Re: Finno-Ugric languages

-----Original Message-----
From: Pablo Flores <fflores@...>
To: Multiple recipients of list CONLANG <CONLANG@...>
Date: Friday, September 18, 1998 5:07 AM
Subject: Finno-Ugric languages


>I'd like to know something: how are Hungarian and Finnish related? I know
>they belong to the Finno-Ugric branch, characterized by agglutination and
>vowel harmony. But Finnish, Estonian and most of the other Finno-Ugric
>languages are spoken in Northern Europe. Does anyone know how the
>(presumably existing somewhere in time) Proto-Finno-Ugric language could be
>spoken in areas so apart from each other? I really haven't read any history
>about this -- or any theories, for that matter.
>
The Finno-Urgic language stock extends far into northern Russia.  An eastern
group of those people -- the Huns -- came down and crossed the Ukraine and
ended up in the Danube Basin about 900 years ago, if I remember correctly.
Anyway, the Huns became the Hungarians.

But the Danube Basin was already populated by Slavs, and the conquering Huns
were very short of women, so they married Slavic women.  So Hungarian words
that deal with the home, and with children,  tend to be Slavic words instead
of Finno-Urgic words.