Abstract:

Modern Uralic kinship terminologies differ greatly from branch to branch. Finnic languages have become thoroughly Europeanised while the Saami and Samoyedic languages have their own unique patterns. This diversity is a special challenge when reconstructing Proto-Uralic kinship terms to understand the social aspects of past Uralic-speaking populations. Phonological reconstruction has been used in the search of Proto-Uralic kinship terms, but little attention has been paid to the semantic reconstruction. To bring more light on Proto-Uralic kinship we use semantic reconstruction that takes into account the secondary polysemic patterns that have spread areally (Circum-Baltic, Volga-Kama, Western Siberia). We take, e.g. the whole variety of meanings for the word čečä ‘uncle’ given in different Uralic languages and search for the most logical Proto-Uralic meaning for it. We found that Proto-Uralic had one term for parent’s younger brother (čečä) and another for parent’s older brother (*ekä). We also found that relative age distinction (RAD), i.e. separation of older and younger relative in the same generation is a Proto-Uralic feature. With the help of this novel approach certain Proto-Uralic structural patterns and features (RAD) can be brought to light, which in turn offer some information about the prehistory of the Proto-Uralic speakers.

Speaker's social media:

X: @HonkolaTerhi