Ugro-Finnish language group. Finno-Ugric group of languages. What to read about Finno-Ugric peoples and Finno-Ugric mythology

FINNO-UGRIAN LANGUAGES, one of two branches of the Uralic family of languages (along with Samoyedic). Finno-Ugric languages are spoken in parts of eastern Europe and northern Asia. They are divided into two large groups: Finnish-Permian and Ugric. The Ugric languages include: Hungarian, Mansi (Vogul) and Khanty (Ostyak); each of them consists of several dialects. Finno-Permian languages are divided into two groups: Permian, which includes the Komi-Zyryan, Komi-Permyak and Udmurt (Votyak) languages, and Finno-Volga, which includes four subgroups: Baltic-Finnish, Mari, Mordovian and Sami. The Baltic-Finnish subgroup includes Finnish (Suomi), Estonian and several other minor languages.

Of the approximately 24 million speakers of Finno-Ugric languages, about half speak Hungarian; these are residents of Hungary and its surrounding areas. The emergence of Hungarian writing dates back to the 13th century, the first written monument, Halotti Beszed (Eulogy), is a valuable linguistic source. Finnish, the main representative of the Finnish subgroup of languages, is used in Finland, Sweden, Estonia and Russia; its written tradition begins with the translation of the Bible by Mikhail Agricola in 1542. Mansi (Vogul) and Khanty (Ostyak) are spoken in the Ob River region, ca. 5 thousand in Mansi and approx. 25 thousand - in Khanty. Komi and Udmurt are spoken in the northeast of European Russia, as well as somewhat further south, between the Vyatka and Kama rivers. Komi is spoken approx. 356 thousand people, in Udmurt - approx. 546 thousand Mari (whose number is approximately 540 thousand) are divided into two groups living on the right and left banks of the upper Volga. To the south of the Mari live the Mordovians (Mordovians), whose number is approx. 1.2 million people In the northern regions of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia, especially on the Kola Peninsula, live the Laplanders (Sami), who speak the Sami language, the relationship of which with related languages is one of the mysteries of the Finno-Ugric languages.

Attempts were made to establish the relationship of the Uralic family of languages with other language families - Altaic, Yukaghir, Indo-European and even with Japanese and Dravidian languages. Thus, some structural similarities were discovered between the Altai languages (primarily Turkic), on the one hand, and the Finno-Ugric languages, on the other. In particular, the presence of vowel harmony was noted both in the Turkic and in some - although not all - Finno-Ugric languages. The study of Finno-Ugric languages is of great importance not only for linguistics, but also for folklore and comparative literature. According to the Nostratic hypothesis, developed by Russian scientists (V.M. Illich-Svitych, V.A. Dybo, S.A. Starostin, etc.) since the mid-1960s, the Uralic family of languages is part of the so-called Nostratic macrofamily - which also includes Indo-European, Afroasiatic, Kartvelian, Dravidian and Altaic languages.

And others were not successful, although some scientists believe that certain similar features of a systemic nature indicate the existence of a Nostratic proto-language (see Nostratic languages), genetically uniting Uralic (Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic), Indo-European, Altai, Dravidian, Yukaghir and others languages.

Ugh. I. distributed in an area whose extreme borders are the Ob basin in the east, the northern part of Norway in the north, the territory of Hungary in the west and the northern part of Yugoslavia in the south. Toponymy and hydronymy indicate more extensive areas of distribution of individual Finno-Ugric peoples in the past: Karelians lived in territories reaching the Northern Dvina, where individual Komi settlements also reached; traces of Mordovian settlements, reflected in toponymy, are in the Gorky, Penza and Ryazan regions; the territory occupied by the Ob-Ugric peoples and the Sami was more extensive.

