Juha JANHUNEN (Helsinki)
Proto-Uralic—what, where, and when?
1. Introduction
The traditional picture of Proto-Uralic we have today was created by several
generations of comparative linguists, starting with M. A. Castrén (see Janhunen,
forthcoming) and ending with the synthetic surveys of Pekka Sammallahti
(1988) and Daniel Abondolo (1998). In this framework, Uralic is understood as
a regular language family whose members represent the divergent, and basi-
cally binary, branches and sub-branches of an originally uniform protolanguage.
Proto-Uralic was a fully developed natural language that was chronologically
far beyond the glottogonic stage. Its structural properties, as far as they can be
reconstructed, may therefore be assumed to have been similar to those attested
in modern natural languages. The deepest dividing line within the family is
traditionally assumed to exist between Finno-Ugric in the west and Samoyedic
in the east. For various reasons, subsequent (Post-Proto-Uralic) diversification
has been more profound, or is better preserved, within the Finno-Ugric branch,
which is today represented by as many as seven major sub-branches, including
(from west to east:) Saamic, Finnic, Mordvinic, Mariic, Permic, Mansic (incl.
Hungarian), and Khantic.
In practice, all adherents of the traditional framework have always been
conscious of certain problems and limitations that call for minor modifications to
the approach. For instance, it is generally acknowledged that the protolanguage
was not strictly uniform but dialectally diversified, like any natural language.
Also, the branching of the language family need not always have taken place in
a binary way, and, in any case, there are isoglosses that cross branch boundaries,
including even the boundary between Samoyedic and its immediate western
neighbours (Khantic, Mansic, and Permic). Even so, many Uralists agree that
the classic family-tree model still remains the best for describing internal fam-
ily relationships. As a possible modification of the binary family-tree, the fuzzy
‘bush’ model has been proposed by Kaisa Häkkinen (1984), later followed by the
linear ‘comb’ or ‘rake’ model of Tapani Salminen (2002). However, even these
modified models recognise the validity of Uralic as a language family, as well as
the relevance of the comparative method as a diachronic tool.
The Quasquicentennial of the Finno-Ugrian Society.
Suomalais-Ugrilaisen Seuran Toimituksia = Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 258.
Helsinki 2009. 57–78.
58 JUHA JANHUNEN
More recently, the conventional framework of Uralic studies has been chal-
lenged from two points of view. On the one hand, the so-called Roots Group,
led by Kalevi Wiik (e.g. 2004) and anticipated by János Pusztay (1996), has
proposed that the Uralic comparative corpus, or at least a considerable part of
it, should be explained as the result of areal convergence, rather than genetic di-
vergence. If this were the case, there would have been no single coherent Proto-
Uralic language, but, rather, two or more regional protolanguages and centres
of expansion. In this context, Proto-Uralic has also been described as having
been formed as a regional lingua franca (for a critical review of the issue, cf.,
e.g., Jaakko Häkkinen 2006). On the other hand, it has been claimed, notably by
Angela Marcantonio (2002), that the entire Uralic comparative corpus is simply
not valid and thus requires neither a divergence nor a convergence explanation.
According to this view, the conventional Uralic comparisons and reconstruc-
tions are statistically unlikely to be true. This would be especially so since the
comparative corpus shared by Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic is very small, com-
prising hardly more than 200 lexical items.
One might think that such new points of view have ‘endangered’ the exist-
ence of Proto-Uralic as a valid diachronic entity. This is not the case, however,
for the principles and methods of comparative linguistics, created during the
19th century, are solid enough to make any major ‘revolution’ in the discipline
impossible. As is well known, the comparative method has effective tools for dis-
tinguishing between divergence and convergence, as well as between cognates
and accidental lookalikes. Moreover, although the ‘revolutionaries’ have raised
doubts about the comparative method in the field of Uralic studies, this method
continues to be actively used by specialists on virtually all of the other language
families in the world. There is, consequently, no serious reason to question the
existence of the Uralic language family, nor the validity of Proto-Uralic as the
reconstructed proto-form of the Uralic languages. A more relevant question is
how much effort should be devoted to arguing against paradigms that are based
on an insufficient understanding of the discipline. The situation is analogous to
that in the natural sciences, where the theory of evolution is being challenged by
religious fundamentalists propagating unscientific ‘alternative’ ‘models’, such
as ‘creationism’ and ‘intelligent design’.
PROTO-URALIC —WHAT, WHERE, AND WHEN? 59
2. Proto-Uralic in a global context
Although, consequently, Proto-Uralic remains a valid entity, there are many de-
tails about it that still call for explanation. Most of the unsolved problems revolve
around the classic issues of dating and locating the Proto-Uralic speech commu-
nity. These issues are usually approached by studying both internal and external
evidence, that is, the Uralic comparative corpus, on the one hand, and the traces
of contacts with other language families, on the other. For a more general under-
standing of Uralic, we may, however, also take a look at its position in a global
context. There are between 6,000 and 7,000 languages spoken today, and they
represent between 400 and 500 separate genetic lineages, or language families.
Uralic, with some 30–40 separate languages, is slightly larger than an average-
sized family. Judged by the number of speakers it is a relatively small entity, but
in view of its territorial extension it is, in fact, one of the larger families in the
world. Both the wide territorial extension of the Uralic languages and the small
volume of the Uralic comparative corpus suggest that it is an ‘old’ family, that is,
that it was formed a long time ago.
One of the great unsolved questions about human language is how the lin-
guistic map of the world developed in pre-historical times. The best points of
reference for understanding the situation would seem to be offered by those
parts of the world that are still dominated, or until recently were dominated, by
hunter-gatherer societies leading a relatively ‘primitive’ way of life. Such parts
of the world include Australia, New Guinea, Siberia, and much of the Americas.
A case in point is the island of New Guinea (including the western part under
Indonesian administration), which today has a population of just about nine mil-
lion people speaking more than a thousand separate languages. Although the
size varies considerably, the average number of people speaking a single lan-
guage varies between 8,000 and 9,000. This may be compared with the situation
in Siberia (including the Russian Far East), where in the initial period of Russian
rule (16th to 19th cc.) around 50 languages were spoken by speech communities
that mainly ranged between 50 and 5,000 people in size (Dolgix 1960). It is rea-
sonable to assume that pre-historical speech communities typically comprised
of only a few hundred individuals each.
It also seems that the formation and expansion of many of the large lan-
guage families of the world took place under circumstances specifically con-
nected with technological and social innovations, as well as population growth.
The most decisive factor behind, at least, many ‘old’ language families seems to
have been the so-called Neolithic Revolution, which involved a rapid develop-
ment of the methods of food production, especially agriculture and cattle breed-
ing, and a subsequent population expansion and social stratification. The Neo-
60 JUHA JANHUNEN
lithic Revolution took place at different times in different parts of the world, but
the important conclusion is that before this there may not have been sufficient
grounds for the differentiation of individual languages into large language fami-
lies. Although linguistic evolution itself must have taken place in the same way
as in historical times, the Neolithic opened up a new line which has been shap-
ing the language map of the world ever since.
