Ulla-Maya Kulonen, Professor
Finno-Ugric Department of the University of Helsinki
Finnish is part of the group of Baltic-Finnish languages belonging to the Finno-Ugric, or Uralic family of languages. Finnish is the most widely spoken language in this group. It is followed by Estonian. The Baltic-Finnish group belongs to the westernmost branches of the Finno-Ugric language family; further west, only the Sámi languages in central and northern Norway extend. In the east, the Finno-Ugric family of languages reaches the Yenisei and the Taimyr Peninsula, in the south it is represented by the Hungarians.
Modern Finno-Ugric languages and territories of their distribution
The languages belonging to the Finno-Ugric family are spoken by a total of about 23 million people. But many of these languages, with the exception of Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian, are the languages of the national minorities of the Russian Federation and are on the verge of extinction. The territory of Russia is also limited by the Karelian, Vepsian, Ludic languages, the remnants of the Izhorian dialects and the Votic language (all of them belong to the Baltic-Finnish group). Although the Karelians have their own republic, which is part of the Russian Federation, they make up only 10 percent of the population of Karelia, and a significant part of the Karelians live outside the republic, in the Tver region. The creation of a unified Karelian script has so far been significantly complicated by the division of the language into several dialects that are very different from each other. When creating a literary language, many Uralic languages face the same problem.
So, the Baltic-Finnish language group includes seven languages, but the most common and therefore the most viable are only Finnish and Estonian. These languages are close relatives, and a little training is enough for, for example, a Finn and an Estonian to learn to understand each other to some extent, although the Estonian language seems simply incomprehensible to a Finn at first. These two languages are not as close to each other as, for example, Scandinavian. But still this group consists of successors of languages more or less close to each other.
The group of Sami languages constitutes a single geographical and linguistic entity. AT coastal zone(100-200 km wide) their territory of distribution extends from the coast North Sea in central Norway to the east of the Kola Peninsula. Consequently, the Saami live in four states: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia. There are ten Sami languages in total. Largest number carriers has the Northern Sami, common in the territories of all three Scandinavian countries. Between the Sami languages, in essence, there is only one clear boundary dividing the Sami languages into Western and Eastern. With the exception of this dividing line, the languages of adjacent territories are close to each other and allow neighbors to understand each other.
It is not possible to give an exact number of Saami, as the definitions of Saami vary from country to country. Estimates range from 50,000 to 80,000 people. Most of them live in Norway, the least - in Russia (about 4,000 people, among which there are only about 1,500 native speakers of the Sami language). Many small Sami languages are on the verge of extinction (Ume and Pite in Sweden, Babin in Russia).
AT central Russia three main groups of Finno-Ugric languages can be distinguished: Mari, Mordovian and a group of Permian languages. Mari is divided into three main dialects, which can also be considered separate languages. For them, it was not possible to create a single script. There are two Mordovian languages: Erzya and Moksha, whose speakers in total are about a million. Thus, after the Finns and Hungarians, the Mordvins make up the third largest language group: almost the same as the Estonian. Erzya and Moksha have their own script. There are three Perm languages: Komi-Zyryan, Komi-Perm and Udmurt.
Mordva, Mari, Komi and Udmurts have their own republics, but they live in them as national minorities. Two-thirds of the inhabitants of the Mordovian Republic are representatives of other nationalities, primarily Russians and Tatars. The main part of the Mordovians lives on vast territory east of their republic, up to the Urals. There are only about 670,000 Mari people, half of whom live in the Republic of Mari El. The largest separate group of Mari outside the republic (106,000 people) lives in the east, in Bashkiria. Only 500,000 of the one and a half million inhabitants of Udmurtia are ethnic Udmurts. Another quarter of the representatives of this nationality lives outside the republic, primarily in the neighboring Kirov and Perm regions, as well as in the Tatar and Bashkir republics.
On the basis of both linguistic and cultural characteristics, Komi can be divided into two groups: Komi-Zyryans and Komi-Permyaks, each of which has its own territory: Komi-Zyryans - the Republic of Komi, exceeding the territory of Finland by about a third, and Komi-Permyaks - national district on the southern edge of the Republic
Komi. Total population Komi - about half a million people, including 150,000 Komi-Permyaks. About 70% of both groups of the population speak their native language.
If in language the group of Ugric languages is one, but geographically it is very disparate. The linguistic connection of Hungarian with the Ob-Ugric languages, whose speakers live in Siberia, has often been considered (and continues to be considered) doubtful, but on the basis of facts relating purely to the history of the language, an indisputable relationship of these languages can be revealed. AT Ugric group In addition to Hungarian, the Ob-Ugric languages \u200b\u200bare included - Khanty and Mansi, whose speakers live on a vast territory in western Siberia along the Ob River and its tributaries. Khanty and Mansi in total number less than 30,000, of which less than half speak their native language. The geographical remoteness of these languages from each other is explained by the fact that the Hungarians, during the migration of peoples, went south and found themselves far from their ancient habitats located in the Urals. The Ob Ugrians, in turn, apparently settled relatively late in the vast taiga territories of the north, and the northernmost Khanty reached the tundra, where they mastered reindeer husbandry, adopting it from the Samoyeds, who had long lived there. Khanty and Mansi have their own national district, among whose inhabitants the share of these indigenous peoples is only a few percent.
At present, the Samoyed group includes four northern and one southern language. Previously, there were more southern Samoyedic languages, but by the beginning of the last century they for the most part merged with the Turkic languages of Siberia. At present, the southern Samoyeds are represented by only 1,500 Selkups living on the Yenisei to the east of the Khanty. The largest group of northern Samoyeds are the Nenets, who number about 30,000.
Common structural features and general vocabulary
So, the roots of the Finnish language go back to the so-called. Finno-Ugric proto-language, from which all the above-mentioned languages historically originated. First of all, structural features speak in favor of a common proto-language specified languages, as well as their common core vocabulary.
