This is an archive of past discussions about Uralic languages. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
The classification of the Finnish "languages" is not correct, because it is rather political than linguistical. Meänkieli and Kven Finnish are North Finnish dialects that are spoken in Sweden and Norway, whereas Ingrian Finnish is a southeastern dialect spoken in Ingria (Ingermanland).
Why palatalization was removed from the list of common features? --Hippophaë 22:39, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
it was my belief that palatalisation was not a common feature of these languages! Mk270 00:36, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
According to "The Uralic Languages" (edited by Daniel Abandolo), palatalization is a feature of every language discussed in the book. They include Erzya, Meadow Mari, Hill Mari, Komi, Udmurt, Khanty, Mansi, Hungarian, Nenets, Selkup, Nganasan, Kamassian, Livonian, Estonian, Finnish (eastern dialects), Votic, Veps, and Northern Sami. There was no information on some minor languages in the book, but it can be easily seen that palatalization is common in every branch of the Uralic language family. --Hippophaë 06:07, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Ok, I shall check that out. I'm only familiar with Finnish and Hungarian, and wasn't aware of palatalisation (as I understand it) in either of them. Mk270 10:23, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Needless to say, I was wrong. I've checked out the book and it turns out that the only Uralic languages I know about are the only ones lacking the feature I was asserting was not common to the group. A bit of an embarrassment :) Sorry. Mk270 17:24, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
There was a long discussion regarding cases in Hungarian on this talk page (see archive). I think I got closer to the root of the problem (misunderstanding). Please see: Talk:Hungarian language#Cases in Hungarian. I also tried to include a paragraph on this in Hungarian_language#Nouns. I'd like to ask linguists to review and correct it. Thanks. nyenyec☎ 17:34, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)
A case is an inflectional form of a noun, adjective, pronoun, numeral, infinitive, participle, and adverb. This definition does not take a stance on the way, how the case is formed. There are many methods, e.g. using suffixes or prefixes, changing the stem, and inflecting the article. --Hippophaë 22:53, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Tooth
Someone replaced "pii" with "hammas" as the Finnish cognate for "tooth". This is obviously not cognate to the rest, but does "pii" have some special semantics we should know about? - Mustafaa 02:51, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
"Pii" has various meanings in Finnish and the other Baltic-Finnic langauges, and it is used both in the anatomy and agriculture. It may be a tooth of many tools, e.g. comb, rake, harrow, and saw. It also means the vertebrae of a spine (selkäpii). "Pii" lost its meaning as a "tooth" with which one can bite, after the word "hammas" was borrowed from the Indo-European languages (Latvian zobs, Lithuanian žam̃bas, žam̃bis, Church Slavonic zǫbŭ). --Hippophaë 17:54, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Note: Proto-Uralic
I've written an article about Proto-Uralic, but as I am not a linguist, it'd be nice to have an expert to check the facts, as I noticed that the texts were from different years and disagreed on many points. --Vuo16:58, 31 July 2005 (UTC)
In Russian, 'sh' and 'tsh' are called "palatal" or even "palatalized"(!). This is seen as a diachronic process. In Uralic languages, palatalization (liudentuminen) means only the standard synchronic phonetic palatalization. Affrication or postalveolar frication is seen as a completely different phonemic feature. This is like /æ/ is sometimes called "short A" and /script-a/ is called a "long A" in English, while these are different phonemes in Finnish. Applying the term "short A" on Finnish 'Ä' is just like applying the ambiguous meaning of "palatalization" on Uralic languages. --Vuo20:40, 31 August 2005 (UTC)
Just for the record, the sound you describe as script-a is usually called 'broad a' amongst those who consider it a species of A-sound (Americans, I believe, consider it a species of O-sound). The 'long A' in English is the vowel of name, day, and is usually a diphthong, something like /ei/ (ranging from [e(ː)] in parts of Scotland, Canada to [æi] in Australia). Short A is considered a different phoneme from both broad and long A, but for phonological and orthographical reasons, it is handy to have such words. —Felix the Cassowary(ɑe hɪː jɐ)03:58, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
In Hungarian, there are palaTAL consonants, in Russian, there a palaTIZED ones. These are different, but close to each other ([c]~[tʲ]), though there is only a barely noticeable difference. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.24.189.120 (talk) 20:46, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
Shifted cells in cognates table
I think the cells in the cognates table have shifted:
láb means leg in Hungarian
gyalog means on foot (as in 'go on foot') in Hungarian
I don't know where the 'laamp(a) (Selkup)' cell should be shifted, though. Could someone please correct this? Nyenyec 06:15, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
This anonymous edit added a new Võro column, and forgot to shift the cells in the second "leg" row. Fixed. Dbenbenn 08:44, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Looks like someone got happy with the cells again. I got rid of the random Selkup language box someone stuck under the Hungarian column and put "láb" and "gyalog" into the same box as both are Hungarian and pertain to the "leg" row. Deleted the extra empty "leg" row. JFHJr (㊟) 18:55, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
So, I suspect there is an error in this cell. Could someone please check it and correct, if that's true.--Imz01:37, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
You're right, I removed the Mordvin form, as it doesn't exist. The verb meaning 'to live' in Mordvin is indeed (Erzya) eŕa-, (Moksha) äŕa-, but this can't be cognate because there is no change *l > r in Mordvin and the vowel does not match either. --AAikio13:12, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, and il'e- (according to that table) looks rather like a Mari stem, and ila-, which is listed as Mari, looks rather like a Selkup stem. (Heh, that's a pity that Selkup is missing in the table in the article.)--Imz01:50, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Urheimat usage
This line could use some revision:
"The name "Uralic" refers to the location of the family’s suggested Urheimat (homeland), which is often placed in the vicinity of the Ural mountains."
It's the "... suggested Urheimat (homeland) ..." that bothers me - I find it incredibly ambiguous and clumsy. "Urheimat" in that sentence seems at first glance to be talking about the origin of the word "Uralic", and otherwise could refer to a word common to Uralic languages. The parenthetical doesn't help much with this. I'm puzzled as to how to fix the sentence, though, so I'm leaving it as is for now. Dextrose07:46, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Urheimat is a widely-used term in linguistics and the addition of an English explanatory word ("homeland") between parentheses is already an excess of caution. Those not familiar with the term need only click on the link to find out all they need to know about its usage in the appropriate Wikipedia article. Despite the purely fortuitous coincidence of the initial Ur- in this word and in the Ural Mountains, there is absolutely no confusion here. Pasquale16:33, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm not trying to be confrontational here, but you're wrong. I don't know how you can say "there is absolutely no confusion here" when I just told you it confused me. As basically an amateur in the field of linguistics, I was confused by it. Perhaps the article needs no deeper an explanation of the term Urheimat, but the syntax could, I'm sure, be better. Wikipedia is about clearly communicating ideas, not elitism. Dextrose20:15, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm no linguist, and it actually took Pasquale's comment to see what you're confused about (that both begin with "ur-"). I think you could rearrange it like The name "Uralic" refers to the Ural mountains, into whose vicinity the family’s suggested Urheimat (homeland) is often placed but that wouldn't make it any clearer. --Vuo09:42, 25 October 2007 (UTC)
I have to agree with the original complaint. I am not a linguist (Wikipedia is NOT strictly for linguists) but I do have a strong fascination with linguistics, particularly with linguistic origins. When I came across the "urheimat" reference (with its obvious Germanic origins), and even though I am familiar with the word and its origins, I had to do some cross-referencing to clarify that it wasn't an attempt to place the Uralic and the IE "urheimat" as identical. Excusing the confusion with paranthetical references is no excuse; the article should stand on its own in the context of its audience. Perhaps switching the reference with its paranthetic counterpart, from "Urheimat (homeland)" to "homeland (see:Urheimat)", would be more appropriate.
