The history of Uralic languages and peoples numbers thousands years. The process of modern Finnish, Ugric and Samoyedic nations’ formation was rather hard. The former name of a Uralic language family was Finno-Ugric or Ugro-Finnic family. Later it was changed to Uralic as far as the belongings to the family of Samoyedic languages was revealed and proved. A Uralic language family is divided into the Ugric branch which includes Hungarian, Khanty and Mansi languages (latter two are combined by the general name “Ob-Ugric languages”), the Finno-Permian branch, which combines Permian languages (Komi, Komi-Permian and Udmurt), Volgian languages ( Mari and Mordvinian), Baltic-Finnic language group (Karelian, Finnic, Estonian languages and also the languages of Veps, Votes, Ingria, Livonians), Sami and Samoyedic languages, inside which we can single out a northern branch (Nganasan, Nenets, Enets languages) and a southern branch (Selkup).

The majority of the Uralic peoples live on the territory of Russia, with the exception of Hungarians, Finns and Estonians. The most numerous are Hungarians (more than 15 millions people). Second by the population size come Finns (about 5 millions people). Estonians numbers about million. On the Russian territory (according to the general census of the population in 2002) live Mordvins (843350 people), Udmurts (636906 people), Maris (604298 people), Komi-Zyrians (293406 people), Komi-Permians (125235 people), Karelians (93344 people), Veps (8240 people), Khanty (28678 people), Mansi (11432 people), Ingrians (327 people), Votes (73 people), and also Finns, Hungarians, Estonians, Sami. In present time Mordvins, Maris, Udmurts, Komi-Zyrians and Karelians have their own national state formations, which are sovereign republics in the Russian Federation. Komi-Permians reside in the territory of the Komi-Permian okrug (district) in the Permian krai (territory), Khanty and Mansi – in the autonomous okrug Yugra in the Tyumen region. Veps live in Karelia, in the north-east of the Leningrad region and in the north-eastern part of the Vologda region, Sami – in Murmansk region, in St. Petersburg, in Archangelsk region and Karelia, Ingrians – in Leningrad region, in St. Petersburg, in the Karelian Republic. Votes – in Leningrad region, in Moscow and St. Petersburg.