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 (estimates vary), and expanded to give differentiated protolanguages. The exact location of the area or Urheimat is not known, but the vicinity of the Ural Mountains is usually assumed. The available reconstruction may not be a representation of the language itself; instead, it may summarize features common to a dialect continuum spanning from an eastern center later producing Samoyedic languages to a western center producing Finnic languages.

According to the traditional binary tree model, Proto-Uralic diverged into Proto-Samoyedic and Proto-Finno-Ugric. However, reconstructed Proto-Finno-Ugric differs little from Proto-Uralic, and many apparent differences follow from the methods used. Thus Proto-Finno-Ugric may not be separate from Proto-Uralic. Another reconstruction of the split of Proto-Uralic has three branches (Finno-Permic, Ugric and Samoyedic) from the start. Recently these tree-like models have been challenged by the hypothesis of larger number of protolanguages giving a "comb" rather than a tree. The protolanguages would be Sami, (Baltic-)Finnic, Mordva, Mari, Permic, Magyar, Khanti, Mansi, and Samoyedic. This order is both the order of geographical positions as well as linguistic similarity, with neighboring languages being more similar than distant ones.

Phonology

Similarly to the situation for Proto-Indo-European, reconstructions of Proto-Uralic are traditionally not written in IPA but in UPA. UPA is used here, followed by the IPA equivalents between slashes (because it is a phonemic reconstruction).

Proto-Uralic had vowel harmony and a rather large inventory of vowels in initial syllables, much like the modern Finnish or Estonian system:

	Front		Back
	Unrounded	Rounded	Unrounded	Rounded
Close	i /i/	ü /y/	ï /ɯ/	u /u/
Mid	e /e/			o /o/
Open	ä /æ/		a /ɑ/

Sometimes a mid vowel *ë is reconstructed in place of *ï.

Rounded vowels were restricted to initial syllables. Vocalic phonemes in non-initial syllables were restricted to two or three. One view is that there were only two archiphonemic non-initial vowels //a// and //i//, realized as four allophones as per vowel harmony. Another view is that there were /a/, /i/ and /ə/^{[citation needed]}. There were no long vowels nor phonemic diphthongs, though sequences of vowel and semivowel within a single syllable (such as *äj) could exist.

In the consonant system, palatalization, or palatal-laminal instead of apical articulation, was a phonemic feature, as it is in many modern Uralic languages. Only one series of stops (unvoiced unaspirated) existed:

	Bilabial	Dental	Palatal(ized)	Postalveolar	Velar	unknown
Stops and Affricate(s?)	p /p/	t /t/	(ć /t͡ɕ/)	č /t̠͡ʃ/	k /k/
Nasals	m /m/	n /n/	ń /nʲ/		ŋ /ŋ/
Sibilants		s /s/	ś /ɕ/	(š /ʃ/)
Spirants		δ /ð/	δ´ /ðʲ/
Lateral(s?)		l /l/	(ľ /lʲ/)
Trill		r /r/
Semivowels	w /w/		j /j/
unknown						x?

The phonemes in parentheses are supported by only limited evidence, and are not assumed by all scholars. Sammallahti (1988) notes that while instances of *ć are found in all three of Permic, Hungarian and Ob-Ugric, there are "very few satisfactory etymologies" showing any correlation between the branches in whether *ć or *ś appears. The evidence for the postalveolar sibilant *š however is "scarce but probably conclusive" (ibid): it is treated distinctly from *s only in the Finno-Permic languages, but certain loans from as far back as the Proto-Indo-European language have reflexes traceable to a postalveolar fricative (including *piši- or *peši- "to cook").

The phonetic nature of the segment symbolized by *x is uncertain, though it is usually considered a back consonant; [x], [ɣ], [ɡ], and [h] have been suggested among others. Janhunen (1981) takes no explicit stance, leaving open the option for even a vocalic value. Its behavior is similar to the Indo-European laryngeals: it is reconstructed by certain scholars in syllable-final position in word-stems where a contrastive long vowel later developed, best preserved in the Finnic languages, and where Samoyedic features a vowel sequence such as *åə. *x is also reconstructed word-medially, and in this position it also develops to a Finnic long vowel, but is reflected as *k in Samic, *j in Mordvinic and *ɣ in Ugric. If a consonant, it probably derives from lenition of *k at a pre-Uralic stage; it is only found in words ending in *i, while *k is infrequent or nonexistent in similar positions.

The phonetical identity of the consonant *δ´ is also subject to some doubt. It is traditionally analyzed as the palatalized counterpart of the voiced dental fricative *δ, that is, as [ðʲ]; however, a pure palatal fricative [ʝ] is another option.

The consonants *δ *r *x *ŋ could not occur word-initially. No initial or final consonant clusters were allowed, so words could begin and end with a maximum of one consonant only. Inside word roots only clusters of two consonants were permitted. There may have also been double (i.e. geminate) stops (ïppa "father-in-law"). Voicing was not a phonemic feature.

Proto-Uralic did not have tones, which contrasts with Yeniseian and some Siberian languages. Neither was there contrastive stress as in Indo-European; in Proto-Uralic the first syllable was invariably stressed.

Consonant gradation may have occurred already in Proto-Uralic: if it did, it was probably a phonetical alternation involving allophonic voicing of the stop consonants: [p] ~ [b], [t] ~ [d], [k] ~ [g].

Grammar

Grammatically Proto-Uralic was an agglutinative language with at least six noun cases and verbs inflected for number, person, mood and tense. There were three numbers, singular, dual and plural. Proto-Uralic was a nominative–accusative language. Verbs may have had a separate subjective and objective conjugation, the latter of which was used in connection with a definite object.

