Talk:Finnic peoples

Name

Many of our articles link to 'Finnic peoples' with a much broader scope than just the Baltic Finns. — kwami (talk) 04:24, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Those articles are made by same persons who try to force their own "Finnic" definition to this article. Tuohirulla puhu 09:08, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

This is incorrect

Volga Finns, Saami people and Permic people are not Finnic peoples. They do not speak Finnic languages. The creation of this page is incorrect. Finnic peoples are a synonym for Baltic Finns. These changes should be reverted. "Baltic Finns" should be renamed back to Finnic peoples, as it has previously been. Blomsterhagens (talk) 22:29, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

They are Finnic depending on which country you're in. We have room for more than one article. — kwami (talk) 22:38, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

By country you actually refer to language. This is English wikipedia. In English scientific text the word "Finnic" means Baltic Finns. Russian or other languages use of their equivalent of "Finnic" is irrelevant here. Tuohirulla puhu 09:11, 13 October 2022 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Baltic Finns which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 10:01, 14 October 2019 (UTC)

Finnic peoples is a broad concept, not an ambiguous term.

This is a followup to yesterday's discussion at Blomsterhagens' talk page.

It seems to me that Finno-Ugric peoples covers the broader group, and as someone will surely eventually suggest that Finnic peoples should be a WP:Broad-concept article rather than a disambiguation page, then maybe we should just redirect Finnic peoples to Finno-Ugric peoples. wbm1058 (talk) 20:36, 15 October 2019 (UTC)

In this spirit, I have history-merged Baltic Finns (back) into Finnic peoples (revisions up to 19:21, 4 December 2015).

The previous version of Finnic peoples was redirected out of existence, to Baltic Finns, with the rationale "this entire article is a one-man crusade to create his own imaginary "ethnic" or whatever group. please anyone with time and expertise, interfere".

The problem is, if you live in Finland, you think in the context of Finnic peoples meaning Baltic Finnic peoples, but Russians think in the context of Volga Finns.

I suggest reverting to this 03:18, 24 April 2012 version, and then improving it. – wbm1058 (talk) 22:01, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

@Wbm1058: Done. How does that look? I removed some of the more crufty bits and details that are repeated in the main articles. — kwami (talk) 22:31, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

For other readers: a large number of sources, especially those concerning Russia, refer to Finnic peoples without further specifying which they are. They may be Baltic, or Volgaic, or Permic, but often will subsume more than one, and in any case it would often be OR for us to disambiguate. This article provides a link target for such mentions. — kwami (talk) 03:32, 10 September 2021 (UTC)

I agree with this change and the creation of a larger-scope article. Thanks. --Blomsterhagens (talk) 10:57, 13 October 2021 (UTC)

Thanks guys for fixing this! Termer (talk) 22:46, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Because the term that should be use depends from the classification of languages, such terms should be used that are used for classifying the languages. Such terms can be found from the best recent general sources that deal with the classification of languages. But then the problem that arises is, that at a given time there may or may not be consensus how the languages should be classified or should they in the first place be classified to such broader grouping within the uralic language family as "finnic" (in broader sense) or "ugric" (in broader sense, or "!finno-ugric" (excluding samoyed) or should these and some orher broader groupings be used as phylogenetic gropuping or purely areal groupingd or should they be used at all. What is clear, is the existence of the smaller groups, i.e. saami, baltic finnic, mordvin, mati, permic, khanty, mansi, hungarian and samoyed. The rest is more or less debated, even thoug some groupings may be used as areal terms. --Urjanhai (talk) 19:32, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

And this all must be based on sources, not likings of this or that wikipedia user.--Urjanhai (talk) 19:43, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

This is an ethnic concept. Nations don't appear and disappear as classifications change. Linguistic classification is largely irrelevant, apart from how it impacts people's self-identity (e.g., it appears that the Ugrians are no longer considered Finns due to linguistic classification). — kwami (talk) 21:59, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

There are no ethnics. Iivarius (talk) 12:25, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Drive by tagging

@3 Löwi: If you are going to tag the article for having these issues, you need to point out what specifically is the problem. So please do be so kind as to explain what the issues are and how the article can be improved, rather than just vaguely say ″still multiple issues″. Be specific. --TylerBurden (talk) 08:09, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Why you also appear to be censoring terms you personally find offensive is also very strange, see WP:NOTCENSORED. TylerBurden (talk) 08:11, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Misinformation and incorrect terms

Well, I can only repeat what other users here have stated, and that is that this article has so many flaws that I really wonder if it's even worth improving. For example, the term "Finnic" should only be used for ethnic groups who speak Finnic languages, and the terms "Finns", "Finnish" and "Western/Eastern Finns" should only be used for Finns in order to avoid confusion. I suggest that users who are more knowledgeable in this topic should be allowed to correct these errors, otherwise it's not worth keeping. Skäggdopping (talk) 17:22, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

...the term "Finnic" should only be used for ethnic groups who speak Finnic languages... Why? A linguistically defined label is just that: a label for a linguistic construct (here: a branch within a language family). And the very same label might be used with a different scope in other disciplines, and reflect different terminological traditions. This is explicitly discussed in the article. –Austronesier (talk) 19:57, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

And it is used for speakers of Finnic languages. The Finnic languages are more than just the Balto-Finnic languages, even if the word is used as shorthand for that meaning as well. — kwami (talk) 22:00, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Repeated redirection

Original heading: "Censorship, yet again"

@Wbm1058, Blomsterhagens, Termer, TylerBurden, and Austronesier: Our nationalist edit-warriors are back and deleting the article. Would appreciate a restoration from someone else so I'm not engaged in an edit-war. — kwami (talk) 17:23, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

The ideal place for a discussion about whether this article should exist is WP:AfD. Please voice your concerns there if you would like to redirect or remove this article (cf. WP:ATD-R). ~ ToBeFree (talk) 19:59, 14 October 2022 (UTC)

