LANGUAGE FAMILIES; URALIC & TURKIC
URALIC languages are hypothesized to have evolved in the vicinity of the Urals, the mountain range in Russia dividing Europe from Asia. At least 6000 years ago, Uralic peoples diverged, one group migrating to northern Scandinavia & Finland, & another to Estonia and its Baltic environs.
Around 400 CE another group, the Magyars, began a long migration from the eastern and southern Urals westward. By 896 CE Magyars under the leadership of Arpad entered the Carpathian Basin – what is now Hungary. Modern genetic research indicates there is little Asian blood in most Hungarians: however the Hungarian language is a direct ancestor of its Uralic roots, unrelated to any nearby language.
URALIC LANGUAGES: FINNISH, ESTONIAN, SAAMI, HUNGARIAN, and many smaller groups in north-central Russia. Total speakers, about 25 million.
TURKIC languages have about 170 million speakers. Turkish, the official language of Turkey, is the westernmost branch of a language family extending to eastern Siberia. Turkish ancestors are first recorded by Chinese historians as nomads living north of the Great Wall; hundreds of years BCE. By 700 BCE these nomads had become horsemen, and soon came to dominate the grasslands that stretch from Mongolia to Hungary.
The Huns are regarded by many historians as a Turkic people, possibly originating north of China. By 370 CE they were in southern Russia, and by 450 CE were rampaging through Germany, France & Italy.
The Bulgars, a Turkic-speaking tribe, occupied what is now Bulgaria by 679 CE, but were assimilated into oblivion by their Slavic and Thracian subjects.
The Seljuks, definitely Turkic speakers, converted to Islam in 985CE then invaded Persia & Anatolia. Their successors, the Ottomans, conquered the Byzantines, Persians, & Egyptians. By 1683, Turkic speakers controlled territory from Tunisia to China.
TURKIC LANGUAGES: TURKISH, AZERBAIJANI, TURKMEN, UZBEK, UYGHUR, TATAR, KAZAKH, KYRGYZ, TUVAN, 27 others. RELATED: Mongolian, Korean, Japanese. SOURCE: Wikipedia
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