It is particularly important to note that the formation of the present-day
large language families has not necessarily involved massive population migra-
tions, because languages have spread by way of diffusion just as often as by
migration. Both migration and diffusion may have been triggered by a variety
of internal and external, as well as positive and negative, push and pull factors,
including natural calamities, cultural innovation, and population growth. The
main process has in most cases been linguistic assimilation, or language shift,
in which an original linguistic diversity of languages has been gradually lost in
favour of an expansive family. One might think that the expansion of a language
family into new areas would lead to a general decrease in the number of local
languages, but this is not necessarily the case, because at the same time as a lan-
guage family expands it also undergoes differentiation into new branches and
sub-branches, which function as separate languages. In fact, it often happens
that each ‘original’ local language is replaced by a new language from the ex-
pansive family. What is lost is genetic diversity, that is, the number of language
families, while the number of separate languages may remain relatively stable.
It may be concluded that the world in pre-historic times may well have had
as many languages as there are today, possibly even more. Assuming that the
total human population prior to the Neolithic reached, say, some millions, which
is a reasonable even if inexact and uncertain estimate, and assuming further that
the average size of a speech community was around 500 people, there could well
have been around 10,000 separate languages spoken in the world at any given
time before the expansion of today’s language families. It is more difficult to
estimate how many lineages these pre-historic languages represented, but the
number must have been larger than today, since the conditions for linguistic
expansion were less favourable than later. All pre-historic languages had, in
principle, an equal chance of becoming ancestors to lineages surviving up to the
present day, but very few of them were successful, the main reason being that
they were extinguished by the expansion of the extant language families. We
might also say that all pre-historic languages, like most languages today, lived
under a constant threat of extinction. In this sense, Proto-Uralic was an ‘endan-
gered’ language until it started its expansion.
PROTO-URALIC —WHAT, WHERE, AND WHEN? 61
3. The areal position of Uralic
Like all languages today, Proto-Uralic must also have been a member of a lan-
guage family. This family was not Uralic, however. This situation may be com-
pared to Latin, which was a member of the Italic branch the Indo-European
family, but which itself became the ancestor of the modern Romance group of
languages. Quite probably, Proto-Uralic had some living relatives which repre-
sented the parallel branches of a protolanguage that became extinct in Pre-Proto-
Uralic times. The other languages, if they existed, were not Uralic, but they may
technically be identified as Para-Uralic, meaning that they represented lineages
collaterally related to the lineage of Proto-Uralic. Of course, it is also possible
that Proto-Uralic had no contemporary relatives. This would have meant that
its lineage had ‘never’ undergone any branching, or, more plausibly, that any
branches that may have existed had either become extinct or were so ancient that
traces of an original genetic relationship had been lost before the Proto-Uralic
period. In this context, it is good to remember that the linguistically detect-
able mutual relationship between two or more languages always represents only
a section of the time scale. At the same time as differentiation goes on at the
shallow end, the traces of the relationship are being erased at the deep end of the
time scale.
Every now and then, the possibility of an external relationship between
Uralic and other extant language families is raised. If such a relationship could be
shown to have been a reality, the other language families would, from the Uralic
point of view, represent surviving branches of Para-Uralic. The most prospective
Para-Uralic entity would for many reasons appear to be Yukaghir (Yukaghiric),
and the arguments in favour of a Uralo-Yukaghiric affinity (on which cf., e.g.,
Rédei 1999), cannot completely be dismissed. However, the Uralo-Yukaghiric
comparative corpus does not correspond to the definition of a language family,
in that it would contain a coherent, even if small, corpus of verifiable lexical
cognates with more or less regular sound correspondences, complemented by
a set of grammatical parallels. In fact, at closer inspection most of the Uralo-
Yukaghiric comparisons turn out to be illusory. Even in an areal framework,
Yukaghir seems to be an entity more closely linked to its Northeast Asian neigh-
bours (Kamchukotic) than to Uralic. Therefore, if Yukaghir was once related
to Uralic, the relationship would be so ancient that it can no longer be reliably
detected. The same applies to the other long-range comparisons made between
Uralic and other language families.
What is, however, an undeniable fact is that the Uralic languages belong to
a single trans-Eurasian belt of agglutinative languages together with the so-called
Altaic languages, including Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean (Koreanic),
62 JUHA JANHUNEN
and Japanese (Japonic). In this case, typological parallelism is accompanied by
areal adjacency, allowing us to speak of a distinct Ural-Altaic language area
and language type. Characteristic features of the Ural-Altaic language type in-
clude a modifier-before-headword word order both in the sentence (SOV) and
within the nominal phrase (GAN), suffixally marked agglutinative morphology
both of the noun and the verb, as well as polysyllabic root structure with sim-
ple phonotactic patterns and no suprasegmental distinctions. Deviations from
the prototypical Ural-Altaic language type occur in the individual branches and
languages, especially in the west (Finnic, Saamic), north (Northern Samoyedic),
and east (Koreanic, Japonic), but the basic typological orientation is neverthe-
less observable throughout the transcontinental belt. The internal uniformity of
the Ural-Altaic complex is not annulled by the fact that the reconstructed proto-
languages represent a slightly simplified picture due to the potentially distort-
ing effect of the comparative method (Korhonen 1974). It is important to note,
however, that the typological similarities are not accompanied by any significant
amount of lexical cognates or even lookalikes, except for items documentably
transmitted by way of borrowing.
A simplistic explanation of the situation would be to assert that the proper-
ties of the Ural-Altaic language type are so trivial and universally so common
that their parallel occurrence in several adjacent language families is coinci-
dental. This is certainly not the case, however, for the Ural-Altaic belt has clear
areal boundaries which delimit the language type in relation to its neighbours
both to the north (Yukaghiric, Kamchukotic) and to the south (Indo-European,
Sino-Tibetan), and also to those in the extreme east (Ghilyak, Ainu). Along the
margins of the Ural-Altaic belt we may also observe examples of gradual Altai-
cisation, as in the case of Northern Chinese (Hashimoto 1986), or also de-Altai-
cisation, as in the case of several Turkic and Mongolic languages of the Amdo
Qinghai region (cf., e.g., Janhunen 2007). It has to be concluded, therefore, that
the mutual typological parallels of the Ural-Altaic languages are due to actual
areal contacts in the past. As far as the so-called Altaic languages are concerned,
similarities need not date further back in time than a couple of millennia, when
the homelands of the language families concerned were located in a compact
area in southern Manchuria (Janhunen 1996: 216, map 6). For Uralic, the issue
is more complicated, since this language family seems to be chronologically
deeper and the question concerning its homeland has not been solved.
It has to be pointed out that there are also areal and typological parallels
that link Uralic and its non-Ural-Altaic neighbours, especially Indo-European.
