Talk:Ugric peoples

Magyarab

Why would you mention Magyarab people in the article if the definition of Ugric peoples is a people speaking an Ugric language? It makes no sense. --Stacey Doljack Borsody 23:06, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Because they spoke an Ugric language in the past, so I think they should be mentioned. In this "compromise" version I did not mentioned them in the main list, but just noted in the end of the section that they exist too. What is wrong with that? PANONIAN (talk) 23:15, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Jasz

Ossetic/Iranian. Follow the links. "Considering themselves" doesn't make them racially Ugric, perhaps culturally, only.

~~Nemo Senki~~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.213.22.193 (talk) 20:56, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Untitled

props 47.17.239.56 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:54, 21 April 2016 (UTC)

Ugric peoples are a valid grouping

Some user named "Kwami" merged this article back in March without getting authorization to do so. According to WP, a merge has to be agreed first by a consensus of editors. This article existed for a long time, so it should be reinstated. Ugric peoples all have cultural, linguistic and genetic/ancestral links, which are the markers for an ethnic grouping. Khanty and Mansi people are particularly very close, as are Szeklers and Hungarians. There is a genetic subclade of N1-Tat which is also shared among all the Ugric speakers specifically. Although the Hungarians have only a minor amount of of Central Asian or Ugric admixture (5% to 7%), they are culturally and linguistically still linked to the other Ugric peoples of the Eurasian steppe and Ural mountains area. Ancient DNA has also shown the ancient Magyar conquerors to be closest to these Ugric populations of the central Asian steppe. Finally, Ugric languages are a universally accepted linguistic grouping, closest to one another, and distinct from all the other Uralic languages. 142.127.171.128 (talk) 20:52, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

There are several of us who've been cleaning up the dozens of spurious ethnographic articles on WP, over several years. It's been a lot of work.

The question is not whether the Magyar and other Uralic peoples share genetic ancestry, but whether there is any sense of ethnic identity. Linguistic classifications, which are often fleeting, do not create new ethnicities. Ethnicity is independent of linguistic theorizing, and usually only involves language to the degree that the relationship is transparent to speakers (e.g. Slavs, Turks). Historical linguistics does not discover hitherto unknown ethnic groups -- how can it discover something the people themselves don't know about, when ethnicity is based on self-identity?

Ugric may (or may not) be a valid linguistic grouping. But that's linguistics. Ethnography counts the Ob-Ugric peoples among the Finns, not with the Magyar, at least in the sources that I've seen. Certainly before linguists posited Ugric, the people themselves didn't see any such ethnic connection.

It's not true that Ugric is universally accepted. Recently several linguists have rejected Ugric as a linguistic grouping. Does that mean that the speakers' ethnicity is now invalid, that somehow they ceased to be Ugric? These are two different things, and we have consensus on WP to only create ethnographic articles for demonstrable ethnic groups. AFAICT, 'Ugric' has no meaning outside linguistics.

BTW, when the Ugric theory was first proposed by linguists, Hungarian nationalists were offended that they should be linked to the Ob-Ugric peoples. They certainly didn't see them as cousins. There was no ethnic identity there; they saw themselves as Turks. Whether the Hanti and Mansi saw each other as first cousins, I don't know, but they don't constitute Ugric.

@Austronesier: — kwami (talk) 21:12, 21 November 2019 (UTC)

Comment: Hungarians did not see themselves as Turks, but they considered a partial relation to the Turkic people next to other origin theories the supported.(KIENGIR (talk) 00:02, 22 November 2019 (UTC))

Ugric peoples are not a valid grouping. The main object of ethnology is not lumping ethnic groups together into greater entites, although some amateurs put much effort into that task. Maybe it used to be in the long-gone (?) era of Western suprematist thinking, but things have changed a lot, thanks to Franz Boas and many others. And when ethnologists occasionally assign ethnic groups into larger clusters, they do this based on cultural similarities which are shared to a significant degree, and not based on linguistic affiliation alone, nor based on splashes in the genetic signature. Such clusters may overlap with linguistic or genetic groupings, but very often they don't. It is the very fun of anthropological studies to put the different pieces together in order to obtain a picture of our prehistory, but simplistic models like the one-to-one idenfication of linguistic groupings with genetic grouping and applying them to ethnology and archeology won't help us to achieve that goal. In the case of of the Hungarian people, its ethnogenesis is much more complex as to reduce it to the component of shared linguistic ancestry with the Khanty and Mansi.

