Recognising the differences between Uralic alphabets.
The difference between the Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian alphabets.
The Uralic languages are a group of 38 languages spread across Northern Euroasia, spoken by around 25 million people. Most of the languages are local to specific groups of people found in particular regions. Included are the languages of Erzya, Moksha, Mari, Udmurt, Sami, and Komi, spoken in northern areas of Scandinavia and the Russian Federation. Uralic is the language of Finland, Estonia and Hungary. I will concentrate on these three languages as these are national languages.
The origins of Urillic are disputed, suggesting that the language came from Siberia; however, there is no agreement on which of the two areas suggested; the first being western and northwestern Siberia. The second offers between the Ob and Yenisei water tables in Central Siberia. The fact that the language shows earlier forms in both these areas suggests it originated from somewhere else and migrated to these areas with the movement of people.
There is a credible hypothesis that the language originated west of the Urial Mountains. Again no one can locate a specific area, yet many scholars suggest places within the vicinity of the Volga river. Finnish and Estonian are from the Baltic family of Uralic, while Hungarian derives from the Ugric family of Uralic languages.
The three alphabets we are looking at, us the Latin alphabet with some additional letters. Each alphabet contains letters that are not official letters of their alphabets but are letters used in common loanwords and foreign names.
Collinder, B. (2021). Introduction to the Uralic language. Univ of California Press.
Janhunen, J. (2009). Proto-Uralic — What, where, and when? The Quasquicentennial of the Finno-Ugrian Society, 258, 57–78.
Sinor, D. (Ed.). (1990). The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521243049
