Proto-Uralic language

Proto-Uralic is the unattested reconstructed language ancestral to the modern Uralic language family. The reconstructed language is thought to have been originally spoken in a small area in about 7000–2000 BCE (estimates vary), and then expanded across northern Eurasia, gradually diverging into a dialect continuum and then a language family in the process. The location of the area or Urheimat is not known, and various strongly differing proposals have been advocated, but the vicinity of the Ural Mountains is generally accepted as the most likely.

Proto-Uralic
(may be equivalent to Proto-Finno-Ugric)
Reconstruction of	Uralic languages
Region	near the Ural Mountains or Sayan Mountains
Era	7,000–2,000 BCE
Lower-order reconstructions	Proto-Samoyed Proto-Finno-Ugric

Early descendants

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.

"Comb" model

In the early 21st century, these tree-like models have been challenged by the hypothesis of larger number of proto-languages giving an image of a linguistic "comb" rather than a tree. Thus, the second-order groups of the Uralic phylum would then be: Sami, Finnic, Mordvinic, Mari, Permic, Hungarian, Mansi, Khanty and Samoyedic, all on equal footing. 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.

Vowels

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 /ɤ/ is reconstructed in place of *ï, or a low back rounded *å /ɒ/ in place of *a.

There were no monophonemic long vowels nor diphthongs, though sequences of vowel and semivowel within a single syllable (such as *äj) could exist.

Unstressed vowels

Vowel inventory in non-initial syllables was restricted: only a two-way contrast of open and non-open vowels is incontestably reconstructible. The actual realization of this contrast is a question of debate: one view considers this two archiphonemic vowels ⫽a⫽ and ⫽i⫽, realized as four allophones [æ ɑ], [i ɯ] as per vowel harmony. However, other scholars such as Zhivlov posit the existence of disharmonic *i-a stems in Proto-Uralic, which would imply that vowel harmony was not allophonic.

For the non-open vowel(s), most branches reflect a reduced vowel [ə]; only two branches give evidence for a specific value:

• The Finnic languages show /e/ or /ɤ/ depending on harmony, word-finally /i/.
• The Samic languages show a variety of reflexes, but these reflexes can be traced back to a Proto-Samic phoneme *ë, which is also the reflex of Proto-Uralic *i and *ü in stressed syllables.

While vowel reduction is a common sound change, Finnic is known to have adstrate influence from language groups that would not have known reduced vowels (namely the Baltic languages and the early Germanic languages), so a value of [ə] already in Proto-Uralic remains a possibility.

Although these three or four stem types were certainly the most prominent ones in Proto-Uralic, it is possible that other, rarer types may have existed as well. These include for example kinship terms such as "sister-in-law", found as *kälü in both Proto-Finnic and Proto-Samoyedic. Janhunen (1981) and Sammallahti (1988) reconstruct here instead a word-final labial glide: *käliw.

A general difficulty in reconstructing unstressed vowels for Proto-Uralic lies in their heavy reduction and loss in many of the Uralic languages. Especially in the Ugric and Permic languages, almost no trace of unstressed vowels appears in basic word roots. The original bisyllabic root structure has been well preserved in only the more peripheral groups: Samic and Finnic in the northwest, Samoyedic in the east. The main correspondences of unstressed vowels between these are as follows:

Reflexes of Proto-Uralic unstressed vowels

Proto-Uralic	Proto-Samic	Proto-Finnic	Proto-Samoyedic	Notes
*-a	*-ē [eː]	*-a [ɑ]	*-å [ɒ]
*-ä		*-ä [æ]	*-ä [æ]
*-ə	*-ë [ɤ]	*-e	∅	after original open syllables
			*-ə	after original closed syllables

Developments in Mordvinic and Mari are rather more complicated. In the former, Proto-Uralic *-a and *-ä are usually reduced to *-ə; *-a is however regularly retained whenever the first syllable of the word contained *u. Proto-Uralic *-ə is regularly lost after open syllables, as well as in some other positions.

Conditional vowel shifts

A number of roots appear to diverge from the main picture of unstressed syllables in a different way: while Finnic, Samic and Samoyedic languages all have one of the "typical" stem shapes, they may not quite match. Words in these classes often feature discrepancies in the vowels of the first syllable as well, e.g. Finnic *a or *oo (suggesting Proto-Uralic *a or *ë) against Samic *ā (suggesting Proto-Uralic *ä) or *oa (suggesting Proto-Uralic *o).