Very vague
The sound laws in the selected cognates are very vague. "s" appears and disappears.
"l" appears and disappears. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.143.5.71 (talk) 10:08, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
Finnish "k" is variously said to be equivalent to Hungarian "k", "h" and no consonant. No explanation is given. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.41.51.240 (talk) 10:56, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
The type of vowel, back or front, is mentioned in another article. This does not explain "k" vanishing. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.149.223.218 (talk) 13:10, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
See Finnish Maksa. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.149.223.218 (talk) 13:12, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
The map
The first map on the page is misleading. It shows different branches of Uralic languages, andYukaghir languages, whose relation to Uralic languages is only a weak hypothesis. The map gives an impression that Yukaghir languages are a part of Uralic languages (or that the Uralic languages stretch so far), and you must read the article carefully to find out that this is not the case. There are also many other theories about which language families Uralic languages are related to, but they are not shown on that map either. Tuohirullapuhu15:53, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
Cognate details
My Finnish etymology dictionary (Nykysuomen etymologinen sanakirja, WSOY 2004, Kaisa Häkkinen) has slightly different original forms for most of the selected cognates. Mostly marked as Proto-Finno-Ugric, however. I'll put this up for comments before I change anything:
1) Longer and more specific roots
*śüδä-mɜ instead of *śüδɜm
*süle instead of sülɜ
*sōne instead of *suonɜ
*mene- instead of *min-
*käte instead of *kätɜ
*piŋe instead of *piŋ
*tule instead of *tulɜ
/ɜ/ marks "vowel of uncertain quality" in the UPA; so do I have newer information here or does the situation go fuzzy between PFU and PU?
Also, original /uo/ in "vein" surely is wrong? /o:/ > /uo/ was a change that spread thru northern Finno-Samic during the first millenia AD.
Yep, the reconstructions were pretty messed up, so I made a quick fix. Now they're in line with the system in Pekka Sammallahti 1988, Historical Phonology of the Uralic Languages, which is the most up-to-date source. Häkkinen's dictionary merely mechanically copies its reconstructions from Uralisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, which is outdated anyway. Moreover, the selection of example words in the table could certainly be improved. E.g. the words for 'heart' and 'father' show major phonological irregularities and are hence not good examples of sound correspondences. Maybe I'll try to improve the table in this respect in the future. --AAikio09:31, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
I can only suspect that native Hungarian speakers are going to look at the cognate table and continue to add tűz without looking first at the history to see that it keeps getting removed. Perhaps some sort of note in the table itself would be in order? --Stacey Doljack Borsody17:16, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
Btw, the vowel system of PFU and PU has several competing reconstructions, that might explain _some_ of the differences between Tropylium's list and the "original" one. Szabi (talk) 23:06, 9 November 2008 (UTC)
Hungarian word for "fire"
I noticed a note in the table that says not to add "tűz" to the table, because it is not a cognate. What is the evidence that it is not a cognate? The only information I can find is from Wiktionary[1], which claims that it is. Thanks. — Emiellaiendiay19:01, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
You are right, such a hungarian word cannot be cognate for Proto-Uralic *tuli 'fire': both the vowel and the inner consonant are unacceptable so there is nothing common but initial t. Sammallahti's word list (1988: "Historical phonology of the Uralic languages" in The Uralic Languages, edited by Denis Sinor) does not mention any Ugric cognates. --Jaakko Häkkinen (talk) 22:42, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
The same similarity holds for e.g. Indo-European, which is why Eurasiatic or Nostratic are posited. There is no reason to believe an especially close relationship between Uralic and Altaic exists (which was proposed long ago and now widely rejected). And basing one purely on pronouns of modern-day languages, there is similarly 'good' evidence as this for a relationship between Basque and the Northeast Caucasian languages, take a look at this, page 8, then. --JorisvS (talk) 10:43, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
Ural and Altaic language families share much more thing then any other proposed language families. I think pan-aryan or ultra-christian people of europe has seperated these language families hundred years ago. They want to continue to wash people's mind with their fake evidences now. Ural-Altaic is one language family. --Finn Diesel (talk) 13:08, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
Do you want anyone to take you seriously if you say this? Can you come up with reliable sources to substatiate your claim that there is much more genetic evidence (instead of it (as a node) being discredited)? As a note, also consider that Altaic itself is currently disputed. --JorisvS (talk) 13:58, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
As we seen in the Bulgarian case (converting Turkic language into the another one), Europe wanted to convert both Hungarian and Finnish elites by replacing Swedish and Slavic words to their original languages too, but they didn't succeed, now Vatican and EU want to go with another way. This has nothing to do with science.--Finn Diesel (talk) 23:13, 12 July 2010 (UTC)
Bulgarian language was a Turkic language in medival europe, in 13. century it was changed into slavic by replacing thousands slavic words in it. it was made by european ultra-christians and yes that was their victory. with the same way, European union (former name: commision of europe) wanted to make the same goal with hungarian and finnish languages, they were categorized as Altaic languages in the beginning of 20. century but now they are seperated and it has nothing to do with linguistics. and uralic language has nothing to do with indo-european language family.--94.54.240.54 (talk) 14:11, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
Haha, you are really confusing things. Bulgar was a (yes, Turkic!) language, but it wasn't changed into a Slavic language by lexical borrowing, but simply went extinct (displaced by other languages). Modern Bulgarian is NOT descended from Bulgar, the only similarity here is in the name. And no one is trying to IE-ify Hungarian or Finnish, least the EU. Why don't you back up your exotic claims, huh? --JorisvS (talk) 14:41, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
"This has nothing to do with science." Boy, you got that part right! This whole discussion has nothing to do at all with either science or improving the encyclopedia. --Stacey Doljack Borsody (talk) 18:11, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
There are lots of linguists around here. The section is a summary of several hypotheses for external relations of Uralic. UA is just one, and an obsolete one at that, yet you wish to promote that particular hypothesis on this page. That is non-WP:NPOV. The info you are adding already exists on the UA page, where interested readers can see it. — kwami (talk) 07:58, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
Have (2)
There is no need to say that Uralic languages lack a "have" verb. It's enough to say that locative or dative constructions are used. Lack of "have" verb is not unique to Uralic (Proto-IE lacked it too), so it bloats the article unnecessarily. --88.112.193.101 (talk) 10:02, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
"Uralian" is not a term that is in common use for this language family. Of the two references that were added to support it, one was in French not English, and listed not a single English language source that used "Uralian". The other was a single reference. "Uralian" is not in use on either side of the Atlantic except by a very rare scholar. Multiple sources can be cited for "Uralic" from native speakers of English as well as non-native speakers of English in English-language sources. Aside from one or two rare sources, "Uralian" is not in use. To characterize "Uralian" as British and "Uralic" as American shows a remarkable lack of knowledge of the actual sources. --Taivo (talk) 18:24, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
It's true "Uralic" is more common term. Originally "Uralian" was used by European sources as "Uralic" has it's roots in American English. However to claim that "Uralian languages" is not used at all is incorrect. Although it is an older form it's still used nowadays, published since 1990 there are about 452 results of "Uralian languages" on google books. So "one or two rare sources" simply isn't true.--Termer (talk) 19:41, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
PS.Additionally, the claim in the article that the term "Finno-Ugric" is older than "Uralic" isn't correct either. The fact is, the term such as "Finno-Ugric' was only introduced by the paper of Donner in 1879, referred to as Ugro-Finnic at the time. The term Uralic however goes way back and was used originally as a synonym for what became later known as Finno-Permic languages. For example Strahlenberg never used the word Finno-ugric like some sources claim. The word he used was "Ujgur".--Termer (talk) 19:55, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
Denis Sinor: Concerning the basic terms of "Uralic" and "Finno-Ugric" I opted for these forms, used mainly in the United States versus "Uralian" or "Finno-Ugrian" preferred by the Brittish
Nope. The use of "Uralic" is far more common than just the United States. There is no such distinction in terminology between British and American English. Your previous parenthetical note is preferable with "Uralian" as an occassional option. Using the same parameters in Google Books as you used above, there were 7630 occurrences of "Uralic", so it's clear that "Uralic" is far more widely used than just the U.S. If this distinction were, indeed, a US/British distinction, then the numbers would be much more balanced between US usage and British usage. But since there are over 7000 uses of "Uralic" and fewer than 500 uses of "Uralian", that clearly shows that there is no such distinction. Or do you want me to go through each of those 7000 references and show you how many of those scholars are British? I assure you that the number of British authors in that 7000 is not trivial (David Crystal, for example). --Taivo (talk) 08:32, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
-the numbers would be much more balanced between US usage and British usage. not necessarily, Sinor continues the quote above with..."simply because more was written in American than in English on Finno Ugric topics".
