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26,909,300 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Religion | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
various Christian religions |
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other Samoyedic peoples |
The Finno-Ugric peoples are any of several peoples of Europe who speak languages of the proposed Finno-Ugric language family, such as the Finns, Estonians, Mordvins, and Hungarians.[1] Their languages are part of the Uralic language family and are not related to Indo-European languages such as Germanic, Slavic, and Romance.
A study of Population Genetics of Finno-Ugric speaking humans in North Eurasia carried out between 2002–2008 in the Department of Forensic Medicine at the University of Helsinki showed most of the Finno-Ugric speaking populations possess amalgamation of West and East Eurasian gene pools supporting the idea of mixed origins in these populations. North Eurasian Finno-Ugric-speaking populations were found to be genetically a heterogeneous group showing lower haplotype diversities compared to more southern populations.[2]
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In Finnic- and Ugric-speaking countries such as Finland, Estonia and Hungary, which find themselves surrounded by unrelated tongues, language origins and language history have long been relevant to national identity.[3] At the same time, nationalist ideologies in Hungary have been hostile to historical linguistics for demonstrating the close relationship between Hungarians and the Ugric peoples of central Russia, the Khanty and Mansi subsistence hunters and fishermen. Hungarian nationalists envision Hungarian kinship with more "prestigious" peoples such as the Sumerians,[3] and the discovery of the Finno-Ugric linguistic links was a "psychological blow", as Hungarians had long prided themselves in their supposed Scythian origins, and indeed many Hungarians refuse to accept linguistic findings even today.[4] Thus Finno-Ugric is not an ethnic group based on common culture or identity, but rather a discovery of linguistics:
[The] affinity of the Finno-Ugric peoples is based solely on the linguistic affinity of these nationalities, and often no other fact can be presented to prove it. [...] linguistic affinity is really a proof of cultural affinity, but only of the far distant past when the structure of the culture was far different from that which we investigate today. The common features of primitive culture are often found spread over very extensive areas and in several different language families.—Gustav Ränk, p. 2[5]
The peoples, or rather their linguistic ancestors, have a hypothetical common history based on linguistic reconstruction. However, they do not necessarily share a common ancestry, since entire peoples may change their language. In addition, while the Finnic and Ugric languages are undoubtedly related to each other, there is some debate over whether they are closer to each other than they are to the third branch of Uralic languages, Samoyedic, and thus whether Finno-Ugric is a valid genealogical group , or merely a geographic one. Linguistic ancestry may not necessarily correspond to biological ancestry, and genetic studies have so far been unable to demonstrate a relationship between the various Finno-Ugric peoples.[6]
The four largest Finno-Ugric peoples are Hungarians (14,000,000-15,000,000), Finns (6,500,000), Mordvins (850,000), and Estonians (1,100,000). Three of them (Hungarians, Finns, and Estonians) have their independent states – Hungary, Finland, and Estonia. The traditional area of the indigenous Sámi people is in Northern Fenno-Scandinavia and the Kola Peninsula in Northwest Russia and is known as Sápmi. Some other Finno-Ugric peoples have autonomous republics in Russia: Karelians (Republic of Karelia), Komi (Komi Republic), Udmurts (Udmurt Republic), Mari (Mari El Republic), and Mordvins (Moksha and Erzya; Republic of Mordovia). Khanty and Mansi peoples live in Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug of Russia, while Komi-Permyaks live in Komi-Permyak Okrug, which formerly was an autonomous okrug of Russia, but today is a territory with special status within Perm Krai.
Shamanism has had a historically important influence on the mythologies of Siberian peoples, including the Finnic, Ugric, Scandinavian, Yeniseian, Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, and other northern Eurasia and Central Asian peoples. Central concepts in their cosmologies is the myth that the world was created from an egg, myths about the Milky Way, ideas about the existence of the World tree or pillar, and the idea that asterisms represent animal spirits.[7] Myth about a bird floating on the primary ocean and dives for the ground is a central Finno-Ugric (Uralic, and even North-Eurasian) cosmogonic myth.[8]
Established in Syktyvkar in 1992,[9] the World Congress of Finno-Ugrian Peoples is convoked at least once in four years.[10] The members of the Finno-Ugric Peoples' Consultative Committee include the Erzyas, Estonians, Finns, Hungarians, Ingrian Finns, Ingrians, Karelians, Khants, Komis, Mansis, Maris, Mokshas, Nenetses, Permian Komis, Saamis, Tver Karelians, Udmurts, Vepsians; Observers: Livonians, Setos.[11]
The first Festival of the Finno-Ugric Peoples was held in Yoshkar-Ola in 1990. The tradition continued covering turn by turn all regions of the Finno-Ugric world: the Republic Mari El, Mordovia, Hanty-Mansijsk, Estonia, Udmurtia, Hungary.[12] In 2007 the festival was hosted by the President of Russia and visited by the leaders of Finland and Hungary, Finnish President Tarja Halonen and Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany.[13]
The proposal of a Finno-Ugric language family has led to the postulation not just of an ancient Proto–Finno-Ugric people, but that the modern Finno-Ugric–speaking peoples are ethnically related.[14] Such hypotheses are based on the assumption that heredity can be traced though linguistic relatedness.[15] However, Finno-Ugric has not been reconstructed linguistically; attempts to do so have been indistinguishable from Proto-Uralic.[16] Like in any other human population, individual groups within the Finno-Ugric language family have a diverse array of cultural, environmental, and genetic influences. However, modern genetic studies have shown that the Y-chromosome haplogroup N3, and sometimes N2, having branched from haplogroup N, which, itself, probably spread north, then west and east from Northern China about 12,000–14,000 years ago from father haplogroup NO (haplogroup O being the most common Y-chromosome haplogroup in Southeast Asia), is almost a specific trait, though certainly not restricted, to Uralic- or Finno-Ugric-speaking populations, especially as high frequency or primary paternal haplogroup.[17][18]
Sinor, Denis (1990). The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia. Cambridge University Press. pp. 229–252. ISBN 0521243041. http://books.google.com/books?id=ST6TRNuWmHsC&dq.
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