AT structural features Finno-Ugric languages, a foreigner easily recognizes the peculiarities of the Finnish language: first of all, when declining words, endings are added to them that have grammar functions, while prepositions are not used, as, for example, in English and other Germanic languages. Let's give an example: autossa (auto-ssa) - "in the car", autolla (auto-lla) - "by car". The abundance of case endings in Finnish often considered as a specific feature that unites Finnish and Hungarian; in Hungarian there are about twenty case endings, in Finnish - 15. The features of word modification include personal endings of verbs during conjugation, for example, tanssin (tanssi-n) - “I dance”, tanssit (tanssi-t) - “you dance”, hyang tanssia ( tanssi-i) - "he/she dances", as well as possessive suffixes derived from the same basic elements, for example autoni (auto-ni) - "my car", autosi (auto-si) - "your car", and , moreover, connected with case endings: autotollani - "in my car", autossassi - "in your car". These features are common to all Finno-Ugric languages.
General vocabulary consists, first of all, of the basic concepts related to a person (including the names of the community, relatives), the human body, basic functions, surrounding nature. The basic concepts also include root grammar words, such as pronouns, prepositions and postpositions expressing direction and location, as well as small numbers. Words related to culture and crafts reflect the concepts of hunting, fishing and collecting the gifts of nature (for example, yousi - "bow", nuoli - "arrow", yanne - "string"; pato - "dam", emya - "needle". Features of spiritual culture were embodied in the word noita, which means shaman, although in modern Finnish it means “witch”.
Indo-European contacts: common past and present
There are only about three hundred root words dating back to the Finno-Ugric proto-language in the modern Finnish language, but if we take into account their derivatives, then the number of ancient vocabulary will increase many times over. Many words of the basic vocabulary came to Finnish from Indo-European language systems, which shows that the Finnish language and its predecessors were at all stages of development in contact with the Indo-European languages. Part of the borrowed vocabulary is common to several Finno-Ugric languages, and the oldest established cases of borrowing can be attributed to the period of the Finno-Ugric and Indo-European proto-languages. The number of such words is small, and there are only a few reliable cases: perhaps the most indisputable is the word nimi - “name”. This layer of borrowed vocabulary also includes the words vesi - "water", muudya - "sell", ninen - "woman". So, the oldest borrowed words belong to the period before the collapse of the Indo-European proto-language - probably in the first half of the fourth millennium BC.
FINNO-UGRIAN LANGUAGES, one of two branches of the Uralic family of languages (along with Samoyedic). Finno-Ugric languages are spoken in some parts of Eastern Europe and in northern Asia. They are divided into two large groups: Finnish-Perm and Ugric. The Ugric languages include: Hungarian, Mansi (Vogul) and Khanty (Ostyak); each of them consists of several dialects. The Finno-Permian languages are divided into two groups: Permian, which includes the Komi-Zyryan, Komi-Permyak and Udmurt (Votyak) languages, and Finno-Volga, which includes four subgroups: Baltic-Finnish, Mari, Mordovian and Sami languages. The Baltic-Finnish subgroup includes Finnish (Suomi), Estonian and several other minor languages.
Of the approximately 24 million Finno-Ugric speakers, about half speak Hungarian; These are the inhabitants of Hungary and the regions adjacent to it. The emergence of Hungarian writing dates back to the 13th century, the first written monument, Halotti Bezed (eulogy), is a valuable linguistic source. Finnish language - chief representative Finnish subgroup of languages - used in Finland, Sweden, Estonia and Russia; its written tradition begins with the translation of the Bible by Mikhail Agricola in 1542. Mansi (Vogul) and Khanty (Ostyak) are spoken in the Ob River region, c. 5 thousand in Mansi and approx. 25 thousand - in Khanty. Komi and Udmurt are spoken in the northeast of the European part of Russia, as well as somewhat to the south, between the Vyatka and Kama rivers. Komi is spoken ok. 356 thousand people, in Udmurt - approx. 546 thousand Maris (numbering about 540 thousand) are divided into two groups living on the right and left banks of the upper reaches of the Volga. To the south of the Mari live Mordovians (Mordovians), whose number is approx. 1.2 million people AT northern regions Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia, especially in Kola Peninsula, live Laplanders (Saami), who speak the Saami language, whose relationship with related languages is one of the mysteries of the Finno-Ugric languages.
Attempts were made to establish the relationship of the Uralic language family with other language families - Altaic, Yukagir, Indo-European, and even with Japanese and Dravidian languages. Thus, some structural similarity was found between Altaic languages(primarily Turkic), on the one hand, and Finno-Ugric, on the other. In particular, the presence of vowel harmony was noted both in Turkic and in some, although not in all, Finno-Ugric languages. The study of Finno-Ugric languages has great importance not only for linguistics, but also for folklore and comparative literature. According to the Nostratic hypothesis developed by Russian scientists (V.M. Illich-Svitych, V.A. Dybo, S.A. Starostin and others) since the mid-1960s, the Uralic family of languages is part of the so-called Nostratic macrofamily, - which also includes Indo-European, Afroasian, Kartvelian, Dravidian and Altaic languages.
peoples
About the Ural peoples
The history of the Uralic languages and peoples goes back many millennia. The process of formation of modern Finnish, Ugric and Samoyedic peoples was very complicated. Former name Uralic family of languages - Finno-Ugric, or Finno-Ugric family, was later replaced by Uralic, since Samoyedic languages \u200b\u200bbelonging to this family were discovered and proved.
Ural language family is divided into the Ugric branch, which includes the Hungarian, Khanty and Mansi languages (the last two are combined under common name"Ob-Ugric languages"), into the Finno-Permian branch, which unites the Permian languages (Komi, Komi-Permyak and Udmurt), the Volga languages (Mari and Mordovian), the Baltic-Finnish language group (Karelian, Finnish, Estonian, and also the languages of Veps, Vodi, Izhora, Livs), Sami and Samoyedic languages, within which the northern branch (Nganasan, Nenets, Enets languages) and the southern branch (Selkup) are distinguished.
Writing for Karelians (in two dialects - Livvik and Karelian proper) and Veps was restored on a Latin basis in 1989. The rest of the peoples of Russia use writing based on the Cyrillic alphabet. Hungarians, Finns and Estonians living in Russia use the Latin script used in Hungary, Finland and Estonia.
The Uralic languages are very diverse and differ markedly from each other.