A number of such cases may result simply from conditional vowel shifts in unstressed syllables. In fact, multiple vowel shifts are reconstructed in branches of Uralic sensitive to a particular combination of stem vowel and following reduced vowel, in which both change at once. A shift *a-ə > *o-a can be posited for Samic as well as the Mordvinic languages. E.g.:

*a-ə > *o-a in Samic and Mordvinic

Proto-Samic	Mordvinic	Proto-Finnic	Proto-Samoyedic	Hungarian	other reflexes	meaning
*čoarvē < *ćorwa	Erzya сюро /sʲuro/ Moksha сюра /sʲura/ < *śorwa-	*sarvi	-	szarv		'horn'
*čoalē < *ćola	Erzya сюло /sʲulo/ Moksha сюла /sʲula/ < *śola-	*sooli < *sali	-			'intestine'
*koalō- < *kola(w)-	Erzya куло- /kulo-/ Moksha куло- /kulə-/ < *kola-	*koole- < *kali-	*kåə-	hal		'to die'
*koamtē < *komta	Erzya and Moksha кунда /kunda/ < *komta	*kanci < *kanti	-	kendő	Mari комдыш /komdəʃ/	'lid'

The change is, however, masked by the shift of *ë to *a (which later develops to Proto-Samic *uo) in words such as:

Non-raising of *ë-ə in Samic and Mordvinic

Proto-Samic	Mordvinic	Proto-Finnic	Proto-Samoyedic	Hungarian	other reflexes	meaning
*ńuolë < *ńalə	Erzya, Moksha нал /nal/	*nooli < *nali	*ńël	nyíl		'arrow'
*suonë < *sanə	Erzya, Moksha сан /san/	*sooni < *sani	*cën	ín		'vein, sinew'
*θuomë < *δamə	Erzya лём /lʲom/ Moksha лайме /lajmɛ/	*toomi < *tami	*jëm	-		'bird cherry'
*vuoptë < *aptə	-	*(h)apci < *apti	*ëptə	-		'hair'

In a second group, a change *ä-ä > *a-e appears to have taken place in Finnic in words such as:

*ä-ä > *a-e in Finnic

Proto-Finnic	Proto-Samic	Proto-Samoyedic	Hungarian	other reflexes	meaning
*loomi < *lami	-	-	-	Erzya леме /lʲeme/	'scab'
*pooli < *pali	*pealē	*pälä	fél	Erzya пеле /pelʲe/	'half'
*sappi	*sāppē	-	epe	Erzya сэпе /sepe/	'gall'
*talvi	*tālvē	-	tél	Erzya теле /tʲelʲe/	'winter'
*vaski	*veaškē	*wäsa	vas	Mari -вож /βoʒ/ 'ore'	'copper, bronze' ~ 'iron'

Consonants

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)	Retroflex	Velar	unknown
Plosive and Affricate	p /p/	t /t/	(ć /t͡sʲ ~ t͡ɕ/)	č /t̠͡ʂ/	k /k/
Nasal	m /m/	n /n/	ń /nʲ ~ ɲ/		ŋ /ŋ/
Sibilant		s /s/	ś /sʲ ~ ɕ/	(š /ʂ/)
Spirants		δ /ð/	δ´ /ðʲ/
Lateral		l /l/	(ľ /lʲ ~ ʎ/)
Trill		r /r/
Semivowel	w /w/		j /j/
unknown						/x/?

The segments symbolized by č and š were likely retroflex. 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, 2007) takes no explicit stance, leaving open the option for even a vocalic value. The segment has some similarity to the Indo-European laryngeals (to which it can correspond in loanwords): it is reconstructed by certain scholars in syllable-final position in word-stems where a contrastive long vowel later developed (similar to Turkish ğ), best preserved in the Finnic languages, and where Samoyedic features a vowel sequence such as *åə. The correlation between these two stem classes is however not perfect, and alternate possibilities exist for explaining both vowel length in Finnic and vowel sequences in Samoyedic. *x is also reconstructed word-medially, and in this position it also develops to a Finnic long vowel, but has clear consonantal reflexes elsewhere: *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 a non-open vowel, while *k is infrequent or nonexistent in similar positions.

