Finno-Ugric languages - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Finno-Ugric Finno-Ugrian or Fenno-Ugric is a traditional group of languages in the Uralic language

Uralic languages

The Uralic languages constitute a language family of some three dozen languages spoken by approximately 25 million people. The healthiest Uralic languages in terms of the number of native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Mari and Udmurt...

family that comprises the Finno-Permic

Finno-Permic languages

The Finno-Permic languages are a traditional but disputed ,group 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...

and Ugric

Ugric languages

Ugric or Ugrian languages are a branch of the Uralic language family. The term derives from Yugra, a region in north-central Asia.They include three languages: Hungarian , Khanty , and Mansi language...

language families.

Linguistic roots common to both branches of the traditional Finno-Ugric language tree (Finno-Permic

Finno-Permic languages

and Ugric

Ugric languages

) are extremely distant. About 200 words with common roots in all main Finno-Ugric languages have been identified by philologists including 55 about fishing, 15 are about reindeer; and 3 are about commerce. According to philologist Mall Hellam there's only one mutual sentence: “the living fish swims in water.” , , .

The term Finno-Ugric languages, which originally represented the entire language-family proposal , is sometimes used as a synonym for the more recent term Uralic

Uralic languages

, including the Samoyedic branch

Samoyedic languages

The Samoyedic languages are spoken on both sides of the Ural mountains, in northernmost Eurasia, by approximately 30,000 speakers altogether....

, as commonly happens when a language family is expanded with further discoveries.

Status

The validity of Finno-Ugric as a genetic grouping is under challenge, with some feeling that the Finno-Permic languages

Finno-Permic languages

are as distinct from the Ugric languages

Ugric languages

as they are from the Samoyedic languages

Samoyedic languages

The Samoyedic languages are spoken on both sides of the Ural mountains, in northernmost Eurasia, by approximately 30,000 speakers altogether....

spoken in Siberia, or even that none of the Finno-Ugric, Finno-Permic, or Ugric branches have been established. Received opinion has been that the eastmost (and last discovered) Samoyed had separated first and the branching into Ugric and Finno-Permic took place later, but this reconstruction does not have strong support in the linguistic data. In the past, and occasionally today as well, the term Finno-Ugric was used for the entire Uralic language family.

Origins

Attempts at reconstructing

Historical linguistics

Historical linguistics is the study of language change. It has five main concerns:* to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages...

a Proto-Finno-Ugric protolanguage—that is, a common ancestor of all Uralic languages

Uralic languages

except for the Samoyedic languages

Samoyedic languages

The Samoyedic languages are spoken on both sides of the Ural mountains, in northernmost Eurasia, by approximately 30,000 speakers altogether....

—are largely indistinguishable from Proto-Uralic, suggesting that Finno-Ugric may not be a historical grouping but a geographical one, with Samoyedic being distinct due to lexical borrowing rather than actually being historically divergent. It has been suggested that the area where Proto-Finno-Ugric was spoken reached between the Baltic Sea

Baltic Sea

The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean 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...

and the Ural mountains

Ural Mountains

The Ural Mountains , or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the Ural River and northwestern Kazakhstan. Their eastern side is usually considered the natural boundary between Europe and Asia...

.

Traditionally, the main set of evidence for the genetic proposal of Proto-Finno-Ugric has come from vocabulary. A large amount of vocabulary (e.g., the numerals "one", "three", "four" and "six") is only reconstructed up to the level of Proto-Finno-Ugric level, while only words with a Samoyedic equivalent have been reconstructed for Proto-Uralic. This methodology has been criticised, as for the most part no coherent explanation has been presented for the origin of Samoyedic vocabulary (though it does include a number of old loanwords from Proto-Indo-European

Proto-Indo-European language

The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...

or its immediate successors), and vocabulary divergences between the Samoyedic group and the rest of Uralic could be due to mechanisms of replacement such as language contact

Language contact

Language contact occurs when two or more languages or varieties interact. The study of language contact is called contact linguistics.Multilingualism has likely been common throughout much of human history, and today most people in the world are multilingual...

. Proponents of the traditional binary division note, however, that the invocation of extensive contact influence on vocabulary is at odds with the grammatical conservatism of Samoyedic.

