo-Uralic family is lexical. Numerous words in Indo-European and Uralic resemble each other. The problem is to weed out cognates due to borrowing. Uralic languages have been in contact with a succession of Indo-European languages for millennia. As a result, many words have been borrowed between them, most often from Indo-European languages into Uralic ones.
An example of a Uralic word that cannot be original is Finno-Ugric *sata 'hundred'. The Proto-Indo-European form of this word was *km?tóm (compare Latin centum), which became *catám in early Indo-Iranian (reanalyzed as the neuter nominative-accusative singular of an a stem > Sanskrit satá-, Avestan sata-). This is evidence that the word was borrowed into Finno-Ugric from Indo-Iranian or Indo-Aryan. This borrowing may have occurred in the region north of the Pontic-Caspian steppes around 2100-1800 BC, the approximate floruit of Indo-Iranian (Anthony 2007:371-411). It provides linguistic evidence for the geographical location of these languages around that time, agreeing with archeological evidence that Indo-European speakers were present in the Pontic-Caspian steppes by around 4500 BCE (the Kurgan hypothesis) and that Uralic speakers may have been established in the Pit-Comb Ware culture to their north in the fifth millennium BCE (Carpelan - Parpola 2001:79).
Another ancient borrowing is Finno-Ugric *porcas ‘piglet’. This word corresponds closely in form to the Proto-Indo-European word reconstructed as *por?os, attested by such forms as Latin porcus 'hog', Anglo-Saxon fearh (> English farrow 'young pig'), Lithuanian par~šas ’piglet, castrated boar’, Kurdish purs 'pig', and Saka pasa (< *parsa) 'pig'. In the Indo-European word, *-os (> Finno-Ugric *-as) is a masculine nominative singular ending, but it is quite meaningless in Uralic languages. This shows that the whole word was borrowed as a unit and is not part of the original Uralic vocabulary. (Further details on *porcas are given in the Appendix.)
A later borrowing, from well after the Proto-Indo-European period, is Finnish kuningas 'king'. This word corresponds almost exactly in form to the reconstructed Proto-Germanic word *kuningaz (> Old English kyning > English king), providing fascinating confirmation for a reconstructed proto-form. Here, both the stem suffix -ing and the masculine nominative singular ending *-az (< PIE *-os) are meaningless in Finnish, making it clear that the whole word was borrowed as a unit, like *porcas.
Thus, *sata cannot be Indo-Uralic on account of its phonology, while *porcas and kuningas cannot be Indo-Uralic on account of their morphology.
Such words as those for 'hundred', 'king', and 'pig' have something in common: they represent "cultural vocabulary" as opposed to "basic vocabulary". They are likely to have been acquired along with a more complex number system, the domestic pig, and the institution of kingship from the more advanced Indo-Europeans to the south. Similarly, the Indo-Europeans themselves had acquired such words and cultural items from peoples to their south or west, including possibly their words for 'ox', *gwou- (compare English cow) and 'grain', *bhars- (compare English barley). In contrast, basic vocabulary – words such as 'me', 'hand', 'water', and 'be' – is much less readily borrowed between languages. If Indo-European and Uralic are genetically related, they should show agreements in basic vocabulary, with more agreements if they are closely related, fewer if they are less closely related.
Advocates of a genetic relation between Indo-European and Uralic maintain that the borrowings can be filtered out by application of phonological and morphological analysis and that a core of vocabulary common to Indo-European and Uralic remains. As examples they advance such comparisons as Proto-Uralic *weti- (or *wete-) : Proto-Indo-European *woer- (or *wod), oblique stem *ween-, both meaning 'water', and Proto-Uralic *nimi- (or *nime-) : Proto-Indo-European *nomen- (or *nom), both meaning 'name'. In contrast to *sata and *kuningas, the phonology of these words shows no sound changes from Indo-European daughter languages such as Indo-Iranian. In contrast to kuningas and *porcas, they show no morphological affixes from Indo-European that are absent in Uralic. According to advocates of the Indo-Uralic hypothesis, the resulting core of common vocabulary can only be explained by the hypothesis of common origin.
Objections to this interpretation
It has been countered that nothing prevents this common vocabulary from having been borrowed from Proto-Indo-European into Proto-Uralic.