-Or do you want me to go through each of those 7000 references and show you how many of those scholars are British. I don't, they would call it WP:OR and possibly WP:SYN on wikipedia. I'd rather have you refer to a WP:RS to back up what you claim is true. And even the fact that some British scholars may use American while writing about Uralic topics in no way would contradict what Sinor says.
-The second source on your google books search is a clone of wikipedia.
-You didn't give any good reasons for removing the source from the article.
-Since you insist on your opinion,There is no such distinction in terminology between British and American English and remove the source that clearly spells out quite opposite, sorry but I have to let the community to decide who is right here, either Denis Sinor or Taivo. This question is going to be listed on WP:RSN.--Termer (talk) 15:12, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
The fundamental problem you have is that you want to divide American usage from British usage when British usage is not uniform at all. You have a single source that says there is a tendency, but this is not the same as "British = X and American = Y" at all (unlike, for example, British "boot" and American "trunk", which are clearly divided). You cannot say that British English is "Uralian" when so many Brits use "Uralic". --Taivo (talk) 19:12, 5 June 2011 (UTC)
well, it's not me who wants it, it's what I've read from the book by Sinor Davis, and just figured it's an interesting angle on the history of the terms worth mentioning in the article. But since its not going anywhere, I got to drop it, at least for now until there's "more evidence" that Sinor, a "Distinguished Professor Emeritus" like they put it got it right indeed or messed it up badly instead. Well, at least we made some progress here by finding middle ground in "sometimes referred to as Uralian languages". Thanks for your input!--Termer (talk) 04:12, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
I'd like to note that Sinor wrote that bit twenty-three years ago; it can hardly be treated as current. I'll take a note to check what Daniel Abondolo's 1998 handbook says on the topic… --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah21:27, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
The first time the term Finno-Ugric appears however is by Jozsef Budenz in his Magyar es finn-ugor nyelvekbeli szoegyezesek (Word comparisons in the field of Hungarian and Finno-Ugric languages) in 1867-88. Next it's Kai Donner who in 1879 spells out "Finno-Ugric" in his Die gegenseitige Verwandtschaft der Finnisch-Ugrischen Sprachen. Any comments anybody, am I missing something here or? Thanks!--Termer (talk) 06:04, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
Sorry if I wasn't clear enough, it might have been confusing if you were not familiar with the edit history: this edit claims the term "Finno-Ugric" is an older term compared to "Uralic languages". What I was saying , it seems to be quite opposite. As "Uralic languages" looks like was coined by Julius Klaproth in 1823 vs. the term "Finno-Ugric languages" that was first used by Jozsef Budenz around 1867.--Termer (talk) 14:20, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
I guess the mention was meant to point to that the term "Finno-Ugric languages" can in the present use mean Uralic languages; there is no more distinction between the two, because it has been argued that Samoyed was not the first entity to split off. --Jaakko Häkkinen (talk) 16:33, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
The location of urheimat
The location of Uralic languages urheimat has not been identified with Ural mountains for decades. One of the reasons is that there has been a constant flow of loan words from Indo-European languages to Uralic languages as long as can be seen with any precise. This means Uralic languages were "always" spoken in the proximity of Indo-European languages. There are many hypotheses about urheimat of Indo-European languages, but urheimat of Uralic languages must be close that. There are also many other reasons to place the F-U urheimat clearly in the Europe, and not in the border of Europe and Asia. For first aid, see Finnish people and History of Finland. Tuohirullapuhu15:37, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
There is no such thing as a "Uralic people", so I merged that article here. I wonder, however, is there is a Finnic or Samoyed ethnicity either. Are these also just linguistic constructs, or actual? kwami (talk) 23:23, 26 January 2009 (UTC)
"Finnic" and "Samoyed" ethnicities don't exist either. Common proto-Finnic and proto-Samoyed languages most probably DID exist several millenia ago, but of course they did not refer to themselves with these names. However, I think these peoples were much more monohaplogroupic Haplogroup N (Y-DNA) than modern ones (most modern ones are still quite N-dominant). СЛУЖБА (talk) 06:59, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
Uralic Studies and an "Indo-European Impetus"
I wonder if the some of the phrasing on this page needs a check. This is what it says in reference to the start of Uralic studies
"These two authors were thus the first to outline what was to become the classification of the Finno-Ugric (and later Uralic) family. This proposal received some of its initial impetus from the fact that these languages, unlike most of the other languages spoken in Europe, are not part of the Indo-European family."
However, the beginning of modern Indo-European studies (at least according to the "standard" history of IES) begins in with William Jones in 1786. I have no doubt that there was some Goropianist who made an earlier proposal that resembled Indo-European, but if I remember correctly Vogel's dissertation on a Finnish-Hungarian connection is about a decade older than Jones's famous speech about Sanskrit, Latin, and Greek.
