Family of more than 30 languages spoken by some 25 million people in central and northern Eurasia. A primary division is between the Finno-Ugric languages, which account for most of the languages and speakers, and the Samoyedic languages. The latter languages have historically been spoken in the forest region of northern Siberia and in the tundra and coastal zones from the Ob to the White Sea and east into the Taymyr Peninsula.
The known languages are Nganasan, Enets, Nenets, Selkup, Kamas (which became extinct in the late 20th century), and Mator (which became extinct in the 19th century). Of the other languages that are still spoken, Nenets, which has 25,000 speakers and is still being learned by children, is the most viable. The Samoyedic languages share little vocabulary with Finno-Ugric. At its very earliest stages Uralic most probably included the ancestors of the Yukaghir languages, still sometimes included with the Paleo-Siberian languages.
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