Content forking article needing a blank-and-redirect

May I strongly encourage Tuohirulla, who made the first redirect attempt, also to be the first to take the discussion to WP:AfD (cf. WP:ATD-R). There is no need for having two separate articles in the English-language Wikipedia that cover the same topic, one titled "Baltic Finnic peoples", and the other "Finnic peoples". At the moment, let me add nothing to the above comments by Blomsterhagens, Skäggdopping, and Tuohirulla here – they have described specifically enough the essence of the major flaws (of which there are many) of this article's current version. Just a few general observations: the article "Baltic Finnic peoples" is in much better shape and therefore worth keeping, whereas "Finnic peoples" is better removed and redirected. Large parts of this article's content are unacceptable WP:CONTENTFORKING, including both WP:REDUNDANTFORK and repetitive WP:POVFORK forking, often lacking relevant (English-language) and WP:RELIABLE sources. 3 Löwi (talk) 11:48, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

But it's not a content fork. A content fork is an article about the same topic as the main article, often emphasizing a different POV or "narrative" than that of the main article (which latter ideally should reflect the scholarly mainstream view). However, what you are contesting is the topic range that is covered by the term "Finnic peoples" in this article. Apparently, you consider the use of "Finnic" only correct for the Baltic Finnic peoples. However, this is not the only use of the term in English-language literature, which is why have this article as a kind of extended disambiguation page. Whether it's current focus on the most extensive meaning of the term (as seen in the opening paragraph) is ideal, is another question. –Austronesier (talk) 17:12, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

But it is not a disambiguation page. A disambiguation page is a list of links to different articles. This article with the current title is a directly competing with article "Baltic Finnic peoples". The solution would be a real disambiguation page and a rewrite of this article together with changing its title. Vulc (talk) 19:27, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

You mean move this article to a different name, with "Finnic peoples" being a dab between the two. I don't see the point: this already serves that function. — kwami (talk) 00:58, 8 May 2023 (UTC)

I did not mean a 'dab'. I meant what I said, and that was a real disambiguation page. Do you think that disambiguation pages are dabs? If you do, I disagree. See about disambiguation pages. Moreover, the disambiguation page would not consist only of the two links, all peoples who are called Finnic in Russia (and in Russian) could have a link there. Vulc (talk) 18:29, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

You could create a dab page if you like, though I don't see the point. But this is a different topic than Baltic Finnic peoples, just as Baltic Finnic is a different topic than Estonian. — kwami (talk) 05:18, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

Undiscussed move

I have made a technical request to revert this undiscussed move. This page is not eligible for bold moves as it has been moved and reverted in the past. An RM is needed to discuss these changes, and the disambiguation being created is not necessarily the primary topic. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 15:03, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 23 August 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) – MaterialWorks 20:07, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

---

• Finnic peoples → ?
• Baltic Finnic peoples → Finnic peoples

– Aligned with the naming conventions for languages such as the Finnic languages and Finno-Permic languages. Should there be any opposition, a potential compromise could entail renaming the disambiguation page Finnic peoples (disambiguation) to simply Finnic peoples. Yelysavet (talk) 16:25, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose No actual proposal here. (Where would this article go?) Also, Finn/Finnic covers more than the Baltic Finns. If you want the ethno and ling articles to use the same phrasing, you could suggest the language article be moved to 'Balto-Finnic languages'. — kwami (talk) 19:16, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose Very poor proposal, should arguably be closed straight away, article shouldn't get obstructive tags if you can't even make an actual proposal. --TylerBurden (talk) 19:36, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

  Also noting Yelysavet's mass removal of links to this article and unexplained changes of content from Finnic to Permians, smells like POV pushing to me. TylerBurden (talk) 19:43, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose The bold page move (reverted) was to move this page to Permic Finnic Peoples and to create a disambiguation in its place. That was suitably controversial that it needed discussion, but this discussion is to move this page to somewhere unspecificed and move another page in its place, which is something quite different, and I do not see any argument as to why that should be done. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 20:16, 23 August 2023 (UTC)
• Support and move this page to Finno-Permic peoples. These are the mainstream terms as used in modern literature. Thadh (talk) 00:48, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

  There is no such thing as "Finno-Permic peoples", unless you mean the Permians, which would be a tautology. — kwami (talk) 06:13, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

  Finno-Permic population, Finno-Permic culture, Finno-Permic people. There definitely are, specifically, the speakers of the Finno-Permic languages. Using "Finnic" to denote "Finno-Permic" is even more outdated than continuing to believe Finno-Permic is a proven branch. Thadh (talk) 12:30, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

  Finno-Permic is a linguistic construct. It has been abandoned by many Uralicists, and if it proves to be wrong, the alleged "people" will cease to exist. Linguistic constructs are not be the basis for ethnic identity. The concept of a "Finn" is largely independent of linguistic models. (Ugrian Finns did stop being considered Finns because of the Finno-Ugric model, but there's no indication of anything similar happening here.) — kwami (talk) 21:16, 26 August 2023 (UTC)

  In that case, why not delete this page altogether? Currently, the only information it is holding is:

  - "Finnic" can be used for pretty much any people that are considered more closely related to Finns (of Finland) than to the two other Uralic groups

  - Etymology of the word "Finn".

  The second one can obviously be move to the article for Baltic Finnic people, whereas the former is pretty nonsensical anyway: The people themselves don't refer to themselves as Finnic, and the article openly calls the term historically inconsistent and always open for change. We can just as easily give a "see also" for Volga Finns and Permic Finns and host this information there. Thadh (talk) 09:53, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

  I don't understand the chronic and often hostile attempts to delete information about the Finns. What gives? Why not delete the article on Baltic Finns, because it just duplicates information found at (Finland) Finns, Estonians, Balto-Finnic languages, etc., and so can be merged with them? — kwami (talk) 10:11, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

  The deletion point is moot, in any case. Deletion is not an available outcome of a move discussion. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 10:26, 29 August 2023 (UTC)

  I never proposed deleting any information, just merging it with other articles since, as you have pointed out, "Finns" is not so much a identity or a people, as a linguistics-based grouping. Thadh (talk) 01:21, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

  No, it's not, and no, I never claimed that. 'Finn' is an old exonym for a group of people with similar cultures, like 'Celt' or 'Slav'.