That being the case, it would be more correct to say that part of the initial impetus for comparing Finnish and Hungarian is that they are obviously different from other European languages, and we now understand those differences to result from different family memberships. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zloop (talk • contribs) 03:10, 29 October 2012 (UTC)
Potential Cognates
Hello, I have been wondering about the origin of the Finnish word "lippu", meaning "flag" (in most senses), and I have found some potential cognates: Estonian lipp (almost certain), Saami (not sure which language thereof) leavga, and Hungarian lobogó, all of which mean "flag" or "banner". Can we verify that this is a common root of Proto-Uralic origin? If so, can we reconstruct a Proto-Uralic form, and if not, can we consider another source for these four terms? Much appreciated, Jackwolfroven (talk) 18:49, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
Although this is not the place to be discussing general Uralic etymology… according to the database, Northern Sami leavga is of Scandinavian origin. Lippu (derived from lippa "flap, visor"; don't recall offhand if this word is known beyond Finnish) does not seem possible to relate to Hungarian lobogó either which would rather presume PU *lumpVŋkV. The apparent root *lippa might derive from a Germanic origin akin to English slip. --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah20:25, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
Bullshit
The presentation of this article is bullshit. It gives the recent politically-biased view propagated by the rulers of Finland and Estonia as the "dominant" one. СЛУЖБА (talk) 07:08, 18 June 2012 (UTC)
This isn't the Russian Wikipedia, this is the English Wikipedia. If you have objections to this article, then please provide some evidence for your point-of-view. --Taivo (talk) 05:15, 19 June 2012 (UTC)
And how is this view "politically biased"? More westerly breakup is indeed a new theory, which is why we do not yet present it as a fact here (instead we present the current situation as "no consensus"). If you can add sources in direct defense of FU / Samoyedic, that would be interesting (though IMO, all the arguments I have seen for it are far weaker than the ones I've seen for East Uralic / West Uralic). Note however that almost anything coming from before the introduction of the recent "Finnish school" skeptical analysis (or published without consideration of their critique) does not actually do this: before this FU was simply taken as consensus and it's easy to find "supporting" citations that actually present no argument whatsoever. --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah20:36, 25 December 2012 (UTC)
The East Uralic / West Uralic is even more realistic according to Y-DNA. But East Uralic / West Uralic has nothing to do with the Volga-Kama multibranching "Finnish school". The current article at present is almost entirely based on "Finnish school". СЛУЖБА (talk) 01:20, 26 December 2012 (UTC)
DNA is utterly irrelevant to linguistic classification and subgrouping.
In the absence of a consensus, the strength of the "comb" with nine branches (excluding Merya, Meshcherian and Muromian, which cannot be classified precisely) according to Salminen is merely its agnostic nature. It's the minimal consensus, and thus the equivalent of a null hypothesis in other fields, because every study on the subject will try to demonstrate a more "interesting" tree; the "comb" is the neutral, default assumption considering that only the nine branches Salminen accepts are uncontroversial – that's why we use it for practical purposes.
The term "Finnish school" is quite funny, considering that it consists of a single scholar who has argued against the validity of the traditional binary tree and pointed out that for the time being, the flat, comb/rake-like arrangement is the best working hypothesis, which is so trivial that it's hardly the basis for a "school". Or does pointing out the obvious advantages of a "comb" in Indo-European mean that you're part of some school?
Keep in mind that Häkkinen is clearly not part of the "Finnish school" supposedly established by Salminen, as he advocates East Uralic. My personal impression of the arguments in favour of an Ugro-Samoyedic branch happens to be positive, too, but remember that East Uralic being valid does not imply the validity of a West Uralic branch comprising the remainder. East Uralic is just a POV among several, while the "comb" is privileged thanks to its requiring fewer assumptions than other arrangements. Shared innovations reveal contradictory trees and no argument that some innovations are more relevant than others has managed to sway a majority of experts so far. The current situation is a stalemate. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:28, 7 January 2013 (UTC)
I never said DNA is relevant to linguistic CLASSIFICATION or SUBGROUPING, but languages are being spoken by some people, that bear some DNA.
It was not me who introduced the term "Finnish school" to the discussion.
I'm of quite high opinion on Häkkinen, since he also studies Y-DNA, and quite profoundly.
I don't quite get what You mean by "the comb is privileged thanks to its requiring fewer assumptions than other arrangements".
I've tried to keep this and the FU article in agreement on the facts that FU is traditionally assumed, currently disputed, and founded on only a small number of arguments. You're free to work on the articles further if there are other particular details that still need adjustment.
I agree that I don't see a reason to privilege the comb model: in a scientific discussion the point of fewer assumptions would largely stand (though an exactly simultaneous fracture in this manner seems unlikely), but this is Wikipedia and we don't get to apply arguments of our own on which positions to elevate. Yet though, the NPOV of presenting nine basic branches and several models on their interrelationships looks rather similar to what could be called a "strict comb model". Perhaps there is some confusion among editors on if we are doing the former or the latter?
BTW, by "the Finnish school" I did not mean "scholars disputing the binary model" as much as "scholars working in the framework of Proto-Uralic as reconstructed by Janhunen and Sammallahti". Some quite different views have been proposed, e.g. a reconstruction published by Gyula Décsy considers the "East Uralic" situation with *s and *t [sic] rather than *ś and *s/*š the original one (though I think these have been left minority views; I have yet to add a mention of them). Also the comb model & similar skeptical views are not due to Salminen, these have already been advocated by e.g. Kaisa Häkkinen since the 80s.
Worth restating too: the complement of East Uralic is the Finno-Permic, which should not be confused with "West Uralic", a name that has been used for grouping of Finnic+Samic+Mordvinic. --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah14:38, 27 January 2013 (UTC)
should be renamed to Uralic language family
uralic languages implies the list of languages spoken butthis article is about the family. All discussion about the language family should be about the language family. 99.226.242.202 (talk) 20:00, 30 March 2013 (UTC)
No, it is the wiki convention that articles about language families are located at 'XX languages'. This avoids the issue whether it is a coherent family (e.g. disputed as in Altaic languages or convenience terms like Khoisan languages). --JorisvS (talk) 21:46, 1 April 2013 (UTC)
"No verb for have"
From the "typology" section:
"no verb for "have". Note that all Uralic languages have verbs with the meaning of "own" or "possess", but these words are not used in the same way as English "have". Instead, the concept of "have" is indicated with alternative syntactic structures. For example, Finnish uses existential clauses; the subject is the possession, the verb is "to be" (the copula), and the possessor is grammatically a location and in the adessive case: "Minulla on kala", literally "I_on is fish", or "I have a fish (some fish)". In addition, Finnish can also employ possessive suffixes, e.g. "Minulla on kalani", literally "I_on is fish_my", or "I do have my own fish". In Hungarian: "Van egy halam", literally "Is a fish_my", or "I have a fish"."
Is this appropiate to have here? There was no verb for "have" in Proto-Indo-European either (the "have" verbs in different branches of IE have no etymological connection -> no PIE reconstruction available). Instead, PIE used constructions with dative or genitive + third person of "be", cf. Latin mihi est or the first sentence of Schleicher's fable: *owis kwesyo wlna ne est (sheep whose wool no was = a sheep, which didn't have wool).
Also, there is nothing special in mihi est constructions, many other families, including Indo-European, have similar constructions. It seems that "have" is an European areal feature, which by coincidence have not entered e.g. Finnish and Hungarian. According to wals.info, Khanty and Mansi have "have" structure. --88.112.227.122 (talk) 14:20, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
Translating "minulla on kala" as "I_on is fish" is rather misleading. The literal translation would be "on me is a/the fish" or (in better English) "there is a fish on me" -- definitely "a" fish ("some fish" would be represented as "minulla on kalaa"). The word "on" in this sentence is the third person singular of the verb "to be", i.e., "is". However, no native speaker would understand this to mean that the fish is on top of or all over the person. The form "minulla on kalani" translates as "I have my fish", but while "minä syön kalani" means "I eat (all of) my fish" (both singular and plural) both as a general pattern of behavior and as a future intention (I will ...), "minä syön kalaani" means "I am eating my fish (at the moment)".--Death Bredon (talk) 21:30, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
Another thing is this:
"use of postpositions as opposed to prepositions (prepositions are uncommon)."