The phonetic 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, this a typologically rare sound value for which no direct evidence is found in any Uralic language, and a pure palatal fricative [ʝ] is another option; a third option is a palatal liquid like, e. g., Czech ř. Some others propose to adjust the sound values of both this consonant and its plain counterpart. Ugricist László Honti has advanced a reconstruction with lateral fricatives: [ɬ], [ɬʲ] for *δ, *δ´, while Frederik Kortlandt reconstructs palatalized [rʲ] and [lʲ], alleging that they pattern like resonants.

Dubious segments

The phonemes in parentheses—*ć, *š, *ĺ—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. In the other languages, no consistent distinction between these consonants is found.

The evidence for the postalveolar sibilant *š however is "scarce but probably conclusive" (ibid): it is treated distinctly from *s only in the more western (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 possibility of *ĺ is not considered by him at all.

In contrast, Janhunen, who considers Samoyedic evidence necessary for conclusions about Proto-Uralic, doubts that *š can be reconstructed, preferring to consider it a secondary, post-Proto-Uralic innovation (p. 210). He agrees with Sammallahti in omitting *ĺ and in only considering a single palatal obstruent as necessary to reconstruct; for the latter he suggests the sound value of a palatal stop, [c] (p. 211).

More recently, reflexes of Proto-Uralic *š have been found in Samoyedic, e.g. PU *kajšaw > Proto-Samoyedic *kåjtåw.

Phonotactics

No final consonant clusters were allowed, so words could end with a maximum of one consonant only. The single consonants *δ *x *ŋ *r also could not occur word-initially, though at least for the first of these, this may be a coincidental omission in the data. A reconstruction *δäpδä "spleen" exists but is not found in Samoyedic and the most stringent criteria for a Proto-Uralic root thus exclude it. A similar case is *repä "fox", a loanword from Indo-Iranian.

Inside word roots, only clusters of two consonants were permitted. Since *j and *w were consonants even between a vowel and another consonant, there were no sequences of a "diphthong" followed by two consonants, like in e.g. Finnish veitsi. While voicing was not a phonemic feature, double (i.e. geminate) stops probably existed (*ïppi "father-in-law", *witti "five", *lükkä- "to push"). The singleton–geminate contrast in most descendant languages developed into a voiced–voiceless distinction, although Finnic is a notable exception, e.g. Finnish appi, lykkää.

When, due to suffixation, consonant clusters arose that were not permitted, the non-low vowel was inserted as a prop vowel. This process was obscured in the Finnic languages by an opposing process which syncopated unstressed *e in many cases.

Prosody

Proto-Uralic did not have contrastive tone. The majority view considers stress to have been fixed on the first syllable, although this is not universally accepted.

Phonological processes

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

Grammar

Grammatically, Proto-Uralic was an agglutinative nominative–accusative language.

Nouns

Proto-Uralic nouns are reconstructed with at least six noun cases and three numbers, singular, dual and plural. The dual number has been lost in many of the contemporary Uralic languages, however. Grammatical gender is absent in reconstructions given that no Uralic language has ever been attested to have gender systems. Definite or indefinite articles are not reconstructed either.

The plural marker of nouns was *-t in final position and *-j- in non-final position, as seen in Finnish talot and talojen ("house" nom. pl. and gen. pl.). The dual marker has been reconstructed as *-k-.

The reconstructed cases are:

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

The cases had only one three-way locative contrast of entering, residing and exiting (lative, locative and ablative respectively). 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 in the Finnic and Samic languages. Further cases are occasionally mentioned, e.g. Robert Austerlitz's reconstruction of Proto-Finno-Ugric includes a seventh, adverbial.

A further noun case likely already found in Proto-Uralic is the translative *-ksi. The abessive *-ktak / *-ktäk is not completely certain as it could also have been a derivational category rather than a noun case. So as many as seven or eight noun cases can be reconstructed for Proto-Uralic with high plausibility.

The nouns also had possessive suffixes, one for each combination of number and person. These took the place of possessive pronouns, which did not exist.