As a result of research by E. N. Setälä, J. Sinnei, E. Beke, D. R. Fokosh-Fuchs, M. Zhirai, V. Steinitz, L. Kettunen, B. Collinder, E. Itkonen, D. V. Bubrikh , V.I. Lytkin and others, the main contours of the phonetic and grammatical structure of the Finno-Ugric proto-language were determined. The vowels of the first syllable included phonemes: palatal (front row) a, e, ü, i, velar (back row) a, o, u. It is possible that there was also a velar vowel e̮. Among the middle and high vowels listed were the long vowels ē, ī, ō, ū (presumably e̮). Beyond the first syllable there could only be short vowels - three non-labialized vowels: α, ä, e (possibly also e̮). There was vowel harmony (see Synharmonism). The composition of consonants is described: č̣, č′ (ć), δ, δ′, j, k, l, l′, m, n̥, ń, ŋ, p, r, s, ś, š, t, w. Voiced consonants, as well as δ and ŋ, did not occur at the beginning of the word. In Finno-Ugric studies, there are two theories about the composition of the original vowel system. According to Steinitz, vowels were divided into 2 groups: vowels of full formation - a, ɔ (open o̮), o, u, i̮, ä, e, i; reduced vowels - ŏ, ĕ, ö, presumably (ä). Scientists of the Finnish school (Itkonen), on the contrary, believe that the vowels of the Finno-Ugric proto-language were long and short. Proto-Finnish-Ugric vocalism was, in their opinion, identical to Baltic-Finnish vocalism.

The degree of similarity between languages belonging to the same group varies. The Sami language, with its numerous dialects, gravitates towards the Baltic-Finnish languages, although it is not included in this branch. The difference between the languages of the Volga branch is quite large. The Hungarian language is very different from its related Ob-Ugric languages. Understanding between speakers of the Udmurt language and the Komi language is excluded. Some dialects of the Khanty language are related to each other more like related languages than as dialects.

Ugh. I. reveal many features that indicate the commonality of their origin: common layers of vocabulary, material similarity of inflectional and word-formative formatives, the presence of possessive suffixes, a significant number of suffixes expressing the repetition or instantaneity of an action, etc. At the same time, some modern phraseology . I. are very unique. People with pronounced agglutinating languages (Perm, Mordovian languages, Mari), there are languages with highly developed elements of inflection, especially the Sami language and to a certain extent Baltic-Finnish, there are various types of stress - different places and on the first, last and penultimate syllables. There are languages that are distinguished by their richness of vowels and diphthongs, such as Finnish; Other languages have many different types of consonants and few diphthongs, such as Permian. The total number of cases ranges from 3 (Khanty language) to 20 or more (Hungarian language). The systems of past tenses are typologically different. In the Finnish and Estonian languages, the system of past tenses is the same type as the system of past tenses in the Latvian language (some scientists incorrectly believe that it is with the corresponding system in the Germanic languages), while in the Mari and Permian languages it resembles the Tatar and Chuvash system. The Mordovian languages have a complex system of moods, while other languages mainly represent the conditional mood. Negation of a verb in a series of F.‑u. I. is expressed by forms of a specifically negative verb, but there are languages where negation of the verb is expressed by negative particles (Ugric and Estonian languages).

Big differences are observed in the syntax. In the Baltic-Finnish, Sami, Hungarian, Mordovian and Komi-Zyrian languages there is a strong influence of Indo-European languages - Swedish, German and Russian, especially in the methods of constructing complex subordinate clauses, while in the Ob-Ugric and partly in the Udmurt and Mari languages, some archaic ones are preserved features that typologically bring the syntax of these languages closer to the syntax of the Turkic languages.

Languages of the Peoples of the USSR, vol. 3, M., 1966;
Fundamentals of Finno-Ugric linguistics, c. 1-3, M., 1974-76;
Hajdu P., Ural languages and peoples, trans. from Hungary, M., 1985;
Collinder B., Comparative grammar of the Uralic languages, Stockh., 1960;
Haidú P., Finnugor népék és nyelvek, Budapest, 1962;
Decsy Gy., Einführung in die finnisch-ugrische Sprachwissenschaft, Wiesbaden, 1965.

B. A. Serebrennikov.

Finno-Ugric languages(there is also an option Finno-Ugric listen)) is a group of related languages that form a branch within the Uralic language family. Distributed in Hungary, Norway, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Estonia and other countries.

History of the study

The Ural peoples are first mentioned in the "Germania" of the ancient Roman historian Publius Cornelius Tacitus, where the Fenni people (usually identified as the ancient Sami) and two supposedly Finno-Ugric tribes living in remote regions of Scandinavia are spoken of.

All the languages that make up the Finno-Ugric family were already known by 1770, that is, 20 years before the advent of Indo-European studies. However, the research results were not immediately recognized. In particular, a theory was widespread among the Hungarian intelligentsia about the connection of the Hungarians with the Turkic tribes, which was characterized by Rühlen in 1987 as a consequence of the "wild and uncontrollable romanticism of the era." And yet, despite the hostile attitude, the Hungarian Jesuit János Szajnowicz in 1770 suggested a connection between the Hungarian and Lapland (Sami) languages. In 1799, a Hungarian Shamuel Gyarmati published the results of the most comprehensive study of Finno-Ugric languages at that time.

