Indo-Uralic languages
Encyclopedia
Indo-Uralic is a proposed language family
consisting of Indo-European
and Uralic
.
A genetic relationship
between Indo-European and Uralic was first proposed by the Danish linguist Vilhelm Thomsen
in 1869 (Pedersen 1931:336) but was received with little enthusiasm. Since then, the predominant opinion in the linguistic community has remained that the evidence for such a relationship is insufficient. However, a minority of linguists has always taken the contrary view (e.g. Henry Sweet, Holger Pedersen
, Björn Collinder
, Warren Cowgill
and Jochem Schindler
).
There are two distinct questions here (cf. Greenberg 2005:325):
(1) Are Indo-European and Uralic genetically related?
(2) If so, do Indo-European and Uralic constitute a valid genetic node? The Eurasiatic
and Nostratic
hypotheses both consider Indo-European and Uralic (or Uralic–Yukaghir) to be genetically related. However, the Indo-Uralic hypothesis in the strict sense is distinct from this: it maintains that Indo-European and Uralic have an especially close genetic relationship, and does not necessarily include assertions that Indo-European and Uralic are related to any other language families.
At the same time, most of the supporters of a relationship between Indo-European and Uralic have also supported their relationship to additional language families, leading some to regard Indo-Uralic as a subset of the larger Nostratic hypothesis.
This article focuses on question (1), genetic relationship, and only treats incidentally of question (2), possible relation to other language families.
supports a model of Indo-Uralic in which the original Indo-Uralic speakers lived north of the Caspian Sea
, and the Proto-Indo-European
speakers began as a group that branched off westward from there to come into geographic proximity with the Northwest Caucasian languages
, absorbing a Northwest Caucasian lexical blending before moving farther westward to a region north of the Black Sea
where their language settled into canonical Proto-Indo-European (2002:1). Allan Bomhard
suggests a similar schema in Indo-European and the Nostratic Hypothesis (1996). Alternatively, the common protolanguage may have been located north of the Black Sea, with Proto-Uralic moving northwards with the climatic improvement of post-glacial times.
’s Linguistic Science in the Nineteenth Century (1931:336-338). Although Vilhelm Thomsen first raised the possibility of a connection between Indo-European and Finno-Ugric in 1869 (336), "he did not pursue the subject very far" (337). The next important statement in this area was that of Nicolai Anderson in 1879. However, Pedersen reports, the value of Anderson’s work was "impaired by its many errors" (337). The great English phonetician Henry Sweet argued for kinship between Indo-European and Finno-Ugric in his semi-popular book The History of Language in 1900 (see especially Sweet 1900:112-121). Sweet’s treatment awakened "[g]reat interest" in the question, but "his space was too limited to permit of actual proof" (Pedersen 1931:337). A somewhat longer study by K.B. Wiklund appeared in 1906 and another by H. Paasonen in 1908 (i.e. 1907) (ib.). Pedersen considered that these two studies sufficed to settle the question and that, after them, "it seems unnecessary to doubt the relationship further" (ib.).
Sweet considered the relationship to be securely established, stating (1900:120; "Aryan" = Indo-European, "Ugrian" = Finno-Ugric):
Björn Collinder
, author of the path-breaking Comparative Grammar of the Uralic Languages (1960), a standard work in the field of Uralic studies, argued for the kinship of Uralic and Indo-European (1934, 1954, 1965).
Alwin Kloekhorst
, author of the acclaimed Etymological Dictionary of the Hittite Inherited Lexicon, endorses the Indo-Uralic grouping (2008b). He argues that, when features differ between the Anatolian languages
(including Hittite
) and the other Indo-European languages, comparisons with Uralic can help to establish which group has the more archaic forms (2008b: 88) and that, conversely, the success of such comparisons helps to establish the Indo-Uralic thesis (2008b: 94). For example, in Anatolian the nominative singular of the second person pronoun comes from *ti(H), whereas in the non-Anatolian languages it comes from *tu(H); in Proto-Uralic it was *ti, which agrees with evidence from internal reconstruction
that Anatolian has the more archaic form (2008b: 93).
The most extensive attempt to establish sound correspondences between Indo-European and Uralic to date is that of the late Slovenia
n linguist Bojan Čop. It was published as a series of articles in various academic journals from 1970 to 1989 under the collective title Indouralica. The topics to be covered by each article were sketched out at the beginning of "Indouralica II". Of the projected 18 articles only 11 appeared. These articles have not been collected into a single volume and thereby remain difficult to access.
Uralic m n l r = Indo-European m n l r.
Uralic j w = Indo-European i̯ u̯.
Uralic sibilants (presumably s š ś) = Indo-European s.
Uralic word-initial voiceless stops (presumably p t č ć k) = Indo-European word-initial voiceless stops (presumably p t k ), also Indo-European s followed by one of these stops.
Uralic word-initial voiceless stops (presumably p t č ć k) = Indo-European word-initial voiced aspirates (presumably ).
Uralic ŋ = Indo-European g and ng.
Károly Rédei, editor of the standard etymological dictionary of the Uralic languages (1986a), rejected the idea of a genetic relationship between Uralic and Indo-European, arguing that the lexical items shared by Uralic and Indo-European were due to borrowing from Indo-European into Proto-Uralic
(1986b).
Perhaps the best-known critique of recent times is that of Jorma Koivulehto, issued in a series of carefully formulated articles. Koivulehto’s central contention, agreeing with Rédei's views, is that all of the lexical items claimed to be Indo-Uralic can be explained as loans from Indo-European into Uralic (see below for examples).
, such as the pronominal roots (*m- for first person; *t- for second person; *i- for third person), case markings (accusative *-m; ablative/partitive *-ta), interrogative/relative pronouns (*kʷ- 'who?, which?'; *y- 'who, which' to signal relative clauses) and a common SOV word order. Other, less obvious correspondences are suggested, such as the Indo-European plural marker *-es (or *-s in the accusative plural }) and its Uralic counterpart *-t. This same word-final assibilation
of *-t to *-s may also be present in Indo-European second-person singular *-s in comparison with Uralic second-person singular *-t. Compare, within Indo-European itself, *-s second-person singular injunctive, *-si second-person singular present indicative, *-tHa second-person singular perfect, *-te second-person plural present indicative, *tu 'you' (singular) nominative, *tei 'to you' (singular) enclitic pronoun. These forms suggest that the underlying second-person marker in Indo-European may be *t and that the *u found in forms such as *tu was originally an affixal particle.
Similarities have long been noted between the verb conjugation systems of Uralic languages (e.g. that of Finnish
) and Indo-European languages (e.g. those of Latin
, Russian
, and Lithuanian
). Although it would not be uncommon for a language to borrow heavily from the vocabulary
of another language (as in the cases of English
from French
, Persian
from Arabic
, and Korean
from Chinese
), it would be extremely unusual for a language to borrow its basic system of verb conjugation from another.