In all languages united in the Uralic language family, a common lexical layer has been identified, which makes it possible to assert that 6-7 thousand years ago there was a more or less single proto-language (base language), which suggests the presence of a Proto-Ural community speaking this language.
The number of peoples who speak the Uralic languages is about 23 - 24 million people. The Ural peoples occupy a vast territory that stretches from Scandinavia to the Taimyr Peninsula, with the exception of the Hungarians, who, by the will of fate, found themselves aloof from other Ural peoples - in the Carpatho-Danube region.
Most of the Uralic peoples live in Russia, with the exception of the Hungarians, Finns and Estonians. The most numerous are the Hungarians (more than 15 million people). The Finns are the second largest people (about 5 million people). There are about a million Estonians. On the territory of Russia (according to the 2002 census) live Mordovians (843,350 people), Udmurts (636,906 people), Maris (604,298 people), Komi-Zyryans (293,406 people), Komi-Permyaks (125,235 people), Karelians (93,344 people) , Veps (8240 people), Khanty (28678 people), Mansi (11432 people), Izhora (327 people), Vod (73 people), as well as Finns, Hungarians, Estonians, Saami. At present, Mordvins, Maris, Udmurts, Komi-Zyrians, Karelians have their own national-state formations, which are republics within the Russian Federation.
Komi-Permyaks live on the territory of the Komi-Permyatsky District of the Perm Territory, Khanty and Mansi - Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug-Yugra Tyumen region. Veps live in Karelia, in the northeast of the Leningrad region and in the northwestern part Vologda region, Sami - in Murmansk region, in the city of St. Petersburg, Arkhangelsk region and Karelia, Izhora - in the Leningrad region, the city of St. Petersburg, the Republic of Karelia. Vod - in the Leningrad region, in the cities of Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Finno-Ugric languages
Finno-Ugric languages - a group of languages that goes back to a single Finno-Ugric proto-language. They constitute one of the branches of the Uralic family of languages, which also includes the Samoyedic languages. The Finno-Ugric languages are divided into groups according to the degree of kinship: Baltic-Finnish (Finnish, Izhora, Karelian, Vepsian, Votic, Estonian, Liv), Sami (Saami), Volga (Mordovian - Moksha and Erzya languages, Mari), Perm (Komi -Zyryansky, Komi-Permyak, Udmurt), Ugric (Hungarian, Khanty, Mansi). The speakers of the Finno-Ugric language live in the north-east of Europe, in part of the territory of the Volga-Kama and the Danube basin, in Western Siberia.
The number of Finno-Ugric speakers is currently about 24 million people, including Hungarians - 14 million, Finns - 5 million, Estonians - 1 million. According to the 1989 census, 1,153 987 Mordovians, 746,793 Udmurts, 670,868 Maris, 344,519 Komi-Zyryans, 152,060 Komi-Permyaks, 130,929 Karelians, as well as 1,890 Saami, 22,521 Khanty and 8,474 Mansi. There are also Hungarians (171,420 people) and Finns (67,359 people) living in Russia.
In traditional Finno-Ugric studies, the following scheme is adopted family tree Finno-Ugric languages, proposed by the Finnish scientist E. Setiala (see figure).
According to chronicles, there were also the Finno-Ugric languages Merya and Murom, which fell into disuse in the Middle Ages. It is possible that in ancient times the composition of the Finno-Ugric languages was wider. This is evidenced, in particular, by numerous substratum elements in Russian dialects, toponymy, and the language of folklore. In modern Finno-Ugric studies, the Meryan language, which represented intermediate between the Baltic-Finnish and Mordovian languages.
Few Finno-Ugric languages have a long written tradition. Thus, the Hungarian language (12th century) has the most ancient written monuments, later Karelian texts(13th century) and monuments of ancient Komi writing (14th century). The Finnish and Estonian languages were written in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Udmurt and Mari languages in the 18th century. Some Baltic-Finnish languages remain unwritten to this day.
According to most scientists, the Proto-Finno-Ugric and Proto-Samodian branches separated from the Ural proto-language in the 6th-4th millennium BC. Then separate Finno-Ugric languages developed. In the course of their history, they were influenced by neighboring unrelated Germanic, Baltic, Slavic, Indo-Iranian and Turkic languages, and began to differ significantly from each other. In this regard, the history of the Sami language is interesting. There is a hypothesis that the Sami group arose as a result of the transition aboriginal population Far North Europe for the use of one of the Finno-Ugric languages, close to the Baltic-Finnish languages.
The degree of proximity of the individual Finno-Ugric languages that make up the language branches is not the same. Thus, researchers note the great proximity of the Hungarian and Mansi languages, the relative proximity of the Permian and Hungarian languages. Many Finno-Ugric scholars doubt the existence of a single ancient Volga language group and the Volga-Finnish parent language and consider the Mari and Mordovian languages to be representatives of separate language groups.
Finno-Ugric languages are still characterized common properties and laws. Many modern are characterized by vowel harmony, fixed word stress, the absence of voiced consonants and combinations of consonants at the beginning of a word, regular interlingual phonetic correspondences. The Finno-Ugric languages are united by an agglutinative system with varying degrees expressiveness. They are characterized by the absence of grammatical gender, the use of postpositions, the presence of a personal-possessive declension, the expression of negation in the form of a special auxiliary verb, the wealth of impersonal forms of the verb, the use of the definition before the defined, the immutability of the numeral and adjective in the function of the definition. At least 1000 common Proto-Finno-Ugric roots have been preserved in modern Finno-Ugric languages. A number of features bring them closer to the languages of other families - Altaic and Indo-European. Some scholars also believe that the Yukaghir language, which is part of the group of Paleoasiatic languages, is close to the Finno-Ugric (Uralic) languages.
At present, the small Finno-Ugric languages are threatened with extinction. These are Votic, Liv and Izhorian languages, the speakers of which are very few. Population censuses show a decrease in the number of Karelians, Mordovians, and Vepsians; the number of speakers of the Udmurt, Komi and Mari languages is declining. For several decades, the scope of the use of the Finno-Ugric languages has been reduced. Only in recent times the public drew attention to the problem of their preservation and development.
