Talk:Finno-Ugric languages

message: I've seen that map, it's error-compatible to one map I've seen. Encyclopedia Britannica? Well, anyway, here are some obvious problems. Finnish is the majority language in Northern Finnish Lapland. Here, it's shown as a purely Sami-speaking territory. It is not in majority in any country. --Vuo 22:46, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In a linguistic map, indigenous languages take priority over other languages if their distribution overlap. Therefore the map is correct, even if Finnish is spoken as far as on the coast of the Arctic Ocean in Norway. --Hippophaë 15:47, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Right. I was going to ask, but then I realized this is going to be about the contemporary distribution of major languages. If not, where are the Ingrians? The areas around St. Petersburg should be interconnected with Estonia. Setu is also missing. --Vuo 21:48, 28 August 2005 (UTC)

text: The map lacks Finnish/Karelian for the area northwest of St. Petersburg too, and Karealian area should extend partly into Finland and out to the White Sea. --Trizt 23:36, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The distribution of the Ingrian language is marked with "1" in the map, because the area is too small to be colored. --Hippophaë 17:37, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

text: One problem with both maps is that the text in the boxes is too small to be easily read. And does anyone else have a problem with the world map covering part of the text? Copey 2 (not logged on) 203.173.212.141 (talk) 13:07, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The new map 

message: people watching this page may be interested in checking out Balto-Slavic languages, edited by somebody claiming "deepest research" proves Baltic and Slavic are unrelated... (diff)There are references, this time, and the edits do not seem completely unreasonable, but the article has certainly been unbalanced, as such claims are at best obscure. dab (ᛏ) 16:59, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Apparently, the Burushaski language is no longer a language isolate, as well. Linguistic hypotheses presented as facts.--Wiglaf 17:37, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Another case?