For the old loans, as well as uncontroversial ones from Proto-Baltic and Proto-Germanic, it is more the rule than the exception that only the stem is borrowed, without any case-endings. Proto-Uralic *nimi- has been explained according to sound laws governing substitutions in borrowings (Koivulehto 1999), on the assumption that the original was a zero-grade oblique stem PIE *(H)nmen- as attested in later Balto-Slavic *inmen- and Proto-Celtic *anmen-. Proto-Uralic *weti- could be a loan from the PIE oblique e-grade form for 'water'. Proto-Uralic *toHi- 'give' and PFU *wetä- 'lead' also make perfect phonologic sense as borrowings.
It is also objected that some or all of the common vocabulary items claimed are false cognates – words whose resemblance is merely coincidental, like English bad and Persian bad.
Responses to objections
The items concerned represent basic vocabulary – unlikely to have been borrowed – or items appropriate to a Mesolithic level of culture and therefore plausible as shared terms.
With regard to the postulated equivalence of Uralic -i and Indo-European -en, we need a little more explanation on how "sound laws", which are regular by definition, can be equivalent to "substitutions in borrowings", which are by definition analogical and therefore not regular, phonologically speaking. Koivulehto’s position may be possible; the issue is whether it is the most compelling explanation of the data.
The points raised concerning the words for 'name’, 'water', and 'give' require a glance at the possible relations of Indo-European and Uralic with other language families, in particular the languages hypothetically grouped as Uralo-Siberian by Fortescue, Eurasiatic by Greenberg, and Nostratic by Holger Pedersen and various successors of his. While it is perfectly true that the Uralic words for these things could be derived from the Indo-European ones (or vice versa), the Uralic words have apparent equivalents among other languages variously identified as "Uralo-Siberian" or "Eurasiatic". For example, according to Fortescue (1998:158), Proto-Finno-Ugric *to?e- 'bring, take, give' is cognate with Proto-Chukotko-Kamchatkan *te?i?r?- 'pull out' and Proto-Eskimo *te?u- 'take'. He reconstructs these forms to a Proto-Uralo-Siberian *to??- 'take'.
If the Uralic word is borrowed from Indo-European, why is it found in nearly identical form right across Siberia? Possible cognates are also found for the words for 'name' in Chukchi n?nn? 'name' and Old Japanese na 'name' and for 'water' in Evenki udun 'rain', Even ud?n 'rain', and Ainu owata 'water' (Greenberg 2002). Thus, alongside the hypothesis of borrowing from Indo-European, another possibility is that Indo-European and Uralic themselves belong to a larger grouping.
Finally, the claim that all such forms are "false cognates" is not widely accepted. The disagreements between e.g. Koivulehto and Kortlandt do not turn on whether the forms under discussion are true cognates, which is generally accepted, but on whether they result from borrowing or genetic inheritance. This is thus the key point at issue.
Some possible cognates
| Meaning | Indo-European | Uralic
| | first person singular | *-m | *-m
| | first person plural | *-me | *-me
| | second person singular | *-s (active), *-tHa (perfect) | *-t
| | second person plural | *-te | *-te
| | accusative | *-m | *-m
| | ablative/partitive | *-od | *-ta
| | nominative/accusative plural | *-es (nominative plural)
*-s (accusative plural) < *- (acc.sg.) + *-(e)s (pl.) | *-t
| | oblique plural | *-i (pronominal plural, as in *we-i- 'we', *to-i- 'those') | *-i
| | dual | *- | *-k
| | 'and' (postposed conjunction) | *-ke 1 | *-ka ~ *-kä 2
| | negative particle 'not' | *ne 3 | *ne 4
| | 'I, me' | *me 'me' (accusative) 5
*mene 'my' (genitive) 6 | *mun, *mina 'I' 7
| | 'you' (singular) | *tu (nominative) 8
*twe (accusative) 9
*tewe 'your' (genitive) 10 | *tun, *tina 11
| | demonstrative pronoun | *so 'this, he/she' (animate nominative singular) 12 | *sä 'he/she, it' 13