Grammatical gender was not recognized and no Uralic language does so even today. Noun articles were unknown. The plural marker of nouns was *-t in final position and *-j- in non-final position, as seen in Finnish.^{[citation needed]} The dual marker has been reconstructed as *-k-, but the dual number has been lost in many of the contemporary Uralic languages. The nouns also had possessive suffixes; possessive pronouns were not found.

The cases had only one three-way locative contrast of entering, residing and exiting. This is the origin of the three-way systems as the three different ones in Karelian Finnish (illative/inessive/elative, allative/adessive/ablative, translative/essive/exessive). The partitive case, developed from the ablative, was a later innovation by Fennic languages.

The cases were:

• nominative (no suffix)
• accusative *-m
• genitive *-n
• locative *-na / *-nä
• ablative *-ta / *-tä
• lative *-ŋ

Verbs were conjugated at least according to number, person and tense. The reconstructions of mood markers are controversial. Some scholars argue that there were separate subjective and objective conjugations, but this is disputed; clear reflexes of the objective conjugation are only found in the easternmost branches, and hence it may also represent an areal innovation. Negation was expressed with the means of a negative verb *e-, found as such in e.g. Finnish e+mme "we don't".

Vocabulary

Only some 200 words can be reconstructed for Proto-Uralic, if it is required that every word reconstructed for the proto-language should be present in Samoyed languages. With a laxer criterion of reconstructing words which are attested in most branches of the language family, a number in the range of 300-400 words can be reached.

The following examples of reconstructed items are considered to fulfill the strictest criteria and are thus accepted as Proto-Uralic words by practically all scholars in the field:

• Body parts and bodily functions: *ïpti hair on the head, *ojwa head, *śilmä eye, *poski cheek, *käxli tongue, *elä- to live, *kaxli- to die, *wajŋi breath, *kosi cough, *kunśi urine, *küńili tear, *sexji pus.
• Kinship terms: *emä mother, *čečä uncle, *koska aunt, *mińä daughter-in-law, *wäŋiw son-in-law.
• Verbs for universally known actions: *meni- to go, *toli- to come, *aśkili- to step, *imi- to suck, *soski- to chew, *pala- to eat up, *uji- to swim, *sala- to steal, *kupsa- to extinguish.
• Basic objects and concepts of the natural world: *juka river, *toxi lake, *weti water, *päjwä sun, warmth, *suŋi summer, *śala- lightning, *wanča root, *koxji birch, *kaxsi spruce, *sïksi Siberian pine, *δ'ïxmi bird cherry
• Elementary technology: *tuli fire, *äjmä needle, *pura drill, *jïŋsi bow, *jänti bow string, *ńïxli arrow, *δ'ümä glue, *lïpśi cradle, *piksi rope, *suksi ski, *woča fence.
• Basic spatial concepts: *ïla below, *üli above, *wasa left, *pälä side.
• Pronouns: *mun I, *tun you, *ke- who, *mi- what.

A reconstruction of a word *wäśkä, meaning 'metal', has also been proposed. However, this word shows irregularities in sound correspondence, and some scholars believe it to be a Wanderwort instead.

The reconstructed vocabulary is compatible with a Mesolithic culture (bow, arrow, needle, sinew, but also rope, fence, cradle, ski), a north Eurasian landscape (spruce, birch, Siberian pine), and contains interesting hints on kinship structure.

Examples of vocabulary correspondences between the modern Uralic languages are provided in the list of comparisons at the Finnish Wikipedia.

Uralic Continuity Theory

The Uralic Continuity Theory is a theory about the Uralic languages developed by a group of archaeologists and linguists starting in the 1970s. It suggests that the Uralic speaking populations have an uninterrupted history of settlement in their present locations since the Mesolithic. Their precursor populations would have occupied mid-eastern Europe in the last glacial maximum and in the Mesolithic would have followed the retreating ice, eventually settling in their present territories.

However, linguistic evidence is seen to clearly disagree with such a conclusion: the expansion of Uralic language from the Volga-Ural region have been recently dated to only about 4 000 years ago. Furthermore, it has been stressed that archaeological or genetic continuity cannot testify for linguistic continuity: in the case of expansive language families, archaeological continuity corresponds with linguistic discontinuity.

Mario Alinei has built on this theory for the purposes of his "Paleolithic Continuity Theory" of Indo-European origins. The same kind of critique has been focused on the Indo-European continuity theories. It has been noted that the method can't be right if scholars get different results with it: while Alinei claims for Paleolithic continuity for Indo-European in Europe, Colin Renfrew claims only for Neolithic continuity with the very same method. And both of these continuity theories ignore the linguistic results, which again - like in the Uralic studies - point to more recent times.

External links

• Criticism of binary tree model

Further reading

• Janhunen, Juha. 1981a. "On the structure of Proto-Uralic." Finnisch-ugrische Forschungen 44, 23–42. Helsinki: Société finno-ougrienne.

• Janhunen, Juha. 1981b. "Uralilaisen kantakielen sanastosta ('On the vocabulary of the Uralic proto-language')." Journal de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 77, 219–274. Helsinki: Société finno-ougrienne.

• Sammallahti, Pekka. 1988. "Historical phonology of the Uralic languages, with special reference to Samoyed, Ugric, and Permic." In The Uralic Languages: Description, History and Foreign Influences, edited by Denis Sinor, 478–554. Leiden: Brill.