Sources:
- Historical and cultural atlas of the Komi Republic. - M., 1997.
- Finno-Ugric and Samoyed peoples: Statistical compendium. - Syktyvkar, 2006.
- Tsypanov E.A. "Encyclopedia. Komi language". - Moscow, 1998. - C. 518-519
Finns never "come" to Finland because Finns, Finnish identity or Finnish language in existing sense never existed anywhere outside of Finland. What is now considered "Finnish" has been formed here, over thousands of years, under the influence of many peoples, languages and cultures.
Many Finns have learned in school that our ancestors arrived from the east (where languages related to Finnish are still spoken) about 2000 years ago. It was a plausible theory in its time, but nothing more: contrary to what was believed in the first half of the 20th century, Finland has been continuously inhabited since the last ice age, i.e. our first ancestors lived here already about 9000 years ago. Very little is known about these first people of Finland: we do not know where they came from (from the south, of course...) and what language they spoke (it could have been Finno-Ugric or even some other language with a completely unknown ancestry ). Of course, since then, Finland has experienced many cultural and linguistic influences from many quarters.
Okay, let's put the question differently: where did the Finnish language come from?
Several decades ago, the family tree of the Finno-Ugric languages was interpreted as a map showing how the Finno-Ugric peoples migrated to their current habitats. The data of modern archeology do not support such wide movements. In addition, a recent study of loanwords has shown the presence of very ancient Indo-European loanwords, especially in Finnish and the most western branch of the FU languages; this means that some "proto-form" of the Finnish language must have functioned in the area Baltic Sea already quite a long time ago.
On the other hand, the Finnish language is of course related to the languages spoken in central Russia and Western Siberia. This means either that the area of the Finno-Ugric (Uralic) proto-language was very extensive, perhaps extending from the Baltic Sea to the Urals, or that we must find alternative models to explain the spread of these languages.
Bend of the Volga or North Central Europe?
Some scholars suggest that the Uralic languages must have functioned much further west, even in areas that are now Northern Germany and Denmark. In particular, Kalevi Wiik, professor of phonetics, states that the Germanic languages were originally "spoken by Indo-Europeans with a Uralic accent". However, Viik's hypothesis met with serious criticism from Finnish Indo-Europeanists. There is no hard data available to help us identify the languages that were probably spoken in northern Europe before the emergence of modern Indo-European and Uralic languages.
Language kinship
Are you saying that Finnish is not related to Russian?
One of better ways make Finn jump up to the ceiling is to tell him/her that Finns have slanted eyes and speak Russian or a language similar to it. In fact - this is how almost any Finn will answer - English language and almost all European languages, including Russian and other Slavic languages, belong to the great and powerful Indo-European family of languages - but not Finnish. Finnish, together with Estonian, Hungarian, Sami ("Lapland") and many others (see below), belong to the Finno-Ugric (or Uralic) family of languages.
Of course, the Russians have been our eastern neighbors for a thousand years or so. Before the East Slavic tribes came to what is now Northern (Central) Russia, the area was probably inhabited by Finno-Ugric tribes who spoke languages now long extinct. Some names of these peoples and languages are mentioned in old chronicles, but no other evidence remains. It has been established, for example, that Moscow is located on the ancient Finno-Ugric territory. Later Finnish-root languages (Finnish and its closest relatives) clearly influenced neighboring northwestern Russian dialects. Eastern Finnish languages (like Karelian) have also been deeply imbued with Russian loanwords and other influences. Finnish speakers, however, were mainly the object of Swedish influence(before 1809) and received most of the vocabulary borrowings and cultural influences from the West.
There are some Russian borrowings in Finnish, and somewhat later influences can be seen, for example, in Helsinki slang (words like place"place" or snaijata"know" was used on the streets of trilingual Helsinki in the 19th century), but generally speaking, the influence of Russian in Finnish was rather weak compared to that of Swedish. Even now, although Finland often claims to have been an important gateway between East and West, there are surprisingly few Finns who know Russian (in fact, far fewer than Finns who know, for example, German or French).
Is it true that "theories about the relationship of the Finno-Ugric languages turned out to be false"?
No, it's not. No serious researcher of the Finno-Ugric languages has ever doubted their common origin. Of course, there are different opinions as to how common origin and the relationship between FU languages needs to be specifically explained and interpreted.
What was really wrong was probably the outdated idea of Finno-Ugric cultural or even racial ties. In addition, there are people who are running around with more or less crazy ideas about their relationship. mother tongue with some very prestigious or exotic languages (eg Hungarian with Sumerian). There may be political or nationalistic motives, like in 19th century Hungary, when some Hungarians, who did not want to be related to the "most primitive peoples of Eurasia", tried to prove that the Hungarian language was related to the Turkic languages - which would make them descendants or relatives of the powerful warriors of the East.
What is meant by the relationship of the Finno-Ugric languages?
FU languages still share some central characteristics and vocabulary elements, which allows us to recover many of the features and details of the common proto-language.
From this proto-language, the existing FU languages have evolved in various directions, subject to both internal drifts and foreign influences. Traditionally this has been illustrated with a family tree model, which is of course a rough and simplified description. At present, many linguists draw a bush-like model, with the main branches (Finnish, Sami, Mordovian, Mari, Perm, Ugrian, Samoyedic) as equal; their internal relationships cannot be satisfactorily described in terms of a family tree model.
The proto-language was spoken at least, about six thousand years ago (about the same time as in the Indo-European parent language); this means that the most distant branches of the FU family of languages are very distantly related. The relationship between Finnish and Hungarian can be compared to the relationship between English and Hindi. (This means that there is, at any rate, no more than a racial or cultural similarity between Finns and Hungarians...)
Languages are genetically related if they General characteristics- words, affixes, features - can be explained by inheritance from a common proto-language.
Finding such common characteristics is not easy. We must take into account:
- Random similarities. Since the sound systems of all languages in the world use a relatively small number of sounds (usually about thirty), collected on fairly universal principles, it is statistically very likely that various languages have very similar words - especially if these languages have similar sound systems and if these words are descriptive in nature.