  The only recent linguistic aspect of it is that the Ugrians are no longer considered Finns because their language was supposed to be related to Hungarian. — kwami (talk) 05:47, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Returned to normal

I again removed this false article that arbitrarily makes "Finnic" its own group different from Baltic Finnic. Finnic means the same as 'Baltic Finnic' in English and other uses are marginal, historic, obsolete, and mostly non-existent. Russian meaning doesn't matter in English Wikipedia. During years the same person has pushed his own meaning of "Finnic" in this and some other articles and categorizations it relates to. Only linquistic articles like "Finnic languages" gather enough people to keep the meaning right. We need more people here. These things cant be decided by one person with enough activism. I too dont have time or resources to keep watching and correcting false information that he adds or someone who doesnt know accidentally returns, including this wholly false article. Please help. This false meaning on "finnic" has been kept "alive" here on wikipedia for more than ten years already. Tuohirulla puhu 17:29, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

You have just rehashed your personal arguments from earlier threads. Try WP:AfD if you want to see this content removed. –Austronesier (talk) 20:35, 20 December 2023 (UTC)

I dont have enough time for that. Again, Finnic means the same as Balto-Finnic. See Finnic languages. This is not my personal argument but well known definition of the word. Tuohirulla puhu 16:41, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

With the amount of time you spent arguing and warring you could have nominated this article twice over RetroCosmos (talk) 18:13, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

If there has been warring then you and austronesier are warring too. I have not done warring, only removed obviously, ridiculousy false claims that disturb and sabotage quality and facts of Wikipedia. I have considered your revertions of my edits as vandalism and edit warring and therefore reverted these reverts, thus fighting your vandalism. Read wikipedias own article Finnic languages and if still need more info, its sources, and stop pushing obviously wrong claims. 18:24, 21 December 2023 (UTC) Tuohirulla puhu 18:24, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

To be quite clear, Austronesier (talk · contribs) and I are reverting based on the consensus on the talk page. That is, the giant green box right above this conversation. You are not the first and certainly not the last person to argue this, and it will end the same way every time. RetroCosmos (talk) 04:47, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

That "consensus" is not real consensus. It was made by few people of certain side in absence of even those who have objected these claims over the years. This whole topic suffers from rule of active editor who practically changes things to what he wants and ignores talks and objections and goes on and on like this, because he can. That sort of "consensus" is just another way to use such force. Tuohirulla puhu 16:58, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I too could have put stamp about edit warring on your talk page but i dont consider it a good habit to use that as a weapon to discredit someones edits. Also I propably never put anything on WP:AfD and thus havent studied how to do it because in normal situations there is always enough people around doing these things. Im editor. Not a bureaucrat. Tuohirulla puhu 18:33, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Just start the AfD. What you say makes sense (although I would personally prefer moving Balto-Finnic over to Finnic), but just removing a page without a discussion is not the way to go. Thadh (talk) 18:58, 21 December 2023 (UTC)

Regarding the minor edit

@kwami Regarding my reverted minor edit [1], it is not about the bigger issue being fought over in the above discussions, but about the following sentence: ...Baltic Finns, who include the Western Finns of Finland and their closest relatives but not the Sami, which just isn't very well formed. Baltic Finns and Western Finns are supposed to be synonyms here, but the sentence makes it sound like one of the groups included in Baltic Finns is 'Western Finns of Finland'. And since there is a relatively strong (and regularly discussed) eastern/western divide within the Finnish dialects and gene pool, it may easily be misread in that way. The wikilinking of Finn also supports this misinterpretation. In my edit I also did a few Finn > Finnic people changes to avoid such ambiguity elsewhere. I intentionally left one mention of this term, to a place where it could not be easily misinterpreted. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 06:25, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, the logic of that sentence is backwards, but the usual term in the lit is "Finn", not "Finnic people." Maybe there's some other way to address your concern? I gave a try at clearer wording. — kwami (talk) 09:33, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks, I think it's better, although I don't see too much support for the preference of using Finn over Finnic peoples in the current references in the article. Reference 5 (Goldina 2018) seems the only one using Finn consistently, whereas Ref. 3 (Golden 1990) seems equally high quality and uses Finnic peoples. But I have no complaints over the current wording.

I also somewhat disagree with the statement The scope of the name "Finn" and "Finnic" varies by country. I removed the reference Laakso 2001 used to support it, since she is not writing about the people but the languages. The scope used probably depends more on the context of the research than the nationality of the researcher. Example is Lallukka (1990) who I assume is Finnish, but who is using the 'Russian' scope. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 10:56, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

I combined the two paragraphs defining the terms to reduce the redundancy. Please let me know if you disagree. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 12:49, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, that works for me.

The reason we said by country was the Finnish editor who insisted that the word could only mean Baltic Finns and that anything else was wrong, but you're right it's probably not so clear-cut. — kwami (talk) 19:17, 22 December 2023 (UTC)

Link to old discussions

Trying to understand the history of this article. It seems much of the discussion about this page can be found at User talk:Kwamikagami/Archive 30#Finnic peoples and the following topics. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 07:27, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Changes from Finno-Ugric to Finnic

In 2021, there was an apparent single-user effort to remove all mentions of Finno-Ugric peoples from WP. First, the page Finno-Ugric peoples was blanked: [2] and then all the mentions of "Finno-Ugric peoples" were either removed, replaced by "Finnic peoples" with links pointing to this page: [3] (more than 100 pages) or replaced by constructions such as "peoples speaking Finno-Ugric languages".[4] Although this was clearly a controversial action, there was no discussion, except this thread on a user talk page after the action. There were also only a handful of edit summaries so motivations for the specific changes are mostly unclear.

