ABSTRACT
The Fennic branch of the Uralic family is a dialect continuum that is usually divided into seven languages: Livonian, Estonian, Votic, Ingrian, Finnish, Karelian and Veps. A Lude language has sometimes been extracted from Karelian as an eighth language, but Ludes identify themselves as Karelians. Estonian (one million speakers) and Finnish (five million speakers) are discussed in separate chapters in this volume. The remaining Fennic languages have become languages of bilingual minorities in their traditional territories; they are Votic (25 speakers), Ingrian (300 speakers), Karelian (62,500 speakers) and Veps (6,000 speakers) in Northwest Russia, and Livonian (15 native speakers) in Latvia.
