Indo-Uralic

Indo-Uralic is a hypothetical language family consisting of Indo-European and Uralic, which was already proposed in the 19th century and has been the subject of discussion ever since. Most linguists are not convinced of the relationship, but few would opine that Indo-European and Uralic could not be related.

History of the hypothesis

The tremendous success of comparative works on the Indo-European languages in the 19th century naturally led to considerations whether further, more distant language relationships could be established by the same methods. One of the connections considered was one between Indo-European and the neighbouring Uralic family.

A brief history of early Indo-Uralic studies can be found in Holger Pedersen’s Linguistic Science in the Nineteenth Century (1931:336-338). As early as 1869, the Danish linguist Vilhelm Thomsen proposed a genealogical relationship between Indo-European and Uralic, but this received little enthusiasm, and Thomsen did not pursue the idea further. Nikolai Anderson published a work on the matter in 1879. The phonetician Henry Sweet argued for kinship between Indo-European and Finno-Ugric in his semi-popular book The History of Language in 1900. Further studies followed, among others by Björn Collinder and recently by Frederik Kortlandt and Alwin Kloekhorst. Yet, despite all evidence adduced to the hypothesis, most historical linguists working in this field still consider the matter undecided.

Some possible cognates

(from the Wikipedia article)

Meaning	Indo-European	Uralic
first person singular	*-m	*-m
first person plural	*-me	*-me
second person singular	*-s (active), *-tHa (perfect)	*-t
second person plural	*-te	*-te
accusative	*-m	*-m
ablative	*-od	*-ta
nominative/accusative plural	*-es (nominative plural) *-n̥s (accusative plural) < *-m̥ (acc.sg.) + *-(e)s (pl.)	*-t
oblique plural	*-i (pronominal plural, as in *we-i- 'we', *to-i- 'those')	*-i
dual	*-H₁	*-k
'and' (postposed conjunction)	*-kʷe 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)	*kʷi- ~ *kʷe- ~ *kʷo- 'who?, what?' 16 *kʷi/e/o- + -ne 'who?, what?' 17	*ki ~ *ke ~ *ku ~ *ko 'who?, what?' 18 *ken 'who?' 19
'to give'	*deH₃- 20	*toHi- 21
'to moisten', 'water'	*wed- 'to wet', 22 *woder- 'water' 23	*weti 'water' 24
'name'	*nomen- 'name' 25	*nimi 'name' 26
'fish'	*kʷalo- '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 në, Cheremis / Mari nõ-, ni-, Votyak / Udmurt ni-, etc.

⁵ Greek me (enclitic).

⁶ Old Persian mana, Old Church Slavic mene, Welsh men, etc.

⁷ Finnish minä, Estonian mina, Nenets /mønʲə/.[1] 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 *kʷi-: Hittite kuis (animate nominative singular), kuit (inanimate nominative-accusative singular), Latin quis, quid, Greek tís, tí, etc.

*kʷe-: Greek téo (Homeric), Avestan čahmāi (dative singular; ča < PIE *kʷe), etc.

*kʷo-: 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 *H₁nom(e)n-, with a preceding "laryngeal". See Delamarre 2003:50 for a summary of views, with references. The o timbre of the root is assured by, among others, Greek ónoma and Latin 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'.

See also

• Nostratic
• Mitian
• Eurasiatic
• Euro-Siberian
• Europic

Literature

• 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.

• Carpelan, Christian and Asko Parpola. 2001. "Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Uralic and Proto-Aryan." 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

• Collinder, Björn. 1934. Indo-uralisches Sprachgut ('The Indo-Uralic Linguistic Heritage'). Uppsala.
• Collinder, Björn. 1954. "Zur indo-uralischen Frage" ('On the Indo-Uralic question'), Språkvetenskapliga Sällskapets i Uppsala Förhandlingar Jan. 1952 – Dec. 1954, 79–91.
• Collinder, Björn. 1960. Comparative Grammar of the Uralic Languages. Stockholm: Almqvist & Viksell.
• Collinder, Björn. 1965. "Is the Uralic family isolated?" in An Introduction to the Uralic Languages, pages 30–34. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

• Čop, Bojan. 1970–1989. Indouralica.
  • I.1974. Slovenska Akademija Znanosti in Umetnosti 30.1.
  • II. 1972. Ural-Altaische Jährbucher 44:162–178.
  • III. (Not published.)
  • IV. 1973. Linguistica 13:116–190.
  • V. 1978. Collectanea Indoeuropaea 1:145–196. Ljubljana.
  • VI. (Not published.)
  • VII. 1970. Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung (KZ) 84:151–174.
  • VIII. 1974. Acta linguistica Academiae scientarum hungaricae 24:87–116.
  • IX. 1989. Linguistica 29:13–56.
  • X. (Not published.)
  • XI.( Not published.)
  • XII. 1987. Linguistica 27:135–161.
  • XIII. (Not published.)
  • XIV. 1970. Orbis 19.2:282–323.
  • XV. 1974. Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung (KZ) 88:41–58.
  • XVI. 1973. Orbis 22:5–42.
  • XVII. (Not published.)
  • XVIII. (Not published.)

• Lewis, Henry and Holger Pedersen. 1989. A Concise Comparative Celtic Grammar. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht.

• 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.

• Rédei, Károly (editor). 1986a. Uralisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3 volumes, translated from Hungarian by Mária Káldor. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

• Rédei, Károly. 1986b. "Zu den indogermanisch-uralischen Sprachkontakten." Sitzungberichte der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse 468.