The consonant *š (voiceless postalveolar fricative

Voiceless postalveolar fricative

The voiceless palato-alveolar fricative or voiceless domed postalveolar fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in many spoken languages, including English...

, [ʃ]) has not been conclusively shown to occur in the traditional Proto-Uralic lexicon, but it is attested in some of the Proto-Finno-Ugric material. Another feature attested in the Finno-Ugric vocabulary is that *i now behaves as a neutral vowel with respect to front-back vowel harmony, and thus there are roots such as *niva- "to remove the hair from hides".

Regular sound change

Sound change

Sound change includes any processes of language change that affect pronunciation or sound system structures...

s proposed for this stage are few and remain open to interpretation. Sammallahti (1988) proposes five, following Janhunen's (1981) reconstruction of Proto-Finno-Permic

Finno-Permic languages

Compensatory lengthening
Compensatory lengthening
Compensatory lengthening in phonology and historical linguistics is the lengthening of a vowel sound that happens upon the loss of a following consonant, usually in the syllable coda...

: development of long vowels from the cluster of vowel plus a particular syllable-final element, of unknown quality, symbolized by *x
- Long open
  Open vowel
  An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue...
  
  *aa and *ää are then raised to mid
  Mid vowel
  A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel...
  
  *oo and *ee respectively.
  - E.g. *ńäxli- > *ńääli- > *ńeeli- "to swallow" (> Finnish niele-, Hungarian nyel etc.)
Raising of short *o to *u in open syllables before a subsequent *i
- E.g. *lomi > *lumi "snow" (> Finnish lumi, Hungarian archaic lom "frost", etc.)
Shortening of long vowels in closed syllables and before a subsequent open vowel *a, *ä, predating the raising of *ää and *ee
- E.g. *ńäxl+mä > *ńäälmä > *ńälmä "tongue" (> Northern Sami njalbmi, Hungarian nyelv, etc.)

Sammallahti (1988) further reconstructs sound changes *oo, *ee > *a, *ä (merging with original *a, *ä) for the development from Proto-Finno-Ugric to Proto-Ugric. Similar sound laws are required for other languages as well. Thus, the origin and raising of long vowels may actually belong at a later stage, and the development from Proto-Uralic to Proto-Ugric can be summarized as simple loss of *x. (The proposed original vowel length only surfaces consistently in the Baltic-Finnic languages

Baltic-Finnic languages

The Finnic or Baltic Finnic languages are a branch of the Uralic language family spoken around the Baltic Sea by about 7 million people....

.) The proposed raising of *o has been interpreted instead as a lowering *u > *o in Samoyedic (PU *lumi > Proto-Samoyedic *jom).

Janhunen (200X, 2007) notes a number of derivational

Derivational morphology

Derivational morphology changes the meaning of words by applying derivations. Derivation is the combination of a word stem with a morpheme, which forms a new word, which is often of a different class...

innovations in Proto-Finno-Ugric, including *ńoma "hare" > *ńoma-la and *pexli "side" > *peel-ka > *pelka "thumb", though involving Proto-Uralic derivational elements.

Structural features

All Finno-Ugric languages share structural features and basic vocabulary which find their origins in the hypothetical Proto-Finno-Ugric language. Around 200 basic words in this language have been suggested, including word stems for concepts related to humans such as names for relatives and body parts. This common vocabulary includes, according to Lyle Campbell

Lyle Campbell

Lyle Richard Campbell is a linguist and leading expert on indigenous American languages—especially those of Mesoamerica—and on historical linguistics in general. He also has expertise in Uralic languages. He is presently Professor of Linguistics at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.-Life and...

, at least 55 words related to fishing, 33 related to hunting and eating animals, 12 related to reindeer

Reindeer

The reindeer , also known as the caribou in North America, is a deer from the Arctic and Subarctic, including both resident and migratory populations. While overall widespread and numerous, some of its subspecies are rare and one has already gone extinct.Reindeer vary considerably in color and size...

, 17 related to plant foods, 31 related to technology, 26 related to building, 11 related to clothing, 18 related to climate, 4 related to society, 11 related to religion, and 3 related to commerce.

Typologically, most Finno-Ugric languages are agglutinative languages, which share common features like inflection

Inflection

In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the modification of a word to express different grammatical categories such as tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case...

by adding suffixes

Affix

An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...

