Historically, the Ugrians or Ugors were the linguistic ancestors of the present-day Hungarians, and the Khanty and Mansi peoples of Western Siberia.[1][2][3][4] The name is sometimes also used in a modern context as a cover term for these three peoples.[5][6] In 19th century and early 20th century literature, they were called Ugrian Finns.[7]
The Khanty and the Mansi are collectively known as the Ob-Ugrians. They are ethnographically close to each other and live in geographic proximity with each other in the Ob River basin, mostly in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug.[8][4]
The majority of Hungarians live in Hungary in Central Europe. They are ethnographically and culturally distant from the Ob-Ugrians, and are only related to them by a weak linguistic connection.[6]
Modern languages
Although the Khanty and Mansi are closely related ethnographically, their languages are not particularly close. It is commonly posited that their languages are related to each other (as the Ob-Ugric languages) and also to the language of the Magyars of Hungary (together forming the Ugric language family). While all three of these languages are clearly members of the greater Uralic language family, the linguistic reconstruction work needed to prove that they are closer to each other than to other Uralic languages has never been adequately done, and in recent decades a more agnostic position has been taken by many linguists. (See the Classification of Uralic languages.)[citation needed]
See also
References
Further reading
- Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam (1999). The tenacity of ethnicity : a Siberian saga in global perspective. Princeton University Press. pp. 29–31. ISBN 978-0-691-00674-1.