Corpora and New language classification of Uralic languages.
The main problem in constructing corpora is the problem of classification of this
or that sort. Actually, the problem of classification may be called the aim of
linguistics in general. A linguist must classify sounds, phonemes, words,
sentences, meanings, etc., etc. Nevertheless, the most important problem in
linguistics may be classification of 6000 world languages and dialects into
subgroups, groups, families, super-families, filia, etc. However, the main
language families were constructed long ago and some of them need
reconstructing. I'm sure it is one of the hardest jobs in linguistics to reconsider
accepted classifications for many reasons. I heard that such an attempt of this
hard and dangerous job has been made by Dr. Angela Marcantonio of Rome
university, who tried to reconsider the Uralic language family in her recent book
(The Uralic Language Family. Facts, Myths and Statistics.- Oxford UK and
Boston USA: Blackwell Publishers, 2002, 335 pages). I wish I could read it, but
it is not available in Novosibirsk, Russia. The Uralic language family is said to
consist of the Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic languages. I can guess that the Uralic
language family may be not a real family, but a conglomerate of Finnic, Ugric
and Samoyedic languages. My phonostatistical data on this language group
makes me believe that one should be very cautious when talking about the Uralic
languages as one family. Consequenntly, the values of the coefficient of variation
of 8 consonantal groups (labial, front, palatal, velar, sonorant, occlusive, fricative
and voiced) SHOW THAT ITS BODY IS RATHER DISPERCE, i.e. not
compact. The fact is, that this group is less compact than other language families.
Let us compare the coefficients of variance of several language families:
Uralic - 28.31%
Mongolic - 10.78%
Samoyed - 18.29%
Turkic - 18.77%
Finno-Ugric - 24.14%
Altaic - 25.97
Therefore, one can see that the Uralic group of languages is not as compact as
Finno-Ugric or Samoyedic, which are its part. It is 2 times less compact than
Mongolic language family. One can find the details of the compactness of other
language groups in my recent book (Yuri A. Tambovtsev. The Typology of
Functioning of Phonemes in the Sound Chain of Indo-European, Paleo-Asiatic,
Ural-Altaic, and Other World Languages: the compactness of Groups, Families
and the other Language Taxons. - Novosibirsk: SN Institute, 2003. - 143 pages. In Russian).
I wonder if I may ask my colleagues in the field of linguistics to share their
opinion on the book of Dr. Angela Marcantonio. Should we reconsider the
commonly accepted language families? If so, on the basis of what data and what
methods? Looking forward to hearing from you soon to yutamb@hotmail.com Yours
sincerely Yuri Tambovtsev, Novosibirsk, Russia
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