Ugric languages

Ugric
Geographic distribution:	Hungary and Western Siberia
Linguistic classification:	Uralic Finno-Ugric ? Ugric
Subdivisions:	Hungarian Ob-Ugric ?

Ugric or Ugrian languages ( /ˈjuːɡrɨk/ or /ˈjuːɡriən/) are a branch of the Uralic language family. The term derives from Yugra, a region in north-central Asia.

They include three languages: Hungarian (Magyar), Khanty (Ostyak), and Mansi language (Vogul). A common Proto-Ugric language is posited to have been spoken from the end of the 3rd millennium BC until the first half of the 1st millennium BC, in Western Siberia, east from the southern Ural mountains. However, recent reconstructions of Uralic have not generally found support for Ugric. Of the three languages, Khanty and Mansi have traditionally set apart from Hungarian as Ob-Ugric, but Mansi now appears to be closer to Hungarian, so Ugric may be composed of only these two languages.

Development

Two common phonetic features of the Ugric languages are a rearrangement of the Proto-Uralic (PU) system of sibilant consonants and a lenition of velar consonants:

• PU *s and *š merge & develop into a non-sibilant sound (possibly [θ] or [ɬ]), yielding Mansi /t/, Khanty *ɬ → /t/ or /l/ (depending on dialect), and lost in Hungarian.
• PU *ś is depalatalized to *s.
• PU medial *x, *k, *w generally lenite to *ɣ.

It has however been pointed out that these changes are applicable to the Samoyedic languages as well.

The three Ugric varieties also share the lateralization of Proto-Uralic *δ to *l (as do the Permic languages), but it is possible this postcedes the emergence of retroflex *ɭ from PU *l in Khanty.

The development of the vowel system remains subject to interpretation. All three Ugric branches contrast vowel length; in Hungarian this is late, generally derived by compensatory lengthening after loss of unstressed vowels and *ɣ. The Ob-Ugric languages, however, derive their quantity contrasts mainly from PU quality contrasts: thus for example in Northern Mansi, PU *peljä "ear" → *päĺ → /palʲ/, but PU *pälä "half" → *pääl → /paːl/.

Contrasts between PU stem vowels (*a/*ä vs. *i) do not survive as such in Ugric, but they commonly leave their mark on vowel qualities in the first syllable, suggesting retention of the contrast at least to the Proto-Ugric stage. For example PU *ńïxli "arrow" → Hungarian nyíl, but PU *mïksa "liver" → Hungarian máj.

An innovation clearly limited to the Ugric languages is the development of *ŋ to *ŋk, though there are numerous exceptions in each language to this.

Structural features

• Distinct verb conjugations according to the transitivity of the verb. It is sometimes termed as “definite” versus “indefinite” conjugation, because also the definiteness of the object can play a role when selecting between the two
• Verbal Prefixes – modify the meaning of the verb in both concrete and abstract ways

Examples from Mansi

ēl(a) – 'forwards, onwards, away'

jōm- 'to go, to stride'	ēl-jōm- 'to go away/on'
tinal- 'to sell'	ēl-tinal- 'to sell off'

χot – 'direction away from something and other nuances of action intensity'

min- 'to go'	χot-min- 'to go away, to stop'
roχt- 'to be frightened'	χot-roχt- 'to take fright suddenly'

Examples from Hungarian

el – 'away, off'

ugrik 'to jump'	elugrik 'to jump away'
mosolyog 'to smile'	elmosolyodik 'to start to smile' (implying a lack of control)

ki – 'out (of)'

ugrik 'to jump'	kiugrik 'to jump out'
néz 'to look'	kinéz 'to choose/pick out'

In Hungarian, the citation form of verbs is the present tense of the 3rd person singular form, which is given here, which doesn't have any suffixes.

See also

• Finno-Ugric languages
• Uralic languages

References

• Riese, Timothy (2001). Vogul: Languages of the World/Materials 158. Lincom Europa. ISBN 3-89586-231-2. http://www.lincom.at. 
• Törkenczy, Miklós (1997). Hungarian Verbs & Essentials of Grammar. Passport Books. ISBN 0-8442-8350-9.