Finno-Ugric Languages

Finno-Ugric languages, group of languages constituting much the larger of the two branches of a more comprehensive grouping, the Uralic languages (q.v.). The Finno-Ugric languages are spoken by several million people distributed discontinuously over an area extending from Norway in the west to the Ob River region in Siberia and south to the lower Danube River in Europe. In this vast territory, the Finno-Ugric peoples constitute enclaves surrounded by speakers of Germanic, Slavic, Romanian, and Turkic languages.

The Ugric division of Finno-Ugric languages is composed of Hungarian and the Ob-Ugric languages Mansi (Vogul) and Khanty (Ostyak). The Finnic division of Finno-Ugric languages is composed of five groups. The Baltic-Finnic group consists of Finnish, Estonian, Karelian (including Olonets), Ludic, Veps, Ingrian, Livonian, and Votic. The Permic group consists of Komi (Zyryan), Permyak, and Udmurt (Votyak). The three remaining groups are the individual languages Mari (formerly Cheremis), Mordvin, and Sami (formerly Lapp). Mari and Mordvin, however, are frequently classified together as the Volga-Finnic group of languages. Also, because the dialects of Sami are almost mutually unintelligible, they are often classified as separate languages.

The vocabulary of the Finno-Ugric languages reflects a series of contacts with neighbouring non-Uralic peoples at different periods in history. Loanwords from Indo-Iranian seem to be the oldest. Finnish borrowed from Baltic languages in remote times and later from Germanic languages and Russian. Mari, Udmurt, and the Ob-Ugric languages are rich in Turkic loanwords. Hungarian has also borrowed at different times from several Turkic sources, as well as from Iranian, Slavic, German, Latin, and the Romance languages.

The phonologies of the modern Finno-Ugric languages show a variety of forms, and virtually no feature is common to the entire group. For example, vowel harmony (in which vowels are divided into two or three classes, usually a back, front, and neutral category that may not occur together in the same word), which is sometimes thought of as characteristic of Finno-Ugric, is not found in Sami, Khanty, or the Permic languages. Consonant gradation—an intricate alternation between two classes of stem consonants—occurs in Sami and the Baltic-Finnic languages. The usual method of marking grammatical categories in these languages is by the addition of suffixes. Some of the group (e.g., Finnish and Hungarian) make use of an elaborate case system. Sami and the Ob-Ugric languages mark dual number as well as singular and plural.