- Typological connections. The Turkic languages have many structural features similar to, for example, Finnish, such as vowel harmony and suffix morphology (endings attached to the end of a word). However, this only shows that some features often coincide: Turkic and FU languages (like some other languages of the world) just happen to belong to the same type - agglunative.
- Later influences. Similar sounding words- not necessarily a common inheritance: for example vunukka"grandson" (in some East Finnish dialects) is not originally related to Hungarian unoka, but both are borrowings from Slavic languages.
- Changing the sound. For hundreds and thousands of years, words and sounds can change beyond recognition: would you notice that the Sanskrit chakra related to english wheel"wheel", or Finnish ydin"essence" with Hungarian velo? Or could you know that the Hungarian fiu"boy" and haz"home" is not related to Romanian fiu and German house, but related to Finnish poika and kota, respectively? (Cm. large quantity Indo-European examples: "Do hippo have feathers?")
You can't prove genetic relationship just by looking up similarities in word lists and dictionaries. Instead, you must find systematic correspondences, recover common proto-forms, explain the course of their changes and relate all this to what is known about the history of the languages in question and languages in general. Also, word similarity is not enough, because words are changed and replaced: you have to find matches in grammar and affixes as well.
Are Finno-Ugric languages related to other families of languages? How about Finnish and Turkish?
Most Finno-Ugric scholars would answer: we don't know, at least nothing has been proven yet. Some linguists have suggested links between Finno-Ugric and Indo-European language families, but it is more likely that Indo-Europeans are simply our old neighbors: FU languages have some very ancient Indo-European borrowings.
Some other hypotheses were also proposed (Ural-Altaic, Ural-Dravidian, Finno-Basque, Hungarian-Sumerian, etc., etc.); as a rule, they are either based on outdated ideas or created without the expertise of one (or both) of the considered groups of languages. The Ural-Altaic hypothesis is still alive here and there as a common belief that "Finnish and Turkish are related". However, as stated earlier, the structural similarities between Finnish (or other Finno-Ugric languages) and Turkish (or other Turkic or "Altaic" languages) are typological: these languages belong to the same type. The basic vocabularies in these languages are very different and do not allow for the reconstruction of a common proto-language. In addition, the existence of an "Altaic" family of languages (Turkic, Mongolian and Tungus languages, possibly also Korean) is also questioned by many scholars.
(Not being genetically related, Turkish has some ties to the Finno-Ugric languages. Some FU languages spoken in Central Russia and Western Siberia have been influenced by neighboring Turkic languages, and Hungarian has many layers of borrowings from various Turkic-speaking tribes.)
Unfortunately, it is very likely that genetic relationships outside the language families known so far will never be proven. There have been some attempts, such as the Nostratic theory (a macro-family comprising many families of Old World languages), as well as the "Pramira" hypothesis, which, however, must be regarded as wild fantasy (more information is contained in the excellent FAQ sci.lang ).
Finnish and Hungarian are said to be related. What exactly are related words?
This question, along with the eternal "Where did the Finns come from?", is the mother of all Finno-Ugric FAQs. After a number of years of studying etymological dictionaries and other exotic material, I have finally compiled a new page dedicated to this issue, along with a new bibliography ...
Finno-Ugric languages and our modern world.
What languages belong to the Finno-Ugric family of languages?
Finno-Ugric or Uralic (like Tapani Salminen "y, I use these two words as synonyms) the language family consists of the following branches:
- Finnish(Finnic), or "Baltic-Finnic" languages: Finnish and his closest relatives: Karelian, Lyudikovsky(in Russian-language sources it is considered as a dialect of Karelian, along with Livvikovsky - V.K.), Vepsian, Ingrian(in Russian-language sources it is not mentioned as a separate language, but refers to dialects of Finnish - V.K.), Vodsky, Estonian, Livsky.
- Saami("Laplandish"): approximately ten languages, the largest of which is North Sami("Norwegian-Lapland", "Fjell Lapp").
- Mordovian: two standard languages: Erzya and Moksha.
- Mari(language "Cheremis"): two standard languages, West(Mountain Mari) and Oriental(Meadow Marie). The Mordovian and Mari branches are sometimes grouped together as the "Volgaic" languages, although they are not particularly closely related.
- Perm languages:
- Komi("Zyryansky" and Permyatsky (Komi-Permyatsky)).
- Udmurt(The language of "Votyak", in the world literature this ethnonym (Votyak), unfortunately, is often confused with the Votsky (Votic or Votian) of the Finnish branch).
- Ugric languages:
- Hungarian
- Ob-Ugric languages in Western Siberia: Khanty(language "Ostyakov") and Mansi(the language of the "Voguls"), both with very deep dialectal variations
- Samoyedic languages(in western Siberia):
- Northern: Nenets(language "Yurakov"), Enets(the language of the "Yenisei Samoyeds"), Nganasan(language of the people "Tavgi")
- Southern: Selkup(the language of "Ostyakov-Samoyeds"), some extinct languages (the last representative of the national Camasin died in 1988).
(Names in brackets and quotation marks, like "Ostyak" or "Zyryansky", used predominantly in the Western world, as well as in pre-Soviet Russia, originally given by neighbors and often considered incorrect by the peoples themselves. Some scholars still use them, because the use of names, used by the peoples themselves, like "Khanty" or "Komi", is, in their opinion, only a "democratic" relic of Soviet hypocrisy. However, it seems that the use of their own ethnonyms, nevertheless, will become the standard. Some "exonyms" also have the danger of introducing misleading: the name "Ostyak" was used for three different peoples and languages, i.e., the Khanty of the Ugric branch, the Selkups of the Samoyed branch, and the Kets or "Yenisei Ostyaks" who speak one of the "Paleo-Siberian" languages not included in Uralic language family and the term is still confusing local authorities and their statistics, and even the locals themselves!)
Aren't they all dead yet?
Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian are official languages majority in independent states and thus are in relative safety. Other FU languages (like, in fact, most of the world's languages) are more or less endangered.
The Volga and Permian languages have hundreds of thousands of speakers, but most of the people who speak them fluently are in old age and live in countryside. Most city dwellers and young people tend to prefer Russian. These nations already had their own titular republics in the Soviet Union. However, these republics have a Russian-speaking majority, and Russian dominates most areas of language use. In addition, the territories of the titular republics do not cover all the regions inhabited by these peoples. In recent years, after the collapse Soviet Union, the national awakening caused some positive developments, especially in the Komi and Mari republics.