(instead of prepositions as in English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

) and syntactic

Syntax

In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....

coordination of suffixes. Furthermore, Finno-Ugric languages lack grammatical gender

Grammatical gender

Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...

and thus use one pronoun for both he and she; for example, hän in Finnish, tämä in Votic, tema in Estonian, ő in Hungarian.

According to Robert Austerlitz , Proto-Finno-Ugric had about seven cases; nominative

Nominative case

The nominative case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or the predicate noun or predicate adjective, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments...

, accusative

Accusative case

The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions...

, genitive

Genitive case

In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...

, locative

Locative case

Locative is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by"...

, allative

Allative case

Allative case is a type of the locative cases used in several languages. The term allative is generally used for the lative case in the majority of languages which do not make finer distinctions.-Finnish language:In the Finnish language, the allative is the fifth of the locative cases, with the...

, ablative

Ablative case

In linguistics, ablative case is a name given to cases in various languages whose common characteristic is that they mark motion away from something, though the details in each language may differ...

, and adverbial

Adverbial case

The adverbial case is a noun case in the Abkhaz language and Georgian language that has a function similar to the translative and essive cases in Finnic languages. It is also featured in the Udmurt language. The term is sometimes used to refer to the ablative case in other languages.-Examples:In...

.

In many Finno-Ugric languages possessive adjective

Possessive adjective

Possessive adjectives, also known as possessive determiners, are a part of speech that modifies a noun by attributing possession to someone or something...

s and possessive pronoun

Possessive pronoun

A possessive pronoun is a part of speech that substitutes for a noun phrase that begins with a possessive determiner . For example, in the sentence These glasses are mine, not yours, the words mine and yours are possessive pronouns and stand for my glasses and your glasses, respectively...

s, such as my and your, are rarely used. Speakers suggest possession via declension

Declension

In linguistics, declension is the inflection of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and articles to indicate number , case , and gender...

. In those that have developed further towards fusional

Fusional language

A fusional language is a type of synthetic language, distinguished from agglutinative languages by its tendency to overlay many morphemes in a way that can be difficult to segment....

languages, the genitive

Genitive case

In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...

of the personal pronoun is used to express possession. Examples: Estonian

Estonian language

Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities...

mu koer 'my dog', colloquial Finnish

Spoken Finnish

Colloquial Finnish is the "dialectless" colloquial standard of the Finnish language. It is spoken in the Greater Helsinki region, and in urbanized areas in the Tavastian and Central Finland dialectal areas, such as the cities of Jyväskylä, Lahti, Hyvinkää, and Hämeenlinna...

mun koira, Northern Sami mu beana 'my dog' (literally 'dog of me') or beatnagan 'my dog' (literally 'dog-my'). In others, a pronominal suffix is used, optionally together with the genitive case of a pronoun: thus book Finnish

Finnish language

Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...

(minun) koirani, 'my dog' (literally 'I-gen. dog-my'), from koira "dog". Similarly, Hungarian, lacking possessive pronouns in their own right, uses possessive noun suffixes, optionally together with pronouns; cf. 'the dog' = a kutya vs. 'my dog' = az én kutyám (literally, 'the I dog-my') or simply a kutyám (literally, 'the dog-my'). Hungarian

Hungarian language

Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....

, however, does have independent possessive pronouns; for example, enyém 'mine', tiéd 'yours', etc. These are also declined; for example, nom.

Nominative case

enyém, acc.

Accusative case

The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions...

enyémet, dat.

Dative case

The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given, as in "George gave Jamie a drink"....

enyémnek, etc.

Classification disputes

The relation of the Finno-Permic and the Ugric groups is adjudged remote by some scholars. On the other hand, with a projected time depth of only 3 or 4 thousand years, the traditionally accepted Finno-Ugric grouping would be far younger than many major families such as Indo-European

Indo-European languages

The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...

or Semitic

Semitic languages

The Semitic languages are a group of related languages whose living representatives are spoken by more than 270 million people across much of the Middle East, North Africa and the Horn of Africa...

, and would be about the same age as, for instance, the Eastern

Eastern Nilotic languages

The Eastern Nilotic languages are one of the three primary branches of the Nilotic languages, themselves belonging to the Eastern Sudanic subfamily of Nilo-Saharan; they are believed to have begun to diverge about 3,000 years ago, and have spread southwards from an original home in Equatoria in...

subfamily of Nilotic

Nilotic languages

The Nilotic languages are a group of Eastern Sudanic languages spoken across a wide area between southern Sudan and Tanzania by the Nilotic peoples, particularly associated with cattle-herding...

