# Ask the Turk **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 5, 2001, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-turk/85545 "2001-10-05T09:56:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2005, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-turk/85545/61 "2005-11-30T17:24:45Z")
The relationship between the Uralic and Altaic languages is controversial. Many linguists say they’re not actually related at all, but coincidentally share a large number of typological features. Shared vocabulary is mostly missing, however. A Finn could not understand a Hungarian unless she had studied the language specially. Finnish and Hungarian are not mutually intelligible, not even close. The relationship can be seen by comparative etymology, for example ‘water’ is _vesi_ in Finnish and _víz_ in Hungarian. In Turkish, water is _su_ and in Mongolian _us_. Most of the words in Finnish and Hungarian are not this obviously related. Finnish and Estonian are much closer. Hungarian has no close relatives at all. Hungarian separated from the rest of Finno-Ugric The words for water, vesi and víz, come from Proto-Uralic \*vetä. This may be related to Indo-European words for water like English _water_, Greek _hudor_, Hittite _watar_ and Russian _voda_. There may be a distant relationship between Uralic and Indo-European. Proto-Altaic has not been reconstructed, and this raises doubts that Altaic really exists as a family. ---
**Author:** ![yBeayf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e274bd/32.png) [@yBeayf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yBeayf)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2005, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-turk/85545/62 "2005-11-30T20:22:45Z")
> [@](#): > > Hungarian has no close relatives at all. Hungarian separated from the rest of Finno-Ugric What about Mansi and Khanty? ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2005, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-turk/85545/63 "2005-12-01T01:24:07Z")
I forgot to finish that sentence before hitting submit. Here’s what I meant to say: Hungarian has no close relatives at all. Hungarian separated from the rest of Ugric at about the 5th century BC. That’s a fairly long time for a language to stay isolated from its nearest relatives, and they have diverged greatly. Ugric separated from Proto-Finno-Ugric circa 2000 BC. Finno-Ugric separated from Proto-Uralic probably earlier than 4000 BC. > [@yBeayf](#): > > What about Mansi and Khanty? Those are the other Ugric languages and therefore Hungarian’s nearest relatives, but they have been sundered for so long that there is no mutual intelligibility, and unless one is a trained linguist it’s hard to even see the relationship. They’re not closely related like, say, Italian and Spanish. The Mansi word for water is _wit_, compare with Hungarian _víz_. Compare the numbers from one to ten in Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, Mansi, and Khanty: ```auto 1. yksi üks egy akw it 2. kaksi kaks kettő kyt kat 3. kolme kolm három khurum khulem 4. neljä neli négy ñila ñal 5. viisi viis öt at wet 6. kuusi kuus hat khot kut 7. seitsemän seitse hét sat läwet 8. kahdeksän kaheksa nyolc ñollow ñil 9. yhdeksän üheksa kilenc ontellow jert’jang 10 kymmenen kümme tíz low jang ``` The numbers from one to six in Proto-Uralic are \*ükte, \*kakte, \*kolm, \*neljä, \*vitte, \*kutte. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ask-the-turk/85545.md?page=3)