The
Uralic languages constitute a language family of 39
languageA language is a system for encoding and decoding information. In its most common use, the term refers to so-called "natural languages" — the forms of communication considered peculiar to humankind. In linguistics the term is extended to refer to the human cognitive facility of creating and using...
s spoken by approximately 25 million people. The healthiest Uralic languages in terms of the number of native speakers are
HungarianHungarian is a Uralic language unrelated to most other languages in Europe. It is mainly spoken in Hungary and by the Hungarian minorities in the seven neighbouring countries...
,
FinnishFinnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. It is one of the official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a Finnish dialect, are spoken...
,
EstonianEstonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities...
,
MariThe Mari language , spoken by more than 600,000 people, belongs to the Finno-Ugric branch of the Uralic language family. It is spoken primarily in the Mari Republic of the Russian Federation as well as in the area along the Vyatka river basin and eastwards to the Urals...
and
UdmurtUdmurt is a Finno-Permic language spoken by the Udmurts, natives of the Russian constituent republic of Udmurtia, where it is coofficial with the Russian language. It is written in the Cyrillic script with five additional characters. Together with Komi and Komi-Permyak languages, it constitutes...
. Countries that are home to a significant number of speakers of Uralic languages include
EstoniaEstonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by the Russian Federation...
,
FinlandFinland , officially the Republic of Finland
, is a Nordic country and democracy situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. It borders Sweden on the west, Russia on the east, and Norway on the north, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland...
,
HungaryHungary , in English officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. Its capital is Budapest. Hungary is a member of OECD, NATO, EU, V4 and is a Schengen state...
,
RomaniaRomania is a country located in Southeastern and Central Europe, North of the Balkan Peninsula, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea. Almost all of the Danube Delta is located within its territory...
,
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
,
SerbiaSerbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a country located in both Central and Southeastern Europe. Its territory covers the southern part of the Pannonian Plain and central part of the Balkans...
and
SlovakiaThe Slovak Republic is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe with a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia borders the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south. The largest city is its capital, Bratislava...
.
The name "Uralic" refers to the suggested
UrheimatUrheimat is a linguistic term denoting the original homeland of the speakers of a proto-language.-Indo-European homeland:...
(original homeland) of the Uralic family, which was often located in the vicinity of the
Ural MountainsThe Ural Mountains are a mountain range that runs roughly north-south through western Russia. They are usually considered the natural boundary between Europe and Asia....
. However, there is no reliable proof of this, and modern scientists often place the Urheimat further to the west and south, close to the Urheimat of the
Indo-EuropeanIndo-European may refer to:* Indo-European languages** Aryan, a 19th century term for Indo-European speakers.* Proto-Indo-European language, the reconstructed common ancestor of all Indo-European languages....
languages.
Family tree
The internal structure of the Uralic family has been debated since the family was first proposed. Nevertheless, three distinct subfamilies are usually recognized: Finno-Permic,
UgricUgric or Ugrian languages are a branch of the Finno-Ugric language family. The term derives from Yugra.They include three languages: Hungarian , and the Ob-Ugric languages, Khanty and Mansi language...
and
SamoyedicThe Samoyedic languages are spoken on both sides of the Ural mountains, in northernmost Eurasia, by perhaps 30,000 speakers altogether.The Samoyedic languages derive from a common ancestral language called Proto-Samoyedic, and together with the Finno-Ugric languages the Samoyedic languages form the...
. Historically, Finno-Permic and Ugric have tended to be grouped as the
Finno-UgricFinno-Ugric is a group of languages in the Uralic language family, comprising Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian and related languages.It comprises the Finno-Permic and Ugric language families.-Status:...
family.
All Uralic languages are thought to have descended, through independent processes of
language changeLanguage change is the phenomenon whereby phonetic, morphological, semantic, syntactic, and other features of language vary over time. All languages are continually changing. At any given moment the English language, for example, has a huge variety within itself, and descriptive linguists call this...
, from
Proto-UralicProto-Uralic is the hypothetical language ancestral to the Uralic language family, which includes Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic. No earlier protolanguage has been constructed....
. There is some disagreement in the two views as to whether Proto-Uralic originally split into two or three branches. However, severe doubt has been raised about the validity of most of the higher-order branchings, and the traditional binary tree.
The homeland of Proto-Uralic
There are three main theories on the
Urheimat—the 'original homeland'—of the people who spoke the
Proto-Uralic languageProto-Uralic is the hypothetical language ancestral to the Uralic language family, which includes Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic. No earlier protolanguage has been constructed....
. Gy. Laszlo places its origin in the forest zone between the
Oka RiverOka is a river in central Russia, the largest right tributary of the Volga. It flows through the regions of Oryol, Tula, Kaluga, Moscow, Ryazan, Vladimir and Nizhny Novgorod and is navigable over a large part of its total length, as far upstream as to the town of Kaluga. Its length exceeds 1500 km...
and central
PolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe . Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
. E.N. Setälä and M. Zsirai place it between the
VolgaThe Volga is the largest river in Europe in terms of length, discharge, and watershed. It flows through western Russia, and is widely viewed as the national river of Russia. Out of the twenty largest cities of Russia, eleven, including its capital Moscow, are situated in the Volga's drainage basin...
and
Kama RiverKama is a major river in Russia, the longest left tributary of the Volga and the largest one in discharge; in fact, it is larger than the Volga before junction....
s. According to E. Itkonen, the ancestral area extended to the
Baltic SeaThe Baltic Sea is a brackish inland sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and the...
