Home > Archive > Volume 45, No. 3 > This paper
The Western Contact Field of the Uralic Languages
Ago Künnap
Published: 2005/03/01
Abstract
This paper, published in English for the first time only now, seeks to enquire into the problem of the origin of the Finns and Estonians, who on the basis of the biological evidence are clearly of European origin, but who speak languages that are classified as belonging to the Uralic family of languages spoken primarily in Asia by persons who are biologically very different. His proposals have received little support from linguists who specialize in the Uralic languages, other than those scholars he mentions in his text, but the genetic similarity between the Finns and Estonians, and their North European neighbors who speak Indo-European (Germanic) languages, requires some explanation, and the author hopes that the publication of an English translation of his paper will attract research by scholars in fields other than Uralistics.
