Talk:Uralic languages

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Importance scale

@Tpbradbury @TylerBurden is there a reason for the discrepancy between the importance assessment rating of this page and Talk:Finno-Ugric languages? Logically, Uralic languages should be a more important topic than Finno-Ugric languages, the latter being either a disputed subbranch of Uralic or an imprecise synonym for Uralic. Stockhausenfan (talk) 08:48, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

it often depends on which project is being referred to, this is part of 4 projects, and the other 5. you'd expect this to generally be marked as less important. i added importance ratings a year ago as they were blank but feel free to change them. top for Russia seemed too high, and high for languages might be too low but i'm not an expert in that project. it's perhaps more that the finn-ugric page is marked too high, Tom B (talk) 09:11, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Samoyedic

@Vofa, standard reference works such as the Oxford Guide to Uralic languages classify Samoyedic as Uralic[1]. But I am curious, why would you want to deny this? Do you have a source which tries to make this controversial? (As it is not considered a controveroversial grouping in the works I know 84.251.164.143 (talk) 01:26, 30 April 2025 (UTC) Edited 13:50, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, hey!

Unfortunately I did not see the ping despite being pinged as frequently happens. I will try to cite a few abstract publications and blogs on the topic of Samoyedic languages to show that its classification within Uralic is disputed.

https://copius.univie.ac.at/intro/slides_samo.pdf

„The classification of the Samoyedic language is not clear“

- - - - - - - - - - -

https://blogs.helsinki.fi/language-diversification-and-spread-north/files/2023/01/interdisciplinary_presentation.pdf

“Samoyedic, in particular Northern Samoyedic, are famous for substratal linguistic features and non-Uralic toponymy“

- - - - - - - - - - -

(To clarify, I did not deny the Oxford‘s Guide to Uralic languages. I wanted to make it clear that Samoyedic language branch classification is still disputed among scholars, prompting me to remove unsourced claims)

Vofa (talk) 14:10, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Neither of these slideshows (which are not WP:RSs anyway) support the claim that Samoyedic is disputed. The first one has a geneological classification on slide 3, showing Samoyedic descending from proto-Uralic. The second shows the Uralic family tree (both the traditional model and the rake model) on slide 2, with Samoyedic included. In the quotes you provided, The classification of the Samoyedic language is not clear refers to the internal classification. The other one was: Samoyedic, in particular Northern Samoyedic, are famous for substratal linguistic features and non-Uralic toponymy. Substratal features or loanwords do not change the general classification. You have not provided a source for the claim that Samoyedic is disputed.

Above you claim that I wanted to make it clear that Samoyedic language branch classification is still disputed. In reality, you simply removed Samoyedic everywhere in the article (diff).

The new edit to the short summary is also puzzling (diff). How is Uralic a "Disputed language family of Northern Eurasia"? 84.251.164.143 (talk) 15:04, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

To address your point regarding the evidence for a disputed status of Samoyedic, I will share two publications:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/256805981_The_Uralic_Language_Family_Facts_Myths_and_Statistics

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“The generally accepted view, and the one which is reported in most encyclopaedias and textbooks (Hajdú 1975;Hajdú and Domokos 1978;Abondolo (ed.) 1998;Laakso 1999, to quote just some recent publications), is that there was such a language / community, and it originated in the area of the Ural Mountains. However, my personal convictions differ from this (Marcantonio et al., 2004) I belong to that minority of scholars who argue that there is not enough linguistic evidence to establish a privileged relationship between the Finnic, the Ugric and the Samoyed languages.”

- - - - - - - - - -https://www.sgr.fi/sust/sust258/sust258_janhunen.pdf

(Janhunen et al., 2009)

Vofa (talk) 16:56, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Angela Marcantonio's views are already discussed in the section Uralic languages#Uralic scepticism. In case you did not read it, let me point out that in the above article, Janhunen tells that There is [...] no serious reason to question the existence of the Uralic language family, and compares Marcantonio's contributions to ‘creationism’ and ‘intelligent design’. If you want to expand the "Uralic scepticism" section with some details about her views on Samoyedic, then go ahead, but the rest of the article should reflect the scientific consensus. 84.251.164.143 (talk) 17:35, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Vofa's changes are unacceptable. If you want to target unproven families there are plenty of others that are infinitely less secure than Uralic. Thadh (talk) 18:08, 30 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]