Most importantly, both Uralic and Indo-European, together with Turkic, Mon-
golic, Tungusic, Yukaghiric, Amuric (Ghilyak), and Kamchukotic, belong to the
so-called Mitian languages (on the term, cf. Bengtson 2008: 242, 250), in which
PROTO-URALIC —WHAT, WHERE, AND WHEN? 63
the roots of personal pronouns (in many languages also used as personal mark-
ers) contain a labial (m/b) in the first person and a dental (t/s) in the second
person. In spite of persistent attempts, most recently by Johanna Nichols (2001),
these pronominal similarities have never been explained satisfactorily, and they
might well have either a genetic or an areal background, possibly even both (cf.
also Bancel & de l’Etang 2008). Other cross-family material similarities are less
convincing, though some of them, such as the recurrent accusative (*m) and plu-
ral (*t) markers, present also in Uralic, might be due to non-accidental factors.
Irrespective of what the explanation is, both Indo-Uralic and Ural-Altaic are
definitely relevant subjects for further study (cf. also Janhunen 2001; Kortlandt
2006, 2008). They do not have any immediate relevance to the debate on Uralic
as a language family, however.
4. The structure of the Uralic family-tree
For the absolute dating of Proto-Uralic, the size and type of the comparative
corpus are the most important tools. A look at the general picture of the lan-
guage family also immediately suggests that branching and sub-branching has
taken place at several different chronological levels. We may perhaps say that
these levels represent three major horizons, which are relatively easy to distin-
guish. The three horizons may be identified as pre-Iron Age, Iron Age, and post-
Iron Age, respectively. The uppermost, or post-Iron Age, horizon may be dated
largely to the historical period (starting less than 1000 years ago). Linguistically
this corresponds to the dialectal division of the modern Uralic languages. The
degree of dialectal differentiation in the individual languages varies consider-
ably, ranging from very shallow, as in the case of Komi Zyryan, to relatively
deep, as in the case of the three Western Siberian languages Mansi, Khanty, and
Selkup. At the deep end of this horizon there are cases which are on the verge
of having become separate languages, such as Tundra Nenets vs. Forest Nenets,
and Tundra Enets vs. Forest Enets vs. Yurats.
The medium, or Iron Age, horizon (roughly, between 1000 and 2000 years
ago) represents the time period during which most of the individual branches of
Uralic underwent differentiation into two or more relatively closely related, but
distinct, languages. Again, the degree of internal differentiation varies some-
what, ranging from relatively shallow, as in the case of Permic (3 languages,
which started to differentiate perhaps slightly less than 1000 years ago), to
relatively deep, as in the case of Samoyedic (6–9 languages, which started to
differentiate perhaps slightly more than 2000 years ago). Saamic (10 known
languages), Finnic (8–10 languages), and Mordvinic (2 languages) would seem
64 JUHA JANHUNEN
to represent rather typical intermediate cases (with a differentiation history of
perhaps about 1500 years). Typically, the size of the shared vocabulary within
each branch differentiated in the Iron Age horizon varies between 800 and 1500
items, as has been shown for Samoyedic (Janhunen 1977) and Saamic (Lehti-
ranta 1989). The picture is, of course, slightly blurred by secondary contacts
within the branches. Also, comparative work is in some cases made difficult by
the lack of documentation and early extinction of a number of crucial languages
(former Forest Saami, Sayan Samoyedic).
The deepest, or pre-Iron Age, horizon is the most difficult to assess. Those
who advocate the ‘comb’ or ‘rake’ model would say that Proto-Uralic was more
or less immediately divided into the synchronically attested major branches,
ranging geographically from Samoyedic in the east to Saamic in the west. The
principal problem with this model is that it presupposes an extremely sudden and
explosive break-up of Proto-Uralic along a rather narrow east-west trajectory ex-
tending from Siberia to the Baltic Sea. This is equal to propagating a very broad
homeland for Proto-Uralic, for, technically, the homeland would have comprised
the whole area where Proto-Uralic would still have been spoken as a uniform
language before the individual branches started differentiating, which would
have happened only after the initial explosion. Such a high speed of expansion
is, however, unlikely. It is more natural to assume that the protolanguage spread
rather slowly, which would have meant that it differentiated at the same rate as
it spread to new areas.
The break-up of Proto-Uralic may be compared with that of other ‘old’
language families, notably Indo-European. For Indo-European it is normally as-
sumed that the protolanguage was dissolved by a simultaneous formation of
several parallel descendant branches (cf., e.g., Anthony 1995: 557, fig. 1). In this
case, the possibility of a non-binary division is supported by the fact that the
break-up seems to have taken place in a radial manner, with the different pri-
mary branches advancing in different directions from the original core area.
The diffusion of Proto-Uralic, by contrast, seems to have taken place in a linear
manner, with a gradual and repetitive advance in one direction. The difference
may not be so radical, however, for Indo-Europeanists have always looked for
signs of a chronological hierarchy between the branches, and several actual or
potential groupings have been discovered, including Balto-Slavonic and Italo-
Celtic. Even more substantially, there are serious reasons to assume that the divi-
sion between Hittite and the rest of Indo-European (proper) is more fundamental
than any other branching within the family, resembling the division of Uralic
into Samoyedic and Finno-Ugric (proper).
In any case, an unbiased look at the Uralic comparative corpus would seem
to reveal a rather systematically westward-branching family-tree, with the divi-
PROTO-URALIC —WHAT, WHERE, AND WHEN? 65
sion between Samoyedic and Finno-Ugric lying at the foot. The basic dichotomy
of the language family is particularly difficult to refute (cf. also Michalove 2002),
a situation that has not been altered by fresh additions to the corpus of Finno-
Ugric-Samoyedic lexical comparisons (Aikio 2002, 2006). There is also motiva-
tion to postulate a succession of several lower-level protolanguages, which may
be termed Finno-Ugric, Finno-Khantic, Finno-Permic, Finno-Volgaic, Finno-
Saamic, and Finno-Mordvinic. The entities that were separated from these
protolanguages are Mansic (Mansi and Hungarian), Khantic, Permic, Mariic,
Saamic, and Mordvinic, respectively (cf. the table below). It goes without saying
that there are many details in this system that may require revision. For instance,
the status of Khantic vs. Mansic remains controversial, and it is still too early to
completely reject the possibility of a common ‘Ugric’ protolanguage for all these
entities (cf. Honti 1998). Also, the mutual ordering of the three westernmost
branches, Finnic, Saamic, and Mordvinic, is open to alternative interpretations.
Even so, the basic structure of the family-tree seems to be solid.
Pre-Uralic → Para-Uralic
Uralic → Samoyedic
↓
Finno-Ugric → Mansic
↓
Finno-Khantic → Khantic
↓
Finno-Permic → Permic
↓
Finno-Volgaic → Mariic
↓
Finno-Saamic → Saamic
↓
Finno-Mordvinic → Mordvinic
↓
Finnic & Para-Finnic
↓
Table. The organisation of the Uralic family tree: the binary alternative.