message: Dbenbenn, in your last edit comment you write: "This section should be about linguists who criticize. We don't need to debunk László Marácz here, since he isn't a linguist anyway"
Actually this is not correct. Marácz is a linguist, although I'm not aware him publishing any journal papers on this subject.
He wrote a book:
Hungarian Revival, 1998, 
Although I haven't read it myself, it is Károly Rédei criticises it in his book:
* Rédei Károly: Őstörténetünk kérdései, A nyelvészeti dilettantizmus kritikája, Balassi Kiadó, Bp., 2003.  (Questions of Our Ancient History, Critique of Linguistic Dilettantism)
Much of Marácz's arguments are reflected in Antifinnugor's edits and other "alternative" theories in Hungary:
* the original proponents of Finno-Ugric theory were not Hungarians
** First not entirely true, Sajnovics was Hungarian. Second the nationality of the scholars doesn't matter, especially after 150 years. This reminds me of the urban legend that Darwin revoked his theories about evolution on his death bed.
* the theory was pushed under Habsburg rule to supress the national pride of Hungarians
** The real reason was that it the time of Habsburg opression coincided with progress in linguisics in general at the end of the 19th century.
* The theory is pushed for political reasons. They claim that the (former) communists don't want the Hungarians to learn about their "true" origins. (For the same reasons as the Habsburgs.)
** This is a cheap excuse for all the "alternative" theorists (most of whom don't have any linguistic background) who run out of linguistic arguments. Every one of them repeats this claim. People who think Hungarian is related to Celtic, Sumerian, Japanese, etc. Every single last one of them keeps repeating that the "true" reason that the Hungarian Academy of Sciences refuses to answer them or dismisses them as crackpots is because they want to "supress" the truth for political reasons.
Marácz also point out that neighboring countries created their own nationalistic myths like the daco-romanian theory and a lot of legend around Great Moravia which helps strengthening their national identities.
This is actually true and helps us remember that when you see people arguing this strongly about such "boring" (sorry) a topic as linguistics, it is because they see it not as a scholarly debate but one attacking their "true" national identity.
One of the reasons for this is that many of the "alternative theorists" and 90% of the laypeople do not distinguish between ethnic and linguistic relatedness.
In his book Marácz doesn't claim that Hungarian is not related to Finno-Ugric languages, but he says that the relation between Hungarian and other language families like Turkic or Sumerian should not be discarded. He also used to publish in a Hungarian magazine called "Turán" (his "untenability" article was published there, too). This makes me wonder whether these his theories should be discussed under Turanian.
László Honti debunked most of Marácz's theories in Magyar Tudomány (sorry couldn't find it online) . Rédei calls a lot of Marácz's linguistic claims "pseudoscience".
I think it is telling, that when you google for Marácz's articles most often you find them on the website http://www.kitalaltkozepkor.hu which is dedicated to Heribert Illig.
It is also telling that in his "Untenability" article, Marácz references Bobula Ida and Francisco Jos Badiny (Badiny Jós Ferenc). They both think that Hungarian is related to Sumerian. Badiny also claims that Jesus was a Parthian prince. You can google for their works in English.
To sum up: most of what Marácz writes about is political and those parts which are about linguistics have been harshly criticized by people in the field.
Nyenyec 22:16, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: from what I gather, he wrote a reasonable book on politics, containing "layman's" linguistic conclusions. Just the fact that he speculates about linguistics does not make him a linguist, imho (otherwise, afu is a linguist, too). But we can include his stuff anyway, I don't care. We just have to say that real linguists laugh their asses off when they read his stuff (we don't have to quote Merlijn's "pathological interest" though, it's enough to say that he has no support in the linguistic community whatsoever) dab (ᛏ) 22:36, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: Entirely outside the sphere of linguistics is the claim of "untenability" of the Finno-Ugric family by László Marácz, referenced by de Smit for its "morbid fascination"
is that it seemed non-neutral to me.  If Marácz's criticisms are notable enough to go in, they should be stated first, with the linguistic response second.  It isn't fair to demolish him from the get-go.  Dbenbenn 23:36, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: Actually Marácz does have a degree in linguisitcs from the University of Gröningen from 1984 and he got his PhD in 1989 at least that's what he writes in one of the articles AFU copied to the Hungarian Wikipedia. I don't know what's the best way or phrasing to mention him though.  Nyenyec 00:29, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: btw, the "breakthrough" bit I added to the "Criticism" section does not properly belong there. It belongs to the Conversely, there have been suggestions that the Germanic languages evolved from an Indo-European language such as Celtic imposed on a Finnic substrate passage in "History". It ended up where it is now purely to give some background to the Marácz mention, and could now be moved. dab (ᛏ) 11:59, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: — *lol* I had overlooked the reference to Heribert Illig. I know that theory, and it is a fine example of crackpottery if there ever was one. (I realize that Maracz does not himself cite Illig, but it seems very fitting to find them sharing the same webspace). It seems also strange that most literature critical of FU seems to be written in Hungarian, in spite if Soviet censorship (i.e. countries that were never censored by the Soviets never developed such FU criticism). If people insist on linking to Maracz (Gubbubu apparently is), how about mentioning Maracz together with Karoly's 'recension', Critique of Linguistic Dilettantism? Somebody would need to access that book, of course. dab (ᛏ) 15:57, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  About László Marácz 

message: well, I have been whipped into doing my own literature search now, and I came up with 
:Merritt Ruhlen, A Guide to the World's langages
it is a very good, scientific book, that does not just state its 'facts' but gives background of the history of classification, and presents different theories alongside each other. The section on 'Uralic-Yukaghir' is very enlightening (p.65ff.), and I will add some of it (with references!) to the history section. (note that the book does not claim genetic relationship of Uralic and Yukaghir. Ruhlen talks about apparent 'taxonomical coordination', and mentions various suggestions. dab (ᛏ) 12:37, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Awesome!  Great work, dab!  That sounds like exactly what's needed.  Dbenbenn 13:26, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: Great work Dab!  I haven't been around Wikipedia much lately, and it's great to see articles I haven't looked at in a couple of weeks substantially improved. - Mustafaa 02:31, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: History

