| Ugric | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution: |
Hungary and Western Siberia |
| Linguistic classification: | Uralic
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| Subdivisions: |
Ob-Ugric ?
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Ugric or Ugrian languages ( /ˈjuːɡrɨk/ or /ˈjuːɡriən/) are a branch of the Uralic language family. The term derives from Yugra, a region in north-central Asia.
They include three languages: Hungarian (Magyar), Khanty (Ostyak), and Mansi language (Vogul). A common Proto-Ugric language is posited to have been spoken from the end of the 3rd millennium BC until the first half of the 1st millennium BC, in Western Siberia, east from the southern Ural mountains. However, recent reconstructions of Uralic have not generally found support for Ugric. Of the three languages, Khanty and Mansi have traditionally set apart from Hungarian as Ob-Ugric, but Mansi now appears to be closer to Hungarian, so Ugric may be composed of only these two languages.
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Two common phonetic features of the Ugric languages are a rearrangement of the Proto-Uralic (PU) system of sibilant consonants and a lenition of velar consonants:[1]
It has however been pointed out that these changes are applicable to the Samoyedic languages as well.[2]
The three Ugric varieties also share the lateralization of Proto-Uralic *δ to *l (as do the Permic languages), but it is possible this postcedes the emergence of retroflex *ɭ from PU *l in Khanty.[1]
The development of the vowel system remains subject to interpretation. All three Ugric branches contrast vowel length; in Hungarian this is late, generally derived by compensatory lengthening after loss of unstressed vowels and *ɣ. The Ob-Ugric languages, however, derive their quantity contrasts mainly from PU quality contrasts: thus for example in Northern Mansi, PU *peljä "ear" → *päĺ → /palʲ/, but PU *pälä "half" → *pääl → /paːl/.
Contrasts between PU stem vowels (*a/*ä vs. *i) do not survive as such in Ugric, but they commonly leave their mark on vowel qualities in the first syllable, suggesting retention of the contrast at least to the Proto-Ugric stage. For example PU *ńïxli "arrow" → Hungarian nyíl, but PU *mïksa "liver" → Hungarian máj.
An innovation clearly limited to the Ugric languages is the development of *ŋ to *ŋk, though there are numerous exceptions in each language to this.
Examples from Mansi
ēl(a) – 'forwards, onwards, away'
| jōm- 'to go, to stride' | ēl-jōm- 'to go away/on' |
| tinal- 'to sell' | ēl-tinal- 'to sell off' |
χot – 'direction away from something and other nuances of action intensity'
| min- 'to go' | χot-min- 'to go away, to stop' |
| roχt- 'to be frightened' | χot-roχt- 'to take fright suddenly' |
Examples from Hungarian
el – 'away, off'
| ugrik 'to jump' | elugrik 'to jump away' |
| mosolyog 'to smile' | elmosolyodik 'to start to smile' (implying a lack of control) |
ki – 'out (of)'
| ugrik 'to jump' | kiugrik 'to jump out' |
| néz 'to look' | kinéz 'to choose/pick out' |
In Hungarian, the citation form of verbs is the present tense of the 3rd person singular form, which is given here, which doesn't have any suffixes.
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