5. The dating of Proto-Uralic
There should, consequently, be no doubt that the age of Proto-Uralic is equal to
the time depth of the division between Samoyedic and Finno-Ugric. An exact
dating of this division will never be possible, but an approximate dating can
be, and has been, attempted on the basis of several circumstances. One way
is to proceed by trying to relate Proto-Uralic and the subsequent branchings
to archaeological cultures. This is the method chosen by Christian Carpelan
and Asko Parpola (2001), and it is potentially very informative, since archaeo-
logical cultures can not only be dated but also located. Unfortunately, for both
conceptual and definitional reasons, the entire framework of interpreting ar-
chaeological cultures in terms of linguistic identities is on a shaky ground. It is
66 JUHA JANHUNEN
well known from empirical evidence that cultural boundaries do not necessarily
correspond to linguistic boundaries. Also, archaeological cultures are typically
defined on the basis of a limited number of markers, which means that they do
not necessarily correspond to actual cultural spheres.
The archaeological approach to linguistic prehistory involves also territo-
rial and chronological problems. The farther back in time we go, the larger the
areas covered by archaeological cultures tend to be. Simplistically thinking, this
should mean that linguistic areas were larger in the past than they are today (or
in the period with historical documentation). This is why Carpelan and Par-
pola assume, for instance, that the Neolithic Comb Ceramic culture (5th to 4th
millennia BZ1) in north-western Eurasia, including Finland, was Proto-Uralic
speaking (cf. also Carpelan 2000: 15–16, 19–20). Unfortunately, this contradicts
the fact that the same territory has been historically occupied by a multitude of
different speech communities, mainly Uralic, but also non-Uralic. Quite obvi-
ously, the Comb Ceramic culture comprised at least a comparable variety of
languages, and it is impossible to tell whether any of these languages was Uralic
and, if so, in what part of the large territorial complex it would have been spoken.
Most importantly, however, archaeological cultures tend to be much too early to
correspond to what is otherwise known of the chronology of the linguistic map.
There is reason to agree with Petri Kallio (2006), who maintains that most dat-
ings in Uralic studies are traditionally too deep.
It is, consequently, reasonable to relate linguistic datings to linguistic facts
in the first place. Interestingly, however, as far as Proto-Uralic is concerned, lin-
guistic facts would seem to favour a very early dating. It cannot be an accident
that the vocabulary shared by the two primary branches of Uralic is not only
small in size but also qualitatively indicative of a rather ‘primitive’ cultural stage
(on this, cf., e.g., Kaisa Häkkinen 1998). In fact, the cultural vocabulary we know
from Proto-Uralic does not even represent a ‘Neolithic’ but, rather, a Mesolithic
stage of development (as was once pointed out to the present author in an oral
comment by Terho Itkonen). Thus, the Proto-Uralic lexicon comprises several
words for typical pre-Neolithic cultural innovations, including ‘bow’ (*yïngsi)
and ‘arrow’ (*nyïxli), ‘ski/s’ (*suksi), and ‘row’ (*suxi-). Other items connected
with the subsistence methods of a hunter-gatherer community include the words
for ‘fish’ (*kala), ‘egg’ (*muna), ‘nest’ (*pesa), as well as ‘hunt’ (*nyoxi-), while,
with the single exception of a word for ‘tame’ (*ïnyi, implying perhaps the keep-
ing of dogs), there is no indication of any kind of agriculture or cattle breeding,
nor of any major social innovations. The often-quoted item for ‘metal’ (*wäcka),
also discussed by Kallio (2006: 6–8), is not informative in this context due to the
1 BZ = Before Zero (‘Before Com mon Era’); AZ = After Zero (‘Common Era’).
PROTO-URALIC —WHAT, WHERE, AND WHEN? 67
possibility of internal and external loan contacts during the post-protolanguage
period.
At this point, it is important to reject one mistaken argument that has been
presented against the conventional Uralic family-tree. According to this, the
small size of the lexical corpus shared by Samoyedic and Finno-Ugric is ir-
relevant for diachronic conclusions, since, it is claimed, Samoyedic may have
undergone a process of ‘relexification’, in which it would have lost much of
its original Uralic vocabulary (cf., e.g., Salminen 2002: 52). This argument is
based on the fact that Samoyedic alone, when compared to the other branches of
Uralic, lacks many otherwise widespread basic words, including, for instance,
the Finno-Ugric words for ‘hand’ (*käti) and ‘head’ (*päxi). However, actual ex-
amples of ‘relexified’ languages, or ‘creoles’, suggest that a massive replacement
of basic vocabulary is always accompanied by grammatical restructuring, nor-
mally simplification. This is not the case with Samoyedic, which, by contrast, is
a conspicuously conservative branch of Uralic. As a matter of fact, Samoyedic
is in some morphological and phonological respects so similar to the likewise
conservative Finnic branch in the west that this has misled Ago Künnap (most
recently, 2008) to postulate secondary contacts or ‘language shifts’ between the
two extremities of the family.
The fact that the Finno-Ugric side may also have been innovative is shown
by lexical items such as those for ‘hare’ (Samoyedic *nyoxma vs. Finno-Ugric
*nyoxma-la, ultimately from *nyoxi- ‘hunt’) and ‘feather’ (Samoyedic *tuxli vs.
Finno-Ugric *tuxl-ka), in which the derived stem is present only in Finno-Ugric.
Nowhere is the Uralic family-tree so obvious, however, as in the numeral sys-
tem (Janhunen 2000: 60–61). For Proto-Uralic, only the items ‘2’ (*kekta) and
‘5’ > ‘10’ (*witi) can be reconstructed. The system was expanded separately in
Samoyedic and Finno-Ugric. In the latter branch, the items ‘3’ (*kormi) and ‘4’
(*nyelya), as well as ‘6’ (*kuti), are shared by all sub-branches, while the alterna-
tive shape of the item ‘3’ (> *kolmi) has a Finno-Khantic distribution. The item
‘2’ underwent a restructuring in the Finno-Permic sub-branch (> *kakta). The
remaining items were created separately in the lower-level sub-branches, includ-
ing Finno-Volgaic (‘8’, ‘9’) and Finno-Mordvinic (‘10’). It is important to stress
that the construction of the numeral system may quite well imply a simultaneous
evolution of the counting system, which is a culturally conditioned feature. Even
the Indo-European numeral system was still in the making at the deepest (Indo-
Hittite) level of the protolanguage (Bomhard 2008).
There is, consequently, a lexical basis for postulating a westward-branch-
ing hierarchy for Uralic. This hierarchy is also evident in the phonology and
morphology (not elaborated on here, but partially summarised in Sammallahti
1988). Although the time between the branchings must have varied, it is not un-
68 JUHA JANHUNEN
reasonable to assume that variation was not particularly great, especially since
the geographical distances between the branches are more or less equal. Let us,
therefore, tentatively assume that each branching took an average time of, say,
500 years to be completed. Starting from the west and assuming that Proto-
Finnic is located at a depth of 1500 before the present, we then get a succession of
increasingly deep datings for the earlier protolanguages: 2000 for Proto-Finno-
Mordvinic, 2500 for Proto-Finno-Saamic, 3000 for Proto-Finno-Volgaic, 3500
for Proto-Finno-Permic, 4000 for Proto-Finno-Khantic, 4500 for Proto-Finno-
Ugric, and 5000 for Proto-Uralic. It happens that this Proto-Uralic dating (3000
BZ) is surprisingly close to some of the datings established by other methods,
irrespective of whether they have been correct or not. It is, however, consider-
ably shallower than the wildest archaeological datings proposed.