message: I reviewed the disputes, and merged them with 'criticism'. I am not sure about Volgaic: We are saying that the term is obsolete, but there seem to be real disputes about it. At least, as of 1987, Ruhlen gives a series of different suggestions. Maybe the 'obsolete' should be toned down. Anyway, 'disputes' is now a subsection of 'classification', intended to contain ongoing disputes (as opposed to historical ones, which go to the 'History' section. Marcantonio is also disputing FU classification, by contesting the family even exists, and appears also under 'disputes'. I am still open towards an inclusion of Maracz, somewhere. Maybe we should link him from the 'other superfamilies' sentence? Although I am not sure he positively suggests 'Ugro-Sumerian'. dab (ᛏ) 18:02, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Disputes

message: Thanks for making the map, Dbachmann.  It's always nice to have an illustration.  The problem is, I can't make heads or tails of it.  Is it supposed to be southeast Asia?  Is that Japan off the right side?  I'm deeply confused.  Dbenbenn 20:10, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Euroasia, with Western Europe quite marginalized — a perspective Russians often are quite used to, but that sometimes confuse people from the West who are used to putting Germany, Britain or USA in the center. :-) This projection is the best possible in this case. /Tuomas 16:05, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: I had been happy with "Finno-Permic" in the legend. Finnic is to my knowledge (mostly?) used in much more restricted meanings. /Tuomas 16:05, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: Okay, I just got home, and now the blue bit indeed looks like water.  At work, though, the water looked dark-brown, not blue, and the land looked light-brown.  I wasn't just hallucinating, I swear!  Did you consider modifying :Image:Rs-map.png, which has labels and includes the modern context?  Would you mind if I tweaked the colors of your map?  Dbenbenn 00:55, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: well, I am afraid Rs-map.png does not extend to Hungary. Before you tweak the colours, let me make another update (I have the layered orignal here, it will by much more difficult to make edits to the png. What colours would you like? I went as far as to pick the dark green of the Hungarian flag for Ugric, and light blue from the Finnish flag for Finnic, to be sure not to offend anyone by the choice of colours!) dab (ᛏ) 10:45, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: I have added some labels (Finland, Hungary, Ural, Siberia) to make it easier to read. dab (ᛏ) 11:04, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Alright, the labels help a lot.  Thanks!  Dbenbenn 23:24, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: I know, nobody said it was. It's just a map I copied from Ruhlen, showing the distribution of FInnic, Ugric, Samoyedic and Yukaghir, and it is used on all these articles. If you can be bothered, you could create a Finnic, an Ugric, a Samoyedic, a Yukaghir, a Finno-Ugric, an Uralic and an Uralo-Yukahgir version of it (you'd still have to say that they are derived from Ruhlen's book, though), but I thought making one map was tedious enough. Or maybe the caption could be amended, drawing attention to Finnic and Ugric in poarticular, for this article? dab (ᛏ) 22:40, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah Ok I understand. What's the best software for fixing the map? I'd like to have a go myself.
(I think including Yukaghir along with the others is liable to confuse people). Mk270 01:25, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: try the GIMP. I can send you the layered original, if you like. Note, however, that if you drop Yukaghir, you'd want to choose a different area, and again different for Finno-Ugric (no need showing all of Siberia if you only want to map Finnic and Ugric). What you could do is just fiddle with the colours, so that related languages have similar colours (although I conciously avoided that, because I did not want the map to be accused of being suggestive of one 'theory'. although it still is, and maybe there is no way to win this). I don't know how widely accepted the Ural-Yukaghir theory is. Ruhlen presents it as disputed, but as majority opinion. If you remove Yukaghir, I fear you create a precedent, and since Uralic is also disputed, people will ask to remove Samoyedic too, which is strictly speaking inappropriate for this article. I honestly don't know which is the best presentation, but I do think it is helpful to see the distribution of these groups. dab (ᛏ) 09:05, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "Finnic" should be replaced by "Finno-Permic". The Yukaghir languages do not belong to the Uralic languages, but if it were possible to show that the Uralic languages are a part of a bigger language family, the Yukaghir languages might be another branch of it. The Samoyedic languages belong evidently to the Uralic language family, although the relation is quite distant to the Finno-Ugric languages. --Hippophaë 03:16, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

