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13.5 The Ural-Altaic Languages

Across to the north-east of the Aryan and Semitic areas there must once have spread a further distinct language system which is now represented by a group of languages known as the TURANIAN, or URAL-ALTAIC group. This includes the Lappish of Lapland and the Samoyed speech of Siberia, the Finnish language Magyar, Turkish or Tartar, Manchu and Mongol; it has not as a group been so exhaustively studied by European philologists, and there is insufficient evidence yet whether it does or does not include the Korean and Japanese languages. H. B. Hulbert has issued a comparative grammar of Korean and certain of the Dravidian languages of India to demonstrate the close affinity he finds between them.

The Uralic Langauges (Routledge Language Family Series)
by Danie Abondolo

The Uralic Languages form a language family of about 30 languages spoken by approximately 20 million people. The name of the language family refers to the location of the family's suggested Urheimat (homeland), which is often placed close to the Ural mountains. Countries that are home to a significant number of speakers of Uralic languages include: Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Norway, Romania, Russia, the Serbian province of Vojvodina, and Sweden. The healthiest Uralic languages, in terms of the number of native speakers and national identity, are Estonian, Finnish, and Hungarian.
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