Our database (known in short form as the Ugric Typological Database, UTDb) is intended to display the typologically significant features of four varieties of the Uralic Language Family. Each of these belongs to the Ugric sub-branch within the Finno-Ugric branch of Uralic. The varieties are the following: Hungarian (standard variety), Mansi or Vogul (Northern dialect), and Khanty or Ostyak (represented by its two, rather distinct, dialects: Synja and Surgut).
The database includes morphonological, morphological, morphosyntactic and syntactic-level typological features, which are both structural and word order-related. For the purpose of this database, these features are called parameters. For the time being, their number exceeds 200, to be increased, along with that of the varieties analyzed, in the future.
The idea of creating a typological database for the Uralic languages was first presented to the international linguistic community by Ferenc Havas in 2005, at the Tenth International Congress of Finno-Ugrists held in Yoshkar-Ola, Mari El. The project was given a more detailed outline at a topic-oriented international conference held at the University of Vienna in 2008, which was attended by outstanding specialists in both Uralistics and linguistic typology. As one of the main conclusions of the conference, it was stated that constructing a database for the entire language family was but a final outcome: as a first step, a pilot project should rather be undertaken, with a limited number of languages as well as a limited thematic scope. Planning activities continued in 2010 at a dedicated workshop of the Eleventh International Congress of Finno-Ugrists, held in Piliscsaba, Hungary. The pilot project was eventually realized at the Department for Finno-Ugric Studies of Loránd Eötvös University, Budapest, supported by a three-year grant from the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA 104249; 1 October 2012 – 30 September 2015). The UTDb, freely accessible online from fall 2015 on, is a result of the project.