Verbs

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 found in only 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".

Ergativity hypothesis

Merlijn De Smit of Stockholm University has argued for ergativity in Proto-Uralic, reinterpreting the accusative case as a lative one and arguing for a marked subject via the genitive case and a verbal ending, *mV-. Support for this theory comes from the Finnish agent participle constructions, e.g. miehen ajama auto — car driven by the man, Naisen leipoma kakku — the cake that woman baked. In these constructions the subject, which is usually unmarked, is in the genitive case, while the direct object, usually marked with -n is unmarked.

This resembles a passive construction such as pater amatur a filio, filio being declined in the ablative case, except that the word order in Finnish is reversed.

This construction also occurs in Udmurt, Mari, Mordvinic (the -mV participle is absent), and Karelian. However, unlike Finnish, the construction is also used with intransitive sentences, characterized by the same -mV suffix on the verb, e.g. Udmurt gyrem busy, "a ploughed field, a field that has been ploughed", lyktem kišnomurt, "the arrived lady, the lady who has arrived". The -mV participle ending in Mari denotes a preterite passive meaning, e.g. in Eastern Mari omsam počmo, "the door (has been) opened", təj kaləkən mondəmo ulat, "you are forgotten by the people", and memnan tolmo korno, "the road that we have come".

This is problematic for the ergative theory because the -mV participle, labelled the ergative marker, is a passive marker in most of the languages that use it, and the Finnish agent participle constructions may in fact derive from similar constructions in Baltic languages, e.g. Lithuanian tėvo perkamas automobilis or automobilis (yra) tėvo perkamas. Notable is the unmistakable resemblance between the Baltic and Finnic verbal suffixes, and the fact that -mV is missing in both Estonian and Mordvinic, despite being two very close relatives of Finnish. However, the Baltic participle in -ma does not represent the most common Indo-European ending of a passive participle, even though it does have parallels in other Indo-European languages. Even if the ending derives from Proto-Uralic and not the Baltic languages, the transition from a passive to ergative construction is very common and has been observed in Indo-Aryan, Salish, and Polynesian. The transition begins when the unmarked subject of the passive sentence, usually marked in active sentences (if the language is inflectional), is re-analyzed as an unmarked absolutive, and the marked agent as ergative.

Syntax

Proto-Uralic was a SOV language with postpositions and without finite subordination.

Vocabulary

Approximately 500 Uralic lemmas can be reconstructed. However, not all of them contain reflexes in every Uralic branch, particularly the Samoyedic branch.

The reconstructed vocabulary is compatible with a Mesolithic hunter-gatherer culture and a north Eurasian landscape (spruce, Siberian pine, and various other species found in the Siberian taiga), and contains interesting hints on kinship structure. On the other hand, agricultural terms cannot be reconstructed for Proto-Uralic. Words for ‘sheep’, ‘wheat / barley’ and ‘flour’ are phonologically irregular within Uralic and all have limited distribution. In addition, the word for ‘metal’ or ‘copper’ is actually a Wanderwort (cf. North Saami veaiki, Finnish vaski ‘copper, bronze’, Hungarian vas, and Nganasan basa ‘iron’).

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

Plants

Tree names

• *kowsi ‘spruce’
• *ďi̮mi ‘bird-cherry’
• *si̮ksa ‘Siberian pine, Pinus sibirica’

Additional selected plant names from the Uralic Etymological Database:

scientific name	common name	proto-form	proto-language	no.
Picea abies	spruce, fir	*kawse, *kaxse	Proto-Uralic	429
Rubus chamaemorus	cloudberry, cranberry, knotberry	*mura	Proto-Uralic	564
Populus tremula	aspen	*pojɜ	Proto-Uralic	787
Pinus cembra	Siberian pine	*soksɜ (*saksɜ), *se̮ksɜ	Proto-Uralic	903
Larix sibirica	larch	*näŋɜ	Proto-Finno-Ugric	591
Amanita muscaria	fly agaric	*paŋka	Proto-Finno-Ugric	706
Ledum palustre	wild rosemary	*woĺɜ	Proto-Finno-Ugric	1163
Ribes nigrum	black currant	*ćɜkčɜ(-kkɜ)	Proto-Finno-Ugric	83
Lonicera xylosteum	honeysuckle	*kusa	Proto-Finno-Permic	1346
Ulmus	elm	*ńolkɜ, *ńalkɜ	Proto-Finno-Permic	1446
Pinus sylvestris	Scots pine	*pe(n)čä	Proto-Finno-Permic	1475
Viburnum opulus, Acer campestre	snowball tree, field maple	*šewɜ	Proto-Finno-Permic	1612
Populus tremula	aspen	*šapa	Proto-Finno-Volgaic	1609
Ribes	currant	*ćɜkčɜ-tɜrɜ	Proto-Finno-Volgaic	1209
Acer platanoides	maple	*wakš-tɜre (*wokštɜre)	Proto-Finno-Volgaic	1683