In many Finno-Ugric languages, possessive adjectives and pronouns such as “my” or “your” are rarely used. Possession is expressed by declension. In those languages that have developed towards inflectional language, a personal pronoun in the genitive case is used to express possession. For example, "my dog" in Estonian mu koer, in spoken Finnish mun koira, in Northern Sami mu beana(literally “dog me”) or beatnagan(literally “my dog”), in the Komi language - I don't mind(my dog) or I'm sorry.

Other languages use suffixes for this, sometimes together with a genitive pronoun: "my dog" in Finnish minun koirani(literally “my dog is mine”), from the word koira- dog. Also in the Mari language we drink, from the word Pius- dog. In Hungarian, pronouns in the nominative case can be added to a word with a possessive suffix. For example, "dog" - kutya, "my dog" - az en kutyam(literally “(this) I am my dog”, az- definite article) or simply a kutyam(literally “(this) dog is my”). However, there are also independent possessive pronouns in Hungarian: enyem(my), Tied(yours), etc. They can also decline, e.g. enyem(name) enyémet(vin. p.), enyemnek(dat. p.), etc. These pronouns are used as a nominal predicate: it would be incorrect to say enyem kutya, but to the question Kié ez a kutya?(“Whose dog is this?”) can be answered Ez a kutya az enyém(“This dog is mine”) or simply Az enyem("My").

Classification

The Finno-Ugric languages usually include the following groups and languages:

Ugric subbranch
- Ob-Ugric group in Western Siberia
  - Khanty language (Ob-Ostyak)
  - Mansi language (Vogul), each of which is divided into a large number of adverbs (possibly separate languages).

Finno-Permian subbranch
- Perm group
  - Komi language with three literary variants:
- Finno-Volga group
  - Mari subgroup
    - Mountain Mari language (Western)
  - Mordovian subgroup
    - Moksha-Mordovian language (Moksha)
    - Erzya-Mordovian language (Erzyan)
  - Finno-Volga languages, the exact place of which in the classification is unclear:
    - Murom language †
    - Meryan language †
    - Meshchera language †
  - Baltic-Finnish subgroup (Finnish)
    - Northern subbranch
      - Finnish language
    - Eastern subbranch
    - Southern subbranch
      - Northern Estonian language (Estonian proper)
      - South Estonian language
      - Livonian language - northwestern Latvia (Kurzeme)
  - Sami subgroup
    - Western Sami cluster
      - South Sami language - Norway and Sweden
      - Ume Sami language (uume) - Norway and Sweden
      - Lule Sami language (Luule) - Norway and Sweden
      - Pite Sami language (Pite) - Norway and Sweden
      - Northern Sami language - Norway, Sweden and Finland
    - Eastern Sami cluster
      - Babinsky Sami language (Akkala) † - Russia
      - Kemi-Sami language † – Sami people of central Finland
      - Inari Sami language - Finland
      - Yokang-Sami language (Tersk-Sami) - Russia
      - Kildin Sami language - Russia
      - Koltta Sami language (Skolt, including the Notozero dialect in Russia)

The origin of the now extinct Bi-Army a language spoken by the Biarm people, who previously lived at the mouth of the Northern Dvina and on the eastern coast of the White Sea, and which undoubtedly belonged to the Finnish languages. Some linguists, based on information from the Norwegian sagas that “the language of the Biarmians is similar to the language of the Forest Finns,” consider it the language of the Balto-Finnic group, others, based on the similarity of the names “Biarmia” and “Perm,” consider the Biarmian language to be the language of the Permian groups, or generally identify the chronicle Biarms with the currently existing Komi-Permyaks. Recently, science has begun to establish an opinion about a special Northern Finnish group of Finno-Ugric peoples, to which the Finns of Zavolochye, including the Biarmians, belonged (A.G. Edovin).