. But the grouping is far from transparent or securely established. The absence of early records is a major obstacle. As for the Finno-Ugric Urheimat

Urheimat

Urheimat is a linguistic term denoting the original homeland of the speakers of a proto-language...

, most of what has been said about it is speculation.

Some linguists criticizing the Finno-Ugric genetic proposal also question the validity of the entire Uralic family, instead proposing a Ural–Altaic, within which they believe Finno-Permic may be as distant from Ugric as from Turkic. However, this approach has been rejected by nearly all other specialists in Uralic linguistics. For refutations, see e.g. Aikio 2003; Bakró-Nagy 2003, 2005; De Smit 2003; Georg 2003; Kallio 2004; Laakso 2004; Saarikivi 2004.

Common vocabulary

This is a sample of cognate

Cognate

In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. This learned term derives from the Latin cognatus . Cognates within the same language are called doublets. Strictly speaking, loanwords from another language are usually not meant by the term, e.g...

s in basic vocabulary across Uralic, illustrating the sound laws (based on the Encyclopædia Britannica and Hakkinen 1979). In general two cognates do not have the same meaning; they merely have the same origin. Thus, the English word in each row should be regarded as an approximation of the original meaning, not a translation of the other words. A sentence that includes only cognate words in Finno-Ugric languages is "The living fish swims in water" (although it is not mutually intelligible).

English English language English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...	Finnish Finnish language Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...	Estonian Estonian language Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities...	Northern Sami	Inari Sami	Mari Mari language The Mari language , spoken by more than 600,000 people, belongs to 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...	Komi Komi language 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...	Khanty Khanty language 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...	Hungarian Hungarian language Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....	Finno-Ugric reconstruction
heart	sydän, sydäm-	süda, südam-	–	–	šüm	śələm	səm	szív	śüδä(-mɜ) (śiδä(-mɜ))
lap	syli	süli	salla, sala	solla	šəl	sɨl	jöl	öl	süle (sile)
vein	suoni	soon	suotna, suona	suona	šön	sən	jan	ín 'sinew'	*se̮e̮ne
go	mennä, men-	minna, min-	mannat	moonnađ	mije-	mun-	mən-	menni, megy	*mene-
fish	kala	kala	guolli, guoli	kyeli	kol	kul	hal	hal	*kala
hand	käsi, käte- gen. käden, part. kättä	käsi, kät- gen. käe, part. kätt	giehta, gieđa	kieta	kit	ki	köt	kéz	*käte
eye	silmä	silm	čalbmi, čalmmi	čalme	šinča	śin	sem	szem	*śilmä
ice	jää	jää	jiekŋa, jieŋa	jiena	ij	ji	jöŋk	jég	*jäŋe
louse	täi	täi	dihkki	tikke	tij	toj	tögtəm	tetű	*täje

(Orthographical notes: The hacek denotes postalveolar articulation ('š' [ʃ]), while the acute denotes a secondary palatal articulation ('ś' [sʲ]). The Finnish letter 'y' and the letter 'ü' in other languages represent a high close rounded vowel [y]. The letter 'đ' in the Sami languages

Sami languages

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 and erroneously believed to be a single language. Several names are used for the Sami...

and 'δ' in reconstructions represent a voiced dental fricative [ð]. The Sami 'č' is a voiceless postalveolar affricate [t͡ʃ].)

Numbers

The numbers from 1 to 10 in several Finno-Ugric languages. Forms in italic do not descend from the reconstructed forms.

