Finnisch-Ugrische Forschungen

Der Kuckuck in den Glaubensvorstellungen der Saamen

2022-04-27T22:22:28+03:00

The desire to be able to look into the future and thus be prepared for what it holds, can be achieved, according to folk beliefs, by observing animals, including birds. The Saami materials scrutinized for this work mention approximately sixty different bird species which have some kind of function as an omen. The most important among them is the cuckoo, both as far as the number of mentions is concerned as well as its diffusion throughout the Saami area, which, however, does not appear to extend to the easternmost traditional areas. This observation also applies to the other bird species. As birds also hold this function in Scandinavian and Finnish tradition, the postulate that we are dealing with a shared tradition seems justified. A systematic comparison of the distinct traditions is not the aim of this paper. Nevertheless, the comparisons made reveal common features among which, however, aspects specific to the Saami area can be discerned.

The cuckoo has traditionally been one of the most feared birds. Its relationship with humans was mostly unidirectional: the cuckoo is in command while man is exposed to the magical powers of the bird. Folklore holds information on how to undo this harmful influence; in addition to warnings, there are concrete recommendations on how to counter it. There are also tales of humans simply being exposed to such influence. The harm done usually affected daily chores, but especially in the northern Saami region it could impact on a person’s very life. Nonetheless, there are also examples of a positive relationship between bird and man such as the cuckoo’s tree. In this specific tradition, the cuckoo is again in charge, but there is genuine interaction between man and the animal.

Some details of Mari historical phonology

2021-08-27T00:13:11+03:00

Mari historical phonology was broadly worked out during the twentieth century and summarized in classic works by Gruzov and Bereczki. Nevertheless, subsequent Uralic and Mari reconstructions were published with ramifications for historical phonology, and a vast trove of new data appeared in Mari dialectal dictionaries published since the turn of the millennium. The article examines four aspects of Mari historical phonology where this newly available data either leads us to posit new reconstructions at the Proto-Mari stage, or supports or overturns reconstructions published elsewhere: 1) Eastern Mari evidence for Ante Aikio’s reconstruction of Proto-Mari reduced labial vowels; 2) regular lowering of *i before sonorants in Eastern Mari and irregularities sometimes suggesting that a vowel other than *i must be reconstructed; 3) palatalized ŕ in the Krasnoufimsk dialect and the environment for this palatalization; and 4) the reconstruction of all three possible voiced sibilant + velar clusters in Proto-Mari, i.e. *‑zγ‑, *‑žγ‑ and *‑źγ‑. Additionally, a loan etymology of Mari užγar ‘tool’ from Alanic *zγar ‘metal object’ (cf. Ossetic zγär id.) is proposed.

Russian loanwords in Skolt Saami

2021-08-11T16:01:59+03:00

The distribution of the Russian loan vocabulary within the Saami languages centers on Skolt, Akkala, Kildin, and Ter Saami. In Skolt Saami, this loanword stratum forms the largest loanword stratum and contains more than 750 lexemes. Despite the significance of the loanword stratum, there has hardly been any actual analysis of the Russian loanwords in the Saami languages. This paper aims to fill this gap by presenting an overview of Russian vocabulary in Skolt Saami from a phonological, morphological, and semantic point of view. Besides analyzing the loanwords, approximately 150 new loan etymologies are discussed and some thirty new comparisons with Russian loanwords proposed in other Saami languages. It turns out that the Russian loan lexicon is relatively recent, and most if not all the words were borrowed from the Northwestern dialects of Russian between the beginning of the 17th century and 1920. Semantically the vocabulary is heterogenous. The most important semantic categories include religion, clothing, buildings and houses, diet, as well as administration and society.

Between field observations, notes and knowledge

2021-08-27T11:19:12+03:00

This article discusses M. A. Castrén’s (1803‒1852) ethnographic notes and lectures on Samoyed peoples as part of the development of ethnography and Arctic research in the early 19th-century Russian Empire. Castrén produced several types of texts based on his two Russian expeditions, including travel narratives, letters, linguistic transcriptions and ethnographic notes. In addition, he gave lectures about the peoples he studied. The article describes the types of data Castrén collected, the way he organized it and subsequently presented to academic audiences. The academic and societal background of Castrén’s ethnography illustrated in the article, relates him to A. J. Sjögren and to the Imperial Russian and European development of ethnography. It is argued that the tensions between nationalistic aims and broader academic discussions that split Russian discussions over ethnography represented a fruitful context for imperial subjects, such as Castrén.

The finite remote past tense in Udmurt

2022-01-29T12:23:06+02:00

In addition to synthetic past tenses, there are several analytic past tenses in the Udmurt language. The analytic remote past tenses have been scarcely studied and they are inconsistently described in previous studies, grammars and textbooks. The present contribution aims to describe the functions of two finite remote past tenses in Udmurt. The data used in the study are newspaper texts, and the analysis has been conducted with the help of native speakers. I have analyzed two sets of forms: the first representing the finite remote past and the second the finite remote past. The results show that Serebrennikov’s (1960) description of the analytic remote pasts is in many ways accurate, and that contrary to what many newer descriptions suggest, the forms in question do not differ in aspectual notions. The forms have the temporal properties of general remote pasts. Nonetheless, the remote past constructions in Udmurt do not only operate on a temporal level but also bear modal and pragmatic functions. Both forms have a future counterfactual function, which is used to express an unfulfilled action or intention. Both forms may also be pragmatically motivated: the first remote past may be used to mark information as shared knowledge and it may alter the tone of the utterance, whereas the second remote past may imply a combination of evidential, inferential and mirative notions.

Perspectives on Hungarian and Uralic prehistory

2022-07-01T13:07:50+03:00

Besprechung

Klima, László & Türk, Attila (eds.). 2021. Párhuzamos történetek: Interdiszciplináris őstörténeti konferencia a PPKE Régészettudományi Intézetének szervezésében. Budapest, 2020. november 11‒13. / Parallel stories: Interdisciplinary conference on Hungarian prehistory, organized by the Institute for Archaeology, PPCU, Budapest, 11‒13 November 2020. Studia ad Archaeologiam Pazmaniensia 23 & Magyar Őstörténeti Kutatócsoport Kiadványok 2. Budapest. 245 pp.

Stretching deep into the past

2022-10-13T00:34:51+03:00

Besprechung

Vajda, Edward & Fortescue, Michael. 2022. Mid-Holocene language connections between Asia and North America (Brill’s Studies in the Indigenous Languages of the Americas 17). Leiden & Boston: Brill. 531 + XIV p.

Gert Sauer 1932–2021

2022-10-18T16:51:53+03:00

Luobbal Sámmol Sámmol, Samuli Aikio 1937–2022

2022-10-18T17:08:21+03:00