Of the less common FU languages, for example Votian, Liv and several of the smaller Sámi languages are all but extinct. Even languages spoken by thousands of people are in great danger, as no one helps children and young people to become full-fledged native speakers of their languages.
A lot depends on
- Financial realities: opportunities national education, press and cultural actions (local authorities and organizations are supported, for example, by the Society of M. A. Kastren), the people's own will and their endurance in difficult conditions;
- Policies in the area environment: The future of northern FU languages is connected with the preservation of the traditional way of life (reindeer herding, hunting, fishing). Particularly in Siberia and the Kola Peninsula, it is now threatened by environmental pollution caused by mining, oil and gas, and nuclear testing;
- Language policy and level of knowledge: do people themselves consider bilingualism a wealth, or do the authorities or even the parents themselves encourage children to renounce the language of their ancestors "for their own good"?
How do Ugro-Finns live?
There is no such thing as "Finno-Ugric culture" or "Finno-Ugric way of life". FU languages live on the lips of peoples living in different environments.
When referring to the Finno-Ugric languages, most Finns imagine exotic hunters and reindeer herders living in wigwam-like huts in the Arctic tundra. This picture, to some extent, corresponds to the northern Finno-Ugric peoples (Saami, Ob Ugrians, Samoyeds), whose history and way of life have many analogies with the (better known) fates of some indigenous peoples of North America.
However, the Finnish, Volga and Permian peoples do not fit in this picture: they have been farmers for thousands of years, and their lives were similar to those of their Russian-, Swedish-, Latvian- or Turkic-speaking neighbors. (Replace the hut with a log house, and the tundra with forests and fields; You can also imagine apple trees or beehives around the house.) The Hungarians, before settling in Hungary (according to the old chronicles, this happened exactly in 896 AD), , probably by nomadic riders in the steppes, where is now Ukraine or southern Russia.
In the last hundred years, urbanization and industrialization have also affected the Finno-Ugric countries. In some cases, this meant the loss of language and identity. In Russia, factories and growing cities also brought in a mostly Russian-speaking population, which is one reason (although by no means the only one) why Finno-Ugric peoples in Russia are a minority even in their titular areas.
Our wonderful Finnish Language
"Is it true that Finnish is the oldest language in the world?"
Even such questions are sometimes asked. Of course, all languages are constantly changing, but Finnish, in some respects (especially in sound system), is very conservative: he even retained some Indo-European borrowings in a form very close to the original. Finnish kuningas closer to old german kuningaz than modern "descendants": English king, German konig or Swedish k(on)ung(or Russian prince, a borrowing from the same Germanic root).
On the other hand, standard Finnish can be called a young language. The first books written in Finnish appeared in the 16th century, but modern standard Finnish was only created in the 19th century, as a mixture of words and properties from different dialects.
Is the Finnish language something completely different from all other languages in the world?
Because the Finnish language is different from Indo-European languages in many apparent respects, he seems even more exotic than he really is. In fact, the FU languages are quite typical northern Eurasian languages. Especially the Baltic-Finnish languages were deeply imbued with Indo-European (especially Baltic and Germanic, as well as Slavonic) influences, both in vocabulary and grammar.
The Finns themselves often consider their language to be "exceptional" because all the foreign languages they know are Indo-European, and they consider Indo-European features to be universal. Indeed, the absence of grammatical gender (FU languages only have one word for "he" and "she"), the absence of the verb "to have" (Finnish uses structures like "book with me" to say "I have a book"), or the absence of grammatically the expressed future tense causes some tension - but in fact these are very common phenomena.
What good finnish?
Standard Finnish, like most others written languages, has "official" grammar and rules. These rules, of course, are not dictated by heavenly inspiration, but are formulated by people. These people try to make the rules as good as possible based on what is native and known to most Finns (traditions of the written Finnish language, dialects), or what they think is clear, logical, or even beautiful if possible. However, things can be controversial; sometimes they are just a matter of taste. This means that forms that deviate from the standard are not necessarily "worse" or "more un-Finnish" than other forms.
The idea of "good Finnish" is a matter of equality. Our traditions of Scandinavian democracy call for a neutral standard language that can serve all citizens equally well. (The situation in England, where - they say - a person's speech shows his social background and what school he graduated from, is often cited as a terrifying example in this regard ;-).) In Finland, the Center for the Study of the Languages of Finland includes the Finnish Language Agency, which gives advice on issues of "correctness".
Of course, having a standard language does not mean that all Finns must use the standard language in all cases. Finnish, like all other languages, has many dialects. Although schools and facilities mass media smoothed out many features of the original dialects spoken at the beginning of this century, local (areal) differences still remain - some scholars use the term "areal spoken languages". In everyday use, Standard Finnish, being a relatively artificial formation based on many different dialects, is gradually giving way to colloquial variants Finnish, and they are being used in increasingly formal contexts.
Where do Finnish words come from?
Our most ancient words, dating back to the Uralic (Finno-Ugric) proto-language, which was spoken at least 6000 years ago, are, for example, eläa"live", uida"to swim", kala"fish", nuoli"arrow", suksi"skis", numbers from 1 to 6: yksi, kaksi, kolme, nelja, viisi, kuusi(more examples on the new Finnish-Hungarian page.) Some of these may be ancient borrowings from an Indo-European parent language, such as nimi"title" ("name") or tehda"do". "Younger" words include descriptive formations and loanwords. Finnish has many means of deriving words from other words, and some loanwords have become completely independent. For example, no Finn (other than a linguist) would think that the word toinen"second, other" derived from tuo"this is".
