Are Hungarian and Finnish distantly related?

Answer 1

There is evidence that Finnish and Hungarian (as well as Estonian) are somehow distantly related. They are all Uralic languages and are said to have developed near the Ural Mountains. However, some scientists place Uralic language development much more south east, closer to Indo-Europe. Magyar (the true name from Hungarian), Finnish and Estonian also share similarities with certain Asian languages, by being 'agglutinating languages' this means that they form very large word phrases using a combination of suffixes and/or prefixes. Japanese, certain Native American languages and Filipino (along with other languages of the Philippines) are also agglutinative. Which gives even more evidence to the Uralic language development being closer to Indo-Europe lines.

Answer 2

Yes.

Until very recently, Finns were encouraged to see themselves either as 'eastern' or at least 'between east and west.' It was in the 1790, when Sweden ruled Finland, that German anthropologist J. F. Blumenbach compared Finnish, Sami (the Arctic reindeer herders) and Mongolian skulls and concluded that the Finns were 'mongoloid' and not 'white' like the Swedes or Finland's Swedish-speaking aristocracy. This was widely accepted and led to the Turanian theory - that both the Finns and Sami had originally come from the East - as well as strengthening the view, according to Finland-Swede sociologist Nina af Enehjelm, that Finns were somehow 'other' and even 'inferior.' The 'Mongoloid look' is widely noted in Finland today and, there has been research that has compared Finnish religion and history to that of the Greenlandic and Finnish behaviour patterns to those of the Japanese.