6. The physical type of Uralic speakers
It may be concluded that there is no basis for the assumption that Samoyedic
would be any less Uralic in its lexical composition than the Finno-Ugric lan-
guages. On neither side is there any sign of massive ‘relexification’, and even if
there were, there would be no way of telling on which side, Samoyedic or Finno-
Ugric, the presumed ‘relexification’ would have taken place. The situation is,
incidentally, very similar when the physical features of Uralic speakers are con-
sidered. Uralic speakers, in general, represent a continuum in which western, or
‘European’, features are dominant at the Baltic Sea (Finnic), while eastern, or
‘Asian’, features are strongest in the east (Samoyedic). Since Samoyedic speak-
ers constitute a numerical minority of all Uralic speakers, it would be easy to
argue that they have ‘changed’ their genes, that is, that they actually represent
a physically different population, or a group of populations that once secondar-
ily adopted a Uralic language. There is, however, no way to show that this was
the case.
As a matter of fact, the physical continuum among Uralic speakers is rela-
tively smooth, meaning that speakers of the Uralic languages are congruous
with the trans-Eurasian continuum of populations occupying the region between
Fennoscandia (the Baltic region) and eastern Siberia (the Baikal region). This is
so irrespective of whether we are looking at those features described by classi-
cal anthropology or at the variation studied by modern molecular genetics. The
question as to what the ‘original’ physical type, or genetic composition, of any
given protolanguage-level speech community was cannot be easily answered
(for a critical survey, cf., e.g., Häkkinen 2007). Population genetics tells us what
the distribution of specific genetic markers is on the map, but for the time being,
PROTO-URALIC —WHAT, WHERE, AND WHEN? 69
at least, it does not give us reliable tools to specify the direction of movement
and absolute age of the underlying gene flows. Still less does it tell us what the
correlation between gene flows and languages might be. For the absolute dat-
ing of actual migrations in the past, palaeoanthropology and archaeology are
potentially more informative, but even they remain helpless when it comes to the
identification of linguistic correlations.
In the few cases where we have a relatively sharp boundary in the distribu-
tion of physical types among Uralic speakers we have to assume recent migra-
tions and/or language shifts. The best known example is offered by the modern
Saami, who, without a doubt, represent an originally non-Uralic-speaking popu-
lation in northern Fennoscandia. The expansion of Proto-Saamic to the physical
ancestors of the modern Saami is likely to have taken place very late on the time
scale, most probably only during the last millennium. In this process, Proto-
Saamic was divided into the modern Saamic languages, perhaps in a rough cor-
relation with the earlier linguistic map of the Saami area. Another example of
a sharp physical boundary is that between the western Tundra Nenets and their
Uralic-speaking neighbours, most importantly the northern Komi. The western
Tundra Nenets are clearly ‘Asian’ in their physical type, while the Komi are ba-
sically ‘European’. In this case, also, the contact zone between the two physical
types is very recent and is based on migrations which have brought the Asian
type (probably together with the Nenets language) to the west and the European
type (together with the Komi language) to the north.
As the physical difference between European and Asian population types
nevertheless seems to reflect an old dichotomy of human evolution in Eurasia,
it is possible that the Uralic language family, at some time, spread across a rel-
atively sharp ‘racial’ boundary. It is even likely that the original Proto-Uralic
population was ‘racially’ coherent, meaning that its dominant physical features
may have been either ‘European’ or ‘Asian’. There is, however, no easy way of
determining which of the two physical types was ‘originally’ connected with the
Uralic language family. This is an issue that is more closely connected with the
direction of expansion of the language family than with the numerical propor-
tions of the physical types among the modern Uralic-speaking populations. The
growth of speech communities depends on a variety of extra-linguistic factors,
including cultural and political circumstances. If only the numerical propor-
tions are considered, we would have to conclude that the original Uralic ‘type’
was close to that of the modern Hungarians. We know, however, that Hungarian
speakers represent a local complex of Central European physical types that are
also present among the speakers of neighbouring languages, including Roma-
nian, Serbian, and Slovak. There is hardly any Uralic-speaking population that
would be farther from the Proto-Uralic physical type than the Hungarians.
70 JUHA JANHUNEN
To take a similar example from another language family: Turkish is today
the ‘largest’ Turkic language in terms of the number of speakers. This could
be mistaken to imply that the modern Turks of Turkey represent the ‘original’
physical type of Turkic speakers. Nothing could be less true, however. In re-
ality, Turkic was until the latter half of the first millennium (AZ) spoken by
a predominantly ‘Asian’ population, which inhabited the region today known as
Mongolia. Due to demographic, cultural, and political circumstances the Turkic
languages spread across Central Eurasia as far as Turkey, whereas in Mongolia
itself they were marginalised by the expansion of the Mongolic language fam-
ily. We might say that the modern Mongols of Mongolia are more or less direct
descendants of the ancient Turks, while the modern Turks of Turkey represent
a more or less direct continuation of the old local population of Anatolia, which
historically has spoken a succession of non-Turkic languages, ranging from Hat-
tic and Hittite to Armenian and Byzantine Greek.
7. Locating the Uralic homeland
It follows from the preceding that Proto-Uralic must have been a language spo-
ken by a relatively small and geographically strictly localised speech commu-
nity whose members very probably represented a coherent physical type. This
type may have been either Asian or European, depending on where the speech
community was located and when it was dissolved. The cultural stage reflected
by the lexicon of Proto-Uralic speakers seems to have been ‘Mesolithic’, which
means that it may have been a question of a relatively ‘primitive’ and most prob-
ably non-settled hunter-gatherer community comprising no more than some
thousands of people, at most. However, once Proto-Uralic had started to expand,
the process seems to have become cumulative, with ever new branches and sub-
branches being generated until the modern family-tree had become complete.
Much of the territorial expansion of the Uralic language family must have
taken place by way of language shift, in which Uralic speech spread to popula-
tions that had earlier spoken other languages. Traces of the original non-Uralic
linguistic diversity can be discerned in the contact-induced structural and lexical
properties of the individual Uralic branches and languages. In fact, most modern
Uralic languages are likely to have been locally preceded by one non-Uralic sub-
strate language or more. In some cases, these substrate languages can be posi-
tively identified, often as Indo-European, while in others they remain unknown.
In the latter case, we may only generically speak of a diffuse ‘Palaeo-European’
(Saarikivi 2004; cf. also Aikio 2004) or, on the Asian side, ‘Palaeo-Asiatic’ sub-
strate influence. Irrespective of this, the secondary properties caused by sub-
PROTO-URALIC —WHAT, WHERE, AND WHEN? 71
strates and other types of language contact should not be confused with the
primary properties connected with the Uralic lineage. For purposes of genetic
linguistics, it is only the lineage that counts, since it represents the most ancient
and, in principle, invariant core of the language.