. Numerous words in Indo-European and Uralic resemble each other. The problem is to weed out cognates due to borrowing. Uralic languages have been in contact with a succession of Indo-European languages for millennia. As a result, many words have been borrowed between them, most often from Indo-European languages into Uralic ones.
An example of a Uralic word that cannot be original is Finno-Ugric
*śata 'hundred'. The Proto-Indo-European form of this word was *km̥tóm (compare Latin centum), which became *ćatám in early Indo-Iranian (reanalyzed as the neuter nominative–accusative singular of an a stem > Sanskrit śatá-, Avestan sata-). This is evidence that the word was borrowed into Finno-Ugric from Indo-Iranian or Indo-Aryan. This borrowing may have occurred in the region north of the Pontic-Caspian steppe
s around 2100–1800 BC, the approximate floruit
of Indo-Iranian (Anthony 2007:371–411). It provides linguistic evidence for the geographical location of these languages around that time, agreeing with archeological evidence that Indo-European speakers were present in the Pontic-Caspian steppes by around 4500 BCE (the Kurgan hypothesis
) and that Uralic speakers may have been established in the Pit-Comb Ware culture to their north in the fifth millennium BCE (Carpelan & Parpola 2001:79).
Another ancient borrowing is Finno-Ugric *porćas ‘piglet’. This word corresponds closely in form to the Proto-Indo-European word reconstructed as *porḱos, attested by such forms as Latin porcus 'hog', Old English fearh (> English farrow 'young pig'), Lithuanian par̃šas ’piglet, castrated boar’, Kurdish purs 'pig', and Saka pāsa (< *pārsa) 'pig'. In the Indo-European word, *-os (> Finno-Ugric *-as) is a masculine nominative singular ending, but it is quite meaningless in Uralic languages. This shows that the whole word was borrowed as a unit and is not part of the original Uralic vocabulary. (Further details on *porćas are given in the Appendix.)
Thus, *śata cannot be Indo-Uralic on account of its phonology
, while *porćas cannot be Indo-Uralic on account of its morphology
.
Such words as those for 'hundred' and 'pig' have something in common: they represent "cultural vocabulary" as opposed to "basic vocabulary". They are likely to have been acquired along with a more complex number system and the domestic pig from the more advanced Indo-Europeans to the south. Similarly, the Indo-Europeans themselves had acquired such words and cultural items from peoples to their south or west, including possibly their words for 'ox', *gʷou- (compare English cow) and 'grain', *bʰars- (compare English barley). In contrast, basic vocabulary – words such as 'me', 'hand', 'water', and 'be' – is much less readily borrowed between languages. If Indo-European and Uralic are genetically related, they should show agreements in basic vocabulary, with more agreements if they are closely related, fewer if they are less closely related.
Advocates of a genetic relation between Indo-European and Uralic maintain that the borrowings can be filtered out by application of phonological and morphological analysis and that a core of vocabulary common to Indo-European and Uralic remains. As examples they advance such comparisons as Proto-Uralic * (or *) : Proto-Indo-European * (or *), oblique stem *, both meaning 'water', and Proto-Uralic * (or *) : Proto-Indo-European * (or *), both meaning 'name'. In contrast to * and *, the phonology of these words shows no sound changes from Indo-European daughter languages such as Indo-Iranian. In contrast to and *, they show no morphological affixes from Indo-European that are absent in Uralic. According to advocates of the Indo-Uralic hypothesis, the resulting core of common vocabulary can only be explained by the hypothesis of common origin.
For the old loans, as well as uncontroversial ones from Proto-Baltic and Proto-Germanic, it is more the rule than the exception that only the stem is borrowed, without any case-endings. Proto-Uralic *nimi- has been explained according to sound laws governing substitutions in borrowings (Koivulehto 1999), on the assumption that the original was a zero-grade oblique stem PIE *(H)nmen- as attested in later Balto-Slavic *inmen- and Proto-Celtic *anmen-. Proto-Uralic *weti- could be a loan from the PIE oblique e-grade form for 'water' or from an indirectly attested cognate root noun *wed-. Proto-Uralic *toHį- 'give' and PFU *wetä- 'lead' also make perfect phonologic sense as borrowings.
In addition, the number systems of Indo-European and Uralic are totally different. While the numbers in all Indo-European languages can be traced back to reconstructed Proto-Indo-European
numbers, this cannot be done for the Uralic numbers, which are apparently based upon a different base 6 counting system. (This is a further indication that the word for "hundred" cited above is a loan from Indo-European; proto-Uralic might instead have a special word for "36" that has died out of use.) This would appear to show that either Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Uralic are not related, or that one or both developed their own number systems independently and did not inherit them from their purported common ancestor.
It is also objected that some or all of the common vocabulary items claimed are false cognate
s – words whose resemblance is merely coincidental, like English bad and Persian bad.
level of culture and therefore plausible as shared terms.
With regard to the postulated equivalence of Uralic -i and Indo-European -en, we need a little more explanation on how "sound laws
", which are regular by definition, can be equivalent to "substitutions in borrowings", which are by definition analogical
and therefore not regular, phonologically speaking. Koivulehto’s position may be possible; the issue is whether it is the most compelling explanation of the data.
The points raised concerning the words for 'name’, 'water', and 'give' require a glance at the possible relations of Indo-European and Uralic with other language families, in particular the languages hypothetically grouped as Uralo-Siberian
by Fortescue
, Eurasiatic
by Greenberg
, and Nostratic by Holger Pedersen
and various successors of his. While it is perfectly true that the Uralic words for these things could be derived from the Indo-European ones (or vice versa), the Uralic words have apparent equivalents among other languages variously identified as "Uralo-Siberian" or "Eurasiatic". For example, according to Fortescue (1998:158), Proto-Finno-Ugric *toɣe- 'bring, take, give' is cognate with Proto-Chukotko-Kamchatkan *teɣiŋrə- 'pull out' and Proto-Eskimo *teɣu- 'take'. He reconstructs these forms to a Proto-Uralo-Siberian *toɣə- 'take'.
If the Uralic word is borrowed from Indo-European, why is it found in nearly identical form right across Siberia? Possible cognates are also found for the words for 'name' in Chukchi
nənnə 'name' and Old Japanese
na 'name' and for 'water' in Evenki udun 'rain', Even
udən 'rain', and Ainu
owata 'water' (Greenberg 2002). Thus, alongside the hypothesis of borrowing from Indo-European, another possibility is that Indo-European and Uralic themselves belong to a larger grouping.
With regard to numerals, Frederik Kortlandt states (1986:83-84):
Finally, the claim that all such forms are "false cognates" is not widely accepted. The disagreements between e.g. Koivulehto and Kortlandt do not turn on whether the forms under discussion are true cognates, which is generally accepted, but on whether they result from borrowing or genetic inheritance. This is thus the key point at issue.