text: As a non-linguist (although student of a language :-) I could maybe add that I find it informative to include neighboring non-IE languages. The only important thing would be to stress in the legend which languages are considered Finno-Ugric and not. /Tuomas 09:13, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I hope I have made the caption unambiguous now. I am afraid that people who want to know about FU will have no choice but to read the article, in spite of there being a map. dab (ᛏ) 09:51, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think this point is worth arguing much further, though I'd be interested in trying my hand with the GIMP if you're still prepared to slip me layers. Mk270 11:42, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: try http://flaez.ch/scratch/uralic.xcf (released under GFDL). I will remove the file once you confirm you downloaded it. dab (ᛏ) 12:32, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've got it now - cheers! Mk270 01:01, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Here's a new map, drawn using several sources, which depicts the approximate geographical distribution of Finno-Ugric languages only. Please note that the "old" map (depicting also the Samoyedic and Yukaghir languages) can still be found in the article about Uralic languages (where, as far as Samoyedic languages are concerned, it fits more appropriately anyway). Cheers, --3 Löwi 14:52, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

text: the map is exceedingly cool -- and no, the Britannica one doesn't look identical at all; I suppose it just descends from a common source (what is IMIU?) dab (ᛏ) 22:07, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map 

message: The new map seems to be copied from Encyclopædia Britannica, http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9109786. --Hippophaë 14:59, 21 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: the map is exceedingly cool -- and no, the Britannica one doesn't look identical at all; I suppose it just descends from a common source (what is IMIU?) dab (ᛏ) 22:07, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Map from Encyclopædia Britannica

message: See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Antifinnugor.
Article editing ban
1.1) For significant disruption relating to the articles Finno-Ugric languages and Uralic languages, Antifinnugor is banned from editing these or related articles for one year. Antifinnugor may edit the related talk pages and is encouraged to work with other editors regarding article content. Other editors may add content and make changes suggested by Antifinnugor at their discretion.
Passed 7-0. 
Personal attack parole
4.1) Antifinnugor is placed on standard personal attack parole for one year: if Antifinnugor makes an edit which is judged by an administrator to be a personal attack, he may be temporarily banned for up to a week by that administrator and the parole timer shall be reset.
Passed 6-2. 
 
Good behaviour
5) If Antifinnugor can demonstrate better editing habits free of personal attacks three months from now, he may apply to have the above restrictions reduced or removed.
Passed 8-0.
Enforcement
1) If Antifinnugor, under whatever username, attempts to edit Finno-Ugric languages or Uralic languages, he may be banned for up to twenty-four hours.
Passed 6-2.
dab (ᛏ) 12:54, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[User:Antifinnugor]]'s RFAr 

message: Those Hungarian enyém 'mine', tiéd 'yours' sound eerily familiar. Writing them in Finnish orthography, they become "änjääm", "tieed". In Finnish, "oma" means "my own", and "teidän" is "yours". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vuo (talk • contribs) 10:57, 2 February 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I would like to hear more on this subject. --Hippophaë 00:38, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

text: In Finnish water = "vesi", to go = "mennä", hand = "käsi". 83.146.214.134 (talk) 20:46, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Possible origins

message: There appears to be a Finno-Ugric language or dialect that calls itself "Suoczil". What is its name in English? Is there a language code for it? —Stephen 15:55, 6 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: False alarm, mystery solved. It’s just another conlang...number of speakers: 1. —Stephen 09:42, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suoczil 

message: I amended the dispute section as I felt the original criticism of Angela Markantonio's work was more personal than academic. Questioning similar to Marcantonio's of the existence of a 'primordial', base language from which other languages in the language family stem from, have taken place in regards to many other language families. Thus while new in regards to Finno-Ugric languages, Dr Marcantonio's work is not quite as "new" as it seems. In general, Marcantonio's book is interesting, well-written and has caused quite a stir in a field that has been quite stagnant, and as such it should be given the respect it deserves and not categorised as just a crazy, fringe theory just because you (or I) may disagree with her. 
Zoe12345 21:43, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disputes/Marcantonio 