The typology section describes general characteristics of the language family. That PIE had similar features has little to no bearing on this article. It's like saying that PIE has the vowel 'e' or that English exhibits agglutination. They do, but it doesn't inform about Uralic languages! --Stacey Doljack Borsody (talk) 15:56, 30 October 2010 (UTC)
I find it a bit strange to characterise the Finno-Ugric languages this way. What does it actually tell that those languages are lacking of special characters of Indo-European languages? A good example is the he/she thing; having the separate genders in personal pronouns is a character of Indo-European languages. Finno-Ugric languages are not distinctive in this matter, because a number of other language families don't have this character either. Or could we characterise the Indo-European languages correspondingly as languages without vowel harmony? --Gwafton (talk) 00:00, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
Apparently the original had a vague intention to demonstrate that Uralic languages are not Indo-European. That's obvious to anyone familiar to how languages are classified (i.e. what is a language family in the first place), but not necessarily to the general public. Indo-European is the natural comparison since for most Uralic languages it is the only continuing contact to a foreign language family. For instance, around the Baltic Sea region, the languages (Baltic-Finnic and Sami families) are surrounded exclusively by Indo-European languages (Russian, Norwegian, Swedish, Latvian, German). This is not an excuse but an explanation. --vuo (talk) 23:19, 15 August 2013 (UTC)
Mordvin
The lead cites Uralic languages with the most native speakers. Shouldn't we mention Mordvin (or Moksha and Erzya) there? According to this [2] source, there were 740.000 people in Russia in 1989 who spoke Mordvin as mother tongue. This source [3] talks about 1,200,000 speakers. Ethnologue shows 514,330 population for them in 2010 (Erzya: [4], Moksha: [5]).
KœrteFa{ταλκ}14:39, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
Okay, I going to put it in the lead. I know that there is a debate whether Mordvin is one language with two dialects [6][7] or Moksha and Erzya are two different languages [8], but for simplicity, I will just use Mordvin there (the reader can follow the link and read about what Mordvin is in the corresponding article). If you disagree, I also agree with explicitly writing Moksha and Erzya in the lead. Cheers, KœrteFa{ταλκ}12:28, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
Also Komi with 200K+ speakers is not far behind from the other Uralic languages of the Volga region. Including all five (i.e. eight altogether, with H+F+E) would perhaps be the most consistent. The jump from there on to the next most widely spoken languages (Northern Sami with 20K speakers, Karelian with 35K etc.) is rather more drastic than the differences between these. --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah16:35, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
Thanks and yes, I agree that the best would be to also include Komi. You talked about "all five", does it mean that you also suggest mentioning Moksha and Erzya separately? Cheers, KœrteFa{ταλκ}12:43, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
We maintain separate articles for them so linking them separately seems like a good idea. OTOH we don't actually have independent speaker numbers for the two, due to Russian census practices. Primary sources I've seen to tackle this resort to a rule-of-thumb that Erzya speakers would be some ⅔ of the "Mordvin" speakers. But since we're only stating that they are "among the larger ones", having exact numbers doesn't seem necessary. --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah13:02, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
Kwamikagami reverted the text[9], claiming in the edit comment "that's the opposite of what it states". However the cited source (Tommola, Hannu (2010). "Finnish among the Finno-Ugrian languages") clearly states:
"Finno-Ugrian is sometimes used as a synonym for Uralic, but, more accurately, Uralic is used in a wider sense; the smaller Samoyedic branch is also descended from Proto-Uralic"
Nowhere in that cited source does it give the sense of usage "now" or "historically" (implying that usage as changed) but rather one of "accuracy". --Nug (talk) 10:48, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
I don't think Tommola's phrasing more accurately, 'Uralic' is used in a wider sense is meant to suggest that there is any competing usage of 'Uralic', but that 'Uralic' is the most accurate term available for the whole family. ("A wider sense" rather than "the wider sense" sounds like a L2 writer error.) --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah14:50, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
The whole Uralic family being Finno-Ugrian + Samoyedic. Tommola by stating "the smaller Samoyedic branch is also descended from Proto-Uralic" is implying that Finno-Ugrian is the larger branch also descended from Proto-Uralic. --Nug (talk) 17:37, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
How so? Please explain how the changed text "While Finno-Ugric is sometimes used as a synonym for Uralic, usage of the term Uralic more accurately includes the Samoyedic branch." gets the cited source: "Finno-Ugrian is sometimes used as a synonym for Uralic, but, more accurately, Uralic is used in a wider sense; the smaller Samoyedic branch is also descended from Proto-Uralic" backwards? --Nug (talk) 07:55, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
Yes, I fully agree with Nug that his version is the precise one. The current version implies a *temporal* relation, since it talks about *historical* usage, i.e., it can be understood as in the *past* Finno-Ugric excluded the Samoyedic languages. However, the source does not make any temporal statements, it makes a statement about *accuracy*, i.e., that it is "more accurate" to understand Finno-Ugric in a way that it does not include Samoyedic languages, even though there exist sources which use it as a synonym for Uralic languages. Since the current version is misleading, we should change it to Nug's version. KœrteFa{ταλκ}09:47, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
I don't think so. But what about: "While Finno-Ugric is sometimes used as a synonym for Uralic, usage of the term Finno-Ugric more accurately excludes the Samoyedic branch." Is this OK? KœrteFa{ταλκ}13:18, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
Well I'm gobsmacked, User:Kwamikagami says "he said Uralic may exclude Samoyed" yet my text that he reverted states "usage of the term Uralic more accurately includes the Samoyedic branch". It is difficult to continue to assume good faith when somebody so blatantly makes such misrepresentations. --Nug (talk) 21:02, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
One follows from the other : "more accurately includes" means "less accurately excludes" . KœrteFa's wording is correct . However , there is the additional problem that we are presenting a single opinion as fact in the lead . Better to say "more commonly" or "traditionally". When two names mean the same thing , one is not more "accurate" than the other . — kwami (talk) 00:19, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
Following you reasoning KœrteFa's wording, "Finno-Ugric more accurately excludes the Samoyedic branch" also means "Finno-Ugric less accurately includes the Samoyedic branch", so how can you claim it is more correct that my wording? These kind of games really makes it difficult to continue to assume good faith. The bottom line is that Finno-Ugric continues to be recognised as a legitimate classification in ISO 639-5, if it gets removed from that standard only then we can remove it from Wikipedia articles. --Nug (talk) 20:23, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
I know there there are some debates about the internal structure of this language family and some linguists criticize the traditional branches, but still the standard model is the one with (almost) binary splits, such as
Samoyed
Northern Samoyed
Southern Samoyed
Finno-Ugric
Finno-Permic
Permic
Finno-Volgaic
Ugric
Hungarian
Ob-Ugric
at least most textbooks use models like this [10]. Shouldn't we use a standard model like this as the default (at least for the higher levels, like Samoyed and Finno-Ugric), since such a classification still seems to be the mainstream view of textbooks. We should, of course, mention contemporary researches and (potential) problems with the traditional classification as well as other proposed classifications in later sections. KœrteFa{ταλκ}16:11, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
