• Enets (Yenets, Yenisei-Samoyed) — Nearly extinct
• Nenets (Yurak)
• Nganasan (Tavgy, Tavgi, Tawgi, Tawgi-Samoyed)
• Yurats

• Kamassian (Kamas) — Extinct (20th century)
• Mator (Motor) — Extinct (19th century)
• Selkup (Ostyak-Samoyed) Finno-Ugric

• Hungarian (Magyar)
  • Hungarian
• Ob Ugric (Ob Ugrian)
  • Khanty (Ostyak)
  • Mansi (Vogul)
• Finno-Permic (Permian-Finnic)
  • Permic (Permian)
    • Komi (Komi-Zyrian, Zyrian)
    • Komi-Permyak
    • Udmurt (Votyak)
  • Finno-Volgaic (Finno-Cheremisic, Finno-Mari, Volga-Finnic)
    • Mari (Cheremisic)
      • Mari (Cheremis)
    • Mordvinic (Mordvin, Mordvinian)
      • Erzya
      • Moksha
    • Extinct Finno-Volgaic languages of uncertain position
      • Merya (17th century)
      • Muromian
      • Meshcherian
    • Finno-Lappic (Finno-Saamic, Finno-Samic)
      • Sami (Samic, Saamic, Lappic, Lappish)
        • Western Sami (Western Samic)
          • Southern Sami
          • Ume Sami — Nearly extinct
          • Lule Sami
          • Pite Sami — Nearly extinct
          • Northern Sami
        • Eastern Sami (Eastern Samic)
          • Kainuu Sami — Extinct
          • Kemi Sami — Extinct
          • Inari Sami
          • Akkala Sami — Extinct (21st century)
          • Kildin Sami
          • Skolt Sami
          • Ter Sami — Nearly extinct
        • Baltic-Finnic (Balto-Finnic, Balto-Fennic, Finnic, Fennic)
          • Estonian
            • South Estonian (including Mulgi and Tartu)
              • Võro (Voro, Võru, Voru; including Seto or Setu)
            • Finnish (including Meänkieli or Tornedalian Finnish, Kven Finnish, and Ingrian Finnish)
            • Ingrian (Izhorian) — Nearly extinct
            • Karelian
              • Karelian proper
              • Lude (Ludic, Ludian)
              • Olonets Karelian (Livvi, Aunus, Aunus Karelian, Olonetsian)
            • Livonian (Liv) — Nearly extinct
            • Veps (Vepsian)
            • Votic (Votian, Vod) — Nearly extinct
      The term Volgaic, used to denote a branch previously believed to include Mari and Mordvinic, has now become obsolete. Modern linguistic research has shown that it was a geographic classification rather than a linguistic one. The Mordvinic languages are more closely related to the Finno-Lappic languages than they're to the Mari languages.

      Typology

      Structural characteristics generally said to be typical of Uralic languages include:
      
    • extensive use of independent suffixes, a.k.a. agglutination.
    • a large set of grammatical cases (13–14 cases on average; mainly coincidental: Proto-Uralic had 6 cases), for example:
      
      • Erzya: 12 cases
      • Estonian: 14 cases (and one is still under some debate)
      • Finnish: 15 cases
      • Hungarian: 18 cases (and some more case-like suffixes)
      • Inari Sami: 9 cases
      • Komi: in certain dialects as many as 27 cases
      • Moksha: 13 cases
      • Nenets: 7 cases
      • North Sami: 6 cases
      • Udmurt: 16 cases
      • Veps: 24 cases
    • unique Uralic case system, from which all modern Uralic languages derive their case systems.
      • nominative singular has no case suffix.
      • accusative and genitive suffixes are nasal sounds (-n, -m, etc.)
      • three-way distinction in the local case system, with each set of local cases being divided into forms corresponding roughly to "from", "to", and "in/at"; especially evident, for example, in Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian, which have several sets of local cases, such as the "inner", "outer" and "on top" systems in Hungarian, while in Finnish the "on top" forms have merged to the "outer" forms.
      • Uralic locative suffix exists in all Uralic languages in various cases, for example, Hungarian superessive, Finnish essive, North Sami essive, Erzyan inessive, and Nenets locative.
      • Uralic lative suffix exists in various cases in many Uralic languages, for example, Hungarian illative, Finnish lative, Erzyan illative, Komi approximative, and Northern Sami locative.
    • vowel harmony (recently lost in standard Estonian, but exists in dialects).
    • a lack of grammatical gender.
    • negative verb, which exists in almost all Uralic languages, for example, Nganasan, Enets, Nenets, Kamassian, Komi, Meadow Mari, Erzya (in the first preterite, the conjunctional, optative and imperative moods, sometimes there are alterations in choice of negative verb stems), North Sami (and other Samic languages), Finnish, Estonian, Karelian, etc. (Some innovative languages have lost this feature, for example, Hungarian.)
    • palatalization of consonants; in this context, palatalization means a secondary articulation, where the middle of the tongue is tense. For example, pairs like [ɲ] - [n], or [c] - [t] are contrasted in Hungarian, as in hattyú [hɒccuː] "swan". Some Sami languages, for example Skolt Sami, distinguish three degrees: plain [l], palatalized <'l> [lʲ], and palatal [ʎ], where <'l> has a primary alveolar articulation, while has a primary palatal articulation. Original Uralic palatalization is phonemic, independent of the following vowel and traceable to the 6000-year-old Proto-Uralic. It is different from Russian palatalization, which is of more recent origin. Baltic-Finnic languages have lost palatalization, but eastern varieties have reacquired it, so Baltic-Finnic palatalization (where extant) was originally dependent on the following vowel.
    • lack of phonologically contrastive tone.
    • lots of postpositions (prepositions are very rare).
    • basic vocabulary of about 200 words, including body parts (for example, eye, heart, head, foot, mouth), family members (for example, father, mother-in-law), animals (for example, viper, partridge, fish), nature objects (for example, tree, stone, nest, water), basic verbs (for example, live, fall, run, make, see, suck, go, die, swim, know), basic pronouns (for example, who, what, we, you, I), numerals (for example, two, five); derivatives increase the number of common words.
    • possessive suffixes.
    • no possessive pronouns.
    • dual, which exists, for example, in the Samoyedic, Ob Ugrian and Samic languages.
    • plural markers -j (i) and -t (-d) have a common origin (for example, in Finnish, Estonian, Erzya, Samic languages, Samoyedic languages). Hungarian, however, has -i- before the possessive suffixes and -k elsewhere. In the old orthographies, the plural marker -k was also used in the Samic languages.
    • 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, for example "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".
    • expressions that include a numeral are singular if they refer to things which form a single group, for example, "négy csomó" in Hungarian, "njeallje čuolmma" in Northern Sami, "neli sõlme" in Estonian, and "neljä solmua" in Finnish, each of which means "four knots", but the literal approximation is "four knot". (This approximation is inaccurate for Finnish and Estonian, where the singular is in the partitive case, such that the number points to a part of a larger mass, like "four of knot(s)".)
    • the stress is always on the first syllable, except for the Mari, Udmurt and Komi-Permyak languages. The Erzya language can vary its stress in words to give specific nuances to sentential meaning.

Selected cognates

Bibliography

External results