Number	Baltic Finnic Baltic-Finnic languages The Finnic or Baltic Finnic languages are a branch of the Uralic language family spoken around the Baltic Sea by about 7 million people....				Samic Sami languages 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 and erroneously believed to be a single language. Several names are used for the Sami...		Mordvinic Mordvinic languages The Mordvinic languages, alternatively Mordvin languages, or Mordvinian languages, are a subgroup of the Uralic languages, comprising the closely related Erzya language and Moksha language.Previously considered a single "Mordvin language",...		Mari	Permic Permic languages Permic languages are a branch of the Uralic language family. They are spoken in the foothills of the Ural Mountains of Russia.* Komi Komi-Permyak Komi-Yodzyak ** Komi-Zyryan...	Ugric Ugric languages Ugric or Ugrian languages are a branch of the Uralic language family. The term derives from Yugra, a region in north-central Asia.They include three languages: Hungarian , Khanty , and Mansi language...			Proto- Finno- Ugric
Number	Finnish Finnish language Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland Primarily for use by restaurant menus and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a...	Estonian Estonian language Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities...	Võro Võro language The Võro language is a language belonging to the Finnic branch of the Uralic languages. Traditionally it has been considered a dialect of the 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...	Livonian Livonian language Livonian belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic languages. It is a nearly extinct language, with one of its last native speakers having died in February 2009. It is closely related to Estonian...	Northern Sami	Inari Sami	Erzya Erzya language 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 Moksha language 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....	Meadow Mari	Komi Komi language 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...	Mansi Mansi language 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...	Khanty Khanty language 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...	Hungarian Hungarian language Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....	Proto- Finno- Ugric
1	yksi gen. yhden, part. yhtä	üks gen. ühe, part. üht(e)	ütś	ikš	okta	ohta	vejke	fkä	ikte	ətik	äkwa	ĭt	egy	*ükte
2	kaksi gen. kahden, part. kahta	kaks gen. kahe, part. kaht(e)	katś	kakš	guokte	kyeh´ti	kavto	kaftə	kokət	kɨk	kityg	kät	kettő/két	*kakta
3	kolme	kolm	kolm	kuolm	golbma	kulma	kolmo	kolmə	kumət	kuim	hurum	koləm	három, harm-	*kolme
4	neljä	neli	nelli	nēļa	njeallje	nelji	ńiľe	nilä	nələt	nəľ	nila	ńelä	négy	*neljä
5	viisi	viis	viiś	vīž	vihtta	vitta	veƭe	vetä	wizət	vit	ät	wet	öt	*viite
6	kuusi	kuus	kuuś	kūž	guhtta	kutta	koto	kotə	kuðət	kvajt	hot	kut	hat	*kuute
7	seitsemän	seitse	säidse	seis	čieža	čiččam	śiśem	sisäm	šəmət	sizim	sat	tapət	hét	N/A
8	kahdeksan	kaheksa	katõsa	kōdõks	gávcci	käävci	kavkso	kafksə	kandaš(e)	kəkjamɨs	ńololow	nəvət	nyolc	N/A
9	yhdeksän	üheksa	ütesä	īdõks	ovcci	oovce	vejkse	veçksə	indeš(e)	əkmɨs	ontolow	yaryaŋ	kilenc	N/A
10	kymmenen	kümme	kümme	kim	logi	love	kemeń	keməń	lu	das	low	loŋət	tíz	*luke

The number '2' descends in Ugric from a front-vocalic variant *kektä.

The numbers '9' and '8' in Finnic thru Mari are considered to be derived from the numbers '1' and '2' as '10–1' and '10–2'. One reconstruction is *yk+teksa and *kak+teksa respectively, where *teksa cf. deka is an Indo-European loan; notice that the difference between /t/ and /d/ is not phonemic, unlike in Indo-European. Another analysis is *ykt-e-ksa, *kakt-e-ksa, with *e being the negative verb.

Finno-Ugric Swadesh lists

100-word Swadesh list

Swadesh list

A Swadesh list is one of several lists of vocabulary with basic meanings, developed by Morris Swadesh from 1940 onward, with the final, posthumously published version 1971 [1972], which is used in lexicostatistics and glottochronology .- Versions and authors :There are several versions of Swadesh...

s for certain Finno-Ugric languages can be compared and contrasted at the Rosetta Project

Rosetta Project

The Rosetta Project is a global collaboration of language specialists and native speakers working to develop a contemporary version of the historic Rosetta Stone to last from 2000 to 12,000 AD; it is run by the Long Now Foundation. Its goal is a meaningful survey and near permanent archive of 1,500...

website:
Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, Erzya.

Peoples

The Finno-Ugric peoples is a presumed historic group of those peoples who currently speak Finno-Ugric languages. Like the speakers of Indo-European languages

Indo-European languages

, Finno-Ugric peoples include multiple races.