message: Isn't Finno-Ugrian the proper term for this admittedly fascinating topic? 195.188.183.124 13:50, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Both Finno-Ugric and Finno-Ugrian are used, and the former seems to be more common. Finno-Ugrian languages redirects here, and I don't see any reason to change this.--AAikio 14:35, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Title of article 

message: I shortened the discussion on genetics and Kalevi Wiik's theory in the Origins section. Much of it was irrelevant, and there were also misleading parts. Genetics is not a method for studying prehistoric languages any more than linguistics is a method for studying genetics. Hence, the following kind of statements are just misleading because they confuse genetic and linguistic origins:
* "Thus, the Finno-Ugric languages and their modern speakers do not originate in the area near the Ural mountains, but rather likely were one of the three indigenous European ethnic groups, which together provided about 80% of modern European genetic material."
Languages do not necessarily have the same origin as the genes of their speakers. Because this article is about Finno-Ugric languages and not about the genetics of the Finno-Ugric peoples, I think it should be primarily based on what linguistics has to say about the subject. One wouldn't want to insert linguistic speculations to articles about human genetics either. --AAikio 09:25, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origins 

message: This article containts the text "Conversely, there have been suggestions that the Germanic languages evolved from an Indo-European language such as Celtic imposed on a Finnic substrate, but no satisfactory proof yet exists." Well, thanks for saying that no satisfactory proof exists, that is an understatement if there ever was one. I've never heard one single linguist propose this idea. Unless somebody objects, I'm removing that sentence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Isber (talk • contribs) 21:45, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See Germanic substrate hypothesis. -- Petri Krohn 00:31, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I already deleted this. There are hundreds of fringe and crank theories of language origins, and in general they should not be referred to in linguistic articles if there is no special reason for this - especially if no reference is provided. Note that the Germanic substrate hypothesis does not claim that the "Germanic languages evolved from an Indo-European language such as Celtic [!] imposed on a Finnic [!] substrate". --AAikio 07:00, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: yes, the "such as Celtic" part is nonsense, and the whole 'substrate hypothesis' is little more than hand-waving in the first place. dab (ᛏ) 07:26, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Celtic substratum?

message: If you're an expert, please look at Talk:Vepses. Thanks, Espoo 07:25, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vepses not in use in English 

message: What is the most commonly accepted date that of the Magyars breaking off from the Khanty and Mansi tribes? Obviously they were all one tribe at some point (the Ugric tribe). Before the Magyars arrived at the Carpathian Basin with Arpad in 896, it is believed they were wondering around for a few hundred years between the Volga River and Ural Mountains. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.59.7.126 (talk) 06:46, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If I recall it is something like 3,000 years ago for Ugric and 5-6,000 for Uralic.  Remember though we're talking about language descent, not people.  There is not a good scientific method currently that can tie current-day speakers of a language to the same people who spoke a "proto" version of the language.  So it would be a weak practice to say with absolutes that Arpad in 896 and the Proto-Ugric speakers 2,000 years earlier were all from one tribe. --Stacey Doljack Borsody 16:47, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Considering the Khanty and Mansi are located in the middle of Russia and the Magyars are all the way in Hungary and the 3 of them being the only members of the Ugric family, I think it's safe to say the Magyars, and just the Magyars broke off from the Khanty-Mansi tribe. Is there or was there any other languages in the Ugric family besides Khanty, Mansi, and Magyar that are now extinct? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.59.1.151 (talk) 13:06, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Magyars, Khanty, and Mansi 

message: A quick hint on pronunciation would be welcome in the intro.  Is it Uh-gric?  Oo-gric?  Yoo-gric?  --Reuben 04:38, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm pretty sure it's pronounced "oog-reek". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.89.165.90 (talk) 21:01, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

text: According to m-w, it's Oo-gric (or alternatively Yoo-gric).  If anybody knows how to write that up in IPA, it would be useful in the intro. --Reuben 00:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The word comes from Yugra, but people may be used to the "Ugra" pronunciations prevalent in Romance languages. kwami (talk) 08:35, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Pronunciation?