Notes to table
1 Latin -que, Greek te, Sanskrit -ca, etc.
2 Finnish -kä in ei ... eikä 'neither ... nor', Saami -ge, Mordvin (Moksha) -ka, Votyak -ke, Komi / Zyrian -kȯ, etc.
3 Latin ne-, Greek ne-, Sanskrit ná, Old High German and Old English ne ~ ni, etc.
4 Hungarian ne/nem, Cheremis / Mari nõ-, ni-, Votyak / Udmurt ni-, etc.
5 Greek me (enclitic).
6 Old Persian mana, Old Church Slavic mene, Welsh men, etc.
7 Finnish minä, Estonian mina, Nenets /mønʲə/.http://www.helsinki.fi/~tasalmin/sketch.html Uralic reconstruction *mun.
8 Latin tū, Greek sú (Attic), tu (Dorian), Lithuanian tù, Old English þu > archaic English thou, etc.
9 Greek sé, Sanskrit tvā (enclitic), Avestan θwā (enclitic), Old Church Slavic tebe, etc.
10 Sanskrit táva, Avestan tava, Proto-Celtic *towe (< PIE *tewe, with complex developments in the individual languages, Lewis and Pedersen 1989:193-217).
11 Finnish sinä (< *tinä), Saami ton, tú-, Mordvin ton, Votyak ton, Zyrian te, accusative tenõ, Hungarian të 'you' (singular), ti 'you' (plural), etc. Samoyed: Tavgi tannaŋ, Yeniseian Samoyed tod'i, Selkup tan, tat, Kamassian tan.
12 Gothic sa, Sanskrit sá, etc.
13 Finnish hän (< *sä-n), Saami son, Udmurt so. Samoyed: Nganasan syty.
14 Greek tó, Sanskrit tá-, Old Church Slavic to, etc.
15 Finnish tämä 'this' and tuo 'that (one)', Cheremis ti 'this', Mordvin te 'this', etc.; Udmurt tu 'that', Mordvin to 'that', etc. Cf. Hungarian tétova 'hesitant' (i.e. reluctant to choose between this and that).
16 }: Hittite kuis (animate nominative singular), kuit (inanimate nominative–accusative singular), Latin quis, quid, Greek tís, tí, etc.
}: Greek téo (Homeric), Avestan čahmāi (dative singular; ča < PIE }), etc.
}: Latin quod, Old Latin quoius > Latin cuius (genitive singular), Old English hwæt > English what, etc.
17 E.g. Latin quidne.
18 Saami gi ~ gä 'who?, which?, what sort of?' and gutti 'who?', Mordvin ki 'who?', Cheremis and Mari ke, kö, kü 'who?', Hungarian ki 'who?', Finnish kuka 'who?', Komi / Zyrian kod 'which?', Ostyak koji 'who?', kŏti 'what?', etc.
19 Finnish ken ~ kene 'who?', Votyak kin 'who?', Udmurt kin 'who?', Komi / Zyrian kin 'who?'. Samoyed: Yurak Samoyed kin 'who?', Southern Nenets kin 'who?'.
20 Hittite tā-, Latin dō, Greek dídōmi, Sanskrit dā-, etc.
21 Finnish tuo 'bring', Estonian too- 'bring', Saami duokə- 'sell', Mordvin tuje- 'bring'. Samoyed: Tundra Yurak taš 'give, bring', Enets ta- 'bring', Tavgi tətud'a 'give, bring', etc.
22 Sanskrit ud-.
23 Hittite wātar (instrumental wēdanda), Umbrian utur (ablative une < *udne), Greek húdōr (genitive húdatos < *hudn̥tos), Sanskrit ud-án- (oblique cases only, nominative–accusative defective), Old Church Slavic voda, Gothic watō (n-stem, dative plural watnam), Old Norse vatn, Old English wæter > English water, etc.
This word belongs to the r / n stems, a small group of neuter nouns, from an archaic stratum of Indo-European, that alternate -er (or -or) in the nominative and accusative with -en in the other cases. Some languages have leveled the paradigm to one or the other, e.g. English to the r, Old Norse to the n form.
24 Finnish vesi / vete-, Estonian vesi, Mordvin wət, Udmurt vu, Komi / Zyrian va, Vogul wit, Hungarian víz. Samoyed: Forest Yurak wit, Selkup üt, Kamassian bü, etc.
25 Latin nōmen, Greek ónoma, Sanskrit nā́man-, Old English nama > English name, etc.
Indo-Europeanists are divided on whether to reconstruct this word as *nom(e)n- or as }, with a preceding "laryngeal". See Delamarre 2003:50 for a summary of views, with references. The o timbre of the root is assured by, among others, Greek ónoma and Latin nōmen (with secondary vowel lengthening). As roots with inherent o are uncommon in Indo-European, most roots having e as their vowel, the underlying root is probably *nem-. The -(e)n is an affixal particle. Whether the e placed in parentheses is inherently part of the word is disputed but probable.
26 Finnish nimi, Saami nama ~ namma, Mordvin lem, Cheremis lüm, Votyak and Zyrian ńim, Vogul näm, Ostyak nem, Hungarian név. Among the Samoyed languages: Yurak nim, Tavgi ńim, Yenisei Samoyed ńii’, Selkup nim, nem. Compare, in Yukaghir, Kolyma niu and Chuvan nyva.
27 Latin squalus (with s-mobile) 'large sea fish', Old Prussian kalis 'sheatfish', Old English hwæl 'whale' > English whale, etc.
28 Finnish kala, Estonian kala, Saami kuollē, Mordvin kal, Cheremis kol, Ostyak kul, Hungarian hal; Enets kare, Koibal kola, etc.
29 Latin glōs (genitive glōris), Greek gálōs, Old Church Slavic zŭlŭva, all meaning 'husband's sister'.
30 Finnish käly 'sister-in-law', Estonian kälī 'husband's brother, wife of husband's brother', Saami kāloji 'sister-in-law', Mordvin kel 'sister-in-law', etc.
31 Greek polú-, Sanskrit purú-, Avestan pouru-, Gothic filu, Old High German filu > German viel, all meaning 'much'.
The ḷ in Indo-European *pḷlu- represents a vocalic l, a sound found in English in for instance little, where it corresponds to the -le, and metal, where it corresponds to the -al. An earlier form of the Indo-European word was probably *pelu-.
32 Finnish paljon 'much', Cheremis pülä 'rather a lot', Vogul pāľ 'thick', Yurak palɁ 'thick'. Cp. Tundra Yukaghir pojuoŋ 'many'.
An asterisk (*) indicates reconstructed forms.
A tilde (~) means 'alternating with'.
Language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term 'family' comes from the tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a...
consisting of 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...
and Uralic
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...