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Literature

Fundamentals of Finno-Ugric linguistics: Issues of the origin and development of Finno-Ugric languages. - M.: Nauka, 1974. - 484 p.
Historical and typological studies on Finno-Ugric languages. / Rep. ed. B. A. Serebrennikov. - M.: Nauka, 1978.
Napolskikh V.V.- Izhevsk:, 1997. - ISBN 5-7691-0671-9

Notes

Finno-Ugric languages



Finno-Permian languages

Perm

Finno-Volga

Baltic-Finnish

Sami

Ugric

Hungarian

Ob-Ugric

An excerpt characterizing the Finno-Ugric languages

Boris did not succeed in marrying a rich bride in St. Petersburg and he came to Moscow for the same purpose. In Moscow, Boris was indecisive between the two richest brides - Julie and Princess Marya. Although Princess Marya, despite her ugliness, seemed more attractive to him than Julie, for some reason he felt awkward courting Bolkonskaya. On her last meeting with her, on the old prince’s name day, to all his attempts to talk to her about feelings, she answered him inappropriately and obviously did not listen to him.
Julie, on the contrary, although in a special way peculiar to her, willingly accepted his courtship.
Julie was 27 years old. After the death of her brothers, she became very rich. She was now completely ugly; but I thought that she was not only just as good, but even much more attractive than she was before. She was supported in this delusion by the fact that, firstly, she became a very rich bride, and secondly, that the older she became, the safer she was for men, the freer it was for men to treat her and, without taking on any obligations, take advantage of her dinners, evenings and the lively company that gathered at her place. A man who ten years ago would have been afraid to go every day to the house where there was a 17-year-old young lady, so as not to compromise her and tie himself down, now went to her boldly every day and treated her not as a young bride, but as a acquaintance who has no gender.
The Karagins' house was the most pleasant and hospitable house in Moscow that winter. In addition to parties and dinners, every day a large company gathered at the Karagins, especially men, who dined at 12 o'clock in the morning and stayed until 3 o'clock. There was no ball, party, or theater that Julie missed. Her toilets were always the most fashionable. But, despite this, Julie seemed disappointed in everything, telling everyone that she did not believe in friendship, nor in love, nor in any joys of life, and expected peace only there. She adopted the tone of a girl who had suffered great disappointment, a girl as if she had lost a loved one or had been cruelly deceived by him. Although nothing of the sort happened to her, they looked at her as if she were one, and she herself even believed that she had suffered a lot in life. This melancholy, which did not prevent her from having fun, did not prevent the young people who visited her from having a pleasant time. Each guest, coming to them, paid his debt to the melancholy mood of the hostess and then engaged in small talk, dancing, mental games, and Burime tournaments, which were in fashion with the Karagins. Only some young people, including Boris, delved deeper into Julie’s melancholic mood, and with these young people she had longer and more private conversations about the vanity of everything worldly, and to them she opened her albums covered with sad images, sayings and poems.
Julie was especially kind to Boris: she regretted his early disappointment in life, offered him those consolations of friendship that she could offer, having suffered so much in life, and opened her album to him. Boris drew two trees in her album and wrote: Arbres rustiques, vos sombres rameaux secouent sur moi les tenebres et la melancolie. [Rural trees, your dark branches shake off darkness and melancholy on me.]
Elsewhere he drew a picture of a tomb and wrote:
"La mort est secourable et la mort est tranquille
“Ah! contre les douleurs il n"y a pas d"autre asile".
[Death is salutary and death is calm;
ABOUT! against suffering there is no other refuge.]
Julie said it was lovely.
“II y a quelque chose de si ravissant dans le sourire de la melancolie, [There is something infinitely charming in the smile of melancholy," she said to Boris word for word, copying this passage from the book.
– C"est un rayon de lumiere dans l"ombre, une nuance entre la douleur et le desespoir, qui montre la consolation possible. [This is a ray of light in the shadows, a shade between sadness and despair, which indicates the possibility of consolation.] - To this Boris wrote her poetry:
"Aliment de poison d"une ame trop sensible,
"Toi, sans qui le bonheur me serait impossible,
"Tendre melancolie, ah, viens me consoler,
“Viens calmer les tourments de ma sombre retraite
"Et mele une douceur secrete
"A ces pleurs, que je sens couler."
[Poisonous food for an overly sensitive soul,
You, without whom happiness would be impossible for me,
Tender melancholy, oh, come and comfort me,
Come, soothe the torment of my dark solitude
And add secret sweetness
To these tears that I feel flowing.]
Julie played Boris the saddest nocturnes on the harp. Boris read Poor Liza aloud to her and more than once interrupted his reading from the excitement that took his breath away. Meeting in a large society, Julie and Boris looked at each other as the only indifferent people in the world who understood each other.