message: Does anybody think the characters in the Kalevala (if it in fact is historically accurate) such as Väinämöinen could be the ancestors of all Finno-Ugric people before they split up and were one tribe? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 168.103.81.226 (talk) 15:01, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I hope this was a joke... --AAikio 16:11, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Kalevala and Finno-Ugric people 

message: "The majority of linguists believe that Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian, among other languages, should be included in the group."
This should bw reworded, as something that has given a name, cant be "considered" to be included in it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.65.192.23 (talk) 00:28, 15 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reword Majority 

message: Last paragraph of origins chapter seems to be a little vague. Certainly there are no "Sami peoples of Asia". Furthermore, I think that Finno-Ugric theory was widely accepted by Finnish scientists even before the Finnish independence. 128.214.205.4 11:24, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origins 

message: "All this comparisons of languages have been made by methods developed for Indo- European languages, not suiting agglutinative languages."
Complete rubbish and POV statement, as if somehow indo-european languages do not exhibit agglutination either.  Anon, you poorly understand agglutination.  --Stacey Doljack Borsody 22:10, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rubbish 

message: Hello I can speak Hungarian and I honestly don't see how Hungarian is any more related to Khanty and Mansi than it is to Finnish or Estonian. I don't see any more similarities with the two other Ugric languages than with any Finnic languages. 67.40.37.41 (talk) 16:01, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: That's because speaking a language and understanding linguistic methods are two completely separate things.  Like driving a car versus being able to fix one.  --Stacey Doljack Borsody (talk) 17:13, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm asking to show me some more sources proving otherwise.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.40.37.41 (talk) 19:24, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: What this is really about is people want to take away any uniqueness the Hungarian people has by linking it to other languages and tracing most of its words to other languages instead of the other way around. 67.41.119.57 (talk) 18:31, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Ugric Languages 

message: The current map in this article is simply subpar. I'm having huge problems with the way the areas where the languages are spoken have been colored (little dots, I don't see a point in that), the colors themselves (cyan blue should be banned, really), and the stretched and squeezed text...
So, in good faith, I have a few suggestions on how to improve the map/make a new one:
*The colors should be even (like in every other map in this article), not little random dots.
*The colors should also be soft, like in this map, (i.e. no cyan blue or bright green, please) or too dark (if you are going to use dark colors, use them sparingly, and only on little areas).
*No warped/squeezed/stretched/otherwise raped text. Seriously, that doesn't work.
I'd do it myself, but sadly I don't have the time. So, yoroshiku onegaishimasu! --ざくら木 15:43, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I've changed the map, what do you think? Martintg (talk) 23:27, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: It looks much better! --ざくら木 17:01, 3 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  The map 

message: I am not linguist, first of all, but this theory is whack. 
:RIGHT HERE, the poster should have stopped. This is completely beyond your frame of expertise to give opinions. HammerFilmFan (talk) 20:32, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: As written above, this page is for discussion about the article, not the subject in general. There are individual opponents to the classification, but the consensus in the linguistic community is that Finnish, Hungarian and other Finno-Ugric languages share a common protolanguage. (This does not require many common words, areal or cultural proximity, mutual intelligibility or having the same external influences. It is very simple: they share an ancestor and that's what's required for two languages to be "related".) --Vuo (talk) 15:23, 6 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Common sense 

message: I think that tappara is probably from Slavic word topor that means axe/hatchet. This word can be of the Iranian descent though.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.234.68.206 (talk) 14:55, 17 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Tappara-Tabar-Topor