. P. Hajdu has suggested that the Uralic homeland was in western and northwestern
SiberiaSiberia , is the vast region constituting almost all of Northern Asia and for the most part currently serving as the massive central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, having served in the same capacity previously for the USSR from its beginning, and the Russian Empire beginning in the...
.
Possible relations with other families
Many relationships between Uralic and other language families have been suggested, but none of these are generally accepted by linguists at the present time.
Ural-Altaic
Theories proposing a close relationship with the
Altaic languagesAltaic is a language family that is generally held by its proponents to include the Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean, and Japonic language families . These languages are spoken in a wide arc stretching from northeast Asia through Central Asia to Anatolia and eastern Europe...
were formerly popular, based on similarities in vocabulary as well as in grammatical and phonological features, in particular the presence of
agglutinationIn linguistics, agglutination is the morphological process ofadding affixes to the base of a word. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative languages. These languages are often contrasted with fusional languages and isolating languages...
and
vowel harmonyVowel harmony is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels that occurs in some languages. In languages with vowel harmony, there are constraints on what vowels may be found near each other....
in both sets of languages. These theories are now generally rejected and most such similarities are attributed to coincidence or language contact, and a few to possible relationship at a deeper genetic level. In either case, an especially close relationship with Altaic is widely considered to be improbable.
The theories that include Uralic as a node in a proposed
macrofamilyIn linguistics, a macrofamily, also called a superfamily, is a proposed language family that unites two or more established language families. "Macrofamily" is thus a relative term. It does not designate any particular size of family or any particular time depth of genetic relationship...
and that have any significant currency among linguists today are the following:
Indo-Uralic
The
Indo-UralicIndo-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 but was received with little enthusiasm...
(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.
Uralic-Yukaghir
The
Uralic-YukaghirUralic-Yukaghir is a proposed language family composed of Uralic and Yukaghir. It is also known as Uralo-Yukaghir.Uralic is a large and diverse language family of north and eastern Europe and northwestern Siberia. The best-known Uralic languages are Estonian, Finnish, and Hungarian...
theory identifies Uralic and
YukaghirThe Yukaghir languages are a small family of two closely related languages spoken in the Russian Far East by the Yukaghir, an indigenous people of Eastern Siberia, living in the basin of the Kolyma River...
as independent members of a single language family. It is accepted by a few linguists and viewed as attractive by a somewhat larger number. It is currently widely accepted that the similarities between Uralic and Yukaghir languages are due to ancient contacts.
Eskimo-Uralic
The
Eskimo-UralicThe Eskimo-Uralic hypothesis posits that the Uralic and Eskimo-Aleut language families belong to a common language family of which they are the two branches. Although substantial arguments for the hypothesis have been made, it is not generally accepted by linguists. The best-known advocate of the...
theory associates Uralic with the
Eskimo-Aleut languagesEskimo-Aleut is a language family native to Alaska, the Canadian Arctic, Nunavik, Nunatsiavut, Greenland, and the Chukchi Peninsula on the eastern tip of Siberia...
. This is an old thesis whose antecedents go back to the 18th century. An important restatement of it is
BergslandKnut Bergsland was a Norwegian linguist. Working as a professor at the University of Oslo from 1947 to 1981, he did groundbreaking research in Finno-Ugric and Eskimo-Aleut languages.-Career:...
1959.
Uralo-Siberian
Uralo-SiberianUralo-Siberian is a hypothetical language family consisting of Uralic, Yukaghir, Chukotko-Kamchatkan and Eskimo-Aleut. It was proposed in 1998 by Michael Fortescue, an expert in Eskimo-Aleut and Chukotko-Kamchatkan, in his book Language Relations across Bering Strait...
is an expanded form of the Eskimo-Uralic hypothesis. It associates Uralic with Yukaghir,
Chukotko-KamchatkanThe Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages are a language family of northeastern Siberia. The family is also known as Chukchi-Kamchatkan.Less commonly encountered names for this family are Chukchian, Chukotian, Chukotan, Kamchukchee and Kamchukotic...
, and Eskimo-Aleut. It was propounded by
Michael FortescueMichael D. Fortescue is a British-born linguist specializing in Arctic and native North American languages, including Kalaallisut, Inuktun, Chukchi and Nitinaht. He is professor of General Linguistics at the University of Copenhagen and chairman of the Linguistic Circle of Copenhagen...
in 1998.
Nostratic
NostraticNostratic is a proposed language family that includes many of the indigenous language families of Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America. The term "Nostratic" roughly translated means "our language"...
associates Uralic, Indo-European, Altaic and various other language families, usually including the
South Caucasian languagesThe South Caucasian languages are spoken primarily in Georgia, with smaller groups of speakers in Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iran, Russia and Israel. There are approximately 5.2 million speakers of this language family group worldwide.It is not known to be related to any other language group in the world...
and
DravidianThe Dravidian family of languages includes approximately 73 languages, spoken by around 200 million people. They are mainly spoken in southern India and parts of eastern and central India as well as in northeastern Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iran, and overseas in other...