Anna Mikhailovna, who often went to the Karagins, making up her mother’s party, meanwhile made correct inquiries about what was given for Julie (both Penza estates and Nizhny Novgorod forests were given). Anna Mikhailovna, with devotion to the will of Providence and tenderness, looked at the refined sadness that connected her son with the rich Julie.
“Toujours charmante et melancolique, cette chere Julieie,” she said to her daughter. - Boris says that he rests his soul in your house. “He has suffered so many disappointments and is so sensitive,” she told her mother.
“Oh, my friend, how attached I have become to Julie lately,” she said to her son, “I can’t describe to you!” And who can not love her? This is such an unearthly creature! Ah, Boris, Boris! “She fell silent for a minute. “And how I feel sorry for her maman,” she continued, “today she showed me reports and letters from Penza (they have a huge estate) and she is poor, all alone: she is so deceived!
Boris smiled slightly as he listened to his mother. He meekly laughed at her simple-minded cunning, but listened and sometimes asked her carefully about the Penza and Nizhny Novgorod estates.
Julie had long been expecting a proposal from her melancholic admirer and was ready to accept it; but some secret feeling of disgust for her, for her passionate desire to get married, for her unnaturalness, and a feeling of horror at renouncing the possibility of true love still stopped Boris. His vacation was already over. He spent whole days and every single day with the Karagins, and every day, reasoning with himself, Boris told himself that he would propose tomorrow. But in the presence of Julie, looking at her red face and chin, almost always covered with powder, at her moist eyes and at the expression of her face, which always expressed a readiness to immediately move from melancholy to the unnatural delight of marital happiness, Boris could not utter a decisive word: despite the fact that for a long time in his imagination he considered himself the owner of Penza and Nizhny Novgorod estates and distributed the use of income from them. Julie saw Boris's indecisiveness and sometimes the thought occurred to her that she was disgusting to him; but immediately the woman’s self-delusion came to her as a consolation, and she told herself that he was shy only out of love. Her melancholy, however, began to turn into irritability, and not long before Boris left, she undertook a decisive plan. At the same time that Boris's vacation was ending, Anatol Kuragin appeared in Moscow and, of course, in the Karagins' living room, and Julie, unexpectedly leaving her melancholy, became very cheerful and attentive to Kuragin.
“Mon cher,” Anna Mikhailovna said to her son, “je sais de bonne source que le Prince Basile envoie son fils a Moscou pour lui faire epouser Julieie.” [My dear, I know from reliable sources that Prince Vasily sends his son to Moscow in order to marry him to Julie.] I love Julie so much that I would feel sorry for her. What do you think, my friend? - said Anna Mikhailovna.
The thought of being a fool and wasting this whole month of difficult melancholy service under Julie and seeing all the income from the Penza estates already allocated and properly used in his imagination in the hands of another - especially in the hands of the stupid Anatole, offended Boris. He went to the Karagins with the firm intention of proposing. Julie greeted him with a cheerful and carefree look, casually talked about how much fun she had at yesterday's ball, and asked when he was leaving. Despite the fact that Boris came with the intention of talking about his love and therefore intended to be gentle, he irritably began to talk about women's inconstancy: how women can easily move from sadness to joy and that their mood depends only on who looks after them. Julie was offended and said that it was true that a woman needs variety, that everyone will get tired of the same thing.
“For this, I would advise you...” Boris began, wanting to tell her a caustic word; but at that very moment the offensive thought came to him that he could leave Moscow without achieving his goal and losing his work for nothing (which had never happened to him). He stopped in the middle of his speech, lowered his eyes so as not to see her unpleasantly irritated and indecisive face and said: “I didn’t come here at all to quarrel with you.” On the contrary...” He glanced at her to make sure he could continue. All her irritation suddenly disappeared, and her restless, pleading eyes were fixed on him with greedy expectation. “I can always arrange it so that I rarely see her,” thought Boris. “And the work has begun and must be done!” He blushed, looked up at her and told her: “You know my feelings for you!” There was no need to say any more: Julie’s face shone with triumph and self-satisfaction; but she forced Boris to tell her everything that is said in such cases, to say that he loves her, and has never loved any woman more than her. She knew that she could demand this for the Penza estates and Nizhny Novgorod forests and she got what she demanded.
The bride and groom, no longer remembering the trees that showered them with darkness and melancholy, made plans for the future arrangement of a brilliant house in St. Petersburg, made visits and prepared everything for a brilliant wedding.