| | demonstrative pronoun | *to- 'this, that' 14 | *tä 'this', *to 'that' 15
| | 'who?' (interrogative pronoun) | *ki- ~ *ke- ~ *ko- 'who?, what?' 16
*ki/e/o- + -ne 'who?, what?' 17 | *ki ~ *ke ~ *ku ~ *ko 'who?, what?' 18
*ken 'who?' 19
| | 'to give' | *de- 20 | *toi- 21
| 'to moisten',
'water' | *wed- 'to wet', 22
*woder- 'water' 23 | *weti 'water' 24
| | 'name' | *nomen- 'name' 25 | *nimi 'name' 26
| | 'fish' | *kalo- 'large fish' 27 | *kala 'fish' 28
| | 'sister-in-law' | *galou- 'husband's sister' 29 | *käl? 'sister-in-law' 30
| | 'much' | *p?lu- 'much' 31 | *palj? 'thick, much' 32
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Notes to table
1 Latin -que, Greek te, Sanskrit -ca, etc.
2 Finnish -kä in ei ... eikä 'neither ... nor', Saami -ge, Mordvin (Moksha) -ka, Votyak -ke, Komi / Zyrian -k?, etc.
3 Latin ne-, Greek ne-, Sanskrit ná, Old High German and Old English ne ~ ni, etc.
4 Hungarian në, Cheremis / Mari nõ-, ni-, Votyak / Udmurt ni-, etc.
5 Greek me (enclitic).
6 Old Persian mana, Old Church Slavic mene, Welsh men, etc.
7 Finnish minä, Estonian mina, Nenets /mønj?/. Uralic reconstruction *mun.
8 Latin tu, Greek sú (Attic), tu (Dorian), Lithuanian tù, Old English þu > archaic English thou, etc.
9 Greek sé, Sanskrit tva (enclitic), Avestan ?wa (enclitic), Old Church Slavic tebe, etc.
10 Sanskrit táva, Avestan tava, Proto-Celtic *towe (< PIE *tewe, with complex developments in the individual languages, Lewis and Pedersen 1989:193-217).
11 Finnish sinä (< *tinä), Saami ton, tú-, Mordvin ton, Votyak ton, Zyrian te, accusative tenõ, Hungarian të 'you' (singular), ti 'you' (plural), etc. Samoyed: Tavgi tanna?, Yeniseian Samoyed tod'i, Selkup tan, tat, Kamassian tan.
12 Gothic sa, Sanskrit sá, etc.
13 Finnish hän (< *sä-n), Saami son, Udmurt so. Samoyed: Nganasan syty.
14 Greek tó, Sanskrit tá-, Old Church Slavic to, etc.
15 Finnish tämä 'this' and tuo 'that (one)', Cheremis ti 'this', Mordvin te 'this', etc.; Udmurt tu 'that', Mordvin to 'that', etc.
16 *ki-: Hittite kuis (animate nominative singular), kuit (inanimate nominative-accusative singular), Latin quis, quid, Greek tís, tí, etc.
*ke-: Greek téo (Homeric), Avestan cahmai (dative singular; ca < PIE *ke), etc.
*ko-: Latin quod, Old Latin quoius > Latin cuius (genitive singular), Old English hwæt > English what, etc.
17 E.g. Latin quidne.
18 Saami gi ~ gä 'who?, which?, what sort of?' and gutti 'who?', Mordvin ki 'who?', Cheremis and Mari ke, kö, kü 'who?', Hungarian ki 'who?', Finnish kuka 'who?', Komi / Zyrian kod 'which?', Ostyak koji 'who?', koti 'what?', etc.
19 Finnish ken ~ kene 'who?', Votyak kin 'who?', Udmurt kin 'who?', Komi / Zyrian kin 'who?'. Samoyed: Yurak Samoyed kin 'who?', Southern Nenets kin 'who?'.
20 Hittite ta-, Latin do, Greek dídomi, Sanskrit da-, etc.
21 Finnish tuo 'bring', Estonian too- 'bring', Saami duok?- 'sell', Mordvin tuje- 'bring'. Samoyed: Tundra Yurak taš 'give, bring', Enets ta- 'bring', Tavgy t?tud'a 'give, bring', etc.
22 Sanskrit ud-.
23 Hittite watar (instrumental wedanda), Umbrian utur (ablative une < *udne), Greek húdor (genitive húdatos < *hudn?tos), Sanskrit ud-án- (oblique cases only, nominative-accusative defective), Old Church Slavic voda, Gothic wato (n-stem, dative plural watnam), Old Norse vatn, Old English wæter > English water, etc.