The edit summary for blanking stated that merging : none of the RS's show there to be any genetic unity to FU-speakers. Summaries of RS's moved to linguistic article. But the genetics are only a one aspect and largely irrelevant here. I don't think any modern authors argue that the peoples are genetically related. Instead, "Finno-Ugric peoples" is a political construct based on linguistic kinship, and fueled in the west by nationalism and also reflected in Soviet Union in many ways (e.g. SOFIN case). The term is commonly understood to be synonymous to "Uralic peoples" so its "scientific" basis only depends on the existence of the Uralic language family, not on the Finno-Ugric branch. If one wants to remove Finno-Ugric peoples from WP, the proper way to go would be an AfD discussion.

Another edit summary stated that 'Finnic' is better. When did the Russians assimilate the Hungarians? This is also not a valid reason. The people such as the Mari (note the diff) are usually grouped into the Volgaic group with their closest neighbours, and on the highest level to the Finno-Ugric (=Uralic) peoples, but not to some intermediate group such as 'Finnic'. Also, although terms like Volga Finns and Perm Finns are usable, the term 'Finn(ic)' without any specifier suffers from ambiguity. Compared to how often the concept of 'Finno-Ugric peoples' is invoked in the literature, 'Finnic peoples' in the extended sense, and without a specified such as 'East-' or 'Volga-' is very rare.

I will go through and possibly undo many of these changes because they do not correspond to sources (e.g. [5],[6]), and add confusion by using ambiguous and uncommon terminology.

The page Finno-Ugric peoples itself is still in a sorry state, but its history has now been restored, and it can possibly used to improve it. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 10:53, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

There is a general consensus that reified linguistic classifications masquerading as ethnic groups should not receive undo coverage. There are Finno-Ugric conferences etc., but no such thing as "Finno-Ugric people".

This isn't specific to Uralic, but is a problem we see over and over on WP with other fictional groups, such as 'Papuan people', 'Sino-Tibetan people', 'Indo-European people', 'Khoisan people', etc. All of these are purported linguistic groups, not ethnic ones, and depend on solely on linguistic theory. They would never have been invented based on ethnology or cultural anthropology. One problem with such groups is that when the classification changes, the purported ethnicity disappears. Ethnic identity isn't at the whim of linguistic reconstruction.

You're mixing ethnography and linguistics. The levels you cite simply don't exist. "Finn" is an actual ethnic concept, though it may be a concept applied by outsiders. The fact that it doesn't correspond to a linguistic clade is irrelevant. — kwami (talk) 14:01, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

This is confused. "Finns" in a sense including e.g. the Maris is precisely one of the "fictional" groups that depend solely on linguistics; there may be sources that follow this confusion, at which point we should ask whether writing an article about it should depend on the existence of sources (in which case also "Finno-Ugric peoples" in principle qualifies) or on having some sort of primary ethnographic foundation (in which case this article does not qualify either). --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 19:25, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

This made me convinced that an AfD is really needed for this article. I will initiate it soon. Hopefully it results is either a removal of this article, or a sharpening of its scope. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 08:39, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer. By "Finn" is an actual ethnic concept, do you mean that this article is supposed to be about the ethnonym? I think this would be clearer if it was formatted more like Slavs (ethnonym) and did not choose any scope as the preferred one.

About the ethnonym Björn Colliander (1965) Introduction to Uralic languages p.8 says that Finn used to refer to the people from Finland Proper, but by the 19th century its usage had extended to the whole eastern province of Sweden, roughly the modern Finland. "Under the influence of the romantic currents of the nineteenth century the term Finn acquired a still broader connotation. The closely related neighboring nations, the Karelians, Vepsians, Votes, Estonians, and Livonians, came to share in the Finnish name. [...] The term Finnish was extended even to Lappish, Mordvin, Cheremis, Votyak, and Ziryene" This extended usage clearly depended on linguistic classification as the connection between e.g. Finnish and Cheremis languages is not fully obvious, and was first pointed out by Leibniz.

Would you care to point out the pages discussing the consensus (usually they are codified to some essays at least), so that I can evaluate its scope? Clearly it does not forbid Papuan people (rd) or Khoisan. For Indo-European peoples I am not surprized that they do not exist in any reasonable sense. Belonging to a small minority fosters stronger need to connect to a larger group. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 21:37, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

We have reduced "Uralic peoples" and "Finno-Ugric peoples" (and many othe similar constructs) to redirects to the respective language families, because they were entirely construed on the fallaciaous assumption that linguistic affiliation automatically implies "macro-ethnic" ties between the speakers of these languages.

I can see that @Jähmefyysikko does not fall for that fallacy, but explicitly refers to "Finno-Ugric peoples" as "a political construct based on linguistic kinship". Although such an ideological construct is objectively baseless, it can develop a life of its own, and – provided it passes the criteria of WP:GNG – may thus be covered in a Wikipedia article as such, i.e. an ideological construct. Usually, we have these constructs in articles that cover the ideology itself (see the various Pan-Foo-ism articles), but sometimes the ideologically construed collective of ethnic groups is the topic itself (see Celts (modern)).

The current version of Finno-Ugric peoples utterly fails this criterion. The case of SOFIN is interesting, but we need more sources about the general phenomenon of pan-Finno-Ugric movements, including sources that cover it as a primary topic, before we can justify having an article about this phenomenon. –Austronesier (talk) 19:57, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

I think this can be done. It is not the easiest thing, but should make an interesting read. One has to delve into nationalism in Finland (Greater Finland and Heimosodat), Estonia and Hungary, and try to discuss the phenomenon within Soviet Union and Russia, where the flow of information is limited. Please give it some time.