Animals

Selected Proto-Uralic animal vocabulary:

• *kala ‘fish’
• *kuďi- ‘spawn’
• *śi̮mi ‘scales, fish skin'
• *pesä ‘nest’
• *muna ‘egg’
• *tulka ‘feather’
• *küji ‘snake’
• *täji ‘louse’

Fish species

• *särki ‘roach / ruffe’
• *säwni / *sewni ‘ide’
• *totki ‘tench’

Bird species

• *śäkśi ‘osprey’
• *śodka ‘goldeneye’
• *kurki / *ki̮rki ‘crane’
• *lunta ‘goose’
• *epik(i) ‘eagle owl’
• *ti̮ktV / *tuktV ‘black-throated loon’

Mammal species

• *ńoma(-la) ‘hare’
• *ńukiś(i) ‘marten / sable’
• *ora(-pa) ‘squirrel’
• *śijil(i) ‘hedgehog’
• *šiŋir(i) ‘mouse’

Additional selected animal names from the Uralic Etymological Database:

scientific name	common name	proto-form	proto-language	no.
Salmo	a species of trout	*kȣmɜ	Proto-Uralic	440
Mustela martes	pine marten	*lujɜ	Proto-Uralic	494
Salvelinus alpinus, Salmo trutta, Hucho taimen	salmon spp.	*ńowŋa	Proto-Uralic	642
Stenodus nelma	nelma, Siberian white salmon	*ončɜ	Proto-Uralic	669
Tetrastes bonasia	hazel grouse	*piŋe (*püŋe)	Proto-Uralic	770
Mustela erminea	ermine	*pojta	Proto-Uralic	786
Tinca tinca	tench	*totke	Proto-Uralic	1068
Picus	a species of woodpecker	*kȣ̈rɜ	Proto-Finno-Ugric	446
Apis mellifica	honey bee	*mekše	Proto-Finno-Ugric	534
Tetrao urogallus	male of capercaillie	*paδ̕tɜ	Proto-Finno-Ugric	688
Hirundo rustica	swallow	*päćkɜ	Proto-Finno-Ugric	711
Acipenser sturio	sturgeon	*śampe	Proto-Finno-Ugric	932
Gavia arctica	black-throated diver	*tokta	Proto-Finno-Ugric	1062
Tetrao urogallus	capercaillie	*kopa-la (*koppa-la), *kopa-ľ́a (*koppa-ľ́a)	Proto-Finno-Ugric or Proto-Finno-Volgaic	353
Parus	tit	*ćȣńɜ	Proto-Finno-Permic	1206

In popular culture

• The film Unna ja Nuuk (2006) has extensive dialogue in reconstructed Proto-Finno-Samic (Early Proto-Finnic), the proto-language of the Finno-Samic languages.

See also

• Proto-Finnic language
• Proto-Uralic homeland hypotheses

References

Sources

• Aikio, Ante (2019). "Chapter 1: Proto-Uralic". In Bakró-Nagy, Marianne; Laakso, Johanna; Skribnik, Elena (eds.). The Oxford Guide to the Uralic Languages. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. pp. 3–27. ISBN 9780198767664. Archived from the original on 10 December 2021. Retrieved 18 May 2020.
• 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.
• Helimski, Eugene (1984). Problems of phonological reconstruction in modern Uralic linguistics.
• 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.

External links

• (in Hungarian) Uralic Etymological Database (Uralonet)
• (in German) Uralic Etymological Database
• Criticism of binary tree model