(This post is also available in PDF format on Academia: Click here to view)
It has been one year since I uploaded the first draft of my first paper, “Helleno-Uralic Contact in the 1st Millennium BCE: Lían Oikeía Mukhá”* (abbr. “HUC”) to Academia. I am now in the process of uploading the “Oikológos” papers to Academia, in preparation for “Helleno-Uralic Additions and Subtractions II”, and finally the second draft of “HUC”. As of today (01/01/2023), three Oikológoi have been uploaded.
As I outlined in the session comments of “Finngreek Update August 2022: Idá Noitás (Dawn of the Seer)”, I expect to compile 8 Oikológoi, of which the first 7 will address specific phonological scenes of Helleno-Uralic theory, while the 8th Oikológos will be an overview of new anthropological considerations for the identification of the Hellenic and Uralic speakers who would have been involved in this ancient contact.
The release of “Finngreek 101” (an introductory course on the Finngreek language, which is based on Helleno-Uralic theory) has been indefinitely postponed, due to the prioritization of academic research. It will still be made available for new followers and learners of Finngreek; and I am excited about its eventual release! Most of the work is complete: I just want to make sure it is the best it can be, since I probably will not revise the material for a long time. I now plan to upload “Finngreek 101” sometime in 2024, after the second draft of “HUC” is ready for its official review and publication. Until then, I will continue to share new content on Finngreek social media:
Instagram (new etymologies and sentences): https://www.instagram.com/finngreek/
Reddit (same as above, plus misc. content): https://www.reddit.com/r/finngreek/
Youtube (video content [upcoming]): https://www.youtube.com/@finngreek/
*I may revise the title of this paper from “… Lían Oikeía Mukhá” to another phrase: It is evident that múskha (<? H *múkhskā) is original to mukhá; and I may wish to convey a different message using more archaic proposals.
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It seems that, no matter how far I proceed with my research, there is always that much farther to go. Since having begun Finngreek and Helleno-Uralic theory in August 2019, I have read hundreds of academic papers on Uralic, Hellenic, Indo-European, and Eurasiatic linguistics and archaeogenetics: Yet that has not been nearly enough for a well-rounded theory. There is always another paper, another argument and counterargument, another overlooked consideration to face, which can either fortify or nullify an aspect of my work. Etymology is not always an exact science, but it demands a great deal of meticulous logic.
Still, there is a lot I’ve learned and improved over the past three years. It is a relief to be able to look at a Uralic word, and recognize the likelihood of its provenance as a loan from ancient Greek. Does a Finnish word end in -as? Unlikely to be Helleno-Uralic. Does a Sami word end in -as? Possibly Helleno-Uralic. Does a proposal fit into a clear scene? Or is it riddled with vague semantics and correspondences? If it is true, it should make sense.
It makes sense to consider Helleno-Uralic contact, because there is evidence of both Greco-Scythian syncretism – which borders the Uralic zone – and the historiographical attestation of not only Greco-Scythian contact with the northeastern forest zone, but also the migration of Greeks thereto, where they cohabitated with indigenous nomads – even forming a military alliance against the invading Persians. From this basis, the spacetime and topics of Helleno-Uralic contact could be reconstructed.
If correctly etymologized, there were rivers (múskha) with fish (kálama), boats (skáphæ, mélæ, vênos), woods (kormós, phuá), flowering cones (kókkos), and forest animals (kíssa, ourá, phoíta). There were capes (nâma) to navigate, and moors (nomí) to drive herds (élama), from which wool (pókos) or leather (náka) could be produced. Like the driving of herds, the marching of warrior-traders (sôma) in scale armor (zôma) across hills (ákra) and valleys (ánkos) would facilitate the trade of various goods (ħrêma). The local weather (áima) may have been hot (kaûma), cold (krymós), icy (págos), and windy (thúella). Cultural features could also be illustrated, such as agriculture (krithé, lektós, sîtos, thaimós), or even the “bald” (skúlma) seer (noitá). who smiled (sárkase) and slurped (rýphæse) the strained (sakté) berries (karpós) of the bird-cherry tree (dôma).
Of course, this description is a fanciful manipulation of the raw data: The exact context of each term may never be known – although I will try to formally contextualize terms into theoretical phrases in future research. In any case, contact can be roughly summarized by comparing the historiographical and etymological data. I also hope that upcoming archaeogenetic research may be factored into the reconstruction of Helleno-Uralic contact, just as it has recently been relied upon to update the potential origins and migrations of Uralic speakers: As time goes on, the presumption of Continuity theory is being outperformed by the concept of a rapid onset of Uralic influence in the Volga-Kama at the dawn of the Iron Age (which I will discuss at length in “Oikológos VIII”). This could be synchronized with both the appearance of Hellenic influence in Scythia, and intra-Hellenic diachronica: Especially how they may be distributed into the Uralic languages. And while Uralic loans into Hellenic are supported by less evidence, there is at least a layer of trade goods and technologies that could have permeated the Hellenosphere via Pontic colonies. The archaic Hellenic and Uralic cultures were trade economies that simultaneously expanded in northeastern Europe, which may have been ideal for bidirectional contact.
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My goal is to reconstruct a language and history that may have been lost due to war, migrations, and the drift of time. I look forward to improving Helleno-Uralic theory over these next few years, and throughout my life. The Finngreek Journey (To Sômas Élama) has just begun.
Finngreek: The Finnish Greek Language 