As I am writing this, I note that @Kwamikagami has blanked Finno-Ugric peoples. Please stop. Give it some time or take it to AfD immediately. The previous deletion was only done for the redirect on technical grounds, and cannot be used as an excuse for delete now. The redirection that you made was undiscussed, unlike what a real AfD would have been. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 22:11, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Sure. I don't have a hard objection so something like what we now have at Finno-Ugric peoples#Speakers, though the article is currently a WP:CONTENTFORK of that section. I'm not sure a separate article is warranted, but one would be okay if developed enough. — kwami (talk) 22:43, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't think this is a valid argument in this discussion: It is a fork only because of the undiscussed merge, and should in my opinion ultimately be resolved by moving content away from the language article. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 07:43, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Let's assume it is really a topic that can pass the bar of WP:GNG and not just remain a redundant content fork for Finno-Ugric languages#Speakers: do you really want to keep the article in that poor and embarassing shape? –Austronesier (talk) 22:54, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

I guess you're right. I've made it temporarily into a Redirect with possibilities. An alternative could have been to summarize Finno-Ugric languages#Speakers and move the full content to Finno-Ugric peoples. One problem with locating this section in the Finno-Ugric languages is that it cannot easily be treated synonymous with Uralic peoples. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 07:40, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

That is a problem. We could move the section to "Uralic languages#Speakers" and leave a 'see also' or 'main article' link at Finno-Ugric languages. — kwami (talk) 03:31, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

Western Finns

I am still trying to purge terminological OR from this article, and I am wondering about the basis for the Eastern/Western divide in the figure. Western Finns, which may be synonymous [with Baltic Finns] but may add the Sami of northern Fennoscandia Which ref supports this claim? For Abercromby, Western Finns means Finns+Estonians ~ Baltic Finns, but who includes Sámi? If the sources do not establish this as a common terminology, I suggest removing the labels eastern/western from the caption, only leaving the peoples and the uncontroversial groups such as 'Baltic Finns' there. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 10:20, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

The binary division between Eastern and Western Finnic is not very useful anyway. Lallukka uses it, as so do some very old sources. But for Lallukka it is just seems to be an ad hoc label which he uses to group the Volga Finns and Permians together (which is the scope of his studies), and he's not pretending like its a common taxonomic classification. I don't think this much weight should be placed on such terminology. The important thing to mention is the three groups: Baltic Finns, Volga Finns, and Permians. Also the pre-Slavic/historic peoples should be covered. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 16:43, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

You're edit-warring over much more than this (which you could find anyway if you cared to look). You're also trying to reify linguistic hypotheses as if they were people. They're not: the concept of "Finn" long predates any modern hypotheses about how the Uralic languages are related. Finns were not invented as the speakers of Permo-Finnic languages, rather it was the other way around. — kwami (talk) 09:50, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

I did look. As evidence of my searches, I've collected some good quality sources for Finno-Ugric peoples in a sandbox. I only found support for 'Eastern Finns' from Lallukka (and some reviews of his book) and from 100 year old texts like Abercromby and Dictionary of Races and peoples (1911), neither of which define the 'Western Finns' as in this article (Lallukka gives no definition and Dictionary of Peoples and Races excludes the Sami). If it is so easy, please find the sources. Otherwise it just seems like you're pushing a personal terminology here. You seem to dislike the term Finno-Ugric peoples which is found in many mainstream textbooks of Russian history, and then you have to invent replacements. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 10:22, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

It's common for sources to present linguistic hypotheses as if they were people, inventing spurious ethnicities like "Papuan" or "Amerind" or "Khoisan" -- or "Permo-Finnic". In an encyclopedia we should attempt to avoid such pseudoscience. If it's notable enough, we should cover it, of course, but always being careful to clarify that it's pseudoscience. — kwami (talk) 10:25, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

In this sense, there aren't Slavs or Tatars either. Reasonable and useful articles can nevertheless be written about the concepts. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 20:45, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

The Slavs and Turkic peoples has an ethnic consciousness and recognize each other as kindred peoples. That may be because they recognize their languages as related, but it's not due to linguistic constructs. There is no such parallel with Papuans etc. Recognizing people's identities is part of ethnology. Imposing external constructs on them is not. — kwami (talk) 01:29, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

And I am not trying to reify linguistic hypotheses as if they were people. I am completely happy with making all the distinctions between "Ethno-linguistic", "Ethno-nationalistic" and "Ethno-racial" identities (see Ethnicity#Terminology). I am just very much opposed on you pushing your terminology, which is not any better in making these distinctions explicit. I have reverted constructions like 'Finnic-speaking peoples', which you made, to e.g. 'Finno-Ugrians', but this is because your apparent aim was to remove all the possibilities to linking to Finno-Ugric peoples, an article which I still aim to restore, and often these constructions were accompanied by terms like Slavs, Tatars, which were not modified. One needs to be consistent in deconstructing the terms.

You have made the claim about the broad concept of 'Finn' being ancient multiple times, so I ask you to provide sources for it. I instead think 'Finn' applied broadly is related to Finnish nationalistic chauvinism, not to any 'ancient ethnonyms', which were traditionally only applied to Finns of Finland (and historically to Sami). Here's an article which supports this claim: Conceptualizing language kinship or How Finnocentric is Finno-Ugricity. A book by Anssi Halmevirta The British conception of the Finnish 'race', nation and culture, 1760-1918 will also likely be useful in sourcing the origin of the term. (I did not yet study this) Jähmefyysikko (talk) 11:04, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Usage in Russia is not due to Finnish nationalism.

You are indeed repeatedly reifying "Finno-Ugrians", which are a fake ethnicity, based entirely on a linguistic hypothesis.

We have plenty of sources already in the article for old usage of the word "Finnic". — kwami (talk) 11:13, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

In the 19th century, Finnish scientists were funded by St. Petersburg Academy, and did influence the Russian linguistic terminology.

