Uralic Languages

In The Beginning

Some 15,000 years ago during the last ice age, various Paleo-Siberian tribes inhabited the North. They were children of the North, born under the Northern Lights and expert hunters and fishers who lived and/or traveled between the Baltics and Mongolia in search of food. Sometimes these tribes were cut off from each other for extended periods such as when weather changed and the melting ice stopped melting. During these periods the people looked hunger in the face, and invented ways to survive.

They fished, hunted game, some eventually tamed reindeer and dogs as draught animals,and lived in relative peace and harmony for millennia. Some preferred the Northern climates and the food found in the arctic while others preferred to stay further South. Some stayed in the woods, others took to the plains. The Paleo-Siberians, (who some believe resemble various Mongolian/Samoyed tribes) through mixing and dispersion, differentiated into Finnic, Lapp, Samoyed, and Ugric people.

As the ice continued to melt, lakes and rivers formed at the ice edge, new land rose out of the water. Water fowl such as swans and ducks came in huge flocks on time every year. Game and fish were plentiful. The Finns loved fish and were the first people in the world to fish with nets. All these stone-aged men roamed the rich lands, moving East and West, meeting other strange people coming from the opposite direction and perhaps sharing a meal, shamanistic ritual, a shelter...exchanging women. East meets west on shores of the ice melt. Languages and people mix, divide, and mix again. Over time, a superfamily of languages is born.