. Earlier versions also included Hamito-Semitic (now replaced by Afroasiatic). The Nostratic theory was first propounded by
Holger PedersenHolger Pedersen may refer to:* Holger Pedersen - Danish linguist * Holger Pedersen - Danish astronomer , at the European Southern Observatory* Holger Petersen - Canadian radio personality....
in 1903 and subsequently revived by
Vladislav Illich-SvitychVladislav Markovich Illich-Svitych was a founding father of comparative Nostratic linguistics.Of Ukrainian descent, he was born in Kiev but later moved to work in Moscow...
and
Aharon DolgopolskyAharon Dolgopolsky is a Russian-born Israeli comparative linguist and one of the modern founders of comparative Nostratic linguistics....
in the 1960s. The theory that the Dravidian languages display similarities with the Uralic language group, suggesting a prolonged period of contact in the past, is popular amongst Dravidian linguists and has been supported by a number of scholars, including
Robert CaldwellBishop Robert Caldwell was an Evangelist Missionary and Orientalist of the British Colonial era. To aid his mission, he nativised Christianity by adopting a teleological approach to re-classify Indian languages inspired by scientific racial theories that was popular amongst the European...
,
Thomas BurrowThomas Burrow was an Indologist and the Boden Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Oxford from 1944 to 1976. His work includes Dravidian Etymological Dictionary, The Problem of Shwa in Sanskrit and The Sanskrit Language....
, Kamil Zvelebil, and Mikhail Andronov This theory has, however, been rejected by some specialists in Uralic languages, and has in recent times also been criticised by other Dravidian linguists like
Bhadriraju KrishnamurtiBhadriraju Krishnamurti Bhadriraju Krishnamurti(భద్రిరాజు కృష్ణమూర్తి) Bhadriraju Krishnamurti(భద్రిరాజు కృష్ణమూర్తి) ( (IAST: ) (June 19, 1928 - ) is an eminent Telugu Dravidianist and the most respected Indian linguist of his generation belongs to the state of Andhra Pradesh...
.
Eurasiatic
EurasiaticEurasiatic is a hypothetical language family proposed by Joseph Greenberg that groups all of the language families historically spoken in northern Eurasia into a single higher-order family, with the sole exception of the Yeniseian languages, spoken in part of Siberia, but including the Eskimo-Aleut...
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,
NivkhNivkh or Gilyak is a language spoken in Outer Manchuria, in the basin of the Amgun , along the lower reaches of the Amur itself, and on the northern half of Sakhalin. 'Gilyak' is the Manchu appellation...
,
AinuThe Ainu languages were a small language family spoken on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaidō, the southern half of the island of Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands, an island chain that stretches from Hokkaidō to the southern tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula. They are alternately considered a...
, and Eskimo-Aleut. It was propounded by
Joseph GreenbergJoseph Harold Greenberg was a prominent and controversial American linguist, principally known for his work in two areas, linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages.- Early life and career :...
in 2000–2002. Similar ideas had earlier been expressed by
Björn CollinderBjörn Collinder was a Swedish linguist. His name is sometimes spelled "Bjorn Collinder" in English-language contexts.Collinder was born in Sundsvall, Sweden....
(1965:30–34).
All of these theories are very much minority views at the present time in Uralic studies.
Classification of languages
The traditional classification of the Uralic languages is as follows. Obsolete names are displayed in italics.
SamoyedicThe Samoyedic languages are spoken on both sides of the Ural mountains, in northernmost Eurasia, by perhaps 30,000 speakers altogether.The Samoyedic languages derive from a common ancestral language called Proto-Samoyedic, and together with the Finno-Ugric languages the Samoyedic languages form the...
- Northern Samoyedic
- Enets
Enets is a Samoyedic language spoken by the Enets people along the lower Yenisei River in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. There are two distinct dialects - Forest Enets and Tundra Enets - which may be considered separate languages. There are only about seventy speakers in total, with slightly more...
(Yenets, Yenisei-Samoyed) – Nearly extinct
- Nenets
Nenets is a language spoken by the Nenets people in northern Russia. It belongs to the Samoyedic languages which form the Uralic language family with the Finno-Ugric languages. There are two major dialects—Tundra Nenets and Forest Nenets—with low mutual intelligibility between the two...
(Yurak)
- Nganasan
Nganasan language is a language of the Nganasan people. It was spoken by 1,063 and by 750 people in the southwestern and central parts of the Taymyr Peninsula. The Nganasan language belongs to the northern Samoyedic group of the Uralic language family...
(Tavgy, Tavgi, Tawgi, Tawgi-Samoyed)
- Yurats
Yurats is a Samoyedic language formerly spoken in the Siberian tundra west of the Yenisei River. It became extinct in the early 1800s. Yurats was a transitional member connecting the Nenets and Enets languages of the Samoyedic family.-External links:...