As has been pointed out above, it is a virtually hopeless task to try to lo-
cate the Uralic homeland with the help of non-linguistic disciplines, including
archaeology, palaeoanthropology, and population genetics. The available lin-
guistic tools, on the other hand, are also problematic, since linguistic material
is, in principle, independent of the geographical context. Potentially the most
informative method for locating the homeland would seem to be offered by lin-
guistic palaeontology. It has long been argued that, especially, dendronyms re-
quire the Uralic homeland to be placed rather far in the east, possibly on the
Siberian side of the Urals (Hajdú 1969: 257–258), the crucial argument being
provided by the Proto-Uralic item for ‘cedar’ (*sïksi). It may be recalled that the
typological orientation of the Uralic languages in the Ural-Altaic areal context
also favours the assumption of an ‘eastern’ homeland. Linguistic arguments in
favour of a ‘western’ homeland, located possibly as far west as the Baltic region,
are mainly based on alleged protolanguage-level lexical parallels between Uralic
and Indo-European (Koivulehto 2001 and elsewhere). Unfortunately, the paral-
lels in question are highly controversial (cf., e.g., Helimski 2001) and can hardly
serve as a basis for further conclusions, especially as the question concerning
the Indo-European homeland also remains unsettled.
The most uncontroversial information on the pre-historical location and
movements of Uralic on the map is, however, provided by the internal taxonomy
of the language family. The very fact that the branchings of Uralic seem to be-
come chronologically shallower the farther west we proceed suggests that the
main direction of expansion has been systematically from east to west. In other
words, the Uralic language family seems to have been formed as a more or
less binarily organised hierarchical chain, in which a new branch has always
been formed on the western side of the previous ancestral branch. By the classic
principle of linguistic geography this also has to mean that the deepest bound-
ary within the language family must correspond to the original location of the
first break-up, that is, the linguistic homeland. This criterion places the break-up
of Proto-Uralic in the region which historically forms the boundary between
Samoyedic and its immediate Finno-Ugric neighbours (Khantic and Mansic).
The region in question is the borderline between the Ob and Yenisei drainage
areas in Siberia, and until the contrary is shown, it qualifies as the most likely
candidate for the Uralic homeland.
To be exact, we do not know whether the first break-up of Proto-Uralic
also involved a westward-branching division, for it is also possible that Proto-
72 JUHA JANHUNEN
Samoyedic moved eastwards from the homeland, while Proto-Finno-Ugric re-
mained in the original location until it entered into its westward-branching his-
tory. It is, however, noteworthy that the subsequent geographical centre of the
Samoyedic languages is formed by the Minusinsk basin on the Upper Yenisei,
a compact region with an exceptionally well-documented sequence of archaeo-
logical cultures, extending from the Eneolithic Afanasievo culture (3500–2500
BZ) through the Bronze and Iron Age Okunevo (2500–2000 BZ), Andronovo
(2000–1500 BZ), Karasuk (1500–800 BZ), Tagar (800–100 BZ), and Tashtyk
(BZ 100–400 AZ) cultures up to the historical Yenisei Kirghiz (from 400 AZ),
Mongols (from 1300 AZ), and Russians (from 1700 AZ). This is a much more
specific record than anything established so far in the sparsely inhabited forest
zone between the Volga and the Baltic Sea, the traditional candidate for a ‘west-
ern’ homeland of Uralic.
Without going into the question concerning the possibility of a Proto-Uralic
presence in the Minusinsk basin, it is relatively safe to follow the ethnolinguistic
history of the region backwards to the arrival of Turkic (later Yenisei Turkic),
which ended the Tashtyk (or Hunnish) period in the region. The historical dis-
tribution of the local ethnolinguistic groups strongly suggests that the dominant
language in the Minusinsk basin before Turkic, that is, the language of the Tash-
tyk Culture, was Yeniseic (Proto-Yeniseic), while the dominant language before
Yeniseic, that is, the language of the Tagar Culture, must have been Samoyedic
(Proto-Samoyedic). Much speculation has been presented concerning the pos-
sible linguistic identities of the Karasuk, Andronovo, Okunevo, and Afanasievo
Cultures, but nothing certain can be said. Even so, the Indo-European elements
in Samoyedic suggest that some early eastern form of Indo-European (Proto-
Tocharian?) may have been present in the region either before Samoyedic or in
parallel with it (Janhunen 1983).
8. Uralic in time and place
Uralic is one of the relatively few (probably less than 100) reliably established
‘old’ language families of the world. The small size of the Uralic comparative
corpus, especially as far as the lexicon is concerned, suggests a relatively early
dating for the protolanguage. The cultural stage reflected by the shared lexicon
is even more indicative of a very early first break-up, possibly datable to the
Mesolithic level. The structure of the language family, as well as the available
palaeolinguistic evidence, suggests that its original homeland was located rela-
tively far to the north, probably within the boreal zone or, at least adjacent to
it, and relatively far to the east, probably on the Asiatic side of the Urals. The
PROTO-URALIC —WHAT, WHERE, AND WHEN? 73
protolanguage-level speech community may or may not have been dominated
by Asian physical features. The subsequent expansion of the language family
took place mainly by way of linguistic assimilation, in which process a number
of local populations with different cultural backgrounds and physical heritage
gradually became Uralic speaking.
Although the original number of Proto-Uralic speakers must have been
very small (hardly more than a few thousand, perhaps even less), the fact that
the language started to expand and became the source of cumulative branch-
ings suggests that there was an initial and recurrent edge that favoured linguis-
tic expansion. The crucial question is what this edge could have been. It was
certainly not demographic (bigger population), nor can it have been military
(stronger striking power). Very probably, it was not one of material culture
(more advanced technology), social structure (more effective organisation), or
spiritual heritage (more attractive traditions), either. As one possibility, Car-
pelan and Parpola (2001: 109–110) have pointed out the significance of trad-
ing, especially in the context of the so-called Bronze Age Seima-Turbino ‘trans-
cultural phenomenon’ (1800–1500 BZ), though in their model this becomes
relevant only in the Post-Proto-Uralic period. However, the edge may also sim-
ply have been a strategic position at the boundary between the forest and steppe
belts, or also in the vicinity of the southern end of the Urals, a region which
became one of the first sources (perhaps the very first source) of metal age
cultures in Eurasia.
Although the development of metal age technologies, as well as the rise of
agriculture and cattle breeding in Eurasia took place in linguistic environments
other than Uralic, Uralic speakers were never too far away from the centres of
cultural innovation, and their successful linguistic expansion in the northern
forest belt may well have been been related to their role as satellites of their
southern neighbours, many of whom spoke Indo-European languages. Typically,
most of the interaction between the two language families involved the influx
of Indo-European elements into Uralic, rather than vice versa. The material sug-
gests that contacts were initiated only in the Post-Proto-Uralic period and grew
stronger with time. It is no accident that the westernmost branches of Uralic, that
is, Finnic and Saamic, exhibit lexical traces of an almost complete succession
of Indo-European donor languages, ranging from Pre-Iranian through Iranian
to Baltic, Germanic, and Slavonic. Certainly, in spite of claims to the contrary
(Koivulehto 1983), none of the earlier layers of loanwords was received in the
current location of the Finnic and Saamic languages. Rather, the distribution
and diachronic properties of the borrowings reflect the geographical movement
of the ancestral forms of Finnic and Saamic across the forest belt between the
Urals and the Baltic Sea.