This word belongs to the r / n stems, a small group of neuter nouns, from an archaic stratum of Indo-European, that alternate -er (or -or) in the nominative and accusative with -en in the other cases. Some languages have leveled the paradigm to one or the other, e.g. English to the r, Old Norse to the n form.
24 Finnish vesi / vete-, Estonian vesi, Mordvin w?t, Udmurt vu, Komi / Zyrian va, Vogul wit, Hungarian víz. Samoyed: Forest Yurak wit, Selkup üt, Kamassian bü, etc.
25 Latin nomen, Greek ónoma, Sanskrit na´man-, Old English nama > English name, etc.
Indo-Europeanists are divided on whether to reconstruct this word as *nom(e)n- or as *nom(e)n-, with a preceding "laryngeal". See Delamarre 2003:50 for a summary of views, with references. The o timbre of the root is assured by, among others, Greek ónoma and Latin nomen (with secondary vowel lengthening). As roots with inherent o are uncommon in Indo-European, most roots having e as their vowel, the underlying root is probably *nem-. The -(e)n is an affixal particle. Whether the e placed in parentheses is inherently part of the word is disputed but probable.
26 Finnish nimi, Saami nama ~ namma, Mordvin lem, Cheremis lüm, Votyak and Zyrian nim, Vogul näm, Ostyak nem, Hungarian név. Among the Samoyed languages: Yurak nim, Tavgi nim, Yenisei Samoyed nii’, Selkup nim, nem. Compare, in Yukaghir, Kolyma niu and Chuvan nyva.
27 Latin squalus (with s-mobile) 'large sea fish', Old Prussian kalis 'sheatfish', Old English hwæl 'whale' > English whale, etc.
28 Finnish kala, Estonian kala, Saami kuolle, Mordvin kal, Cheremis kol, Ostyak kul, Hungarian hal; Enets kare, Koibal kola, etc.
29 Latin glos (genitive gloris), Greek gálos, Old Church Slavic zuluva, all meaning 'husband's sister'.
30 Finnish käly 'sister-in-law', Estonian käli 'husband's brother, wife of husband's brother', Saami kaloji 'sister-in-law', Mordvin kel 'sister-in-law', etc.
31 Greek polú-, Sanskrit purú-, Avestan pouru-, Gothic filu, Old High German filu > German viel, all meaning 'much'.
The ? in Indo-European *p?lu- represents a vocalic l, a sound found in English in for instance little, where it corresponds to the -le, and metal, where it corresponds to the -al. An earlier form of the Indo-European word was probably *pelu-.
32 Finnish paljon 'much', Cheremis pülä 'rather a lot', Vogul pal 'thick', Yurak pal? 'thick'. Cp. Tundra Yukaghir pojuo? 'many'.
An asterisk (*) indicates reconstructed forms.
A tilde (~) means 'alternating with'.
Appendix: Additional remarks on *porcas
The c of the reconstructed Finno-Ugric form could in the light of parallels be an outcome either of an Indo-European ? (palatalized k), a later Pre-Indo-Iranian c, or an Early Balto-Slavic s. Later originals than this, i.e., ones with Iranian s < ? or Proto-Baltic š, are excluded on account of the palatalized (notably palato-alveolar) articulation of Finno-Ugric c.
The original vowels could just as well have been PIE or Pre-Indo-Iranian *o-o or Balto-Slavic *a-a because Finno-Ugric could not allow any labial vowels in the peripheral syllables and would inevitably have replaced *o by *a in the second syllable. On the other hand Balto-Slavic or Indo-Iranian *a in the stem nucleus was frequently replaced by *o.
According to Aharon Dolgopolsky, in this word "pFU *o (instead of expected *a) is explained by the labializing effect of the preceding consonant *p" (1988:18).
Finno-Ugric *porcas also provides external confirmation for the forms of Indo-European dialects, whether Pre-Indo-Iranian or Pre-Balto-Slavic, reconstructed through the comparative method.
See also
External links
- by Eugene Helimski (1999)
- by Frederik Kortlandt (2004)
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