And are you again saying that 'Finnic' is more real than 'Finno-Ugric' as an ethnicity? In many sources discussing historic peoples they are used interchangeably, and Finno-Ugric is perhaps a more common term in recent literature. Both are based on linguistic assumptions. This gives no reason to purge either from WP. There is also some continuity in the customs and beliefs of Komi (who are 'Finnic') and the Ob-Ugrians, so it is not a ridiculous term either. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 11:58, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Btw, these 100-year old sources do not make Finn(ic) an 'ancient' term, whatever that means, they only indicate that those were the preferred terms a hundred years ago. Here's another source for the term Eastern Finns: the figure at Joseph Deniker#Deniker's classification system. I don't see why we should prefer the terminology of such an age. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 16:11, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

Which is why the Ugrians were originally considered Finns. That stopped because of a possibly spurious linguistic connection, that should never have been used to define ethnicity in the first place. But what's done is done, and no-one seems to consider the Ugrians to be Finns these days. That doesn't mean that we should reify linguistic hypotheses (like Finno-Ugric, or Uralic for that matter) as if they were ethnic groups. — kwami (talk) 06:33, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Well, this is one guess on why the terminology changed to exclude the Ugrians. If I understand you correctly, you also seem to assume that there is some natural difference between calling the Ugrians 'Finns' versus calling e.g. the Komi 'Finns', but I don't see what that difference would be. But I'm not 100% sure whether I understand you correctly. Do you think there is some difference?

Let me offer another terminological guess. The article draft by Łukasz Sommer discusses the historical (ancient even) usage of the term Finnish with some examples. According to him, during the 19th century there was a multiplicity of terms for what is now called Finno-Ugric family, including Finnish, Ugric, Chudic, Scythic. Finnish also always had a double meaning as either Finnish proper, or some extended scope ranging from what is now 'Baltic Finnic' to 'Finno-Ugric' and obtaining almost all the possible variations in between, depending on the author. Gradually the name Finno-Ugric became established as the family name on the second half of the 19th century. Unfortunately Sommer does not discuss the fate of the term 'Finnic' after that, but we can observe that it has clearly receded from the old extremes since Ugrians are not 'Finnic' anymore. My guess on why this has happened would be the following: after the term Finno-Ugric was universally adopted as the family name, it would have been redundant to use Finnic with the same scope. In the tree model, the first step that one can take is to exclude the Ugric branch, and hence nowadays the scope of Finnic only varies between 'Baltic Finnic' and 'Finno-Permic'. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 22:08, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, that is more or less what I conclude happened. And no, I don't think there's any "natural" difference in calling the Ugrians "Finns". They were excluded because of the supposed connection of their languages to Hungarian, and it would seem that no-one considers them to be Finns anymore. Doesn't matter that it doesn't make much sense -- words mean what they're used to mean. — kwami (talk) 06:58, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

I will give this a few days, and if there are no sources which establish Western/Eastern Finns as common terms by then, I will proceed remove them per WP:OR. Please comment before that to prevent unnecessary back-and-forth in article space. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 05:57, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Removing claims that are not sufficiently supported is fine. Replacing it with your own OR is not. — kwami (talk) 06:31, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Ok, great. I've removed Western/Eastern Finns from the text and the figures. I also made a number of other changes:

• I removed the reference to Colliander and expansion of the meaning during the 19th century. I added this myself earlier, but I now think he's wrong here, based on the examples in the article draft by Sommer, which shows that Finn was used in a broad sense already before 19th century.
• The geographic distribution of Baltic Finns was wrong since Scandinavia was not mentioned.
• I added mention of Komi-Permyak Okrug. I think this covers the titular Federal subjects, although the peoples are not actually necessarily located in their titular subjects, but may be quite scattered.
• I don't see in which sense these republics would be 'central-Russian', so I removed 'central'
• Ugrians were "Ugrian Finns" still in the 1910s as indicated by Britannica and other sources, so I changed "19th century" to "early 20th century". Here one could also mention that Samoyeds were included as Northern Finns (together with Sami), but perhaps it is better not to reproduce too much of these racial classifications. Instead we could say that the term "Finns" could used to denote the entirety of the Uralic-speaking peoples.
• Unification to Finno-Ugric also adds more than Hungarians, so I added a mention of Khanty and Mansi.

Jähmefyysikko (talk) 22:51, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

"Finns" never denoted the entirely of the Uralic-speaking peoples. Hungarians have never been Finns.

Finno-Ugric did not add the Khanty and Mansi. There were already included, as you just noted. — kwami (talk) 01:33, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps this is a cause of some confusion here, but our article on Ugrians seems incorrect in defining Ugrians as Khanty and Mansi only, when it should also include the Magyar. This is stated in those old Britannica articles, and would also agree with definition of the Ugrians as "peoples speaking Ugric languages". Jähmefyysikko (talk) 06:46, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

No, the Magyar were connected to the Ugrians linguistically (and it would now appear spuriously). There is no ethnic correspondence. Indeed, many Magyar were quite indignant at the connection, insisting that they were Turks. — kwami (talk) 06:53, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

There's again a problem that these definitions in the articles are not sourced. The source that is used in the article (Britannica) includes the Magyars: The Ugrian Finns include the Voguls, [...] the Ostyaks [...] and the Magyars of Hungary. The term for Khanty and Mansi only is Ob-Ugrians. Now the 'Ugrian' may need to be carefully redefined with modern sources to take the history of Hungarians properly into account, or completely discarded as a historical term with no correspondence to any peoples in the modern understanding, but it should not be identified with Ob Ugrians. Unless, of course, reliable sources do so. But I think they don't. I'll try and dig some modern sources for the term in the following days. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 07:11, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Ob-Ugrian is a linguistic claim. It's not an ethnic distinction. And the consequence of this is, once again, that the Hungarians are Finns. This is the problem with substituting linguistic classification for ethnicity.

Are you prepared to state in the intro of this articel that the Hungarians are Finns? — kwami (talk) 07:48, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Is Ob-Ugrian different from Ugrian in this sense? I'd also like to note that we don't explain the connection to ethnicity in the article, and in the definition we're just making a linguistic classification of peoples, which is not ideal. (My suggestion also suffered from the same shortcoming.) It also impedes communication here, since I don't know which groups of peoples mentioned in the article you perceive or expect to be 'ethnic' in some sense. It seems there are some restrictions on terminology which you would like to impose, but the criteria has not been discussed. Whatever those criteria are, I would ultimately expect them to relate to WP:RS in some way. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 09:28, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Yes, the Ob-Ugrian languages are the languages of the Ugrian peoples.