Comment: I don't have an opinion on this disagreement yet. However I should point out that "textbooks" are not helpful sources for either side in this argument. Due to the time lag between compiling/writing/editing/publishing/marketing/distributing/etc, textbooks are by and large not representative of current scholarship. Also, in using only textbooks to support your argument, there is a certain degree of sampling bias because textbooks, by definition, exist to perpetuate "traditional" knowledge (i.e. it is fallacious circular reasoning). Current papers by Uralic experts should be cited to support either side of this debate.--William ThweattTalkContribs18:10, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for your comment, but I do not agree with you. Textbooks present the *mainstream* view, and if most textbooks (even recent ones) follow a certain classificiation, then WP should use that, as well. The fact that recent textbooks have it shows that most linguists still accept it, even if there are critics. The main role of WP is to disseminate the mainstream view, while of course it is good if it also gives a highlight of recent researches. Regarding your commnent about current papers: let's say that I found some papers published in 2013 that (a) accept or (b) reject the standard view. Does any of these options help us to determine whether the standard view is the mainstream one? Hardly, there could be thousands of linguists who studied Uralic/Finno-Ugric languages and even if some of them share a certain view, that is not binding for the rest. However, if you find standard textbooks which are used in univesities and they show the standard classification, then it is a much better proof for it being mainstream, since then it shows that linguists learn this even now. Finally, I note that WP is not a reasearch forum, so our aim should not be to decide which classification represents the *Truth*, but to show the mainstream view and optionally highlight some recent researches. KœrteFa{ταλκ}19:26, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
The main goal of WP (as with any encyclopedia) is to accurately (from reliable sources) describe the subject, not perpetuate a particular view simply because it is "mainstream" (btw, "mainstream" where? among college students? among textbook editors? among college professors? or among current research experts?). This is especially relevant in the field of comparative linguistics which is a relatively new discipline. Many times what you refer to as "the mainstream" view is based on work done a hundred years ago. I don't know if this is the case with Uralic since it is not my area, but more recent papers reflect modern research methods, more variety of available sources, and incorporate modern linguistics theory. You have to accept that because of this, what is "mainstream" is constantly in flux; what was "mainstream" when a particular textbook was compiled may not be "mainstream" today, even if that textbook is still in use. Our articles should be based on current research as published in current peer-reviewed publications. What is "taught" in Linguistics 101 at university (i.e. what you are building your "mainstream" argument on) often lags behind the current "mainstream" belief of experts, sometimes by decades.--William ThweattTalkContribs20:16, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for your prompt response. I see your point, but I don't think that there are too many theories which are accepted by the majority of specialists, but cannot be found in scholarly books. Do you think that it is a typical situation? I think that the proof for something is widely accepted is that it becomes part of textbooks. There are many recent linguistic articles and they propose several alternative solutions. What do you suggest, how should we select the one that we use on WP? KœrteFa{ταλκ}20:30, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
That's what was done in the discussion when we decided to abandon FU. It's not my area, but the consensus was they made a convincing case. Of course, in the couple years since things may have changed or even reversed, but last I saw, the contradictory subbranching proposals (Hungarian-Samoyed, Khansi-Finnic) looked a lot like the disputes in IE. — kwami (talk) 18:40, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
Dear Kwamikagami, please, stop referring to this mysterious "consensus". I and other editors asked you several times to link us this "involved discussion" you keep referring to, but you were unalbe to do so. I tried to find it on many archieved Talk pages, but could not find it. Hence, until you show it explicitly (i.e., you link it), I will treat this argument void. KœrteFa{ταλκ}19:32, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
I have to strongly agree that we need a link to the discussion Kwami's referring to. The allusion implies that not only is there more than one source doing away with the Finno-Ugric node, but that others have discussed it here. As far as I am aware, only Angela Marcantonio has published any work seriously questioning the node's validity, but she also questions the validity of Uralic itself. See Edward Vajda's devastating review of Marcantonio here. If there are other serious sources we need to be able to review them and the prior discussion of them. μηδείς (talk) 00:53, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
I have just checked, and the node "Finno-Ugric" was deleted from the infobox of this article by Kwamikagami in April 2011 [11], however, there was not much discussion about it on this talk page. KœrteFa{ταλκ}13:31, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
I recommend checking Salminen 2002 (this and other references I mention are cited in the article), which is online and in English, if you want to have a general grasp of the situation. The best-argued case against Finno-Ugric thus far might be Häkkinen 2009, which proposes a testable competing hypothesis. Mainstream criticism of Finno-Ugric can be found at least as far back as Häkkinen 1984. Explicit support for FU has been perhaps most recently stated (but not actually argued for) in Janhunen 2009.
The new East Uralic model of Häkkinen '09 has been supported in certain yet more recent papers that we currently do not cite (because they talk about something else entirely), but I think their existence combined with the aforementioned critique suffices to show a current lack of consensus classification; particularly when apparently no counterarguments (i.e. arguments in favor of FU) have been presented in years. --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah17:28, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
Hmm, I think that your argument is non sequitur (William Thweatt used such terms, so now I dare to use them, too). The fact that there are researchers who question the validity of the Finno-Ugric group does not mean that the majority of specialists do not accept it any more. Even if it was true that there were no serious counterarguments, it does not mean the lack of consensus, since other linguists might not be aware or not take seriously, for example, the critique of Salminen. I bring an example from mathematics: constructivism. Classical logical "laws", such as the tertium non datur (a.k.a. law of excluded middle), were seriously criticized by a series of big-shot mathematicians, including Brouwer, Heyting, Bishop, Skolem, Goodstein, etc. There were some counterarguments (e.g., from Gödel), but most mathematicians did not give a damn (probably they did not find the arguments convincing) and continue using, e.g., the law of excluded middle (e.g., in the form of indirect proofs). Therefore, the fact that some researchers criticize a standard approach (and there are not many counterarguments), does not mean that there is a lack of consensus among the majority. KœrteFa{ταλκ}12:51, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
PS: Quoting from Tapani Salminen's paper [12]: "It is true that binary classification has acquired the status of received wisdom in Uralic studies, which makes many specialists reluctant to criticize, let alone abandon it" which sentence seems to support that this binary classification (starting with the nodes of Samoyed and Finno-Ugric) is still the widespread view among specialists. KœrteFa{ταλκ}12:51, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
Yes, the traditional FU/Samoyedic dichotomy (also related ones like FP/Ugric and FV/Permic) still maintains a good deal of support — all of the critique so far is cited from primary sources. I cannot think of recent relevant secondary sources. Hence I support opening any discussion of the family tree by presenting the traditional view (though there isn't one single "traditional" one as much as a gradual development; the most classic one from Donner (1879) entirely ignores the position of Samoyedic and supports the now generally abandoned Volgaic), as is done currently.
I suppose a point that could use clarification here though is what or who can we count as a relevant "specialist". Is a linguist who studies let's say Hungarian syntax or Sami language acquisition or loanword typology in the Volga region also necessarily a specialist on the subgrouping of Uralic? Most appearences of "Finno-Ugric" out there, as seen in the discussion below, seem to come from this sort of studies. Unlike your mathematics example, the internal structure of a language family is not a "foundation" that all scholars in the field would have to implicitly agree on before being able to conduct their studies, and absense of critique from specialists of topics that are not directly related carries very little weight on if views like Salminen's are accepted or not.