- Southern Samoyedic
- Kamassian
Kamassian or Kamas is an extinct Uralic language belonging to the southern group of the Samoyedic languages. The other Southern Samoyedic languages include Mator, Koibal, and Selkup. The last native speaker, Klavdiya Plotnikova, died in 1989. Kamassian was spoken in Russia, east of the Ural...
(Kamas) – Extinct (20th century)
- Mator
Mator or Motor is a Uralic language belonging to the southern group of the Samoyedic languages. The other Southern Samoyedic languages include Selkup and Kamassian....
(Motor) – Extinct (19th century)
- Selkup
Selkup language is a language of the Selkups. It is spoken by some 1,570 people in the region between the Ob and Yenisei Rivers . The language name Selkup comes from the Russian "" Selkup language is a language of the Selkups. It is spoken by some 1,570 people (1994 est.) in the region between the...
(Ostyak-Samoyed)
Finno-UgricFinno-Ugric is a group of languages in the Uralic language family, comprising Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian and related languages.It comprises the Finno-Permic and Ugric language families.-Status:...
- Ugric
Ugric or Ugrian languages are a branch of the Finno-Ugric language family. The term derives from Yugra.They include three languages: Hungarian , and the Ob-Ugric languages, Khanty and Mansi language...
(Ugrian)
- Hungarian (Magyar)
- Hungarian
Hungarian is a Uralic language unrelated to most other languages in Europe. It is mainly spoken in Hungary and by the Hungarian minorities in the seven neighbouring countries...
- Ob Ugric (Ob Ugrian)
- Khanty
Khanty or Xanty language, also known previously as the Ostyak language, is a language of the Khant peoples. It is spoken in Khanty-Mansi and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous okrugs, as well as in Aleksandrovsky and Kargosoksky districts of Tomsk Oblast in Russia. According to the 1994 Salminen and 1994...
(Ostyak)
- Mansi
The Mansi language is a language of the Mansi people. It is spoken in territories of Russia along the Ob River and its tributaries, including the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug and the Sverdlovsk Oblast...
(Vogul)
- Finno-Permic
The Finno-Permic languages are a subgrouping of the Uralic languages that comprises the Baltic-Finnic languages, Sami languages, Mordvinic languages, Mari language, Permic languages, and likely a number of extinct languages...
(Permian-Finnic)
- Permic
Permic languages are a subgroup of the Finno-Ugric language family. They are spoken in the Ural Mountains of Russia.* Komi * Komi-Permyak* Udmurt...
(Permian)
- Komi (Komi-Zyrian, Zyrian)
- Komi-Permyak
Komi-Permyak is spoken in Komi-Permyak Okrug of Perm Krai, Russia, in the basin of the Kama River. It is a Finno-Ugric language related to Komi-Zyrian and Udmurt. It is written using the Komi Cyrillic alphabet and is co-official with Russian in the Komi-Permyak autonomous district....
- Udmurt
Udmurt is a Finno-Permic language spoken by the Udmurts, natives of the Russian constituent republic of Udmurtia, where it is coofficial with the Russian language. It is written in the Cyrillic script with five additional characters. Together with Komi and Komi-Permyak languages, it constitutes...
(Votyak)
- Finno-Volgaic
Finno-Volgaic are a subgrouping of the Uralic languages that nowadays comprises the Baltic-Finnic languages, Sami languages, Mordvinic languages and the Mari language...
(Finno-Cheremisic, Finno-Mari, Volga-Finnic)
- Mari (Cheremisic)
- Mari
The Mari language , spoken by more than 600,000 people, belongs to the Finno-Ugric branch of the Uralic language family. It is spoken primarily in the Mari Republic of the Russian Federation as well as in the area along the Vyatka river basin and eastwards to the Urals...
(Cheremis)
- Mordvinic
The Mordvinic languages are a subgroup of the Uralic languages, comprising the closely related Erzya language and Moksha language.Previously considered a single "Mordvin language",it is now treated as a small language family...
(Mordvin, Mordvinian)
- Erzya
The Erzya language is spoken by about 500,000 people in the northern and eastern and north-western parts of the Republic of Mordovia and adjacent regions of Nizhniy Novgorod, Chuvashia, Penza, Samara, Saratov, Orenburg, Ulyanovsk, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan in Russia...
- Moksha
The Moksha language is a member of the Finno-Volgaic subdivision of the Uralic languages with about 500,000 native speakers. Moksha is the majority language in the western part of Mordovia....
- Extinct Finno-Volgaic languages of uncertain position
- Merya
The Merya language was the Uralic language spoken by the Merya tribe, which lived in what is today the Yaroslavl region north-east of Moscow . Very little is known about the language except for a few lexical and toponymic items identified as possibly being of Merya origin...
(17th century)
- Muromian
Muromian was an Uralic language spoken by the Muromian tribe, in what is today the Murom region in Russia. They are mentioned by Jordanes as Mordens and in the Primary Chronicle. Very little is known about the language, but it was probably closely related to the Mordvinic languages Moksha and Erzya...
- Meshcherian
The Meshchera language was a Finno-Ugric language spoken by the Meshchera tribe, in what is today the Oka River basin in Russia. Very little is known about the language, but it was probably closely related to the Mordvinic languages Moksha and Erzya. Meshchera language probably became extinct by...