Count Ilya Andreich arrived in Moscow at the end of January with Natasha and Sonya. The Countess was still unwell and could not travel, but it was impossible to wait for her recovery: Prince Andrei was expected to go to Moscow every day; in addition, it was necessary to purchase a dowry, it was necessary to sell the property near Moscow, and it was necessary to take advantage of the presence of the old prince in Moscow to introduce him to his future daughter-in-law. The Rostov house in Moscow was not heated; in addition, they arrived for a short time, the countess was not with them, and therefore Ilya Andreich decided to stay in Moscow with Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova, who had long offered her hospitality to the count.
Late in the evening, four of the Rostovs' carts drove into Marya Dmitrievna's yard in the old Konyushennaya. Marya Dmitrievna lived alone. She has already married off her daughter. Her sons were all in the service.
She still held herself straight, she also spoke directly, loudly and decisively to everyone her opinion, and with her whole being she seemed to reproach other people for all sorts of weaknesses, passions and hobbies, which she did not recognize as possible. From early morning in the kutsaveyka, she did housework, then went: on holidays to mass and from mass to prisons and prisons, where she had business that she did not tell anyone about, and on weekdays, after getting dressed, she received petitioners of different classes at home who came to her every day, and then had lunch; There were always about three or four guests at the hearty and tasty dinner; after dinner I made a round of Boston; At night she forced herself to read newspapers and new books, and she knitted. She rarely made exceptions for trips, and if she did, she went only to the most important people in the city.

The Komi language is part of the Finno-Ugric language family, and with the Udmurt language, which is closest to it, it forms the Perm group of Finno-Ugric languages. In total, the Finno-Ugric family includes 16 languages, which in ancient times developed from a single base language: Hungarian, Mansi, Khanty (Ugric group of languages); Komi, Udmurt (Perm group); Mari, Mordovian languages - Erzya and Moksha: Baltic and Finnish languages - Finnish, Karelian, Izhorian, Vepsian, Votic, Estonian, Livonian languages. A special place in the Finno-Ugric family of languages is occupied by the Sami language, which is very different from other related languages.

Finno-Ugric languages and Samoyed languages form the Uralic family of languages. The Samodian languages include Nenets, Enets, Nganasan, Selkup, and Kamasin languages. Peoples speaking Samoyed languages live in Western Siberia, except for the Nenets, who also live in northern Europe.

The question of the ancestor of the ancient Finno-Ugric peoples has long been of interest to scientists. They searched for the ancient homeland in the Altai region, on the upper reaches of the Ob, Irtysh and Yenisei, and on the shores of the Arctic Ocean. Modern scientists, based on studying the vocabulary of the flora of the Finno-Ugric languages, have come to the conclusion that the ancestral homeland of the Finno-Ugric peoples was located in the Volga-Kama region on both sides of the Ural Mountains. Then the Finno-Ugric tribes and languages separated, became isolated, and the ancestors of the current Finno-Ugric peoples left their ancient homeland. The first chronicle mentions of the Finno-Ugric peoples already find these peoples in the places of their current residence.

Hungariansmore than a thousand years ago they moved to the territory surrounded by the Carpathians. The self-name of the Hungarians Modyor has been known since the 5th century. n. e. Writing in the Hungarian language appeared at the end of the 12th century, and the Hungarians have a rich literature. The total number of Hungarians is about 17 million people. In addition to Hungary, they live in Czechoslovakia, Romania, Austria, Ukraine, Yugoslavia.

Mansi (Voguls)live in the Khanty-Mansiysk district of the Tyumen region. In Russian chronicles, they, together with the Khanty, were called Yugra. The Mansi use a written language based on Russian graphics and have their own schools. The total number of Mansi is over 7,000 people, but only half of them consider Mansi their native language.

Khanty (Ostyaks)live on the Yamal Peninsula, lower and middle Ob. Writing in the Khanty language appeared in the 30s of our century, but the dialects of the Khanty language are so different that communication between representatives of different dialects is often difficult. Many lexical borrowings from the Komi language have penetrated into the Khanty and Mansi languages. The total number of Khanty people is 21,000. The traditional occupation of the Ob Ugrians is reindeer herding, hunting, and fishing.