The Finnish language has many layers of Indo-European borrowings. The most ancient probably belong to the Proto-Indo-European stage. Later, Finnish received borrowings from the Baltics (for example, morsian"bride", silta"bridge", kirves"axe", harka"ox", etc.) and Germanic languages. Many Germanic loanwords - technical terms(for example, rauta"iron" and laiva"vessel") or associated with organized society and power (for example, kuningas"king", Ruhtinas"prince", hallita"to rule", tuomita"judge"). The influx of Germanic loanwords continued from modern Swedish; until the last century, Swedish was the language of education and administration in Finland and gave us hundreds of loanwords. The influence of Russian was clearly more modest, although there are some (ancient) Russian loanwords common to all dialects of Finnish (and related languages), for example vapaa"free", risti"cross", pappi"Priest", lusikka"a spoon". Now, of course, English is an important source of loanwords.
The Saami languages have borrowed mainly from northern Finnish dialects (from Saami words, tundra and Mursu"walrus" also spread to other European languages). The Estonian language has received hundreds of Finnish borrowings, and has only given us a couple of neologisms: lavastaja"stage designer" Lennokki"airplane model".
Many Finnish words have no analogues in related languages(outside the Finnish group). It has been suggested that they may be loanwords from an unknown language spoken here before the arrival of our linguistic ancestors, but it is also possible that they are ancient Uralic words whose counterparts simply did not survive in other Uralic languages, or that they are Indo-European loanwords. that are yet to be discovered.
The Komi language is included in the Finno-Ugric language family, and with the Udmurt language closest to it, it forms the Permian group of Finno-Ugric languages. In total, the Finno-Ugric family includes 16 languages, which in ancient times developed from a single language-base: Hungarian, Mansi, Khanty (Ugric group of languages); Komi, Udmurt (Permian group); Mari, Mordovian languages - Erzya and Moksha: the Baltic and Finnish languages - Finnish, Karelian, Izhorian, Vepsian, Votic, Estonian, Liv languages. Special place in the Finno-Ugric family of languages, it occupies the Sami language, which is very different from other related languages.
The Finno-Ugric languages and the Samoyedic languages form the Uralic family of languages. The Nenets, Enets, Nganasan, Selkup, and Kamasin languages are classified as modern languages. The peoples speaking Samoyedic languages live in Western Siberia, except for the Nenets, who also live in northern Europe.
The question of the ancestry of the ancient Finno-Ugric peoples has long been of interest to scientists. They also searched for the ancient ancestral home in the Altai region, on the upper reaches of the Ob, Irtysh and Yenisei, and on the banks of the Northern Arctic Ocean. Modern scientists, based on the study of the vocabulary of the flora of the Finno-Ugric languages, have come to the conclusion that the ancestral home of the Finno-Ugric peoples was located in the Volga-Kama region on both sides Ural mountains. Then the Finno-Ugric tribes and languages separated, became isolated, and the ancestors of the current Finno-Ugric peoples left their ancient ancestral home. The first annalistic references to the Finno-Ugric peoples already find these peoples in the places of their current residence.
Hungariansmore than a millennium ago they moved to the territory surrounded by the Carpathians. The self-name of the Hungarians Modyor has been known since the 5th century. n. e. Writing in the Hungarian language appeared at the end of the 12th century, and the Hungarians have a rich literature. Total number Hungarians are about 17 million people. In addition to Hungary, they live in Czechoslovakia, Romania, Austria, Ukraine, Yugoslavia.
Mansi (Voguls)live in the Khanty-Mansiysk district of the Tyumen region. In Russian chronicles, they, together with the Khanty, were called Yugra. Mansi use writing on a Russian graphic basis, have their own schools. Total There are more than 7,000 Mansi people, but only half of them consider Mansi their native language.
Khanty (Ostyaks)live on the Yamal Peninsula, lower and middle Ob. Writing in the Khanty language appeared in the 30s of our century, however, the dialects of the Khanty language are so different that between representatives different dialects communication is often difficult. Many lexical borrowings from the Komi language penetrated into the Khanty and Mansi languages. The total number of Khanty is 21,000 people. The traditional occupation of the Ob Ugrians is reindeer herding, hunting, and fishing.
Udmurtsthe least advanced from the territory of the Finno-Ugric ancestral home; they live on the lower reaches of the Kama and Vyatka rivers, except Udmurt Republic, live in Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Mari El, Vyatka region. There were 713,696 Udmurts in 1989; writing arose in the 18th century. The capital of Udmurtia is the city of Izhevsk.
Marilive on the territory of the Volga left bank. About half of the Mari live in the Republic of Mari El, the rest live in Bashkortostan, Tatarstan and Udmurtia. Writing in the Mari language arose in the 18th century, there are two variants of the literary language - meadow and mountain, they have the main difference in phonetics. The total number of Mari is 621,961 (1989). The capital of Mari El is the city of Yoshkar-Ola.
Among the Finno-Ugric peoples, the 3rd place is occupied byMordovians. There are more than 1,200 thousand of them, but the Mordovians live very widely and fragmented. Their more compact groups can be found in the basins of the Moksha and Sura rivers (Mordovia), in the Penza, Samara, Orenburg, Ulyanovsk, Nizhny Novgorod regions. There are two closely related Mordovian languages, Erzya and Moksha, but speakers of these languages communicate with each other in Russian. Writing in the Mordovian languages appeared in the 19th century. The capital of Mordovia is the city of Saransk.
Baltic-Finnish languages and peoples are so close that speakers of these languages can communicate among themselves without an interpreter. Among the languages of the Baltic-Finnish group, the most common isFinnish, it is spoken by about 5 million people, self-name of the Finnssuomi. In addition to Finland, Finns also live in the Leningrad region of Russia. Writing arose in the 16th century, from 1870 the period of the modern Finnish language begins. The epic "Kalevala" sounds in Finnish, a rich original literature has been created. About 77 thousand Finns live in Russia.
Estonianslive on east coast Baltic Sea, the number of Estonians in 1989 was 1,027,255 people. Writing existed from the 16th century to the 19th century. two literary languages developed: southern and northern Estonian. In the 19th century these literary languages converged on the basis of Middle Estonian dialects.
Karelylive in Karelia and the Tver region of Russia. There are 138,429 Karelians (1989), a little more than half speak their native language. The Karelian language consists of many dialects. In Karelia, Karelians study and use the Finnish literary language. The most ancient monuments of Karelian writing date back to the 13th century; in the Finno-Ugric languages, in antiquity this is the second written language (after Hungarian).
