What do Finnish and Hungarian have in common?

Hungarians and Finns speak languages of the same language family, the Finno-Ugric or Uralic languages, just like the Irish and the Iranians speak languages of the same language family, the Indo-European languages.

Can Finns and Hungarians understand each other?

The two other national languages that are Uralic languages as Finnish are Estonian and Hungarian. Estonians and Finns usually may understand each other, but their languages are very different. People who can speak Finnish cannot understand Hungarian without extra study, and Hungarians cannot understand Finnish.

Are Hungarian and Finnish mutually intelligible?

Finnish and Hungarian are only distantly related and are no more mutually intelligible than English and Farsi, which are both Indo-European languages .

When did Hungarian and Finnish diverge?

approximately 4,500 years ago
The Divergence of Finnish and Hungarian These two major branches split approximately 4,500 years ago, compared with Germanic languages, whose divergence commenced an estimated 2,000 years ago.

What are the similarities between the Finnish and Hungarian languages?

Finnish and Hungarian belong both to the Uralic family but they are in very distant subgroups. Finnish is Finnic, and Hungarian is Ugric. They had a common proto-language approximately 5000 years ago so we can very well assume that they are not very similar. What always happens during the history of languages is sound changes.

What is the difference between Basque and Finnish and Hungarian?

Basque is an isolate and the only living language of its (Vasconic) family, while Finnish and Hungarian belong to the Finno-Ugric language family, alongisde Estonian and some other languages spoken in Russia (Khanty, Mansi, Samoyed, Volgaic, Saami). Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Is Finnish an Indo-European language?

Finnish has more words derived from Swedish than the 600 common words with Hungarian, but nobody is claiming that Finnish has suddenly become an Indo-European language. These 600 words shared by Hungarian and Finnish are not “common” but they obviously are of same origin.

What is the origin of the Finno-Ugrian language?

The Finno-Ugrian languages are believed to have migrated from the Caspian Basin via the Volga Valley, the Volga Finnic languages being the oldest languages of that family (at least of the Finnic branch).