Udmurtsleast advanced from the territory of the Finno-Ugric ancestral home; they live on the lower reaches of the Kama and Vyatka rivers, in addition to the Udmurt Republic, they live in Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Mari El, and the Vyatka region. There were 713,696 Udmurts in 1989; writing arose in the 18th century. The capital of Udmurtia is Izhevsk.

Marilive on the territory of the Volga left bank. About half of the Mari live in the Republic of Mari El, the rest live in Bashkortostan, Tatarstan and Udmurtia. Writing in the Mari language arose in the 18th century; there are two variants of the literary language - meadow and mountain, they have the main difference in phonetics. The total number of Mari is 621,961 people (1989). The capital of Mari El is Yoshkar-Ola.

Among the Finno-Ugric peoples, it ranks 3rd in numberMordovians. There are more than 1,200 thousand people, but the Mordovians live very widely and fragmented. Their more compact groups can be found in the basins of the Moksha and Sura rivers (Mordovia), in the Penza, Samara, Orenburg, Ulyanovsk, and Nizhny Novgorod regions. There are two closely related Mordovian languages, Erzya and Moksha, but the speakers of these languages communicate with each other in Russian. Writing in the Mordovian languages appeared in the 19th century. The capital of Mordovia is Saransk.

Baltic-Finnish languages and peoples are so close that speakers of these languages can communicate with each other without an interpreter. Among the languages of the Baltic-Finnish group, the most widespread isFinnish, it is spoken by about 5 million people, the self-name of the Finnssuomi. In addition to Finland, Finns also live in the Leningrad region of Russia. Writing arose in the 16th century, and in 1870 the period of the modern Finnish language began. The epic "Kalevala" is written in Finnish, and a rich original literature has been created. About 77 thousand Finns live in Russia.

Estonianslive on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea, the number of Estonians in 1989 was 1,027,255 people. Writing existed from the 16th century to the 19th century. Two literary languages developed: southern and northern Estonian. In the 19th century these literary languages became closer based on the Central Estonian dialects.

Karelianslive in Karelia and the Tver region of Russia. There are 138,429 Karelians (1989), a little more than half speak their native language. The Karelian language consists of many dialects. In Karelia, Karelians study and use the Finnish literary language. The most ancient monuments of Karelian writing date back to the 13th century; in Finno-Ugric languages, this is the second oldest written language (after Hungarian).

IzhoraThe language is unwritten and is spoken by about 1,500 people. Izhorians live on the southeastern coast of the Gulf of Finland, on the river. Izhora, a tributary of the Neva. Although the Izhorians call themselves Karelians, in science it is customary to distinguish an independent Izhorian language.

Vepsianslive on the territory of three administrative-territorial units: Vologda, Leningrad regions of Russia, Karelia. In the 30s there were about 30,000 Vepsians, in 1970 there were 8,300 people. Due to the strong influence of the Russian language, the Vepsian language is noticeably different from other Baltic-Finnish languages.

Vodskythe language is on the verge of extinction, because there are no more than 30 people speaking this language left. Vod lives in several villages located between the northeastern part of Estonia and the Leningrad region. The Votic language is unwritten.

Do youlive in several seaside fishing villages in northern Latvia. Their number has sharply decreased over the course of history due to the devastation during World War II. Now the number of Livonian speakers is only about 150 people. Writing has been developing since the 19th century, but currently the Livonians are switching to the Latvian language.

Samithe language forms a separate group of Finno-Ugric languages, since there are many specific features in its grammar and vocabulary. The Sami live in the northern regions of Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula in Russia. There are only about 40 thousand people, including about 2000 in Russia. The Sami language has much in common with the Baltic-Finnish languages. Sami writing develops on the basis of different dialects in Latin and Russian graphic systems.

Modern Finno-Ugric languages have diverged so much from each other that at first glance they seem completely unrelated to each other. However, a deeper study of the sound composition, grammar and vocabulary shows that these languages have many common features that prove the former common origin of the Finno-Ugric languages from one ancient proto-language.