74 JUHA JANHUNEN
Considering the, presumably, very small size of many local populations
and speech communities, it is not unlikely that there were also cases of language
shift from Indo-European to Uralic. As the north-western branches of Indo-
European, especially Baltic and Germanic, continued their expansion towards
the west, their last remnants in the east may well have been absorbed by their
Uralic partners and satellites, especially Finnic and Saamic. Such a develop-
ment is especially likely to have taken place in the Volga-Ilmen-Ladoga region,
which must have lain on the trajectory of Indo-European expansion, but which
ultimately came to form the homeland of Finnic and Saamic. Much later, and
under somewhat different circumstances, Hungarian (of the Mansic branch) was
absorbed into the steppe under the impact of Turkic and transplanted into Pan-
nonia, where it replaced a number of earlier Indo-European languages. By this
time, Turkic itself had already replaced Indo-European in the Central Eurasian
steppe zone.
With the exception of Hungarian, the east-to-west geographical sequence
of the branches of Uralic, extending from the Baikal region to the Baltic Sea was
complete by the Iron Age (c. 2000 years ago). From this time on, the principal di-
rection of expansion of the Uralic languages has been from south to north. In this
process, most of the Uralic branches, notably Finnic, Saamic, Permic, Khantic,
Mansic, and Samoyedic, spread from their individual homeland regions north-
wards towards the Arctic coast, which they reached perhaps a millennium ago,
or later. In the case of Saamic and Samoyedic, the expansion continued horizon-
tally along the tundra belt, again mainly in an east-to-west direction. The north-
ern expansion of Uralic caused the extinction of an unknown number of earlier
languages, a process which may have ended only a few centuries ago (Helimski
2000). Development has been rapid, however, and some of the expansive Uralic
languages have themselves been extinguished by Russian, which forged its way
to the Arctic coast in the immediate footsteps of Uralic (especially Finnic).
Chronologically, Uralic remains ambiguous. On the one hand, it is obvious
that the modern locations of many present-day Uralic languages are very recent.
The south-to-north dimension of the Uralic language belt has a chronological
depth of less than two millennia, which is also the maximum age of the inter-
nal differentiation of most of the individual branches of Uralic. On the other
hand, the geographical length of the east-to-west chain and its systematically
westward-branching structure, as well as the Mesolithic cultural level reflected
by the Proto-Uralic lexical corpus, suggest a very early dating for the language
family as a whole. The external evidence provided by the earliest layers of Indo-
European loanwords (considering only uncontroversial data) also suggests that
the first split in Proto-Uralic took place very early, and in any case before con-
tacts with Indo-European were initiated. However, the Mesolithic, like the Neo-
PROTO-URALIC —WHAT, WHERE, AND WHEN? 75
lithic, can have widely different absolute datings in different parts of the world.
Assuming that the Proto-Uralic speakers were hunter-gatherers of the boreal
zone somewhere in Central Eurasia, who, due to their strategic position were
drawn into a process of linguistic expansion, it is possible to moderate the dat-
ings and place Proto-Uralic at a chronological level perhaps not so much earlier
than the earliest stage of Proto-Indo-European (Indo-Hittite).
Acknowledgements: Among the many colleagues who have contributed, di-
rectly or indirectly, to the formation of the ideas contained in the present report,
the author wishes to recognise his gratitude, in particular, to the late Eugene
Helimski (1950–2007). At the same time, the author wishes to stress that many
of the interpretations presented above are no longer as controversial or ‘counter-
revolutionary’ as they would have been only a few years ago. After a couple of
decades of intensive, and certainly useful, disputes and revisions of the para-
digm, several crucial issues concerning time and place in Uralic studies are now
approaching a new level of consensus, especially among younger scholars, as
summarised by Jaakko Häkkinen (2009), with whose conclusions the present
author largely agrees.
References
Abondolo, Daniel 1998: Introduction. – Daniel Abondolo (ed.), The Uralic Lan-
guages. Routledge Language Family Descriptions. London – New York:
Routledge. 1–42.
Aikio, Ante 2002: New and old Samoyed etymologies. – Finnisch-Ugrische
Forschungen 57: 9–57.
Aikio, Ante 2004: An essay on substrate studies and the origin of Saami. – Ir-
ma Hyvärinen, Petri Kallio & Jarmo Korhonen (eds.), Etymologie, Ent-
lehnungen und Entwicklungen. Festschrift für Jorma Koivulehto zum 70.
Geburtstag. Mémoires de la Société Néophilologique de Helsinki 63. Hel-
sinki. 5–34.
Aikio, Ante 2006: New and old Samoyed etymologies (Part 2). – Finnisch-
Ugrische Forschungen 59: 9–34.
Anthony, David W. 1995: Horse, wagon and chariot: Indo-European languages
and archaeology. – Antiquity 69: 554–565.
Bancel, J. Pierre & l’Etang, Alain Matthey de 2008: The millenial persistence of
Indo-European and Eurasiatic pronouns and the origin of nominals. – John
D. Bengtson (ed.), 439–464.
76 JUHA JANHUNEN
Bengtson, John D. 2008: The languages of northern Eurasia: Inference to the
best explanation. – John D. Bengtson (ed.), 241–262.
Bengtson, John D. (ed.) 2008: In Hot Pursuit of Language in Prehistory: Essays
in the four fields of anthropology. In honor of Harold Crane Fleming.
Amsterdam – Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Bomhard, Allan 2008: Some thoughts on the Proto-Indo-European cardinal
numerals. – John D. Bengtson (ed.), 213–221.
Carpelan, Christian 2000: Essay on archaeology and languages in the Western
end of the Uralic zone. – Congressus Nonus Internationalis Fenno-Ugrista-
rum. Pars I. Tartu. 7–38.
Carpelan, Christian & Parpola, Asko 2001: Emergence, contacts and dispersal
of Proto-Indo-European, Proto-Uralic and Proto-Aryan in archaeological
perspective. – Christian Carpelan, Asko Parpola & Petteri Koskikallio
(eds.), 55–150.
Carpelan, Christian & Asko Parpola & Petteri Koskikallio (eds.) 2001: Early
Contacts between Uralic and Indo-European: Linguistic and Archaeologi-
cal considerations. Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 242. Hel-
sinki.
Dolgix 1960 = Долгих, Б. О.: Родовой и племенной состав народов Сибири
в XVII в. Труды Института этнографии 55. Москва.
Grünthal, Riho & Johanna Laakso (eds.) 1998: Oekeeta asijoo: Commentationes
Fenno-Ugricae in honorem Seppo Suhonen sexagenarii. Mémoires de la
Société Finno-Ougrienne 228. Helsinki.