message: Not analyzed at all. The common principal structure to make a language is the same in Hungarian and Finnish languages. Take just an example. There is a place in former Upper Hungary, also called now Karpathian Ruthenia named in Hungarian language Kiraly-Haza. Kuninkaan talo. Can be transliterated either House of King or House of Royal in English language. There are hundred of similar examples which follows the same rule in both Hungarian and Finnish (also Estonian) languages. Big Russian language as it is today is very young language compared to Ancient Old Slavonic Proto Language. There are several examples where Finno Ugrian principle was adopted in Big Russian place names. Just to point out the use to name places along on that time "roads" and "highways" e.g. rivers. In the areas which were inhabited by the Finno Ugrians originally lived in plateau between Veixeli (Vistula) and Uirali (Ural) and in coniferous forest zone from Rava bend (Great Volga bend) to Ice Sea (Arctic Sea) one may found thousands of place names still in 1:200.000 Russian topographic maps named (copied from) originally named by Finno Ugrians as;
Ala-, Keski-, Ylä-, and Pien-, Suur- or Iso-, which were transliterated in Big Russian language quite late in historical times as; Nizhnij-,(-jaja, - jeje, - ije). Srednij-, (-jaja, - jeje, - ije). Verhnij- (jaja, - jeje, - ije), Malyi-, (- jaja, - jeje, -ije). Bolshoj-, (- jaja, - jeje, - ije). But when one goes out of this area the naming following this principle end to the wall. I am not a linguistic, but I have eyes, can read and write to observe matters such as these, already noted by scholars in St.Petersburg Academy of Science more than a hundred years ago. Also the naming lakes, rivers, and other water sources followed ancient Finnish style to Black- or White-. One can quess for which reasons. All Finns, whose grand mothers lived long enough (those born in late 1800´s) know the principle, because she told them why such a naming had been created for over hundreds of generations and still used in Finno Ugrian world.
The first Russian villages which have still original Baltic names appear according to 1:200.000 map just west of River Zhizdra around town named Kozelsk (Koziel or Kozel) in Kaluga Province and still named Griva (Mouth). All around them are villages named after the old Finno Ugrian system. Nearby is also Djatkovo, an ancient center of Comb Ceramic Culture, which usually is linked direct to Finno Ugrians. 
Peharps also this source should be mentioned linked with Finno Ugrians:
*Tapani Lehtinen: "Kielen vuosituhannet" Publisher SKS. Printed Gummerus Kirjapaino Oy Jyväskylä 2007.  Worth of reading for those who can.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.115.122.217 (talk) 07:16, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Finno Ugrian loans to Great Russian language

message: See http://www.acronet.net/~magyar/english/1997-3/JRNL97B.htm  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.34.71 (talk) 14:16, 19 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: There is quite a lot of denialism of Hungarian being a Finno-Ugric language that needs to be addressed.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.96.238.72 (talk) 00:46, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps in the Hungarian article, and under Ural-Altaic languages. However, minority viewpoints do not need to be repeated in articles that address a mainstream viewpoint in detail. --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 14:39, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It's somewhat amusing that fringe-theorists have taken to places like YouTube with a vengeance to spread their agenda. HammerFilmFan (talk) 20:23, 9 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Dr. Laszlo Maracz was born in a Hungarian family in Holland. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.79.29.112 (talk) 12:45, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

text: The current Hungarian government of autocrat PM Viktor Orban is supressing finno-ugric-uralic scientific lingusitics due to political scheming (e.g. to be cozy with Erdogan and the Turkmenbashi) and so they favour turkic / inner steppe asian origin ideas of the hungarian genetical and vernacular identity. Even schoolbooks have been rewritten to reflect the new ideology. More or less the magyar equivalent of young earth creationism... 84.236.41.32 (talk) 13:19, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: This summarization of your is incorrect. Not any scientific linguistics are supressed, on the other hand other research are allowed and carried out in those directions which have been anyway suppressed since ever. Nothing to do with any cozyness with some Turkics, Steppe or inner-Asian roots are anyway not necessarily Turkic...(KIENGIR (talk) 19:19, 14 August 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Denial 

message: Quote from the text:
"Finno-Ugric languages lack grammatical gender and thus use one pronoun for both he and she; for example, hän in Finnish, tämä in Votic, tema in Estonian, ő in Hungarian."
It is true that they lack grammatical gender and futhermore they lack gender in speech as well. But the translation for "he" and "she" is bit more complex. While the translation in finnish is indeed "hän". The votic "tämä" and estonian "temä" translates to finnish "tämä" or "minä". This would be in english "this one" and "I".
So you need to remember that:
Minä, Sinä, Hän, Me, Te, He & Se = I, You, Him/Her, Us (two or more), You (two or more), Them (two or more) & It
Nämä, Tämä, Tuo, Noi = These (ones), This (one), That (one), Those (ones) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.155.177.30 (talk) 22:54, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Estonian and Votic en (the cognate of Finnish _hän_) means "self", not "him/her". You cannot directly transfer Finnish meanings to related words in other languages (see false friends). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tropylium (talk • contribs) 12:40, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