- Finno-Lappic (Finno-Saamic, Finno-Samic)
- Sami
Sami or Saami is a general name for a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Sami people in parts of northern Finland, Norway, Sweden and extreme northwestern Russia, in Northern Europe. Sami is frequently believed to be a single language. Several names are used for the Sami languages: Saami,...
(Samic, Saamic, Lappic, Lappish)
- Western Sami (Western Samic)
- Southern Sami
Southern Sami is the south-westernmost of the Sami languages. It is a seriously endangered language; the last strongholds of this language are the municipalities of Snåsa and Hattfjelldal in Norway...
- Ume Sami
Ume Sami is a Sami language spoken in Sweden and Norway. It is a dying language with only about 10 native speakers left and is spoken mainly along the Ume River in the north of Arjeplog and Arvidsjaur.- Consonant gradation :...
– Nearly extinct
- Lule Sami
Lule Sami is a Finno-Ugric, Sami language spoken in Lule Lappmark, i.e., around Luleå, Sweden and in the northern parts of Nordland county in Norway, especially Tysfjord municipality, where Lule Sami is an official language...
- Pite Sami
Pite Sami, also known as Arjeplog Sami, is a Sami language traditionally spoken in Sweden and Norway. It is a dying language that has only about twenty native speakers left and is now only spoken on the Swedish side of the border along the Pite River in the north of Arjeplog and Arvidsjaur and in...
– Nearly extinct
- Northern Sami
Northern or North Sami is the most widely spoken of all Sami languages. The speaking area of Northern Sami covers the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland as well as northwestern parts of Russia...
- Eastern Sami (Eastern Samic)
- Kainuu Sami – Extinct
- Kemi Sami
Kemi Sami is a Sami language that was originally spoken in the southernmost district of Finnish Lapland as far south as the Sami siidas around Kuusamo...
– Extinct
- Inari Sami
Inari Sámi is a Finno-Ugric, Sami language spoken in Finland by some 300-400 people, the majority of whom are middle-aged or older and live in the municipality of Inari. It is the only Sami language that is spoken exclusively in Finland...
- Akkala Sami
Akkala Sami is a Sami language that was spoken in the Sami villages of A´kkel and Ču´kksuâl, in the inland parts of the Kola Peninsula in Russia...
– Extinct (21st century)
- Kildin Sami
- Skolt Sami
Skolt Sami is a Finno-Ugric, Sami language spoken by approximately 400 speakers in Finland, mainly in Sevettijärvi, and approximately 20–30 speakers of the Njuõˊttjäuˊrr dialect in an area surrounding Lake Lovozero in Russia. Skolt Sami used to also be spoken on the Neiden area of Norway,...
- Ter Sami
Ter Sami is the easternmost of the Sami languages. It was traditionally spoken in the northeastern part of the Kola Peninsula, but now it is a dying language; in 2004, only ten speakers were left...
– Nearly extinct
- Baltic-Finnic
The Baltic-Finnic languages, or Finnic, spoken around the Baltic Sea by about 7 million people, are a branch of the Uralic language family....
(Balto-Finnic, Balto-Fennic, Finnic, Fennic)
- Estonian
Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities...
- South Estonian
South Estonian emerged in the 17th century as a distinct language in Swedish Livonia aside the North Estonian language spoken in Swedish Estonia.The first South Estonian grammar was compiled by Johann Gutslaff in 1648....
(including Mulgi and Tartu)
- Võro
The Võro language is a language belonging to the Baltic-Finnic branch of the Finno-Ugric languages. Traditionally it has been considered a dialect of South Estonian dialect group of the Estonian language, but nowadays it has its own literary language and is in search of official recognition as an...
(Voro, Võru, Voru; including SetoSeto or Setu language is a dialect of the Finnic South Estonian or Võro language , spoken by about 5,000 people...
or Setu)
- Finnish
Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. It is one of the official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a Finnish dialect, are spoken...
(including MeänkieliMeänkieli is the name used in Sweden for Finnish dialects spoken in the most northern parts of the country, around the valley of the Torne River....
or Tornedalian Finnish, Kven Finnish, and Ingrian Finnish)
- Ingrian
The Ingrian language is a Finno-Ugric language spoken by the Izhorians of Ingria. It has approximately 200 speakers left, most of whom are aging...
(Izhorian) – Nearly extinct
- Karelian
Karelian is a language closely related to Finnish, with which it is not necessarily mutually intelligible. Karelian is spoken mainly in Republic of Karelia, Russia...
- Karelian
Karelian is a language closely related to Finnish, with which it is not necessarily mutually intelligible. Karelian is spoken mainly in Republic of Karelia, Russia...
proper
- Lude
Ludic or Ludian or Ludic Karelian is a Baltic Finnic language in the Uralic language family. Some consider it a dialect of Karelian language or Veps language. It is spoken by 3,000 people in the Republic of Karelia, near the northeastern shore of Lake Onega, including some child-speakers. Some...