.
A genetic relationship
Genetic relationship
In linguistics, genetic relationship is the usual term for the relationship which exists between languages that are members of the same language family. The term genealogical relationship is sometimes used to avoid confusion with the unrelated use of the term in biological genetics...
between Indo-European and Uralic was first proposed by the Danish linguist Vilhelm Thomsen
Vilhelm Thomsen
Vilhelm Ludwig Peter Thomsen was a Danish linguist. In 1893, he deciphered the Turkish Orkhon inscriptions in advance of his rival, Wilhelm Radloff...
in 1869 (Pedersen 1931:336) but was received with little enthusiasm. Since then, the predominant opinion in the linguistic community has remained that the evidence for such a relationship is insufficient. However, a minority of linguists has always taken the contrary view (e.g. Henry Sweet, Holger Pedersen
Holger Pedersen (linguist)
Holger Pedersen was a Danish linguist who made significant contributions to language science and wrote about 30 authoritative works concerning several languages....
, Björn Collinder
Björn Collinder
Björn Collinder was a Swedish linguist. His name is sometimes spelled "Bjorn Collinder" in English-language contexts.Collinder was born in Sundsvall, Sweden....
, Warren Cowgill
Warren Cowgill
Warren Cowgill was a professor of linguistics at Yale University and the Encyclopædia Britannica’s authority on Indo-European linguistics. He was unusual among Indo-European linguists of his time in believing that Indo-European should be classified as a branch of Indo-Hittite, with Hittite as a...
and Jochem Schindler
Jochem Schindler
Jochem Schindler was an Austrian Indo-Europeanist. In spite of his comparatively thin bibliography, he made important contributions, in particular to the theory of Proto-Indo-European language nominal inflection and ablaut.-References:*Eichner Compositiones Indogermanicae in memoriam Jochem...
).
There are two distinct questions here (cf. Greenberg 2005:325):
(1) Are Indo-European and Uralic genetically related?
(2) If so, do Indo-European and Uralic constitute a valid genetic node? The Eurasiatic
Eurasiatic languages
Eurasiatic is a language macrofamily proposed by Joseph Greenberg that includes many language families historically spoken in northern Eurasia. The eight branches of Eurasiatic are Etruscan, Indo-European, Uralic–Yukaghir, Altaic, Korean-Japanese-Ainu, Gilyak, Chukotian, and Eskimo–Aleut, spoken in...
and Nostratic
Nostratic languages
Nostratic is a proposed language family that includes many of the indigenous language families of Eurasia, including the Indo-European, Uralic and Altaic as well as Kartvelian languages...
hypotheses both consider Indo-European and Uralic (or Uralic–Yukaghir) to be genetically related. However, the Indo-Uralic hypothesis in the strict sense is distinct from this: it maintains that Indo-European and Uralic have an especially close genetic relationship, and does not necessarily include assertions that Indo-European and Uralic are related to any other language families.
At the same time, most of the supporters of a relationship between Indo-European and Uralic have also supported their relationship to additional language families, leading some to regard Indo-Uralic as a subset of the larger Nostratic hypothesis.
This article focuses on question (1), genetic relationship, and only treats incidentally of question (2), possible relation to other language families.
Geography of the proposed Indo-Uralic family
The Dutch linguist Frederik KortlandtFrederik Kortlandt
Frederik Herman Henri Kortlandt is a professor of descriptive and comparative linguistics at Leiden University in the Netherlands. He is an expert on Baltic and Slavic languages, the Indo-European languages in general, and Proto-Indo-European, though he has also published studies of languages in...
supports a model of Indo-Uralic in which the original Indo-Uralic speakers lived north of the Caspian Sea
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed body of water on Earth by area, variously classed as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. The sea has a surface area of and a volume of...
, and the 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...
speakers began as a group that branched off westward from there to come into geographic proximity with the Northwest Caucasian languages
Northwest Caucasian languages
The Northwest Caucasian languages, also called Abkhazo-Adyghean, or sometimes Pontic as opposed to Caspian for the Northeast Caucasian languages, are a group of languages spoken in the Caucasus region, chiefly in Russia , the disputed territory of Abkhazia, and Turkey, with smaller communities...
, absorbing a Northwest Caucasian lexical blending before moving farther westward to a region north of the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
where their language settled into canonical Proto-Indo-European (2002:1). Allan Bomhard
Allan R. Bomhard
Allan R. Bomhard is an American linguist.He was educated at Fairleigh Dickinson University, Hunter College, and the City University of New York, and served in the U.S. Army from 1964—1966. He currently resides in Charleston, SC...
suggests a similar schema in Indo-European and the Nostratic Hypothesis (1996). Alternatively, the common protolanguage may have been located north of the Black Sea, with Proto-Uralic moving northwards with the climatic improvement of post-glacial times.
History of the Indo-Uralic hypothesis
An authoritative if brief and sketchy history of early Indo-Uralic studies can be found in Holger PedersenHolger Pedersen
Holger Pedersen may refer to:* Holger Pedersen - Danish linguist * Holger Pedersen - Danish astronomer , at the European Southern Observatory* Holger Petersen - Canadian radio personality....
’s Linguistic Science in the Nineteenth Century (1931:336-338). Although Vilhelm Thomsen first raised the possibility of a connection between Indo-European and Finno-Ugric in 1869 (336), "he did not pursue the subject very far" (337). The next important statement in this area was that of Nicolai Anderson in 1879. However, Pedersen reports, the value of Anderson’s work was "impaired by its many errors" (337). The great English phonetician Henry Sweet argued for kinship between Indo-European and Finno-Ugric in his semi-popular book The History of Language in 1900 (see especially Sweet 1900:112-121). Sweet’s treatment awakened "[g]reat interest" in the question, but "his space was too limited to permit of actual proof" (Pedersen 1931:337). A somewhat longer study by K.B. Wiklund appeared in 1906 and another by H. Paasonen in 1908 (i.e. 1907) (ib.). Pedersen considered that these two studies sufficed to settle the question and that, after them, "it seems unnecessary to doubt the relationship further" (ib.).
Sweet considered the relationship to be securely established, stating (1900:120; "Aryan" = Indo-European, "Ugrian" = Finno-Ugric):
Björn Collinder
Björn Collinder
Björn Collinder was a Swedish linguist. His name is sometimes spelled "Bjorn Collinder" in English-language contexts.Collinder was born in Sundsvall, Sweden....
, author of the path-breaking Comparative Grammar of the Uralic Languages (1960), a standard work in the field of Uralic studies, argued for the kinship of Uralic and Indo-European (1934, 1954, 1965).
Alwin Kloekhorst
Alwin Kloekhorst
Alwin Kloekhorst is a Dutch linguist, Indo-Europeanist and Hittitologist.He received his Ph.D. in 2007 at the University of Leiden with the thesis on Hittite. In over 1200 pages his dissertation describes the history of Hittite in the light of its Indo-European origin. It consists of two parts...
