In his piece today, the Derb (a self-confessed ‘mild Hungarophile’) notes that the Hungarian language is a “bizarre oddity whose only relatives are some scattered tribal tongues in Siberia”, and adds (quite correctly) that Hungarian’s much vaunted relationship with Finnish is somewhat exaggerated. Interestingly (at least for language geeks), I have read accounts by some Stalin-era Estonian deportees to Siberia recalling how they were able to exchange a handful of words with some of the native peoples there. Estonian is, language geeks will know, closely related to Finnish. And then there’s Ingrian…