Ugric languages

Ugric languages or Ugrian languages are generally held to be a branch of Finno-Ugric languages. The term derives from Yugra.

They include three languages: Hungarian, and the Ob-Ugric Khanty (Ostyak) and Mansi language (Vogul). Their common Proto-Ugric language was probably spoken from the end of the 3rd millennium BC until the first half of the 1st millennium BC, in Western Siberia, east from the southern Ural mountains.

Structural features

* Definite and indefinite verb conjugations
* Verbal Prefixes - modify the meaning of the verb in both concrete and abstract ways

Examples from Mansi

�"l(a) - 'forwards, onwards, away'

jōm- 'to go, to stride'	�"l-jōm- 'to go away/on'
tinal- 'to sell'	�"l-tinal- 'to sell off'

χot - 'direction away from something and other nuances of action intensity'

min- 'to go'	χot-min- 'to go away, to stop'
roχt- 'to be frightened'	χot-roχt- 'to take fright suddenly'

Examples from Hungarian

el - 'away, off'

ugrik 'to jump'	elugrik 'to jump away'
mosolyog 'to smile'	elmosolyodik 'to start to smile'

ki - 'out (of)'

ugrik 'to jump'	kiugrik 'to jump out'
olvas 'to read'	kiolvas 'to read to the end'

(In Hungarian, the citation form of verbs is the 3rd person singular form, which is given here, which doesn't have any suffixes.)

See also

* Finno-Ugric languages
* Uralic languages

References

* Riese, Timothy: Vogul. Languages of the World/Materials 158, Lincom Europa, 2001. ISBN 3895862312
* Törkenczy, Miklós: Hungarian Verbs & Essentials of Grammar. Passport Books, 1997. ISBN 0844283509