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The Finno-Ugric languages form a subfamily of the Uralic languages. The majority of linguists believe that the Finnish, Hungarian and Estonian, among others should be included in the group. Unlike most of the other languages spoken in Europe, the Finno-Ugric languages are not part of the Indo-European family of languages. The Uralic languages also include the Samoyedic languages, and some linguists use the terms Finno-Ugric and Uralic as synonyms. Many of the smaller Finno-Ugric languages are endangered and near extinction.
The " Urheimat" of the proto-language of the modern Finno-Ugric languages, known as Proto-Finno-Ugric, is believed to have been to the west of the Ural mountains, some 5000 years ago. There is evidence that before the arrival of the Slavic tribes to their present territory in Russia, a sprinkling of Finno-Ugrians inhabited the whole territory from the Urals to the Baltic Sea.
There have been attempts to relate them to the Indo-European languages, but there are not enough similarities to link them with any certainty. Conversely, there have been suggestions that the Germanic languages evolved from an Indo-European language such as CelticCeltic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages. They were spoken across western Europe in ancient times, but are now limited to a few enclaves in the British Isles and on the peninsula of Brittany in France. There are four main groups of Cel imposed on a Finnic substrateIn linguistics, a substratum is a language which influences another one while that second language supplants it. It is one of three possible types of linguistic interference. A language, "A", occupies a given territory. A language, "B" (brought, for examp, but no satisfactory proof yet exists. (On the other hand, it is now believed that Germanic was initially much more akin to Balto-SlavicIndo-European language family, consisting of the (genetically related) Baltic languages and Slavic languages. and moved closer to CelticCeltic languages are a branch of the Indo-European languages. They were spoken across western Europe in ancient times, but are now limited to a few enclaves in the British Isles and on the peninsula of Brittany in France. There are four main groups of Cel during its protohistoric development.)
A portion of the Baltic-Finnic lexicon is not shared with the remaining Finno-Ugric languages and may be due to a pre-Finnic substrateIn linguistics, a substratum is a language which influences another one while that second language supplants it. It is one of three possible types of linguistic interference. A language, "A", occupies a given territory. A language, "B" (brought, for examp, which may coincide in part with the substrate of the Indo-European Baltic languagesThe Baltic languages form one branch of the Indo-European language family. In this group there are two extant languages: the East-Baltic Latvian and Lithuanian, and many extinct languages, including the West-Baltic Old Prussian and Curonian. Prussian was. As far as the Samic (Lappic) languages are concerned, a hypothesis has been advanced that the Sami were originally speakers of a different language, who adopted their current Finno-Ugric speech under the pressure of their Finnic neighbors.
There have also been theories about the Finno-Ugric languages being related to other language families, such as the Altaic languages (which includes the Turkic languages).
All the Finno-Ugric languages share structural features and basic vocabulary. Around 100 basic words have been proposed and include word stems for concepts related to humans such as names for relatives and body parts. The structural features are seen by linguists as strong evidence for a common ancestry. These include inflection by adding suffixes (compared to prepositions in English). The Finno-Ugric languages are also famous for having a large number of grammatical cases, of which Finnish has 15 and Hungarian has even more. Another feature is that verbs are inflected by person.