Izhorathe language is unwritten, it is spoken by about 1,500 people. The Izhors live on the southeastern coast of the Gulf of Finland, on the river. Izhora, a tributary of the Neva. Although the Izhors call themselves Karelians, it is customary in science to single out an independent Izhorian language.
Vepsianslive on the territory of three administrative-territorial units: Vologda, Leningrad regions of Russia, Karelia. In the 30s, there were about 30,000 Vepsians, in 1970 - 8,300 people. because of strong influence Russian language, the Vepsian language differs markedly from other Baltic-Finnish languages.
Vodskythe language is on the verge of extinction, since there are no more than 30 people speaking this language. Vod lives in several villages located between the northeastern part of Estonia and the Leningrad region. The Votic language is unwritten.
Do youlive in several seaside fishing villages in northern Latvia. Their number in the course of history, due to the devastation during World War II, has sharply decreased. Now the number of Liv speakers is only about 150 people. Writing has been developing since the 19th century, but at the present time Livs are switching to the Latvian language.
Samilanguage forms a separate group of Finno-Ugric languages, because there are many specific features in its grammar and vocabulary. The Saami live in the northern regions of Norway, Sweden, Finland and on the Kola Peninsula in Russia. There are only about 40 thousand of them, including about 2000 in Russia. The Sami language has much in common with the Baltic-Finnish languages. Sami writing develops on the basis of different dialects in Latin and Russian graphic systems.
Modern Finno-Ugric languages have diverged so much from each other that at first glance they seem completely unrelated to each other. However, a deeper study of the sound composition, grammar and vocabulary shows that these languages have many common features, which prove the former common origin of the Finno-Ugric languages from one ancient proto-language.
ON THE CONCEPT "KOMI LANGUAGE"
Traditionally, the Komi language is understood as all three Komi dialects: Komi-Zyryansky, Komi-Permyak and Kozhi-Yazva. Many foreign Finno-Ugric scholars do not separate the Komi-Zyryan and Komi-Permyak languages. However, in Soviet ethnography, two ethnic groups are distinguished - Komi-Zyryans and Komi-Permyaks, and in linguistics, respectively, two languages. Komi-Zyryans and Komi-Permyaks freely communicate with each other in their languages, without resorting to Russian. Thus, the Komi-Zyryan and Komi-Permyak literary languages are very close.
This closeness is clearly seen when comparing the following two sentences:
1) Komi-Zyryan literary language -Ruch vidzodlis gogorbok and ydzhyd goats vyly addzis uros, kodi tov kezhlo dastis tshak .
2) Komi-Permyak literary language -Ruch vidzotis gogor and ydzhyt koz yylis kazyalis urokos, code tov kezho zaptis tshakkez .
"The fox looked around and on the top of a tall spruce saw a squirrel that was storing mushrooms for the winter".
The study of the Komi-Zyryan literary language, in principle, makes it possible to read everything written in the Komi-Permyak literary language, as well as to communicate freely with the Komi-Permyaks.
RESIDENCE AND NUMBER OF KOMI
A special ethnographic group of the Komi are the Komi-Yazva people whose language is very different from the modern Komi-Zyryan and Komi-Permyak dialects. Komi-Yazvinians live in Krasnovishersky district Perm region along the middle and upper reaches of the river. Yazva, the left tributary of the river. Vishera, which flows into the Kama. Their total number is about 4,000 people, however, at present, the Komi-Yazva people are rapidly becoming Russified.
In the Afanasyevsky district of the Kirov region, the so-called "Zyuzda" Komi live, the dialect of which stands, as it were, between the Komi-Zyryan and Komi-Permyak dialects. In the 1950s, there were more than 5,000 Zyuzdins, but then their number began to decrease.
Komi-Zyrianslive in the Komi Republic in the basins of the rivers Luza, Vychegda and its tributaries Sysola, Vym, in the basins of the Izhma and Pechora rivers, which flows into the White Sea. Mezen and its tributary Vashka. Accordingly, according to the rivers and are subdivided ethnographic groups Komi - Luz Komi, Sysolsky, Vychegodsky, Vymsky, Udorsky, Izhma, Upper Pechora Komi, etc. About 10% of the Komi-Zyryans live outside the republic: in the Nenets autonomous region Arkhangelsk region, in the north of the Tyumen region, in many villages of the lower Ob and along its tributaries, on the Kola Peninsula in the Murmansk region in Omsk, Novosibirsk and other regions of Siberia.
Komi-Permyakslive in isolation from the Komi-Zyryans, to the south, in the Perm region, in the Upper Kama region, on its tributaries the Spit, Inva. Capital of Komi-Permyatskaya autonomous region- Kudymkar.
The total number of the Komi population (Komi-Zyryans and Komi-Permyaks), according to the population censuses, was constantly increasing: 1897 - 254,000; 1970 - 475,000; 1926 - 364,000; 1979 - 478,000; 1959 - 431,000; 1989 - 497,081.
Demographers have noticed a trend towards a sharp decline in the growth of the Komi population in recent decades. If for 1959-1970. the increase was 44,000 people, then for 1970-1979. - only 3,000 people. For 1979 In the USSR, there were 326,700 Komi-Zyryans and 150,768 Komi-Permyaks. In the Komi SSR, 280,797 Komi-Zyryans lived, which amounted to 25.3% of the population of the republic.
In 1989, the Komi made up 23% of the population of the Komi SSR. According to the 1989 census, 345,007 Komi-Zyryans and 152,074 Komi-Permyaks lived in the USSR. However, the number of people who speak the Komi language is decreasing. So, in 1970, 82.7% of the Komi-Zyryans and 85.8% of the Komi-Permyaks called the Komi language their native language. In 1979, 76.2% of the Komi-Zyryans and 77.1% of the Komi-Permyaks called the Komi language their native language. For 10 years, the Komi language community has decreased by 33,000 people. The decline in the number of Komi speakers continues. According to the 1989 census, among all the Komi in the USSR, 70% named the Komi language as their native language, i.e. now every third Komi no longer speaks the mother language.
From the book "KOMI KYV: Self-instruction manual for the Komi language" E A Tsypanov 1992 (Syktyvkar, Komi book publishing house)