, author of the acclaimed Etymological Dictionary of the Hittite Inherited Lexicon, endorses the Indo-Uralic grouping (2008b). He argues that, when features differ between the Anatolian languages
Anatolian languages
The Anatolian languages comprise a group of extinct Indo-European languages that were spoken in Asia Minor, the best attested of them being the Hittite language.-Origins:...
(including Hittite
Hittite language
Hittite is the extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who created an empire centred on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia...
) and the other Indo-European languages, comparisons with Uralic can help to establish which group has the more archaic forms (2008b: 88) and that, conversely, the success of such comparisons helps to establish the Indo-Uralic thesis (2008b: 94). For example, in Anatolian the nominative singular of the second person pronoun comes from *ti(H), whereas in the non-Anatolian languages it comes from *tu(H); in Proto-Uralic it was *ti, which agrees with evidence from internal reconstruction
Internal reconstruction
Internal reconstruction is a method of recovering information about a language's past from the characteristics of the language at a later date...
that Anatolian has the more archaic form (2008b: 93).
The most extensive attempt to establish sound correspondences between Indo-European and Uralic to date is that of the late Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
n linguist Bojan Čop. It was published as a series of articles in various academic journals from 1970 to 1989 under the collective title Indouralica. The topics to be covered by each article were sketched out at the beginning of "Indouralica II". Of the projected 18 articles only 11 appeared. These articles have not been collected into a single volume and thereby remain difficult to access.
Sound correspondences
Among the sound correspondences which Čop did assert were (1972:162):Uralic m n l r = Indo-European m n l r.
Uralic j w = Indo-European i̯ u̯.
Uralic sibilants (presumably s š ś) = Indo-European s.
Uralic word-initial voiceless stops (presumably p t č ć k) = Indo-European word-initial voiceless stops (presumably p t k ), also Indo-European s followed by one of these stops.
Uralic word-initial voiceless stops (presumably p t č ć k) = Indo-European word-initial voiced aspirates (presumably ).
Uralic ŋ = Indo-European g and ng.
History of opposition to the Indo-Uralic hypothesis
The history of early opposition to the Indo-Uralic hypothesis does not appear to have been written. It is clear from the statements of supporters such as Sweet that they were facing considerable opposition and that the general climate of opinion was against them, except perhaps in Scandinavia.Károly Rédei, editor of the standard etymological dictionary of the Uralic languages (1986a), rejected the idea of a genetic relationship between Uralic and Indo-European, arguing that the lexical items shared by Uralic and Indo-European were due to borrowing from Indo-European into Proto-Uralic
Proto-Uralic language
Proto-Uralic is the hypothetical language ancestral to the Uralic language family. The language was originally spoken in a small area in about 7000-2000 BC , and expanded to give differentiated protolanguages. The exact location of the area or Urheimat is not known, but the vicinity of the Ural...
(1986b).
Perhaps the best-known critique of recent times is that of Jorma Koivulehto, issued in a series of carefully formulated articles. Koivulehto’s central contention, agreeing with Rédei's views, is that all of the lexical items claimed to be Indo-Uralic can be explained as loans from Indo-European into Uralic (see below for examples).
Morphological
The most common arguments in favour of a relationship between Indo-European and Uralic are based on seemingly common elements of morphologyMorphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
, such as the pronominal roots (*m- for first person; *t- for second person; *i- for third person), case markings (accusative *-m; ablative/partitive *-ta), interrogative/relative pronouns (*kʷ- 'who?, which?'; *y- 'who, which' to signal relative clauses) and a common SOV word order. Other, less obvious correspondences are suggested, such as the Indo-European plural marker *-es (or *-s in the accusative plural }) and its Uralic counterpart *-t. This same word-final assibilation
Assibilation
In linguistics, assibilation is the term for a sound change resulting in a sibilant consonant. It is commonly the final phase of palatalization.-Romance languages:...
of *-t to *-s may also be present in Indo-European second-person singular *-s in comparison with Uralic second-person singular *-t. Compare, within Indo-European itself, *-s second-person singular injunctive, *-si second-person singular present indicative, *-tHa second-person singular perfect, *-te second-person plural present indicative, *tu 'you' (singular) nominative, *tei 'to you' (singular) enclitic pronoun. These forms suggest that the underlying second-person marker in Indo-European may be *t and that the *u found in forms such as *tu was originally an affixal particle.
Similarities have long been noted between the verb conjugation systems of Uralic languages (e.g. that of Finnish
Finnish verb conjugation
Verbs in the Finnish language are usually divided into six main groups when teaching the language to non-native speakers depending on the stem type. All six types have the same set of endings, but the stems undergo different changes when inflected....
) and Indo-European languages (e.g. those of Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
, Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, and Lithuanian
Lithuanian language
Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...
). Although it would not be uncommon for a language to borrow heavily from the vocabulary
Lexicon
In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...
of another language (as in the cases of 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...
from French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Persian
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
from Arabic
Arabic languages
The Arabic language family consists of*Classical Arabic and its descendants, including** Modern Standard Arabic and colloquial varieties of Arabic **The various Judeo-Arabic languages **Maltese...
, and Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
from Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
), it would be extremely unusual for a language to borrow its basic system of verb conjugation from another.
Lexical
A second type of evidence advanced in favor of an Indo-Uralic family is lexicalLexis
Lexis may refer to:*Lexis , the total bank of words and phrases of a particular language, the artifact of which is known as a lexicon*Lexis *Lexis.com, part of the LexisNexis online information database-People with the name:...
. Numerous words in Indo-European and Uralic resemble each other. The problem is to weed out cognates due to borrowing. Uralic languages have been in contact with a succession of Indo-European languages for millennia. As a result, many words have been borrowed between them, most often from Indo-European languages into Uralic ones.
An example of a Uralic word that cannot be original is Finno-Ugric
Finno-Ugric languages
Finno-Ugric , Finno-Ugrian or Fenno-Ugric is a traditional group of languages in the Uralic language family that comprises the Finno-Permic and Ugric language families....
*śata 'hundred'. The Proto-Indo-European form of this word was *km̥tóm (compare Latin centum), which became *ćatám in early Indo-Iranian (reanalyzed as the neuter nominative–accusative singular of an a stem > Sanskrit śatá-, Avestan sata-). This is evidence that the word was borrowed into Finno-Ugric from Indo-Iranian or Indo-Aryan. This borrowing may have occurred in the region north of the Pontic-Caspian steppe
Pontic-Caspian steppe
The Pontic-Caspian steppe is the vast steppeland stretching from the north of the Black Sea as far as the east of the Caspian Sea, from western Ukraine across the Southern Federal District and the Volga Federal District of Russia to western Kazakhstan,...
s around 2100–1800 BC, the approximate floruit
Floruit
Floruit , abbreviated fl. , is a Latin verb meaning "flourished", denoting the period of time during which something was active...
of Indo-Iranian (Anthony 2007:371–411). It provides linguistic evidence for the geographical location of these languages around that time, agreeing with archeological evidence that Indo-European speakers were present in the Pontic-Caspian steppes by around 4500 BCE (the Kurgan hypothesis
Kurgan hypothesis
The Kurgan hypothesis is one of the proposals about early Indo-European origins, which postulates that the people of an archaeological "Kurgan culture" in the Pontic steppe were the most likely speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language...