Apart from these theoretical objections, which may be considered a partisan POV which kwami and I share, the merger of this particular article is totally justified due its poor quality below the most basic WP standards. The IP editor wages an edit war for a page that does not contain a single reliable source for the very existence of the purported grouping "Ugric peoples"!

Final note: the Magyars were at some in history aligned with Turkic peoples (Khazars etc.), which certainly contributed to the complex ethnogensis of the Hungarians (and the multi-layered history of the Hungarian language). –Austronesier (talk) 09:38, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Do you know if the Khanty and Mansi considered themselves kin, before the Russians created a common republic for them (or even after)? We have an stub article on Ugrians, which I left alone as seemingly reasonable, but I don't know if there was any kind of exclusive sense of identity between them. — kwami (talk) 10:37, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Did someone mention Franz Boas here? Franz Boas has been debunked on several accounts, and much of his findings have been discredited. Much of "social constructionism" is ridiculous, unscientific and completely unfounded. Ethnicities are not simply 'constructed' artficially, but develop and evolve naturally from pre-existing geographic, cultural and physiological distinctions. Major physiological and genetic differences evolved in isolation between human groups over tens of millennia, going back over 200,000 years in the case of the Khoisan in south Africa (most recently estimated divergence time from the rest of humanity). There was also archaic admixture between some humans groups with specific other hominins. These observable differences were then commented on and demarcated by both the groups themselves, and outsiders they encountered. Human groups have long been differentiated by themselves and others on these factors in ancient texts, going back to those of the Egyptians, Chinese, Greeks and Romans who all commented on such things, as well as oral traditions from aboriginal groups. In any case, classifications and taxonomy are not about "supremacist" thinking, but are part of biology and ethnology. You have shown your own "partisan" POV here with that statement. In ethnology, groups are classified and grouped together based on physiological, genetic, cultural and linguistic relatedness - and YES, language is of course part of ethnology and anthropology. There is a whole sub-discipline of ethnolinguistics or linguistic anthropology. Groupings are made, frequently, on linguistic relation, since it most often implies, and is supported, by a genuine close cultural relationship (e.g. Nearly all Austronesian-speaking peoples for example have demonstrated shared cultural and religious traits, in addition to physical and now genetic relatedness to varying degrees). Genetic ancestry, actual or presumed, is also part of the classification. Ugrian or Ugric (NOT Uralic, but specifically Ugric) peoples share specific genetic and ancestral ties between them, especially the Khanty and Mansi (Ob-Ugric) on one hand and the Hungarians and Szekely on the other. The relation is not just genetic/ancestral or physiological, but also cultural and linguistic. This is especially the case with the Khanty and Mansi, who clearly have close ties and are aware of their similarities to one another, regardless of the actions of the Russian state. The same goes for the Hungarians, the Csango, the Szekely, the Paloc, etc. in the Carpathian Basin and Transylvania. Of course the Hungarians and the Ob-Ugrians likely did not know of each other or their relation until modern times, but they did know and recognize their relation to their closer Ugrian-speaking neighbours. The Hungarians and Szekely were long aware of their eastern and steppe origins in their customs, traditions, historical texts and foundation myths, even if it didn't specifically point to an Ugrian foundation. It did point specifically to their foundation by the ancient Magyars, who are known to have been both Ugrian and also partially Turkic (hence, the origin of that part of the myth). Recent ancient DNA studies on ancient Magyars have shown this predominant inner/central Asian and Ugrian (southern Uralic) ancestry.