(Ludic, Ludian)
- Olonets Karelian (Livvi, Aunus, Aunus Karelian, Olonetsian)
- Livonian
Livonian belongs to the Baltic Finnic branch of the Uralic languages. It is a moribund language until recently spoken by some 35 people, of whom only 10 were fluent. It is closely related to Estonian...
(Liv) – Nearly extinct
- Veps
The Veps language , spoken by the Vepsians , belongs to the Baltic-Finnic group of the Finno-Ugric languages....
(Vepsian)
- Votic
Votic or Votian is the language spoken by the Votes of Ingria. It is closely related to Estonian and belongs to the Balto-Finnic subgroup of Finno-Ugric languages. Votic is spoken only in Krakolye and Luzhitsy, two villages in the Kingisepp district, and is close to extinction...
(Votian, Vod) – Nearly extinct
The term
Volgaic was used to denote a branch previously believed to include Mari and Mordvinic, but is now 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 to Mari languages.
Typology
Structural characteristics generally said to be typical of Uralic languages include:
- extensive use of independent suffix
In grammar, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs...
es, a.k.a. agglutinationIn linguistics, agglutination is the morphological process ofadding affixes to the base of a word. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative languages. These languages are often contrasted with fusional languages and isolating languages...
.
- a large set of grammatical case
In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun indicates its grammatical function in a greater phrase or clause; such as the role of subject, of direct object, or of possessor. Usually a language is said to "have cases" only if nouns change their form to reflect their case. Others indicate cases in...
s marked with agglutinative suffixes (13–14 cases on average; mainly coincidental: Proto-Uralic had 6 cases), e.g.:
- Erzya: 12 cases
- Estonian: 14 cases (and one
In the Finnish language and Estonian language, the instructive case has the basic meaning of "by means of". It is a comparatively rarely used case, though it is found in some commonly used expressions, such as omin silmin -> "with one's own eyes"....
is still under some debate)
- Finnish: 15 cases
- Hungarian: 18 cases (and some more 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.
- Uralic locative suffix exists in all Uralic languages in various cases, e.g., Hungarian superessive
The Superessive case is a grammatical declension indicating location on top of, or on the surface of something. Its name comes from Latin supersum, superesse: to be over and above....
, Finnish essiveThe essive or similaris case carries the meaning of a temporary state of being, often equivalent to the English "as a...".In the Finnish language, this case is marked by adding "-na/-nä" to the stem of the noun....
, North Sami essiveThe essive or similaris case carries the meaning of a temporary state of being, often equivalent to the English "as a...".In the Finnish language, this case is marked by adding "-na/-nä" to the stem of the noun....
, Erzyan inessiveInessive case is a locative grammatical case. This case carries the basic meaning of "in": for example, "in the house" is "talo·ssa" in Finnish, "maja·s" in Estonian, "etxea·n" in Basque, "nam·e" in Lithuanian and "ház·ban" in Hungarian.In Finnish the inessive case is typically formed by adding...
, and Nenets locativeLocative is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by"...
.
- Uralic lative
Lative is a case which indicates motion to a location. It corresponds to the English prepositions "to" and "into". The lative case belongs to the group of the general local cases together with the locative and separative case....
suffix exists in various cases in many Uralic languages, e.g., Hungarian illativeIllative is, in the Finnish language, Estonian language and the Hungarian language, the third of the locative cases with the basic meaning of "into ". An example from Hungarian would be "a házba" . An example from Estonian would be "majasse" and "majja" , formed from "maja"...
, Finnish lativeLative is a case which indicates motion to a location. It corresponds to the English prepositions "to" and "into". The lative case belongs to the group of the general local cases together with the locative and separative case....
, Erzyan illativeIllative is, in the Finnish language, Estonian language and the Hungarian language, the third of the locative cases with the basic meaning of "into ". An example from Hungarian would be "a házba" . An example from Estonian would be "majasse" and "majja" , formed from "maja"...
, Komi approximative, and Northern Sami locativeLocative is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by"...
.
- vowel harmony
Vowel harmony is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels that occurs in some languages. In languages with vowel harmony, there are constraints on what vowels may be found near each other....
(recently lost in standard Estonian, but exists in dialects).
- a lack of grammatical gender
In linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once....
.
- negative verb
A negative verb is a type of auxiliary with help of which negative forms of verbs are formed. The action itself has no personal endings, while the negative verb takes the inflection...
, 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
Palatalization or palatalisation generally refers to two phenomena:*As a process or the result of a process, the effect that front vowels and the palatal approximant frequently have on consonants;...
of consonants; in this context, palatalization means a secondary articulation, where the middle of the tongue is tense. For example, pairs like – [n], or [c] – [t] are contrasted in Hungarian, as in hattyú "swan". Some Sami languages, for example Skolt SamiSkolt Sami is a Finno-Ugric, Sami language spoken by approximately 400 speakers in Finland, mainly in Sevettijärvi, and approximately 20–30 speakers of the Njuõˊttjäuˊrr dialect in an area surrounding Lake Lovozero in Russia. Skolt Sami used to also be spoken on the Neiden area of Norway,...
