Locating Pre Proto Uralic

[Ebizur]

Quoting Helimski again: Uralic-Tungusic  "male", in this case a reindeer bull

"Ostj. Kaz. χ¢ r ‚Rentier-Stier’ und nenz. χora > russ. (Sibirien) хор, хóра
‚самец-производитель в оленьем стаде’; ngan. kurii
ia ‚Rentier-Stier’ (Abl. von kuru <
sam. *korå) > ewenk. (SSTMJa. I: 436) kurejka, kurajka, korejka ‘олень (дикий, самец –
весенне-летнее название)’, s. Steinitz, DEWO 536; Аникин ЭС 621-622 (mit Hinweisen
auf mögliche weitere Entlehnungen oder Parallelen), A&X."

Related, from a blog written by Juho Pystynen, a linguist:

"Most notably, Uralic parallels in eastern Siberia include even basic words for ‘reindeer’, an all-important livelihood animal for many groups these days, especially Chukotkan *qora (whence the ethnonym Koryak), Tungusic ⁽*⁾oron (or probably *xoron, with further diffusion after *x > ∅ in NTg) (whence the ethnonym Oroqen). Kolyma Yukaghir qoroj ‘two-year-old male reindeer’ is usually adduced here too, as well as loanwords further into Siberian Yupik. This has been already identified in earlier research as a Wanderwort originating in Proto-Uralic *kojəra ‘male [domestic?] animal’ > Proto-Samoyedic *korå ‘id.; bull reindeer’, which might have already had an allophonic [q-] in Proto-Samoyedic or even earlier. But we seem to lack especially clear evidence on who is to be credited for the original diffusion of this word. Yakut, as far as I know, has no reflex of it, splitting the Eastern Siberian region off from Samoyedic, and thus probably suggesting a pre-Turkic movement eastward. If so, then maybe even already at the time of the original Uralic expansion (which I think must have been partly eastwards too in any case)? Who knows. Maybe someone will eventually though, if we get e.g. some additional toponym data for guidance and keep inter-family comparative research going."

https://protouralic.wordpress.com/

"One of the most commonly accepted hypotheses is that the term is derived from Manchu language: орунчунь (orunchun) meaning "deer people", "deer herders" (cf. pinyin "Èlúnchūn"). "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oroqen_people

EDIT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchu_people

Where does the "jə"-part in the suggested Proto Uralic form *kojəra ‘male [domestic?] animal’ actually come from? BTW according to the Swadesh list of Manchu EDIT the word for "I" is bi, cf. Finnish minä, which is kind of interesting taking into account the fact that the Manchu word for "we" is be, cf. Finnish me.

https://panglossa.fandom.com/wiki/Swades..._languages

When one compares single words from so many different languages simultaneously, one has to wonder also about the possibility of perceived resemblance by random chance.

The Korean language has a word 고라니 korani (alternatively may be romanized as gorani), which refers to one of the most common species of deer (or large wild mammal in general) in Korea: Hydropotes inermis argyropus. Someone might say, "Hydropotes inermis are creepy-looking animals that have large fangs; no one would ever use a word that previously has referred to reindeer to refer to such a creature, nor vice versa," but the fact is that both Rangifer tarandus and Hydropotes inermis are cervids. Furthermore, the Korean language does not have a native word for "reindeer" because those animals are not naturally found so far south as Korea; the Koreans sometimes have used the Ainu > Japanese word tonakai, which may ultimately be Nivkh in origin (possibly altered by the Ainu because of interference from the Ainu adjective tunas "fast, quick, nimble"), and they currently use the Sinitic compound sullok < Chinese 馴 "tame" + Chinese 鹿 "deer" to refer to reindeer. Is the resemblance between Korean korani "water deer, Hydropotes inermis" and the Tungusic words for "(rein)deer" coincidental, or do these words originate from the same etymon?

As for the Manchu personal pronouns, some strong similarities in the personal pronouns of all "Altaic" and Uralic languages have been noted for a long time, and are in fact one of the primary motivations of the Ural-Altaic theory. Besides the first-person plural exclusive pronoun be "we (not including you)" ~ men- "us (not including you)," Manchu also has a pronoun muse "I and thou/you, we/us [inclusive of the person or persons being addressed]," which appears to be originally a compound of bi "I" plus si "thou" or suwe "you (all)" (perhaps with some conjoining element meaning "and" that has subsequently elided). Manchu has bi "I" but also mini "my" (-i is the Manchu genitive case suffix), minde "[dative/locative case] to/at/on/in me," mimbe "[accusative case] me," minci "[ablative case] from me, than I/me." Mongolian also has bi for "I" but miniĭ [миний] for "my"; these two forms are basically identically to their Manchu semantic equivalents, but the remaining forms of the paradigm for the first-person singular pronoun in Mongolian are irregular (dative/locative nadad "to/at/on/in me," accusative namaĭg "me," ablative nadaas "from me," instrumental nadaar "using me," comitative nadtaĭ "[together] with me," directive nadruu "toward me": cf. Korean first-person singular pronoun na and Chinese first-person pronoun *ŋaː > wǒ). The alternation between b and m in the Manchu (as well as Mongolian bi vs. miniĭ) personal pronouns may be ascribable to regressive nasal assimilation, which is a very common phonological process in Siberian languages, if one assumes that the older forms of the first-person pronouns should have had a */b/ in initial position.

In regard to the Uralic *kojǝ vs. *kojǝ-ra problem, one would be remiss not to mention Yukaghir koy "young man, lad; male (in reference to a younger sibling, as opposed to a female younger sibling i.e. little sister: the Yukaghir would say something that literally means 'young.man-younger.sibling' to mean 'little brother,' whereas they would say something that literally means 'young.woman-younger.sibling' to mean 'little sister')." There are also several Ainu words that are vaguely similar (e.g. kur "person," okkay(o) "man, male," (h)oku "husband").