Finns exist. They're a concept in the classification of peoples. We can say that they correspond to the Finno-Permic languages, but that's not a definition, it's a correspondence: it's all the languages of the Finns, apart from the Ugrians which we've decided aren't Finns because their languages are supposedly closer to Hungarian.

So, yeah, the exclusion of the Ugrians throws a spanner in it, but Finns haven't disappeared just because most linguists now reject Finno-Ugric as a language family. I wouldn't have a problem with removing mention of Finno-Ugric.

Some linguists believe that the Slavic languages are a subgroup of the Baltic languages. But that doesn't mean that the Slavs are ethnically a subgroup of the Balts.

People may recognize others as kindred because they can tell that their languages are similar, but they aren't going to abandon their identity if linguists tell them they're wrong. — kwami (talk) 10:03, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Please excuse me for not taking your word for this. Instead I took a look into the literature, and there is no doubt that:

• Ugrians means "peoples speaking Ugric languages", i.e. Khanty, Mansi and Hungarians, or their ancestors (for Hungarians only linguistically)
• In literature, the collective name for Khanty and Mansi is Ob-Ugrian (with variants like "Ugors of Ob") which coincides with the "peoples speaking Ob-Ugric languages".

This is the usage in all the sources I looked into, including encyclopedias, books about Hungarian history and books about the peoples themselves (and I looked into more sources than I care to include here as references). Nothing suggests that Ugrian or Ob-Ugrian would be words that the Khanty and the Mansi use to refer to themselves collectively, so the above discussion about the ethnicity is quite irrelevant. Instead, these are externally applied linguistic classifications, which in pre-historic times coincide with some hypothetical ethnic group. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 18:14, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

That's anachronistic. The reason they were excluded from the Finns was the supposed linguistic connection to the Hungarians. When they were considered Finns, they were just Ugrians. I've never seen a source that said the Magyar were "Ugrian Finns". I've never seen a source that said the Magyar were any kind of Finn. If I'm wrong -- if the Hungarians used to be Finns -- then that is certainly something that should be addressed here. — kwami (talk) 19:14, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

You certainly should have seen it. Here's a part of the text that you removed:

During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the terms Finn, Finnic and Finnish obtained even broader connotations, and were sometimes used synonymously with Finno-Ugric to include also the Hungarians and the Ob-Ugrians as "Ugrian Finns". The Samoyeds were also sometimes included.

See the first reference (search for "Magyar") and the table on p.59 in the last reference. A Google Books search gives more 19th century/early 20th century references. And to clarify: in the above, I described current terminology concerning Ugrian/Ob-Ugrian. Historical terminology is likely to be different. But the Ugrians article should reflect the current terminology better. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 20:04, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

Again, they're confusing language and ethnicity. So I ask again: should we follow that usage and classify the Hungarians as 'Finns'? — kwami (talk) 20:08, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

No, we should not, that's outdated terminology. (But we may still report such deprecated usage.) In fact, we should not follow any usage (e.g. the one corresponding to Finno-Permic), but just report those usages that are notable. We should not claim that Finnic peoples are some specific group of peoples, when the scope of the term varies in the literature. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 21:08, 21 January 2024 (UTC)

This discussion continues at Talk:Ugrians. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 05:16, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

References

Finnic peoples as Finno-Permic speaking peoples?

The support for equating 'Finnic peoples' with 'Finno-Permic speaking peoples' is very weak. It is only weakly supported by Sinor and the encyclopedia One Europe, Many Nations (not reliable). I did not find other sources making such identification. In particular, identifying the Sami as 'Finnic' can be considered quite controversial. Sinor also has some reservations in this: the Lapps (an originally non-Finno-Ugric people who adopted a Finnic tongue) [but then calls them Balto-Finnic: The Lapps occupy a special place within the Balto-Finnic group. (p.234) which makes no sense in any way]. The encyclopedia 'One Europe' on the other hand is quite careful not to call the Sami 'Finnic' in the main text (only the language is identified as Finnic), and only makes this identification in the Index. In contrast, the Komis, Maris etc. are explicitly identified as 'Finnic peoples/nations' in the text.

Note that Britannica is only discussing languages, which is a separate issue. One can easily find many sources which equate Finnic and Finno-Permic languages. I am only questioning this designation for the peoples. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 10:05, 17 January 2024 (UTC) [Edited: Unreliable source struck out Jähmefyysikko (talk) 05:13, 4 February 2024 (UTC)]

What I am also suggesting here is that since the term is somewhat amorphous, the introduction should reflect that and not give a definition with a fixed scope. This is also what we discussed in the deletion discussion with User:Austronesier. My suggestion was The Finnic or Fennic peoples are the nations which speak languages related to the Finnish language, but I would be happy to hear other suggestions. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 13:14, 17 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't think "Finno-Permic" should enter in here. It's a linguistic hypothesis, one that has at least partially fallen out of favor. The historical conception of "Finns" (in the broad sense) is largely independent of whether the Finno-Permic linguistic connection is valid or not. I say "largely", because the Ugrians used to be considered Finns, but that changed once the Ob-Ugric hypothesis became broadly accepted, because if the Hungarians aren't Finns, then presumably their closest relatives aren't either. (The connection is no longer generally held, but either way it's a linguistic hypothesis, not an ethnographic one.)

The connection is a historical one: The languages of two groups of people, the Finns (broad sense) and Magyar were found to be related, so the language family was named after them: Finno-Ugric. People then came to see the Ugrians Finns as not really Finns, since their languages (supposedly) belonged to the Ugric branch. The Samoyeds weren't initially considered, because they weren't considered Finns, and when the relationship was eventually discovered, they were thought to be a 3rd branch at least partly based on ethnic conceptions.

So I think it's fine to say that the Finno- part of Finno-Ugric corresponds (more or less) to the Finns (broad sense), but not to imply that "Finn" is defined in terms of Finno-Ugric. That has it backwards.