) and that Uralic speakers may have been established in the Pit-Comb Ware culture to their north in the fifth millennium BCE (Carpelan & Parpola 2001:79).
Another ancient borrowing is Finno-Ugric *porćas ‘piglet’. This word corresponds closely in form to the Proto-Indo-European word reconstructed as *porḱos, attested by such forms as Latin porcus 'hog', Old English fearh (> English farrow 'young pig'), Lithuanian par̃šas ’piglet, castrated boar’, Kurdish purs 'pig', and Saka pāsa (< *pārsa) 'pig'. In the Indo-European word, *-os (> Finno-Ugric *-as) is a masculine nominative singular ending, but it is quite meaningless in Uralic languages. This shows that the whole word was borrowed as a unit and is not part of the original Uralic vocabulary. (Further details on *porćas are given in the Appendix.)
Thus, *śata cannot be Indo-Uralic on account of its phonology
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
, while *porćas cannot be Indo-Uralic on account of its morphology
Morphology (linguistics)
In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...
.
Such words as those for 'hundred' and 'pig' have something in common: they represent "cultural vocabulary" as opposed to "basic vocabulary". They are likely to have been acquired along with a more complex number system and the domestic pig from the more advanced Indo-Europeans to the south. Similarly, the Indo-Europeans themselves had acquired such words and cultural items from peoples to their south or west, including possibly their words for 'ox', *gʷou- (compare English cow) and 'grain', *bʰars- (compare English barley). In contrast, basic vocabulary – words such as 'me', 'hand', 'water', and 'be' – is much less readily borrowed between languages. If Indo-European and Uralic are genetically related, they should show agreements in basic vocabulary, with more agreements if they are closely related, fewer if they are less closely related.
Advocates of a genetic relation between Indo-European and Uralic maintain that the borrowings can be filtered out by application of phonological and morphological analysis and that a core of vocabulary common to Indo-European and Uralic remains. As examples they advance such comparisons as Proto-Uralic * (or *) : Proto-Indo-European * (or *), oblique stem *, both meaning 'water', and Proto-Uralic * (or *) : Proto-Indo-European * (or *), both meaning 'name'. In contrast to * and *, the phonology of these words shows no sound changes from Indo-European daughter languages such as Indo-Iranian. In contrast to and *, they show no morphological affixes from Indo-European that are absent in Uralic. According to advocates of the Indo-Uralic hypothesis, the resulting core of common vocabulary can only be explained by the hypothesis of common origin.
Objections to this interpretation
It has been countered that nothing prevents this common vocabulary from having been borrowed from Proto-Indo-European into Proto-Uralic.For the old loans, as well as uncontroversial ones from Proto-Baltic and Proto-Germanic, it is more the rule than the exception that only the stem is borrowed, without any case-endings. Proto-Uralic *nimi- has been explained according to sound laws governing substitutions in borrowings (Koivulehto 1999), on the assumption that the original was a zero-grade oblique stem PIE *(H)nmen- as attested in later Balto-Slavic *inmen- and Proto-Celtic *anmen-. Proto-Uralic *weti- could be a loan from the PIE oblique e-grade form for 'water' or from an indirectly attested cognate root noun *wed-. Proto-Uralic *toHį- 'give' and PFU *wetä- 'lead' also make perfect phonologic sense as borrowings.
In addition, the number systems of Indo-European and Uralic are totally different. While the numbers in all Indo-European languages can be traced back to reconstructed 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...
numbers, this cannot be done for the Uralic numbers, which are apparently based upon a different base 6 counting system. (This is a further indication that the word for "hundred" cited above is a loan from Indo-European; proto-Uralic might instead have a special word for "36" that has died out of use.) This would appear to show that either Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Uralic are not related, or that one or both developed their own number systems independently and did not inherit them from their purported common ancestor.
It is also objected that some or all of the common vocabulary items claimed are false cognate
False cognate
False cognates are pairs of words in the same or different languages that are similar in form and meaning but have different roots. That is, they appear to be, or are sometimes considered, cognates, when in fact they are not....
s – words whose resemblance is merely coincidental, like English bad and Persian bad.
Responses to objections
The items concerned represent basic vocabulary – unlikely to have been borrowed – or items appropriate to a MesolithicMesolithic
The Mesolithic is an archaeological concept used to refer to certain groups of archaeological cultures defined as falling between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic....
level of culture and therefore plausible as shared terms.
With regard to the postulated equivalence of Uralic -i and Indo-European -en, we need a little more explanation on how "sound laws
Sound change
Sound change includes any processes of language change that affect pronunciation or sound system structures...
", which are regular by definition, can be equivalent to "substitutions in borrowings", which are by definition analogical
Analogy
Analogy is a cognitive process of transferring information or meaning from a particular subject to another particular subject , and a linguistic expression corresponding to such a process...
and therefore not regular, phonologically speaking. Koivulehto’s position may be possible; the issue is whether it is the most compelling explanation of the data.
The points raised concerning the words for 'name’, 'water', and 'give' require a glance at the possible relations of Indo-European and Uralic with other language families, in particular the languages hypothetically grouped as Uralo-Siberian
Uralo-Siberian languages
Uralo-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...
by Fortescue
Michael Fortescue
Michael David 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...
, Eurasiatic
Eurasiatic languages
Eurasiatic is a language macrofamily proposed by Joseph Greenberg that includes many language families historically spoken in northern Eurasia. The eight branches of Eurasiatic are Etruscan, Indo-European, Uralic–Yukaghir, Altaic, Korean-Japanese-Ainu, Gilyak, Chukotian, and Eskimo–Aleut, spoken in...
by Greenberg
Joseph Greenberg
Joseph 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 :...
, and Nostratic by Holger Pedersen
Holger Pedersen (linguist)
Holger Pedersen was a Danish linguist who made significant contributions to language science and wrote about 30 authoritative works concerning several languages....
and various successors of his. While it is perfectly true that the Uralic words for these things could be derived from the Indo-European ones (or vice versa), the Uralic words have apparent equivalents among other languages variously identified as "Uralo-Siberian" or "Eurasiatic". For example, according to Fortescue (1998:158), Proto-Finno-Ugric *toɣe- 'bring, take, give' is cognate with Proto-Chukotko-Kamchatkan *teɣiŋrə- 'pull out' and Proto-Eskimo *teɣu- 'take'. He reconstructs these forms to a Proto-Uralo-Siberian *toɣə- 'take'.
