 | Finno-Ugric languages: Encyclopedia II - Finno-Ugric languages - Classification
Finno-Ugric languages - Classification
It is generally agreed that the Finno-Ugric subfamily of the Uralic languages has the following members:
Ugric (Ugrian)
- Hungarian
- Ob Ugric (Ob Ugrian)
- Khanty (Ostyak)
- Mansi (Vogul)
Finno-Permic (Permian-Finnic)
- Permic (Permian)
- Komi (Komi-Zyrian, Zyrian)
- Komi-Permyak
- Udmurt (Votyak)
- Finno-Volgaic (Finno-Cheremisic, Finno-Mari, Volga-Finnic)
- Mari (Cheremisic)
- Mordvinic (Mordvin, Mordvinian)
- Extinct Finno-Volgaic languages of uncertain position
- Merya (position uncertain, extinct)
- Meshcherian (position uncertain, extinct)
- Muromian (position uncertain, extinct)
- Finno-Lappic (Finno-Saamic, Finno-Samic)
- Sami (Samic, Saamic, Lappic, Lappish)
- Western Sami (Western Samic)
- Southern Sami
- Ume Sami — Nearly extinct
- Lule Sami
- Pite Sami — Nearly extinct
- Northern Sami
- Eastern Sami (Eastern Samic)
- Kainuu Sami — Extinct
- Kemi Sami — Extinct
- Inari Sami
- Akkala Sami — Nearly extinct
- Kildin Sami
- Skolt Sami
- Ter Sami — Nearly extinct
- Baltic-Finnic (Balto-Finnic, Balto-Fennic, Finnic, Fennic)
- Estonian
- Finnish (including Meänkieli or Tornedalian Finnish, Kven Finnish, and Ingrian Finnish)
- Izhorian (Ingrian) - Nearly extinct
- Karelian
- Karelian proper
- Lude (Ludic, Ludian)
- Olonets Karelian (Livvi, Aunus, Aunus Karelian, Olonetsian)
- Livonian (Liv) — Nearly extinct
- Veps (Vepsian)
- Votic (Votian, Vod) — Nearly extinct
- Võro and Seto (sometimes considered dialects of Estonian)
Finno-Ugric languages - Disputes
The classification of Finno-Ugric within Uralic, and of Finnic and Ugric within Finno-Ugric, is accepted by practically all scholars. Dispute is at present largely confined to the Finno-Permic family, surrounding different proposals for the arrangement of the its subgroups and regarding the validity of the Volgaic group.
The term Volgaic denoted a branch believed to include Mari and Mordvinic languages, but it has now become obsolete: research has shown that it was a geographic classification rather than a linguistic one. The Mordvinic languages are more closely related to the Finno-Lappic languages than they are to the Mari languages.
Another dispute surrounds the affinity of the Yukaghir languages, which is traditionally regarded as a language isolate, with some scholars proposing a strong affinity to Uralic (Collinder, 1965).
The relation of the Finno-Permic and the Ugric groups is remote by some standards. With a time depth of only 3 or 4 thousand years, it is far younger than many major families such as Indo-European or Semitic, and about the same age as, for instance, the Eastern subfamily of Nilotic. But the grouping is still far from transparent — the absence of early records constitutes an obstacle to exact reconstruction not found in, for example, Indo-European or Semitic. While much has been speculatively deduced about the Finno-Ugric Urheimat, little is certain, and, of course, the relatedness of the languages does not necessarily imply any racial or cultural unity of the peoples speaking them.
Linguists criticizing the Finno-Ugric group (e.g. Angela Marcantonio, see References) believe that Ugric and Finnic are more distantly related than proponents advertise, and possibly are no closer than the Turkic and Ugric groups. These linguists propose an Ural-Altaic supergroup. Such proposals do not contest the ultimate relatedness of Finno-Ugric, but rather try to include more languages (on even more tenuous grounds) into the family. Other supergroups have been advanced (Uralo-Dravidian, Finno-Basque, Hungaro-Sumerian) but are almost universally regarded as spurious.
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 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Classification", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