It is a very good question that who can we count as a relevant "specialist" (a similar question was raised by William Thweatt earlier). I tend to think that these specialists should be *all* linguists studying Uralic languages. If we only count those who publish papers directly addressing the subgroupings of Uralic family, our sample may be biased, since there is a pressure on scientists to publish something new or question old standards (that's the way science works), and you cannot really publish a paper by just claiming that everything is fine with the standard classification. So it is quite normal if we find questions and new proposals if we only concentrate on those who do research on subrgouppings. The real test for these alternative theories is whether they are accepted by the rest of Uralic specialist linguists (e.g., whether they will be included in textbooks). KœrteFa{ταλκ}12:45, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
As pointed out above , textbooks are not a good indicator . What is a good indicator is who those specialists cite for classification . — kwami (talk) 13:04, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
As it was also pointed out above, it is not typical that somethings is being widely accepted by the majority of specialists, but cannot be found in scholarly books. KœrteFa{ταλκ}13:10, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
I think that they (Uralic linguists) most often cite standard books for classification. However, if there were some favored specialists who the others typically cite in these questions, then I would agree that we should definitely look at their currently accepted classification. Do you know about such authors? KœrteFa{ταλκ}13:24, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
No, this isn't my area . Too bad Ethnologue doesn't list their sources . They have Uralic: Hungarian, Khanty, Mansi, Finnic, Mari, Mordvin, Permian, Sami, Samoyed. — kwami (talk) 23:32, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
Surely the fact that Finno-Ugric is recognised by ISO 639-5 as "fiu" points to the international acceptance of this classification. Unless it is removed from ISO 639-5 then we shouldn't go removing from Wikipedia articles. --Nug (talk) 20:11, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
Finno-Ugric
I have a debate with user Kwamikagami, who thinks that the term "Finno-Ugric" has been "largely abandoned". Based on this view of his, he keeps removing the "Finno-Ugric" word from any articles he finds it in. You can find some examples about this on his talk page. I (and other editors) think that this is not the case and the term is still widely used. I highlighted to him, for example, that the main department of the Research Institute for Linguistics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences also has "Finno-Ugric" in its name (since Hungarian is the largest Finno-Ugric language with one of the strongest Finno-Ugric researches, this is quite relevant). Even in Finland, at the University of Helsinki, there is a Department of Finnish, Finno-Ugrian and Scandinavian Studies [13]. An editor mentioned the World Congress of Finno-Ugric Peoples [14]. I have also cited some recent linguistic books which explicitly state, e.g., that Hungarian is a member of the Finno-Ugric group: [15] (Cambridge University Press, 2002), [16] (Indiana University Press, 1999), [17] (Wiley Blackwell, 2010), [18] (Multilingual Matters Ltd., 2005 - also appeared in the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development), [19] (Intellect Books, 1997), [20] (Springer, 2007), [21] (Cambridge University Press, 2012), [22] (Blackwell Publishing, 2003), etc. etc. So, I would like to ask your opinion about this, i.e., do you think that the term "Finno-Ugric" has become obsolete and should not be used on WP? In my opinion, it can be used, especially if the applied sources use this term. KœrteFa{ταλκ}20:10, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
No, it's another issue (this problem is only vaguely related to the thread above about the standard classification). Things with Finno-Ugric in their name also show that this term is being used, i.e., not obsolete. KœrteFa{ταλκ}22:02, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
"Finno-Ugric" as a term in general is not even remotely abandoned. What is no longer supported is the meaning as "a subgroup of Uralic languages". Linguists and others frequently continue to use "Finno-Ugric", some as a shorthand for "all non-Samoyedic Uralic languages", some as a synonym for "Uralic" (this includes the World Congress, the Hungarian and Finnish universities you mention, and among the books you link, at least #14, #15, #17 and #20), and some as referring to a subfamily (at least your link #13; possibly #19 in light of its ignoring Samoyedic) — though I am not aware of anyone who would have actually argued explicitly in support of the last view within the last couple decades.
I would argue that this current confusion means
firstly, that there is no current consensus definition of "Finno-Ugric" that we could employ on WP;
secondly, any place where we'll still use the term, will require clarification on the intended meaning;
thirdly, since the unambiguous synonym "Uralic" exists, it should be preferred for referring to the family as a whole.
So in most places where the term "Finno-Ugric" requires remooval, the argument is not that there is a lack of current usage, but that there is a lack of consistent current usage, and better terms are available. --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah15:01, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
Your argument is a non sequitur. If indeed the use of the term has increased over the past decade as you state, it does not necessarily follow that there is a consensus on the definition of the term. Different authors may use it with different meanings. The very fact that it is being discussed more in the past decade (which, btw is precisely the time frame of Tropylium's argument for disagreement on meaning) would seem to indicate the opposite--that there is confusion regarding what exactly "Finno-Ugric" means.--William ThweattTalkContribs23:41, 13 September 2013 (UTC)
Provide a source that explicitly states there is no consensus, cite an author who explicitly disputes another author with regard to the meaning of the term. For example we can say there is no consensus on whether or not the Holodomor was genocide because sources explicitly state there is no consensus and I can cite authors like Wheatcroft, Davies, Ellman and Conquest who explicitly disagree with each other in academic papers like "Stalin and the Soviet Famine of 1932–33: A Reply to Ellman" in Europe-Asia Studies by Wheatcroft and Davies, or "Comment on Wheatcroft" also in Europe-Asia Studies by Conquest. Relying on your own observation that there appears to be no consensus you risk WP:OR. --Nug (talk) 02:58, 14 September 2013 (UTC)
This is not how consensus works. We are not attempting to claim that it is generally agreed there is an absense of consensus, only to document that sources in fact disagree (which is not OR, but some NPOV concerns may apply). Academic consensus is not a default position, and the absense of citations for absense of consensus does not mean that we have to claim that there is consensus, especially if our sources in fact disagree with each other. It's actually the opposite: claiming academic consensus requires citing explicit sources to this effect (WP:RS/AC), whereas I don't think I've seen any guidelines on what it takes to claim the opposite.
Anyway, for a source that actually disputes the usage in some way, here's an example:
"The Finno-Ugrian family, which is the name that is provocatively used here instead of Uralic, (…)"
I agree with Nug that if we draw a conclusion ourselves which is not directly stated by the sources, it might be WP:OR (or WP:SYNTH). A clear-cut proof for the lack of consensus would be to show some recent books which explicitly state the lack of consensus (and not only criticize the term, like, Angela Marcantonio). If many scholarly books or textbooks highlight that this node is debated at the moment and there is no consensus about it any more, then we should not use it either. However, if they continue using it, it is indicative of still being widely accepted (despite some criticisms). KœrteFa{ταλκ}13:41, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
PS: Regarding your quote from Salminen: if he names his usage *provocative*, it means that it is not widely accepted and many researches would understand the term some other way. KœrteFa{ταλκ}13:41, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
I'm not arguing for a lack of consensus as something to be explicitly mentioned, I'm arguing for it as a guide for choices on whether to use "Finno-Ugric" or "Uralic" on tangentially related articles, which I gather was the original point here.
If you want to also state on this article that there is a consensus on the definition of "Finno-Ugric", the onus is still on you to acquire sources stating this. The quote from Salminen is indeed evidence that using "FU" for the whole family is not universally accepted, but meanwhile, the Google Books links you compiled in the OP still show that currently his sort of usage is actually fairly frequent as well. I.e. debate and disagreements currently exist in primary sources, while AFAICT, meta-debate in secondary sources about the current status of the debate does not (mainly since secondary sources of this sort are not published exactly yearly).
