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2007-08-02 18:00:37 · 4 answers · asked by mansour o 1 in Society & Culture Languages

4 answers

Finnish does not belong to Indo-European language family. It belongs to Finno-Ugric group of Uralic language family. As such it is completly different from other Indo-European languages. You can get more information about it from Wikipedia or other online resources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finno-Ugric_languages

2007-08-02 19:03:18 · answer #1 · answered by punasilva 6 · 3 0

No!
Finnish, Estonian, Sami and Hungarian belong to the Finno-Ugric branch of the Ural-Altaic language family. Alongside Basque, Maltese and Turkish, these are the only Non-Indo-European indigenous languages spoken in Europe.

2007-08-02 18:13:38 · answer #2 · answered by Sterz 6 · 2 0

Sterz and Punasilva have adequately and correctly answered your question if you are looking for just a yes-or-no-type answer.

However, I think it's important to call attention to the fact that all of the Finno-Ugric languages (Finnish, Estonian, Livonian Lapp, Hungarian) have developed in close contact with Indo-European languages during their histories and contain numerous Indo-European loan words, especially from the Germanic branch of Indo-European.

The Latvians (Letts) although Indo-European speaking, appear to be genetically of Finnish stock; "Indo-Europeanized Finns" as one linguist I read referred to them as. That's how close the two language families have lived in contact with each other.

Indo-European and Finno-Ugrian may also have a common ancestry in an older proposed language which some linguists call "Nostratic." For example the Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian words for "name," nemi and név look suspiciously similar to words for "name" in Indo-European languages.

So, it's not as if the Finno-Ugrian language family is one that is totally alien or dissimilar to Indo-European.

2007-08-02 20:28:05 · answer #3 · answered by Brennus 6 · 0 0

Yes, it is, even though it belongs to the rare branch of it:
http://www.finland.fi/netcomm/news/showarticle.asp?intNWSAID=25827
Finnish language.

2007-08-02 18:06:29 · answer #4 · answered by russiancatsima 6 · 0 3

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