, distinguish three degrees: plain [l], palatalized <'l> , and palatal , where <'l> has a primary alveolar articulation, while has a primary palatal articulation. Original Uralic palatalization is phonemic, independent of the following vowel and traceable to the 6000-year-old Proto-Uralic. It is different from Russian palatalizationPalatalization or palatalisation generally refers to two phenomena:*As a process or the result of a process, the effect that front vowels and the palatal approximant frequently have on consonants;...
, which is of more recent origin. The Baltic-Finnic languagesThe Baltic-Finnic languages, or Finnic, spoken around the Baltic Sea by about 7 million people, are a branch of the Uralic language family....
have lost palatalization, but the eastern varieties have reacquired it, so Baltic-Finnic palatalization (where extant) was originally dependent on the following vowel.
- lack of phonologically contrastive tone
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called intonation, but...
.
- 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 suffix
In linguistics, a possessive suffix is a suffix attached to a noun to indicate its possessor, much in the manner of possessive adjectives. Possessive suffixes do not exist in all languages; they do exist in some Uralic, Semitic, and Indo-European languages...
es.
- no possessive pronouns.
- dual
Dual is a grammatical number that some languages use in addition to singular and plural. When a noun or pronoun appears in dual form, it is interpreted as referring to precisely two of the entities identified by the noun or pronoun...
, which exists, e.g., in the Samoyedic, Ob Ugrian and Samic languages.
- plural
Plural, commonly abbreviated pl., is a grammatical number, typically referring to more than one of the referent in the real world. In the English language, singular and plural are the only grammatical numbers.-English:...
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
Syntactic Structures is an influential book by American linguist Noam Chomsky, first published in 1957. Widely regarded as one of the most important texts in the field of linguistics, this work laid the foundation of Chomsky's idea of transformational grammar...
. For example, Finnish uses existential clauseExistential clauses are clauses that indicate only an existence. In English, they are formed with the dummy subject construction with "there", e.g. "There are boys in the yard". Many languages do not require a dummy subject, e.g. Finnish, where the sentence Pihalla on poikia is literally "On the...
s; the subject is the possession, the verb is "to be" (the copulaIn linguistics, a copula , also called a "passive verb" or "linking verb", is a word used to link the subject of a sentence with a predicate . The word copula derives from the Latin noun for a link or tie that connects two different things.A copula is sometimes a verb or a verb-like part of speech...
), and the possessor is grammatically a location and in the adessive caseIn Finno-Ugric languages, such as Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian, the adessive case is the fourth of the locative cases with the basic meaning of "on". For example, Estonian laud and laual , Hungarian asztal and asztalon...
: "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
In linguistics, number names are specific words in a natural language that represent numbers.In writing, numerals are symbols also representing numbers.-Numeral types:...
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 partitiveThe partitive can refer to several things:* Partitive case* partitive meaning of noun phrasesThe partitive refers to the selection of a part/quantity out of a group/amount...
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
cognateCognates in linguistics are words that have a common etymological origin.An example of cognates within the same language would be English shirt and skirt, the former from Old English scyrte, the latter loaned from Old Norse skyrta, both from the same Common Germanic *skurtjōn-. Words with this type...
s 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.
| English English is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
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Proto-Uralic |
FinnishFinnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. It is one of the official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a Finnish dialect, are spoken...
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Estonian Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities...
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North SamiNorthern or North Sami is the most widely spoken of all Sami languages. The speaking area of Northern Sami covers the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland as well as northwestern parts of Russia...
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Erzya The Erzya language is spoken by about 500,000 people in the northern and eastern and north-western parts of the Republic of Mordovia and adjacent regions of Nizhniy Novgorod, Chuvashia, Penza, Samara, Saratov, Orenburg, Ulyanovsk, Tatarstan and Bashkortostan in Russia...
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MariThe Mari language , spoken by more than 600,000 people, belongs to the Finno-Ugric branch of the Uralic language family. It is spoken primarily in the Mari Republic of the Russian Federation as well as in the area along the Vyatka river basin and eastwards to the Urals...
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Komi The Komi language is a Finno-Permic language spoken by the Komi peoples in the northeastern European part of Russia. Komi is one of the two members of the Permic subgroup of the Finno-Ugric branch...
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Khanty Khanty or Xanty language, also known previously as the Ostyak language, is a language of the Khant peoples. It is spoken in Khanty-Mansi and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous okrugs, as well as in Aleksandrovsky and Kargosoksky districts of Tomsk Oblast in Russia. According to the 1994 Salminen and 1994...
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Mansi The Mansi language is a language of the Mansi people. It is spoken in territories of Russia along the Ob River and its tributaries, including the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug and the Sverdlovsk Oblast...
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HungarianHungarian is a Uralic language unrelated to most other languages in Europe. It is mainly spoken in Hungary and by the Hungarian minorities in the seven neighbouring countries...