If the Uralic word is borrowed from Indo-European, why is it found in nearly identical form right across Siberia? Possible cognates are also found for the words for 'name' in Chukchi
Chukchi language
The Chukchi language is a Palaeosiberian language spoken by Chukchi people in the easternmost extremity of Siberia, mainly in Chukotka Autonomous Okrug...
nənnə 'name' and Old Japanese
Old Japanese language
is the oldest attested stage of the Japanese language.This stage in the development of Japanese is still actively studied and debated, and key Old Japanese texts, such as the Man'yōshū, remain obscure in places.-Dating:...
na 'name' and for 'water' in Evenki udun 'rain', Even
Even language
The Even language is a Tungusic language spoken by the Evens in Siberia. It is spoken by widely scattered communities of reindeer herders from Kamchatka and the Sea of Okhotsk in the east to the River Lena in the west, and from the Arctic coast in the north to the River Aldan in the south...
udən 'rain', and Ainu
Ainu language
Ainu is one of the Ainu languages, spoken by members of the Ainu ethnic group on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaidō....
owata 'water' (Greenberg 2002). Thus, alongside the hypothesis of borrowing from Indo-European, another possibility is that Indo-European and Uralic themselves belong to a larger grouping.
With regard to numerals, Frederik Kortlandt states (1986:83-84):
Finally, the claim that all such forms are "false cognates" is not widely accepted. The disagreements between e.g. Koivulehto and Kortlandt do not turn on whether the forms under discussion are true cognates, which is generally accepted, but on whether they result from borrowing or genetic inheritance. This is thus the key point at issue.
Some possible cognates
| Meaning | |Uralic | |
|---|---|---|
| first person singular | *-m | *-m |
| first person plural | *-me | *-me |
| second person singular | *-s (active), *-tHa (perfect) | *-t |
| second person plural | *-te | *-te |
| accusative | *-m | *-m |
| ablative | *-od | *-ta |
| nominative–accusative plural | *-es (nominative plural) } (accusative plural) < } (acc.sg.) + *-(e)s (pl.) |
*-t |
| oblique plural | *-i (pronominal plural, as in *we-i- 'we', *to-i- 'those') | *-i |
| dual | } | *-k |
| 'and' (postposed conjunction) | } 1 | *-ka ~ *-kä 2 |
| negative particle 'not' | *ne 3 | *ne 4 |
| 'I, me' | *me 'me' (accusative) 5 *mene 'my' (genitive) 6 |
*mun, *mina 'I' 7 |
| 'you' (singular) | *tu (nominative) 8 *twe (accusative) 9 *tewe 'your' (genitive) 10 |
*tun, *tina 11 |
| demonstrative pronoun | *so 'this, he/she' (animate nominative singular) 12 | *sä 'he/she, it' 13 |
| demonstrative pronoun | *to- 'this, that' 14 | *tä 'this', *to 'that' 15 |
| 'who?' (interrogative pronoun) | } ~ } ~ } 'who?, what?' 16 }/e/o- + -ne 'who?, what?' 17 |
*ki ~ *ke ~ *ku ~ *ko 'who?, what?' 18 *ken 'who?' 19 |
| 'to give' | } 20 | } 21 |
| 'to moisten', 'water' |
*wed- 'to wet', 22 *woder- 'water' 23 |
*weti 'water' 24 |
| 'name' | *nomen- 'name' 25 | *nimi 'name' 26 |
| 'fish' | } 'large fish' 27 | *kala 'fish' 28 |
| 'sister-in-law' | *galou- 'husband's sister' 29 | *kälɜ 'sister-in-law' 30 |
| 'much' | *pḷlu- 'much' 31 | *paljɜ 'thick, much' 32 |
Notes to table
1 Latin -que, Greek te, Sanskrit -ca, etc.
2 Finnish -kä in ei ... eikä 'neither ... nor', Saami -ge, Mordvin (Moksha) -ka, Votyak -ke, Komi / Zyrian -kȯ, etc.
3 Latin ne-, Greek ne-, Sanskrit ná, Old High German and Old English ne ~ ni, etc.
4 Hungarian ne/nem, Cheremis / Mari nõ-, ni-, Votyak / Udmurt ni-, etc.
5 Greek me (enclitic).
6 Old Persian mana, Old Church Slavic mene, Welsh men, etc.
7 Finnish minä, Estonian mina, Nenets /mønʲə/.http://www.helsinki.fi/~tasalmin/sketch.html Uralic reconstruction *mun.
8 Latin tū, Greek sú (Attic), tu (Dorian), Lithuanian tù, Old English þu > archaic English thou, etc.
9 Greek sé, Sanskrit tvā (enclitic), Avestan θwā (enclitic), Old Church Slavic tebe, etc.
10 Sanskrit táva, Avestan tava, Proto-Celtic *towe (< PIE *tewe, with complex developments in the individual languages, Lewis and Pedersen 1989:193-217).
11 Finnish sinä (< *tinä), Saami ton, tú-, Mordvin ton, Votyak ton, Zyrian te, accusative tenõ, Hungarian të 'you' (singular), ti 'you' (plural), etc. Samoyed: Tavgi tannaŋ, Yeniseian Samoyed tod'i, Selkup tan, tat, Kamassian tan.
12 Gothic sa, Sanskrit sá, etc.
13 Finnish hän (< *sä-n), Saami son, Udmurt so. Samoyed: Nganasan syty.
14 Greek tó, Sanskrit tá-, Old Church Slavic to, etc.
15 Finnish tämä 'this' and tuo 'that (one)', Cheremis ti 'this', Mordvin te 'this', etc.; Udmurt tu 'that', Mordvin to 'that', etc. Cf. Hungarian tétova 'hesitant' (i.e. reluctant to choose between this and that).
16 }: Hittite kuis (animate nominative singular), kuit (inanimate nominative–accusative singular), Latin quis, quid, Greek tís, tí, etc.
}: Greek téo (Homeric), Avestan čahmāi (dative singular; ča < PIE }), etc.
}: Latin quod, Old Latin quoius > Latin cuius (genitive singular), Old English hwæt > English what, etc.
17 E.g. Latin quidne.
18 Saami gi ~ gä 'who?, which?, what sort of?' and gutti 'who?', Mordvin ki 'who?', Cheremis and Mari ke, kö, kü 'who?', Hungarian ki 'who?', Finnish kuka 'who?', Komi / Zyrian kod 'which?', Ostyak koji 'who?', kŏti 'what?', etc.
19 Finnish ken ~ kene 'who?', Votyak kin 'who?', Udmurt kin 'who?', Komi / Zyrian kin 'who?'. Samoyed: Yurak Samoyed kin 'who?', Southern Nenets kin 'who?'.
