Why is Finnish so Different

The most of the languages spoken in Europe belong to Indo-European language family. A few languages spoken in Europe, among Finnish language, belong to a totally different language family, called Uralic language family. Uralic language family is divided into two main branches: Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic languages. These two branches don’t remind each other very much. Finno-Ugric branch can be divided into 5 smaller groups but in Samoyedic branch there are only four languages.

The map shows where Uralic languages are spoken. On the map Samoyedic languages are underlined with yellow. Finno-Ugric languages are underlined with other colours. The names of the languages are written in Finnish on the map. I have translated the names into English and the Finnish names are mentioned in parenthesis ( ) after the English name.

Blue colour represents Baltic Finnic languages. They are

-Finnish (suomi) 5 million speakers

-Karelian (karjala) 70 000 speakers

-Veps (vepsä) 6000 speakers

-Votic (vatja) a few tens of speakers

-Estonian (viro) 900 000 speakers

-Livonian (liivi) a few tens of speakers

-Ludic (lyydi) 5000 speakers

-Ingrian (inkeroinen) 300

Red colour represents Samic languages. On the map it says only ”Sami (saame)", but there are 9 different Sami languages. Northern Sami is the biggest Sami language.

-Northern Sami 30 000 speakers

-8 other Sami languages, no statistics of speakers

Orange colour represents Volgaic languages. They are

-Mordvinic (mordva) 750 000 speakers (divided into two different languages)

-Mari (mari) 550 000 speakers (divided into two different languages)

Green colour represents Permic languages. They are

-Udmurt (udmurtti) 500 00 speakers

-Komi (komi) 350 000 speakers (divided into two different languages)

Purple colour represents Ugric languages. They are

-Hungarian (unkari) 14 million speakers

-Khanty (hanti) 13 000 speakers

-Mansi (mansi) 3000 speakers

Yellow colour represents Samoyedic languages. They are

-Nenets (nenetsi) 26 000 speakers

-Nganasan (nganasan) a few hundreds of speakers

-Enets (enetsi) about hundred speakers

-Selkup (selkuppi) 1600–1700 speakers

Only three of these languages is the official language of an independent country which are Hungary, Finland and Estonia. These three languages (Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian) have enough speakers to survive. Other Uralic languages are small and they are in danger to disappear.

Source: the article ”Sukukielet syynissä” by Tapani Lehtinen in the book ”Kieltä kohti”