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Nenets Nenets is a language spoken by the Nenets people in northern Russia. It belongs to the Samoyedic languages which form the Uralic language family with the Finno-Ugric languages. There are two major dialects—Tundra Nenets and Forest Nenets—with low mutual intelligibility between the two...
|
| 'fire' |
*tuli |
tuli |
tuli |
dolla |
tol |
tul |
tyl- |
- |
- |
- |
tu |
| 'fish' |
*kala |
kala |
kala |
guolli |
kal |
kol |
- |
kul |
kul |
hal |
xalʲa |
| 'nest' |
*pesä |
pesä |
pesa |
beassi |
pize |
pəžaš |
poz |
pel |
pitʲii |
fészek |
pʲidʲa |
| 'hand, arm' |
*käti |
käsi |
käsi |
giehta |
ked´ |
kit |
ki |
köt |
kaat |
kéz |
- |
| 'eye' |
*śilmä |
silmä |
silm |
čalbmi |
śel´me |
šinča |
śin |
sem |
sam |
szem |
sæw° |
| 'fathom' |
*süli |
syli |
süli |
salla |
sel´ |
šülö |
syl |
ɬöl |
täl |
öl |
tʲíbʲa |
| 'vein / sinew' |
*sïxni |
suoni |
soon |
suotna |
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 |
kusi |
gožža |
- |
kəž |
kudź |
kos- |
końć- |
húgy |
- |
| 'to go' |
*meni- |
mennä |
minema |
mannat |
- |
mija- |
mun- |
mən- |
men- |
megy-/men- |
mʲin- |
| 'to live' |
*elä- |
elää |
elama |
eallit |
- |
ila- |
ol- |
- |
- |
él- |
jilʲe- |
| 'to die' |
*kaxli- |
kuolla |
koolema |
- |
kulo- |
kola- |
kul- |
kol- |
kool- |
hal- |
xa- |
| 'to wash' |
*mośki- |
- |
mõskma1 |
- |
muśke- |
muška- |
myśky- |
- |
- |
mos- |
masø- |
1Võro dialect
See also
- Finno-Ugric languages
Finno-Ugric is a group of languages in the Uralic language family, comprising Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian and related languages.It comprises the Finno-Permic and Ugric language families.-Status:...
- Proto-Uralic language
Proto-Uralic is the hypothetical language ancestral to the Uralic language family, which includes Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic. No earlier protolanguage has been constructed....
- Samoyedic languages
The Samoyedic languages are spoken on both sides of the Ural mountains, in northernmost Eurasia, by perhaps 30,000 speakers altogether.The Samoyedic languages derive from a common ancestral language called Proto-Samoyedic, and together with the Finno-Ugric languages the Samoyedic languages form the...
- Ural-Altaic languages
The Ural-Altaic languages constitute a formerly proposed language family uniting the Uralic and Altaic language families. This now discredited proposal is also known as "Uralo-Altaic".-History of the hypothesis:...
General
- Abondolo, Daniel M. (editor). 1998. The Uralic Languages. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-08198-X.
- Collinder, Björn. 1955. Fenno-Ugric Vocabulary: An Etymological Dictionary of the Uralic Languages. (Collective work.) Stockholm: Almqvist & Viksell. (Second, revised edition: Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag, 1977.)
- Collinder, Björn. 1957. Survey of the Uralic Languages. Stockholm.
- Collinder, Björn. 1960. Comparative Grammar of the Uralic Languages. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.
- Collinder, Björn. 1965. An Introduction to the Uralic Languages. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Décsy, Gyula. 1990. The Uralic Protolanguage: A Comprehensive Reconstruction. Bloomington, Indiana.
- Hajdu, Péter. 1963. Finnugor népek és nyelvek. Budapest: Gondolat kiadó.
- Hajdu, Péter. 1975. Finni-Ugrian Languages and Peoples, translated by G. F. Cushing. London: André Deutsch. (English translation of the previous.)
- Laakso, Johanna. 1992. Uralilaiset kansat ('Uralic Peoples'). Porvoo – Helsinki – Juva. ISBN 951-0-16485-2.
- Rédei, Károly (editor). 1986–88. Uralisches etymologisches Wörterbuch ('Uralic Etymological Dictionary'). Budapest.
- Sammallahti, Pekka. 1988. "Historical phonology of the Uralic Languages." In The Uralic Languages, edited by Denis Sinor, pp. 478–554. Leiden: E.J. Brill.
- Sinor, Denis (editor). 1988. The Uralic Languages: Description, History and Foreign Influences. Leiden: Brill.
External classification
- Bergsland, Knut. 1959. "The Eskimo-Uralic hypothesis." Journal de la Societé finno-ougrienne 61, 1–29.
- Fortescue, Michael. 1998. Language Relations across Bering Strait. London and New York: Cassell.
- Greenberg, Joseph. 2000–2002. Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives: The Eurasiatic Language Family, 2 volumes. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
- Pedersen, Holger. 1903. "Türkische Lautgesetze." Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 57, 535–561.
- Sauvageot, Aurélien. 1930. Recherches sur le vocabulaire des langues ouralo-altaïques ('Research on the Vocabulary of the Uralo-Altaic Languages'). Paris.
Linguistic issues
- Künnap, A. 2000. Contact-induced Perspectives in Uralic Linguistics. LINCOM Studies in Asian Linguistics 39. München: LINCOM Europa. ISBN 3895869643.
- Wickman, Bo. 1955. The Form of the Object in the Uralic Languages. Uppsala: Lundequistska bokhandeln.
General
"Rebel" Uralists