20 Hittite tā-, Latin dō, Greek dídōmi, Sanskrit dā-, etc.
21 Finnish tuo 'bring', Estonian too- 'bring', Saami duokə- 'sell', Mordvin tuje- 'bring'. Samoyed: Tundra Yurak taš 'give, bring', Enets ta- 'bring', Tavgi tətud'a 'give, bring', etc.
22 Sanskrit ud-.
23 Hittite wātar (instrumental wēdanda), Umbrian utur (ablative une < *udne), Greek húdōr (genitive húdatos < *hudn̥tos), Sanskrit ud-án- (oblique cases only, nominative–accusative defective), Old Church Slavic voda, Gothic watō (n-stem, dative plural watnam), Old Norse vatn, Old English wæter > English water, etc.
This word belongs to the r / n stems, a small group of neuter nouns, from an archaic stratum of Indo-European, that alternate -er (or -or) in the nominative and accusative with -en in the other cases. Some languages have leveled the paradigm to one or the other, e.g. English to the r, Old Norse to the n form.
24 Finnish vesi / vete-, Estonian vesi, Mordvin wət, Udmurt vu, Komi / Zyrian va, Vogul wit, Hungarian víz. Samoyed: Forest Yurak wit, Selkup üt, Kamassian bü, etc.
25 Latin nōmen, Greek ónoma, Sanskrit nā́man-, Old English nama > English name, etc.
Indo-Europeanists are divided on whether to reconstruct this word as *nom(e)n- or as }, with a preceding "laryngeal". See Delamarre 2003:50 for a summary of views, with references. The o timbre of the root is assured by, among others, Greek ónoma and Latin nōmen (with secondary vowel lengthening). As roots with inherent o are uncommon in Indo-European, most roots having e as their vowel, the underlying root is probably *nem-. The -(e)n is an affixal particle. Whether the e placed in parentheses is inherently part of the word is disputed but probable.
26 Finnish nimi, Saami nama ~ namma, Mordvin lem, Cheremis lüm, Votyak and Zyrian ńim, Vogul näm, Ostyak nem, Hungarian név. Among the Samoyed languages: Yurak nim, Tavgi ńim, Yenisei Samoyed ńii’, Selkup nim, nem. Compare, in Yukaghir, Kolyma niu and Chuvan nyva.
27 Latin squalus (with s-mobile) 'large sea fish', Old Prussian kalis 'sheatfish', Old English hwæl 'whale' > English whale, etc.
28 Finnish kala, Estonian kala, Saami kuollē, Mordvin kal, Cheremis kol, Ostyak kul, Hungarian hal; Enets kare, Koibal kola, etc.
29 Latin glōs (genitive glōris), Greek gálōs, Old Church Slavic zŭlŭva, all meaning 'husband's sister'.
30 Finnish käly 'sister-in-law', Estonian kälī 'husband's brother, wife of husband's brother', Saami kāloji 'sister-in-law', Mordvin kel 'sister-in-law', etc.
31 Greek polú-, Sanskrit purú-, Avestan pouru-, Gothic filu, Old High German filu > German viel, all meaning 'much'.
The ḷ in Indo-European *pḷlu- represents a vocalic l, a sound found in English in for instance little, where it corresponds to the -le, and metal, where it corresponds to the -al. An earlier form of the Indo-European word was probably *pelu-.
32 Finnish paljon 'much', Cheremis pülä 'rather a lot', Vogul pāľ 'thick', Yurak palɁ 'thick'. Cp. Tundra Yukaghir pojuoŋ 'many'.
An asterisk (*) indicates reconstructed forms.
A tilde (~) means 'alternating with'.
Works cited
- Anderson, Nikolai. 1879. Studien zur Vergleichung der ugrofinnischen und indogermanischen Sprachen ('Studies on the Comparison of the Ugro-Finnic and Indo-Germanic Languages'). Dorpat: Heinrich Laakmann.
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Further reading
- Hyllested, Adam. 2010. "Internal Reconstruction vs. External Comparison: The Case of the Indo-Uralic Laryngeals." Internal Reconstruction in Indo-European, eds. J.E. Rasmussen & T. Olander, 111-136. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press.
- Koivulehto, Jorma. 1991. "Uralische Evidenz für die Laryngaltheorie." In Veröffentlichungen der Komission für Linguistik und Kommunikationsforschung 24. Wien: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften. ISBN 3-7001-1794-9
- Koivulehto, Jorma. 2001. "The earliest contacts between Indo-European and Uralic speakers in the light of lexical loans." In The Earliest Contacts between Uralic and Indo-European: Linguistic and Archeological Considerations, edited by C. Carpelan, A. Parpola, and P. Koskikallio. Mémoires de la Société finno-ougrienne 242. Helsinki. ISBN 952-5150-59-3
- Mithen, Steven. 2003. After the Ice: A Global Human History 20,000 – 5000 BC. Orion Publishing Co.
- Pedersen, Holger. 1933. "Zur Frage nach der Urverwandschaft des Indoeuropäischen mit dem Ugrofinnischen" ('On the question concerning the original relationship of Indo-European with Ugrofinnic'). Mémoires de la Société finno-ougrienne 67:308–325.
See also
- Eurasiatic languagesEurasiatic languagesEurasiatic is a language macrofamily proposed by Joseph Greenberg that includes many language families historically spoken in northern Eurasia. The eight branches of Eurasiatic are Etruscan, Indo-European, Uralic–Yukaghir, Altaic, Korean-Japanese-Ainu, Gilyak, Chukotian, and Eskimo–Aleut, spoken in...
- Indo-Semitic languagesIndo-Semitic languagesIndo-Semitic is a theory that relates Indo-European and Semitic. This theory has never been widely accepted by linguists, though it has had some notable supporters....
- Laryngeal theoryLaryngeal theoryThe laryngeal theory is a generally accepted theory of historical linguistics which proposes the existence of one, or a set of three , consonant sounds termed "laryngeals" that appear in most current reconstructions of the Proto-Indo-European language...
- Nostratic languagesNostratic languagesNostratic is a proposed language family that includes many of the indigenous language families of Eurasia, including the Indo-European, Uralic and Altaic as well as Kartvelian languages...
- Ural–Altaic languages
- Uralic–Yukaghir languages
- Uralo-Siberian languagesUralo-Siberian languagesUralo-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...
External links
- "Early Indo-Uralic linguistic relationships: Real kinship and imagined contacts" by Eugene HelimskiEugene HelimskiEugene Arnoľdovič Helimski — a Russian linguist , Doctor of Philosophy , Professor...
(1999) - "Indo-Uralic and Altaic" by Frederik Kortlandt (2004)
- "Lexicon of early Indo-European loanwords preserved in Finnish"