Nonetheless, you have both made a point that this article is poorly sourced. On those grounds, I cannot contest anything. But if I return with valid sources pointing to the ethnological grouping of Ugric or Ob-Ugric peoples, being a subdivision of wider Uralic peoples, this article will be reinstated. 142.127.171.128 (talk) 12:38, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

See the article on Eastern Hungarians, and also Magna Hungaria - the eastern homeland known in Hungarian sources since the Middle Ages. 'Ugric peoples' or 'Ugrian' IS a valid scholarly term in showing the cultural, ancestral and linguistic relatedness between these peoples:

"Mansi (cognate with the Hungarian Magy-ar) and Khanty which probably denotes "people" (cf. the cognate Hungarian had "army, host" < hodu, < Finn-Ugric *konta). The question of how the name Ugra etc., deriving perhaps from Onoghur, came to be applied to them by the Rus' and Arab ..." 142.127.171.128 (talk) 12:52, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Moreover, there is already another article on Ugrians or "Ugrics" as a valid term or grouping of the Ob-Ugrian speakers AND for the ancestors of the Ugric-speaking peoples. 142.127.171.128 (talk) 12:59, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

References

Good to mention ethnolinguistics or linguistic anthropology, but neither discipline is concernced with the uncritical and pseudo-scientifc lumping of ethnic groups based on linguistic affiliation.

So, if "Ugric people" is a valid scholarly term, why does it not even appear in the quotes you cite? "Speakers of proto-Hungarian", "the linguistic ancestors of the Khanty and the Mansi"...nothing a about collection of modern ethnic groups called "Ugric peoples". "Mansi (cognate with the Hungarian Magy-ar)"...this is about the proposed etymology of the ethnonyms, nothing more, nothing less. No reference to "Ugric peoples". Valid sources that are just "pointing to the ethnological grouping of Ugric or Ob-Ugric peoples" won't help unless they explicitly propose these groupings. This article will be not be reinstated based on a creative reading of sources, which equals OR.

@kwami: Need to dive deeper for your last question. The are some historical etic concept like "Yugra" (perception by outsiders is also considered by ethnologists), but if any of these applied to the Khanty and Mansi only to the exclusion of extant neighboring ethnic groups, I will have to check. –Austronesier (talk) 13:50, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Ethnolinguistics and linguistic anthropology does cross over into ethnic classification and cultural anthropology. "Lumping" or grouping of ethnic groups based on linguistic affiliation most often correlates with cultural affiliation, and often also genetic, as shown by study after study. It is not "pseudoscientific" at all (where are you getting this nonsense??) and genetic studies often mention the high correlation between linguistic groups and genetic clustering, as well as the cultural relation between such groups. Austronesians are a perfect example - this linguistic grouping is also a valid cultural grouping, and also a genetic grouping, as there are varying levels of shared cultural and genetic traits among the majority of Austronesian-speaking groups.

As for Ugrics or Ugrians, the soures clearly mention Ugrians as an ancestral group of the Khanty, Mansi and Hungarian peoples, specifically denoting a close link between the proto-Hungarians or ancient Magyars and the ancestors of the Khanty and Mansi. Ugrian and Ugric are thus used as a linguistic and cultural classifier in this context for the ancestors of these groups. Magna Hungaria is known in Hungarian sources from Medieval times to be the homeland of their Magyar ancestors far to the east, and in Central Asia. In any case, Ugrians is already an article with valid sources, and is a term used in the academic literature to refer to the Khanty and Mansi collectively, as well as to their ancestors and the Magyar ancestors of the Hungarians. The only point you can make here is whether or not the term includes the Hungarians of today. Hungarians are certainly referred to as an Ugrian-speaking group, because their closer linguistic affiliation to Ob-Ugric than to other Uralic languages is without doubt. 142.127.171.128 (talk) 14:31, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

