Dictionary: <Dictionary> OUP UNCORRECTED PROOF – <STAGE>, 04/10/21, SPi Chapter 2 The divergence of Proto-Uralic and its offspring A descendent reconstruction Janne Saarikivi 2.1 Introduction and aims This chapter presents a scenario concerning the origin, core, and maximal historical spread areas of the different groups of Uralic languages. The chapter deals with the external history of the languages, i.e. the emergence of the historical areas of the Uralic languages, as well as with the cultural characteristics of the past communities that spoke them. An attempt is made to locate and date those protolanguages of the Uralic family that are reconstructable based on the living or attested Uralic languages, namely Proto-Finnic, Proto-Saami, Proto-Mordvinic, Proto- Mari, Proto-Permic, and Proto-Samoyedic. The Ugric languages share a number of features with each other but most likely either do not have an independent intermediate protolanguage at all or have a very different kind of (old) protolanguage from those of the other groups (see chapter 1 and the discussion in 2.7). Therefore, the dating and locat- ing of the main components of Ugric—Khanty, Mansi, and Hungarian—will be discussed separately. At the end of the chapter, an attempt is made to locate and date the ultimate protolanguage of the whole family, i.e. Proto-Uralic, based on what is known about the intermediate protolanguages. Proto-Uralic is thus dated and located on a descendent basis, frst by determining the time, space, and cultural characteris- tics of the protolanguage communities closest to us in time, and then by using these reconstructions for a second-level reconstruction of the external history of Proto-Uralic. 2.2 Methodology 2.2.1 General outlines In what follows, the intermediate protolanguages of the Uralic family are dated and located purely on a linguistic basis by investigating their language contacts, especially the layers of lexical borrowings, as well as areal linguistic variation, palaeolinguistic characteristics, and layers of toponymy. A similar methodology has been followed earl- ier in an unfnished series of articles by the author together with another scholar (Frog and Saarikivi 2014/2015). There have also been many other attempts to date and locate indi- vidual Uralic protolanguages on a somewhat similar basis, most notably, the studies on Proto-Saami by Aikio (2006b, 2012a) and Proto-Permic by Belyx (2009), but this chapter is probably the frst unifed treatment of all of the protolanguages of the Uralic family at the same time. In the Indo-European context, a similar descendent methodology has been followed by J. P. Mallory (1989) and David Anthony (2007), who also attempt to connect intermediate protolan- guages with archaeological phenomena. The main novelty in the approach provided in this chapter is that it will focus on substrates and toponymy wherever it is possible to investigate these aspects of exter- nal linguistic history. It is assumed that every language area has a historical core and periphery, or a maximal spread and spread direction that derive from the ecological and societal basis of the language community. A somewhat similar hypothesis has been earlier employed by Nichols, who distinguishes the locus, range, and trajectory of a lan- guage form (Nichols 1998). In this chapter, a cultural dimen- sion is added to the notions proposed by Nichols by assuming that every language form is supported by a mono-, bi-, or multilingual language community with reconstructable cul- tural characteristics. These characteristics typically explain the dynamics of language spread. They derive from the eco- logical area of the language community, the forms of liveli- hoods practised there, and the religious or mythological world view of the speech community that can be investi- gated using palaeolinguistic methodology. These character- istics of speech communities can further be connected to archaeological and genetic features of past populations, but Janne Saarikivi, The divergence of Proto-Uralic and its offspring In: The Oxford Guide to the Uralic Languages. Edited by: Bakró-Nagy et al., Oxford University Press (2021). © Janne Saarikivi. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198767664.003.0003 BakroNagy_9780198767664_2.indd 28 10/4/2021 1:50:17 PM