text: No problem here either. Mu etc. is not given in the translation as "me", but, correctly, as "of me". --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 12:40, 26 August 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Structural features (failure due translation) 

message: These two articles duplicate much content. I've started to transfer some of it (eg. the subclassification discussion) under that one. Please consider aiming further contributions on the topic there, too.
--Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 14:47, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: …The vocabulary and featural sections seem particularly misleading: much of what is described here in fact applies to Uralic as a whole. Agglutination, possessiv suffixes, seven original cases, and words like *sëxni, *meni-, *kala, *śilmä are solidly PU features. --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 18:02, 17 September 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article vs. [[Uralic languages]] 

message: Was Larin Paraske an Ingrian Finn or an Izhorian = Ingrian Karelian ?
In "Näin lauloi Larin Paraske" SKS 1980, p.149 it's said, that both of her parents were Ingrians not Finns and she grew up in Ingria, near to Finnish border.
 Molemmat olivat inkeroisia, joilla tarkoitetaan Inkerin ja Kannaksen karjalaisperäisiä asukkaita 
62.65.214.190 (talk) 20:24, 14 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: She was Izhorian. That is what inkeroisia (a plural form, btw) means. Monegasque (talk) 12:08, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Larin Paraske 

message: I recently ran across the term "Tshudic" in reference to the Finno-Ugric languages and their speakers in some late 19th and early 20th century works. Is this still a valid descriptor? Even if outdated, it probably warrants a mention in the article, with perhaps a redirect in case anyone else decides to search for it. Thanks, --Aryaman (talk) 17:23, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: See Chud. Appropriate redirects might be needed, though. --Sander Säde 18:06, 2 July 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Done. Cheers, --Aryaman (talk) 07:54, 3 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tshudic? 

message: Currently the article includes:
According to Estonian philologist Mall Hellam, the only entire sentence that is mutually intelligible is, "The living fish swims in water" (although it is not in fact mutually intelligible)[7].
What? Is it mutually intelligible or not?
Ordinary Person (talk) 12:53, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Not. Between Estonian and Finnish it is, of course (quite similar languages), but Hungarians don't understand the others, and the others don't understand the Hungarian version. Qorilla (talk) 14:47, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Mutually intelligible

message: Hey guys, just wanted to give the heads up, I am going to make a minor edit in this page. The "Geographic distribution" section says "Eastern and northern Europe, North Asia". This section should include Central Europe, as the largest Finno-Ugric ethnic group, Hungarians live in Central Europe. I'll make the change. --StarOfFlames (talk) 21:29, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Eastern and Central Europe 

message: I was surprised not to see a list (or tree) of Finno-Ugric languages in this article.  In fact, I suspect looking for such a list might be the single most common reason people visit this article.  The list of ethnicities who speak Finno-Ugric languages doesn't correspond to the languages themselves.  Given that it doesn't seem to have been discussed in the Talk page before, is there a reason no such list is included?  If not, I'll add one as a new section, but I don't want to research and write one just to have it deleted.  There may be debate on the inclusion of some particular languages, to the extent that the Finno-Ugric designation is debated, but I still think a list would be useful to most readers, just as the corresponding lists appear prominently in the articles on Romance and Slavic languages.
153.31.112.24 (talk) 18:16, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: It would be to some extent arbitrary (are varieties that don't occur in the list not languages?), and I don't see much point.  It's not the kind of info we normally include in lang-family articles.  You can always navigate the subarticles or just view the category.  — kwami (talk) 19:26, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: We have a list over at Uralic languages, though. --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 01:32, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  No list of Finno-Ugric languages?