The four largest ethnicities speaking Finno-Ugric languages are the Hungarians (15 million), Finns (6–7 million), Estonians

Estonians

Estonians are a Finnic people closely related to the Finns and inhabiting, primarily, the country of Estonia. They speak a Finnic language known as Estonian...

(1.1 million), and Mordvins (0.85 million). Three (Hungarians, Finns, and Estonians) inhabit independent nation-states, Hungary

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

, Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

, and Estonia

Estonia

Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of 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 Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...

, while the Mordvins have an autonomous Mordovian Republic

Mordovia

The Republic of Mordovia , also known as Mordvinia, is a federal subject of Russia . Its capital is the city of Saransk. Population: -Geography:The republic is located in the eastern part of the East European Plain of Russia...

within Russia. The traditional area of the indigenous Sami people

Sami people

The Sami people, also spelled Sámi, or Saami, are the arctic indigenous people inhabiting Sápmi, which today encompasses parts of far northern Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Kola Peninsula of Russia, and the border area between south and middle Sweden and Norway. The Sámi are Europe’s northernmost...

is in Northern Fenno-Scandinavia and the Kola Peninsula

Kola Peninsula

The Kola Peninsula is a peninsula in the far northwest of Russia. Constituting the bulk of the territory of Murmansk Oblast, it lies almost completely to the north of the Arctic Circle and is washed by the Barents Sea in the north and the White Sea in the east and southeast...

in Northwest Russia and is known as Sápmi. Some other Finno-Ugric peoples have autonomous republics in Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

: Karelians

Karelians

The Karelians are a Baltic-Finnic ethnic group living mostly in the Republic of Karelia and in other north-western parts of the Russian Federation. The historic homeland of Karelians includes also parts of present-day Eastern Finland and the formerly Finnish territory of Ladoga Karelia...

(Republic of Karelia

Republic of Karelia

The Republic of Karelia is a federal subject of Russia .-Geography:The republic is located in the northwestern part of Russia, taking intervening position between the basins of White and Baltic seas...

), Komi

Komi peoples

The Komi people is an ethnic group whose homeland is in the north-east of European Russia around the basins of the Vychegda, Pechora and Kama rivers. They mostly live in the Komi Republic, Perm Krai, Murmansk Oblast, Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug in the Russian...

(Komi Republic

Komi Republic

The Komi Republic is a federal subject of Russia .-Geography:The republic is situated to the west of the Ural mountains, in the north-east of the East European Plain...

), Udmurts (Udmurt Republic

Udmurtia

The Udmurt Republic , or Udmurtia is a federal subject of Russia . Its capital is the city of Izhevsk. Population: -History:...

), Mari (Mari El Republic

Mari El

The Mari El Republic is a federal subject of Russia . Its capital is the city of Yoshkar-Ola. Population: -Geography:The republic is located in the eastern part of the East European Plain of Russia, along the Volga River. The swampy Mari Depression is located in the west of the republic...

), and Mordvins (Moksha and Erzya; Republic of Mordovia

Mordovia

). Khanty and Mansi peoples live in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug

Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug

Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug , also known as Yugra, is a federal subject of Russia . Population: The people native to the region are the Khanty and the Mansi, known collectively as Ob Ugric people...

of Russia, while Komi-Permyaks live in Komi-Permyak Okrug

Komi-Permyak Okrug

Komi-Permyak Okrug , or Permyakia is a territory with special status within Perm Krai, Russia. Population: It was a federal subject of Russia until December 1, 2005. It was called Komi-Permyak Autonomous Okrug at that time.-History:Komi-Permyak Autonomous Okrug was established on February...

, which formerly was an autonomous okrug

Autonomous okrug

Autonomous okrug is a term for an administrative country subdivision in Russia. The term was also used in the Soviet Union.- See also :* Okrug* Autonomous okrugs of Russia* Autonomous okrugs of the Soviet Union...

of Russia, but today is a territory with special status within Perm Krai

Perm Krai

Perm Krai is a federal subject of Russia that came into existence on December 1, 2005 as a result of the 2004 referendum on the merger of Perm Oblast and Komi-Permyak Autonomous Okrug. The city of Perm became the administrative center of the new federal subject...

