Nenets languages languages are classified in the Uralic language family, making them distantly related to some national languages spoken in Europe – namely Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian – in addition to other minority languages spoken in Russia. Both of the Nenets languages have been greatly influenced by Russian. Tundra Nenets has, to a lesser degree, been influenced by Komi and Northern Khanty. Forest Nenets has also been influenced by Eastern Khanty. Tundra Nenets is well documented, considering its status as an indigenous and minority language. It has a literary tradition going back to the 1930s, while Forest Nenets was first written during
Uralic–Yukaghir languages World's Languages" by Merritt Ruhlen (1987). Uralic and Yukaghir are listed as a language family, forming a subgroup of a higher-order family called "Eurasiatic", in Joseph Greenberg's "Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives" (2000–2002). However, Greenberg did not present a discursive argument for this subgroup, presumably leaving it to the reader to work it out from the data on grammar and vocabulary he presented. The Uralic–Yukaghir family has been accepted by the American Nostraticist Allan Bomhard (2008:176, citing Ruhlen 1987:64–65) but without presenting any argument for it, and Russian linguist Vladimir Napolskikh. Collinder summarizes his case for, not merely a relationship