I think your last suggestion is too ambiguous. Hungarian, after all, is related to Finnish, but the Hungarians are not Finns. I also object to placing the Suomi at the ethnographic center. The Sami were "Finns" before the Suomi were, so why not place them at the center? I don't think prioritizing one nation over the others, as if it were more important, is a useful approach. Better IMO to define the category in a way that gives the reader a general idea of what's in it. — kwami (talk) 06:28, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Kwami, no source published within the last 50 years that didn't itself rely on sources older than that has used "Finnic" to mean anything else than the peoples speaking the Finnic languages. Why do you insist on defending this outdated concept as if your life depended on it? It's time to let it go. 85.76.67.149 (talk) 23:04, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

The term Finnic is definitely derived from Finnish, which refers to Finns of Finland. Here are two definitions for Finnic from some Oxford dictionary: (1) relating to or denoting a group of Finno-Ugric languages including Finnish and Estonian. (2) relating to or denoting the group of peoples which includes the Finns. I don't mind including the Estonians if it helps, but the Sami are not Finns in modern English. Also, if you look at the articles pointing here, it is not the Sami that are being discussed, but the Baltic/Volga Finns/Permians. I agree with the goal of defining the category in a way that gives a general idea, but how do we accomplish that? Here's a simplified version of the current definition: "The Finnic peoples are the nations who speak Finnic (Finno-Permic) languages". This is circular or requires technical knowledge about Finno-Permic. On top of that it is not correct because it gives an impression of a fixed scope. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 23:23, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

Okay, I'll let it go. I was using "Finnic" as a compromise. But if we're to change it back to "Finns", we'll need to move the article currently at Finns. — kwami (talk) 01:35, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

Odd that you would object to "Finnic" but then remove "Finn" and leave "Finnic" in its place.

Do you have sources that include the Sami as Finns but exclude the central Russian nations? — kwami (talk) 01:43, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

If you're referring to this, I have no objections, on the contrary I am happy with that. But we still need to work that first sentence. Does it help if we refer to Estonians in addition to Finns? It would actually be good to include the Estonians in definition, since a lot of the historical action happens near the Baltics. And if we move the population count elsewhere, we get to mention the various scopes immediately after the first sentence, and can make it clear that Hungarians are not Finns. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 06:26, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

The Estonians are already the 2nd nation mentioned. I don't know why we'd refer to them in the first sentence. We don't refer to any nations there. — kwami (talk) 07:09, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

In hopes of maybe further dispelling a few research history misconceptions…

the Ugrians used to be considered Finns, but that changed once the Ob-Ugric hypothesis became broadly accepted

– no, the "Ob-Ugrian hypothesis" is older, has been well-known since the 18th century and never very strongly contested. The notion that the Mansi and Khanty would be "Finns" only existed during a turbulent late-19th century period where nomenclature on the Uralic-speaking peoples was being hashed out.

The languages of two groups of people, the Finns (broad sense) and Magyar were found to be related

– to reiterate, this "broad sense of Finns" much postdates the discovery of the Finno-Ugric family, and is derived just from the linguistic Finno-Permic hypothesis. The name happens because the linguistic theory's originator, Donner (1879), also indeed calls it just "Finnic" (the renaming to "Finno-Permic" is IIRC from circa 1910s).

If we want to discuss in this article also the complicated early history of the term, a further key issue to tackle with is that most of the relevant literature is in fact not in English and deals instead with the terms finska and Finnisch — which you may note are also the Swedish resp. German terms for 'Finnish' and so tend to gather specifiers like "vestfinska" for Baltic Finnic, or "ugrofinnisch" for Finno-Ugric; this latter basically 'Finnic in that sense which includes the Ugrians', and for this particular use we could, indeed, even find people including the Hungarians. Literature in English seems to have introduced "Finnic" in some (if not all) cases where it was clear that the Finns proper were not what was being referred to — but also, mostly "Finno-Ugric" for "ugrofinnisch", kind of inverting the construction. "Ugro(-)Finnic" is also attestable, though. Similar turbulence exists for that matter even for "Ugric" / Ugrische / ugor, which e.g. in Pál Hunfalvy's mid-19th century usage covered also Mordvin, Mari and Permic, versus a rump Finnisch including only (Baltic-)Finnic and Sami.

(FWIW this also reminds me there's by now an occasional misconception in Finland where the term's Finnish equivalent is read as "those Ugrians which include Finns", and by which Finns are thus thought to be a subtype of ugrilaiset; an understandable mistake but still drives actual Uralicists nuts all the same. This too in mind I would recommend against reading too many implications into any "binomial" terms like Finno-Permic or Finno-Ugric — their usage does not predict what someone thinks basic 'Finnic' means.

--Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 17:10, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

There's also that the Ugrians were the peoples east of Perm, principally the Ket, Komi, Selkup, Nenets and Udmurt (the Hanty and Mansi may not even get mentioned), but certainly not the Magyar. When the czar called himself "king of the Ugrians" in letters to the king of Hungary after the Russian conquest of Yugria, he wasn't making territorial claims against Hungary. — kwami (talk) 21:34, 25 January 2024 (UTC)

Do you have a source for your version of the title? Here's what can be found from Ivan III of Russia#Title: "By the Grace of God, the Great Sovereign of the Russian land, Grand Prince Ivan Vasilyevich, Tsar of all Russia, Vladimir, and Moscow, and Novgorod, and Pskov, and Yugorsk, and Vyatka, and Perm, and others". As usual, the title refers to the lands, not peoples. Plokhii also gives a similar title with the word "Yugra" instead of "Yugorsk": [7]. Furthermore, there no reason to conflate "People of Yugra" (people in an administrative region) and Ugrians (historic ethnolinguistic group, and a cover term for Ugric-speaking peoples). Doing so would just cause confusion, and reliable sources don't make such an identification. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 06:01, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Getting back to the original point, is there a reason to doubt that the 'Finnic peoples' in the broad sense speak the 'Finnic languages' in the broad sense? That is, do we have RS's that the Finns, as opposed to the Baltic Finns, are not those people who speak the Finno-Ugric languages apart from the Ugric languages? — kwami (talk) 05:18, 19 December 2024 (UTC)