Population genetics

The linguistic reconstruction of the Finno-Ugric language family has led to the postulation that the ancient Proto–Finno-Ugric people were ethnically related, and that even the modern Finno-Ugric-speaking peoples are ethnically related. Such hypotheses are based on the assumption that heredity can be traced through linguistic relatedness, but this premise is rarely accepted by the modern scientific community

Scientific community

The scientific community consists of the total body of scientists, its relationships and interactions. It is normally divided into "sub-communities" each working on a particular field within science. Objectivity is expected to be achieved by the scientific method...

: It has not been shown that any contemporary group originated from one single ancient people, barring the earliest humans. Like perhaps all populations, individual groups of Finno-Ugric speakers have a diverse array of cultural, environmental, and genetic influences. However, modern genetic studies have shown that the Y-chromosome haplogroup N3

Haplogroup N (Y-DNA)

In human genetics, Haplogroup N is a Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup, defined by the presence of the marker M231. The b2/b3 deletion in the AZFc region of the human Y-chromosome is a characteristic of Haplogroup N haplotypes. This deletion, however, appears to have occurred independently on four...

, and sometimes N2, having branched from haplogroup N

Haplogroup N (Y-DNA)

, which, itself, probably spread north, then west and east from Northern China about 12,000–14,000 years before present from father haplogroup NO

Haplogroup NO (Y-DNA)

In human genetics, Haplogroup NO is a human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup.Haplogroup NO is a descendant branch of the greater Haplogroup MNOPS and a phylogenetic sibling of Haplogroup M, Haplogroup P, and Haplogroup S.-Origins:...

(haplogroup O being the most common Y-chromosome haplogroup in Southeast Asia), is almost specific, though certainly not restricted, to Uralic or Finno-Ugric speaking populations, especially as high frequency or primary paternal haplogroup.

Some of the ethnicities speaking Finno-Ugric languages are:

(Baltic Finnic)

Chud
Chud
Chud or Chude is a term historically applied in the early Russian annals to several Finnic peoples in the area of what is now Finland, Estonia and Northwestern Russia....
Estonians
Estonians
Estonians are a Finnic people closely related to the Finns and inhabiting, primarily, the country of Estonia. They speak a Finnic language known as Estonian...
Finns
Izhorians
Izhorians
The Izhorians , along with the Votes are an indigenous people of Ingria. Small numbers can still be found in the Western part of Ingria, between the Narva and Neva rivers in northwestern Russia.- History :The history of the Izhorians is bound to the history of Ingria...
Karelians
Karelians
The Karelians are a Baltic-Finnic ethnic group living mostly in the Republic of Karelia and in other north-western parts of the Russian Federation. The historic homeland of Karelians includes also parts of present-day Eastern Finland and the formerly Finnish territory of Ladoga Karelia...
Livonians
Livonian people
The Livonians or Livs are the indigenous inhabitants of Livonia, a large part of what is today northwestern Latvia and southwestern Estonia. They spoke the Uralic Livonian language, a language which is closely related to Estonian and Finnish...
Setos
Setos
Setos are an autochthonous ethnic and linguistic minority in south-eastern Estonia and north-western Russia. Setos are mostly Seto-speaking Orthodox Christians of Estonian nationality. Their dialect, that some consider an independent language - the Seto language belongs to the Finnic group of the...
Veps
Votes
Votes
Votes are a people of Votia in Ingria, the part of modern day northwestern Russia that is roughly southwest of Saint Petersburg and east of the Estonian border-town of Narva. Their own ethnic name is Vadjalain . The Finnic Votic language spoken by Votes is close to extinction. Votians were one of...

("Volgaic")

Burtas
Burtas
Burtas were a tribe of uncertain ethnolinguistic affiliation inhabiting the steppe region north of the Caspian Sea in medieval times...
Mari
Merya people
Meshchera people
Mokshas
Mokshas
The Mokshas are an ethnic group belonging to Volgaic branch of Finnic peoples who live mostly on the west side and to the south of the great bend of the Volga river, and along a tributary of the Oka, the Moksha river in Russian Federation.Their native language is Moksha , one of the three...
Mordvins http://www.suri.ee/eup/mordvins.html
Muromian people

Sami
Sami people
The Sami people, also spelled Sámi, or Saami, are the arctic indigenous people inhabiting Sápmi, which today encompasses parts of far northern Sweden, Norway, Finland, the Kola Peninsula of Russia, and the border area between south and middle Sweden and Norway. The Sámi are Europe’s northernmost...