Anyway: IIRC older secondary sources (like Abondolo 1998, Sinor 1988) also recognize that there are multiple uses of "Finno-Ugric". What I see changing currently is only their relative weight. --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah15:38, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
You wrote that "the Google Books links you compiled in the OP still show that currently his sort of usage is actually fairly frequent". Hmm, which of my sources cited above use the term Finno-Ugric for the whole Uralic family? KœrteFa{ταλκ}12:35, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
Hmm, on closer look most cases here do seem to hold that FU≠U.
Sources conflating FU and Uralic
Link #15 (The Handbook of Language Contact, Hickey, ed, 2010): "(…) traditionally described in terms of a binary family tree, starting from the first binary split of Proto-Uralic into Proto-Finno-Ugric and Proto-Samoyedic. However, this model is not unanimously accepted (…) which means that the terms Uralic and Finno-Ugric can be used as synonyms. This practice is adopted also in this chapter." (p. 588)
Sources distinguishing FU from Uralic
Link #13 (Syntax of Hungarian, Kiss 2002): "The FU languages and the (…) Samoyedic languages constitute the Uralic language family"
Link #14 (The Finnish Tradition of Semiotics, 1999): "The term 'Uralic' (…) comprehends all of the FU languages plus (…) Samoyedic" (p. 19)
Link #16 (Language Planning and Policy in Europe, eds Kaplan & Baldauf 2005): "Hungarian (…) belongs to in the FU branch of the Uralic family" (p. 23)
Link #19 (Languages of the World: An Introduction, Pereltsvaig 2012) "It has been proposed that FU languages constitute a part of a larger family known as Uralic" (p. 209) (yeah, proposed 200+ years ago and accepted for the last 100. "It has been proposed that atoms could be even further subdivided, however". This is why we need to prefer primary sources over tertiary ones on topics such as this.)
Link #20 (The Handbook of Linguistics, 2003): "For instance, Finno-Ugric is considered to be a part of the Uralic family (…)" (p. 124)
Unclear sources
Link #17 (Language, Community and the State, Ager 1997): "since [Hungarian] is of the FU family (…)"
Link #18 (Text, Speech and Dialogue, 2007): "Hungarian, as a language of the FU family…"
(no further reference in either)
You might notice that the almost all of these are general encyclopedias, or studies in synchronic linguistics that would not count as reliable sources on Uralic subgrouping. The only author who appears to know in detail what she's talking about also reports that disagreement exists. — Moreover, I would be more interested to know what the current (2010s) situation looks like, not the situation in '02 or '99 or '97.--Trɔpʏliʊm • blah23:22, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
Could you summarize (or quote) what do these older books (like Abondolo 1998, Sinor 1988) write about the multiple usage of the term? KœrteFa{ταλκ}12:35, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
Removing the "Finno-Ugric" word from articles is not recognizing that there are multiple uses of "Finno-Ugric", it is giving WP:UNDUE weight to a particular POV of some academics, I think that is the objection here. --Nug (talk) 17:37, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
There's nothing wrong with not mentioning something that's controversial when it's not particularly relevant . Anyone wanting to know more about the classification of Uralic can always read this article . It would be silly to repeat the debate - and have to maintain it - on every article . — kwami (talk) 21:51, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
There's certainly something wrong when there is no consensus for your change. You claimed prior consensus existed, but have subsequently ignored requests to provide a link to that past discussion you claim exists. --Nug (talk) 08:31, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
Thank you, Trɔpʏliʊm, for your extensive list of sources about U and FU. I answer here, since these intermadiate edits started to become confusing. Thanks for highlighting that "The Handbook of Language Contact" indeed uses U and FU as synonyms. It also states that FU≠U is not unanimously accepted. Note, however, that this only indicates that there exist researchers who do not accept it (which we already knew), and it does not exclude the case that the majority of Uralic linguists still accept it. Escpecially, since it seems more common to treat them as separate (as your other examples indicate). I am also very interested in your question, i.e., what the current (2010s) situation looks like. However, I am not sure whether we will be able to decide this. As I mentioned earlier, finding few articles which criticize FU does not necessarily indicate that the majority of researches do not accept it any more. I still think that secondary sources (e.g., books) give a much better view on the majority view (of Uralic linguists) than some research articles. Unfortunately, linguistics is not like mathematics where one paper which provides a proper counterexample to a conjecture falsifies the conjecture completely (so finding and citing that one paper would suffice). Linguistics is much softer, so it is hard to decide what the *truth* is. Thus, I think the question is not that what the best model is (since it is subjective, and one researcher may prefer a completely different model than the other), but what is the model that most Uralic linguists accept at the moment... KœrteFa{ταλκ}16:16, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
Well, there needs to a high degree of consensus amongst linguists for something to be enshrined in an international standard like ISO 639-5, which explicitly lists FU within the U family. --Nug (talk) 12:48, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
It's not my list, it's sources you came up with and I went thru the work of actually reading. ;)
Anyway, I looked up some further good secondary sources on the topic.
Collinder 1965, Fenno-Ugric Vocabulary: "This book might equally well have been named 'Uralic Vocabulary'. (…) Even professional linguists often use the expression 'Fenno-Ugric' when 'Uralic' would be the correct term."
Sinor 1988, introduction to The Uralic Languages: "Samoyeds and Finno-Ugrians are very unequal in number (…) No doubt this numerical imbalance, coupled with difficulty having direct access to speakers of Samoyed, accounts for Uralic studies being heavily weighted in favor of Finno-Ugric, even to the extent of using the latter term to designate both groups."
Abondolo 1998, introduction to Uralic Languages: "Some of the internal divisions of Uralic are not entirely clear, but there is close to universal agreement that the primary chronological break was between Samoyedic on the one hand and Finno-Ugric on the other." (He incidentally then proceeds to call most other parts of the traditional family tree "misled", and suggests a structure {{S,F},{Mo,{Ma,{P,Ug}}}} for FU.)
This should suffice, I believe, to show the first claim on overlap between the terms "FU" and "Uralic": that scholars who do not know better frequently use (or, at least, have used) "FU" as if it were the top-level family name, but "Uralic" is more properly used for this purpose. Hence we should treat "stray" mentions of FU with some suspicion.
(The second claim, which I'm not sure I have managed to keep distinct from the first one in this discussion, is that according to recent research (see my comments under "Standard Classification"), this confusion is entirely justified since there is not strong evidence that FU constitutes a common group; and thirdly, according to even more recent research, Samoyedic indeed separated only after the "Finno-Ugric" split. (This basically would make Samoyedic a branch of Ugric, though no-one has dared to state this in these terms.) I'd prefer to keep this discussion under its own header though.) --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah14:09, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
Never the less, regardless of the fact that a handful writers may no longer support the meaning of FU as "a subgroup of Uralic languages" and other writers even confuse FU and U, for a classification to be considered "standard", there first needs to be sufficient level of consensus between linguists. Given that ISO 639-5 has undergone an extensive peer review process before being approved, I think we can view that classification contained within it as the mainstream view. Therefore the indiscriminate removal of the "Finno-Ugric" word from many articles (including this) on the basis of the view that the term "Finno-Ugric" has been "largely abandoned" is tantamount to giving WP:UNDUE weight to a minority POV. --Nug (talk) 22:33, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
Yes, Nug is right. The fact that the term "Finno-Ugric" could appear in ISO is indicative of a large consensus among linguists about it. I am planning to reply to Trɔpʏliʊm's comments, too, but a bit busy at the moment. KœrteFa{ταλκ}16:11, 23 September 2013 (UTC)