The sources specifically mention how the Mansi and Khanty have long been grouped together under the ethnonym of "Ugrian", and also how academics group the proto-Hungarians or ancient Magyars as under such a group: "the name Ugra etc., deriving perhaps from Onoghur, came to be applied to them (Khanty and Mansi) by the Rus' and Arab". 142.127.171.128 (talk) 14:36, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Within 24 hours, the IP editor has changed ad lib the purported definition of "Ugric peoples" from including the present-day "Hungarians, Székelys, Khanty, and Mansi" to being equivalent to "Ugrians" thus inlcuding Khanty, Mansi and (without support from any cited source yet) the "proto-Hungarians or ancient Magyars".

Since we haven't seen a source yet that speaks of "Ugric people", the target of the redirect becomes arbitrary, which actually calls for an RfD. But since "Ugric peoples" might still be understood as a sloppy shorthand for "Ugric-speaking peoples", the redirect to "Ugric languages" makes most sense at the moment. –Austronesier (talk) 15:11, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

Yes, it seems to be based on the linguistic construct. Of course, if we could show that the linguistic construct were based on an ethnic one, that would complicate things, but IMO that should still be the target. — kwami (talk) 21:01, 22 November 2019 (UTC)

The IP's claim is hardly tenable and I agree the claimed theories are obsolete and very disputable as well in a the modern context.(KIENGIR (talk) 01:02, 23 November 2019 (UTC))

I've provided sources above clearly stating that Ugrian IS a term for the grouping of the Ob-Ugric speakers - Khanty and Mansi. It also shows how it refers to the proto-Hungarians or ancient Magyars. I'm not sure what kwami means by a "linguistic construct". The languages of the groups are closely related, and they all have ancestral and cultural affiliations - it's a valid ethnological grouping used in academic literature. Kwami seems to have trouble grasping the fact that such groupings do not have to consist of groups that are identical to one another, only that they have a significant bonds based on ancestry (even if minimal in some cases), culture and language. It is not a "construct", but an observation and a valid term used in sources already provided. There already is an article on Ugrians that has academic sources. Ugrians or Ugric peoples clearly has support for a grouping of the Khanty and Mansi, and the ancient Hungarians. Whether or not it is a term that includes modern Hungarians is all that is up for debate. There is no question of a cultural, linguistic and ancestral link of the Hungarians to the other Ugric peoples, and to Uralic peoples in general. Finnic peoples and Samoyedic peoples are valid groupings under Uralic peoples. The Hungarians, Khanty and Mansi do not fall within these subgroups however, and all the sources and evidence provided shows them to form their own subgrouping, termed Ugrian or Ugric.

The Ugrians article can be included to also be Ugric peoples, and again as the sources show, this term is used as a grouping in the literature for Khanty and Mansi. The possible inclusion of the Hungarian groups can be included with discussion on whether they are part of such a grouping or not 142.127.171.128 (talk) 01:17, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

@142.127.171.128: Talking about sources, have you actually read the chapter by Kálmán? –Austronesier (talk) 16:31, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Much discussion of this indeed often attempts to pull off an etymological fallacy — the names "Mansi" and "Magyar" (and moreover the Khanty phratry måńť ~ moś) are known to be partially cognate, but this does not actually establish them as "the same people", any more than, say, the Tavastians and the Saami (hämäläiset ~ sápmelážžit, both from a common ethnonym *šämäläŋćät). All across documented history, "Ugric peoples" clearly only exist in the plural and only as a linguistic grouping. Perhaps the linguistic evidence can allow inferring a different situation in the past… but as long as sociology is not reconstructible, Wikipedia has no business creating articles for hypothetical peoples who have not been documented by any source.

If IP or anyone wants to write about the scarce cultural commonalities between the Hungarians and the Ob-Ugrians, probably a section in Ugric languages or the currently-redirect Proto-Ugric language would be the best place for it. --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 21:21, 2 December 2019 (UTC)