(Lapps)

(Permic)

Besermyan
Besermyan
The Besermyan, Biserman, Besermans or Besermens are a small numbered Finno-Ugric ethnic group in Russia.There were 10,000 Besermyans in 1926, but according to the Russian Census , there were 3,122 of them in Russia. The Russian Empire Census of 1897 listed 10.8 thousand besermens...
Komi
Komi-Permyaks
Udmurts
Udmurt people
The Udmurts are a people who speak the Udmurt language. Through history they have been known in Russian as Chud Otyatskaya , Otyaks, or Votyaks , and in Tatar as Ar....

(Ugric)

Hungarians
- Székely
  Székely
  The Székelys or Székely , sometimes also referred to as Szeklers , are a subgroup of the Hungarian people living mostly in the Székely Land, an ethno-cultural region in eastern Transylvania, Romania...
- Csángó
  Csángó
  The Csango people are a Hungarian ethnographic group of Roman Catholic faith living mostly in the Romanian region of Moldavia, especially in the Bacău County...
- Magyarab
  Magyarab
  The Magyarab are a people living along the Nile River in Egypt and Sudan. They are of Hungarian ancestry, probably dating back to the late 16th century.- Name :The name "Magyarab" is not a combination of the words "Magyar" and "Arab" as is commonly assumed...
- Jász
- Kun
  Kunság
  Kunság is a historical and geographical region in Hungary situated in the current Bács-Kiskun and Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok counties. Like other historical European regions called Cumania, it is named for the Cumans, a nomadic tribe of pagan Kipchaks that settled the area...
- Palóc
  Palóc
  The Palóc are a subgroup of the Magyars in Northern Hungary. While Palócs have retained distinctive traditions, including a very apparent dialect of Hungarian, Palócs are also ethnic Hungarians by general consensus....
Khanty
Khanty people
Khanty / Hanti are an indigenous people calling themselves Khanti, Khande, Kantek , living in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, a region historically known as "Yugra" in Russia, together with the Mansi. In the autonomous okrug, the Khanty and Mansi languages are given co-official status with Russian...
Mansi

External links

Some Finno-Ugrian links A more comprehensive link collection
Swadesh lists for the Finno-Ugric languages (from Wiktionary's Swadesh-list appendix)
FAQ about Finno-Ugrian Languages

Linguistic Shadow-Boxing Johanna Laakso's book review of Angela Marcantonio's "The Uralic language family. Facts, myths and statistics"
Uralic Linguistics Vs. Voodoo Science! A collection of links about the "new paradigm" debate by Merlijn de Smit
Numbers in Asian languages Counting to ten in a variety of languages
Ugri.info Finno-Ugric peoples infobase
Finno-Ugric Electronic Library by the Finno-Ugric Information Center in Syktyvkar
Syktyvkar
-Twin towns/sister cities:Syktyvkar is twinned with the following sister cities: Cullera, Spain Debrecen, Hungary Los Altos, United States Lovech, Bulgaria Taiyuan, China-External links:* * * *...

, Komi Republic
Komi Republic
The Komi Republic is a federal subject of Russia .-Geography:The republic is situated to the west of the Ural mountains, in the north-east of the East European Plain...

Interface in Russian and English, texts in Mari
Mari language
The Mari language , spoken by more than 600,000 people, belongs to 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...

, Komi
Komi language
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...

, Udmurt
Udmurt language
Udmurt is an Uralic language, part of the Permic subgroup, spoken by the Udmurt natives of the Russian constituent republic of Udmurtia, where it is coofficial with Russian. It is written in the Cyrillic script with five additional characters. Together with Komi and Komi-Permyak languages, it...

, Erzya
Erzya language
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...

and Moksha
Moksha language
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....

languages.
The Finno-Ugrics: The dying fish swims in water The Economist
The Economist
The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...

, December 20, 2005
"Ethnic origins of Finno-Ugric nations and modern Finno-Ugric nationalism in the Russian Federation" by Konstantin Zamyatin

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Status

Origins

Structural features

Classification disputes

Common vocabulary

Numbers

Finno-Ugric Swadesh lists

Peoples

Population genetics

See also

Further reading

External links