ABOUT THE CONCEPT OF "KOMI LANGUAGE"

Traditionally, the Komi language is understood to mean all three Komi dialects: Komi-Zyryansky, Komi-Permyak and Komi-Yazvinsky. Many foreign Finno-Ugric scholars do not distinguish between the Komi-Zyryan and Komi-Permyak languages separately. However, in Soviet ethnography, two ethnic groups are distinguished - Komi-Zyryans and Komi-Permyaks, and in linguistics, accordingly, two languages. Komi-Zyryans and Komi-Permyaks communicate freely among themselves in their own languages, without resorting to Russian. Thus, the Komi-Zyryan and Komi-Permyak literary languages are very close.

This closeness is clearly visible when comparing the following two sentences:

1) Komi-Zyryan literary language -Ruch vidzodlis gogorbok and ydzhyd koz vylys addzis uros, kodi tov kezhlo dastis tshak .

2) Komi-Permyak literary language -Ruch vidzotis gogor and ydzhyt koz yilis kazyalis urokos, koda tov kezho zaptis tshakkez .

“The fox looked around and at the top of a tall spruce saw a squirrel who was storing mushrooms for the winter.”.

Studying the Komi-Zyryan literary language, in principle, makes it possible to read everything written in the Komi-Permyak literary language, as well as freely communicate with the Komi-Permyaks.

LOCATION AND NUMBER OF KOMI

A special ethnographic group of Komi are the Komi-Yazvintsy, whose language is very different from the modern Komi-Zyryan and Komi-Permyak dialects. Komi-Yazvintsy live in the Krasnovishersky district of the Perm region along the middle and upper reaches of the river. Yazva, the left tributary of the river. Vishera, flowing into the Kama. Their total number is about 4,000 people, but currently there is a rapid Russification of the Komi-Yazvintsy.

In the Afanasyevsky district of the Kirov region live the so-called “Zyuzda” Komi, whose dialect stands, as it were, between the Komi-Zyryan and Komi-Permyak dialects. In the 50s, there were over 5,000 people from Zyuzda, but then their numbers began to decrease.

Komi-Zyryanslive in the Komi Republic in the basins of the Luza, Vychegda and its tributaries Sysola, Vym, in the basins of the Izhma and Pechora rivers, which flow into the White Sea. Mezen and its tributary Vashka. Accordingly, ethnographic groups of Komi are divided by rivers - Luz Komi, Sysolsky, Vychegda, Vymsky, Udorsky, Izhemsky, Verkhne-Pechora Komi, etc. About 10% of the Komi-Zyryans live outside the republic: in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug of the Arkhangelsk Region, in the north of the Tyumen Region region, in many villages of the lower Ob and its tributaries, on the Kola Peninsula in the Murmansk region in Omsk, Novosibirsk and other regions of Siberia.

Komi-PermyaksThey live in isolation from the Komi-Zyryans, to the south, in the Perm region, in the Upper Kama region, on its tributaries Kose and Inve. The capital of the Komi-Permyak Autonomous Region is the city of Kudymkar.

The total number of the Komi population (Komi-Zyryans and Komi-Permyaks), according to population census data, was constantly increasing: 1897 - 254,000; 1970 - 475,000; 1926 - 364,000; 1979 - 478,000; 1959 - 431,000; 1989 - 497,081.

Demographers have noticed a trend of sharp decline in Komi population growth in recent decades. If for 1959-1970. the increase was 44,000 people, then in 1970-1979. - only 3,000 people. As of 1979 in the USSR there were 326,700 Komi-Zyryans and 150,768 Komi-Permyaks. There were 280,797 Komi-Zyryans living in the Komi SSR, which amounted to 25.3% of the republic’s population.

In 1989, among the population of the Komi SSR, Komi made up 23%. According to the 1989 census, 345,007 Komi-Zyryans and 152,074 Komi-Permyaks lived in the USSR. However, the number of people who speak the Komi language is decreasing. Thus, in 1970, 82.7% of Komi-Zyryans and 85.8% of Komi-Permyaks called the Komi language their native language. In 1979, 76.2% of Komi-Zyryans and 77.1% of Komi-Permyaks named the Komi language as their native language. Over 10 years, the Komi language community has decreased by 33,000 people. The number of Komi language speakers continues to decline. According to the 1989 population census, among all the Komi in the USSR, 70% called the Komi language their native language, i.e. now every third Komi no longer speaks their mother’s language.

From the book "KOMI KYV: Self-teacher of the Komi language" E. A. Tsypanov, 1992 (Syktyvkar, Komi book publishing house)

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