Hajdú, Péter 1969: Finnougrische Urheimatforschung. – Ural-Altaische Jahr-
bücher 41: 252–264.
Häkkinen, Jaakko 2006: Uralilaisen kantakielen tutkiminen. – Tieteessä tapah-
tuu 2006: 1: 52–58.
Häkkinen, Jaakko 2007: Jälleen suomalaisten juurilla. – Tieteessä tapahtuu
2007: 6: 53–64.
Häkkinen, Jaakko 2009: Kantauralin ajoitus ja paikannus: perustelut puntarissa.
– Journal de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 92: 9–56.
Häkkinen, Kaisa 1984: Wäre es schon an der Zeit, den Stammbaum zu fällen?
Theorien über die gegenseitigen Verwandtschaftsbeziehungen der fin-
nisch-ugrischen Sprachen. – Ural-Altaische Jahrbücher 32: 1–4.
Häkkinen, Kaisa 1998: Uralilainen muinaiskulttuuri sanahistorian valossa.
– Riho Grünthal & Johanna Laakso (eds.), 188–194.
Hashimoto Mantaro J. 1986: The Altaicization of Northern Chinese. – John
McCoy & Timothy Light (eds.), Contributions to Sino-Tibetan Studies.
Cornell Linguistic Contributions 5. Leiden: Brill. 76–97.
PROTO-URALIC —WHAT, WHERE, AND WHEN? 77
Helimski, Eugene 2000: Before the Uralians came: White spots on the historical
language map of Northern Eurasia and the Uralic languages. – Congressus
Nonus Internationalis Fenno-Ugristarum. Pars II. Tartu. 72–73.
Helimski, Eugene 2001: Early Indo-Uralic linguistic relationships. – Christian
Carpelan, Asko Parpola & Petteri Koskikallio (eds.), 187–205.
Honti, László 1998: Ugrilainen kantakieli – erheellinen vai reaalinen hypoteesi?
– Riho Grünthal & Johanna Laakso (eds.), 176–187.
Janhunen, Juha 1977: Samojedischer Wortschatz: Gemeinsamojedische Etymo-
logien. Castrenianumin toimitteita 17. Helsinki.
Janhunen, Juha 1983: On early Indo-European-Samoyed contacts. – Juha Jan-
hunen, Anneli Peräniitty & Seppo Suhonen (eds.), 115–127.
Janhunen, Juha 1996: Manchuria: An Ethnic History. Mémoires de la Société
Finno-Ougrienne 222. Helsinki.
Janhunen, Juha 2000: Reconstructing Pre-Proto-Uralic: Spanning the millennia
of linguistic evolution. – Congressus Nonus Internationalis Fenno-Ugrista-
rum. Pars I. Tartu. 59–76.
Janhunen, Juha 2001: Indo-Uralic and Ural-Altaic: On the diachronic impli-
cations of areal typology. – Christian Carpelan, Asko Parpola & Petteri
Koskikallio (eds.), 207–220.
Janhunen, Juha 2007: Typological interaction in the Qinghai Linguistic Com-
plex. – Studia Orientalia 101. Helsinki. 85–103.
Janhunen, Juha (forthcoming): Language and the search for identity: M. A.
Castrén and the rise of the Uralic concept, 1800–1880. – Michael Branch
(ed.), [Proceedings of the conference:] Research and Identity: Non-Russian
Peoples in the Russian Empire, 1800–1855 [Kouvola, 2006]. [To appear in
the series:] Studia Fennica. Helsinki.
Janhunen, Juha & Anneli Peräniitty & Seppo Suhonen (eds.) 1983: Sympo-
sium Saeculare Societatis Fenno-Ugricae. Mémoires de la Société Finno-
Ougrienne 185. Helsinki.
Kallio, Petri 2006: Suomen kantakielten absoluuttista kronologiaa. – Virittäjä
110: 2–25.
Koivulehto, Jorma 1983: Seit wann leben die Urfinnen im Ostseeraum? Zur
relativen und absoluten Chronologie der alten idg. Lehnwortschichten im
Ostseefinnischen. – Juha Janhunen & Anneli Peräniitty & Seppo Suhonen
(eds.), 135–157.
Koivulehto, Jorma 2001: The earliest contacts between Indo-European and
Uralic speakers in the light of lexical loans. – Christian Carpelan, Asko
Parpola & Petteri Koskikallio (eds.), 235–263.
Korhonen, Mikko 1974: Oliko suomalais-ugrilainen kantakieli agglutinoiva?
– Virittäjä 78: 243–257.
78 JUHA JANHUNEN
Kortlandt, Fredrik 2006: Indo-Uralic and Altaic. – http://www.kortlandt.nl/
publications/art216e.pdf.
Kortlandt, Fredrik 2008: Indo-Uralic and Altaic revisited. – http://www.
orientalistik.uni-mainz.de/robbeets/verbalmor phv14/_Media/abs_
kortland.pdf.
Künnap, Ago 2008: On the Finnic and Samoyedic accusative plural. – Lin-
guistica Uralica 40: 34–40. [http://www.ceeol.com/aspx/getdocument.
aspx?logid=5&id=e218d4f4-a7e6-4b32-8554-7f1adb7ba3ee]
Lehtiranta, Juhani 1989: Yhteissaamelainen sanasto. Mémoires de la Société
Finno-Ougrienne 200. Helsinki.
Marcantonio, Angela 2002: The Uralic Language Family: Facts, Myths and
Statistics. Publications of the Philological Society 35. Oxford: Blackwell
Publishers.
Michalove, Peter A. 2002: The classification of the Uralic languages: Lexical
evidence from Finno-Ugric. – Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen 57: 58–67.
Nichols, Johanna 2001: Why “me” and “thee”? – Laurel J. Brinton (ed.), Histori-
cal Linguistics 1999. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 253–276.
Pusztay, János 1995: Diskussionsbeiträge zur Grundsprachenforschung
(Beispiel: das Protouralische). Veröffentlichungen der Societas Uralo-
Altaica 43. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
Rédei, Károly 1999: Zu den uralisch-jukagirischen Sprachkontakten. – Fin-
nisch-Ugrischen Forschungen 55: 1–58.
Saarikivi, Janne 2004: Is there Palaeo-European substratum interference in
western branches of Uralic? – Journal de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 90:
187–214.
Salminen, T[apani] 2002: Problems in the taxonomy of the Uralic languages in
the light of modern comparative studies. – Лингвистический беспредел.
Сборник статей к 70-летию А. И. Кузнецовой. Москва: Издательство
Московского университета. 44–55.
Sammallahti, Pekka 1988: Historical phonology of the Uralic languages with
special reference to Samoyed, Ugric, and Permic. – Denis Sinor (ed.), The
Uralic Languages: Description, History and Foreign Influences. Hand-
buch der Orientalistik VIII, 1. Leiden: E. J. Brill. 478–554.
Wiik, Kalevi 2004: Suomalaisten juuret. – Tieteessä tapahtuu 2004: 6: 28–34.