Finno-Ugric languages Finno-Ugric languages Finno-Ugric ( or ), Finno-Ugrian or Fenno-Ugric is a traditional grouping of all languages in the Uralic language family except the Samoyedic languages. Its commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is based on criteria formulated in the 19th century and is criticized by some contemporary linguists. The three most-spoken Uralic languages, Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian, are all included in Finno-Ugric, although linguistic roots common to both branches of the traditional Finno-Ugric language tree (Finno-Permic and Ugric) are distant. The term "Finno-Ugric", which originally referred to the entire family, is sometimes used as a synonym for the
Indo-Uralic languages (< "*pārsa") "pig". In the Indo-European word, *"-os" (> Finno-Ugric *"-as") is a masculine nominative singular ending, but it is quite meaningless in Uralic languages. This shows that the whole word was borrowed as a unit and is not part of the original Uralic vocabulary. (Further details on "*porćas" are given in the Appendix.) One of the most famous borrowings is the Finnish word "kuningas" "king" (< Proto-Finnic "*kuningas"), which was borrowed from Proto-Germanic "*kuningaz". Finnish has been very conservative in retaining the basic structure of the borrowed word, nearly preserving the nominative singular case marker reconstructed for Proto-Germanic masculine