Originally posted by Chimera: Sorry to go off thread, but I recall hearing somewhere that the Finnish and Hungarian (and Turkish) languages have quite a few similarities. Since we have quite a few Finns and a Hungarian on board, could someone please enlighten me? Is it like German and Dutch, for example? Thanks!
Finnish and Hungarian are supposedly related languages belonging to the Finno-Ugric (or what ever it is called in english) which apart from those two includes estonian and several smaller (some nearly exctinct) languages that are spoken in karelia and in the Ural region. Estonian and Finnish are closely related (they have a very familiar sound to someone who can speak the other) while Hungarian is quite different.
Turkish on the other hand is IMO not related to these languages, and neither are German or any other Indo-european (or, again, what ever it is called in english ) languages. I don't speak turkish, but english and german differ structurally a lot from finnish, for example there are no prepositions in finnish but instead you add a special ending to the words to change the meaning.
Ok, I guess that's enough already...
"Bingeley bingeley beep!"
- Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay
Originally posted by Rundstedt: Another strange thing. Even if Finland "belonged" to Sweden for several hundred years, Swedes never understand what the heck those Finns are talking about. Now that's strange!
Regards, Rundstedt
Tells a thing or two about the intellectual capacity of our western neighbours, doesn't it? , Nääh, just kidding. The real reason is that we don't want you to learn our language, because then we would lose our most important advantage when doing business qith you: We can understand (even if we claim that we don't) what you are talking in that "language" or yours (1) but you can't figure out what we're saying. Oops. Now I said too much
(1) I know they say that basque (spelling?) is the most difficult language in the world, but they are wrong, it is definitely swedish You work so hard to learn the basics and then after a few months it's gone....
"Bingeley bingeley beep!"
- Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay
In order to keep this thread off topic I'll post something related to the Finnish language I found in the intranet of the company I work for:
Finnish - a world language?
Has the time arrived for Finnish to take it’s place as a world language? It is quite obvious that it is difficult to answer such a question with
any degree of certainty. At the moment there seems to be several factors hindering such a development. Firstly, it is spoken by only
0.06% of the world population; secondly, it cannot be learned in ten easy lessons; thirdly there are still some Finns who can’t understand
it.
If it’s progress has been a little slow, however, Finns point out quite rightly that as a world language Finnish has the following advantages:
1. It is an essentially logical language. The rules are absolutely rigid and apart from the exceptions, hold fast on all occasions.
2. It is a euphonious language. In other words, it pleases the ear. This is by virtue of it’s abundance of vowels, which eliminates
ugly, consonantal conglomerations. It was recently proposed to export a few vowels to the Czech Republic, where they are getting
rather short of them and import a few Czech consonants in their place, but negotiations broke down at an early stage. Finland
decided that they wanted nothing to do with a language which called ice cream zmrzlina while the Czech’s were equally distrustful
of a language which called it jäätelöä.
3. Finnish is a concise language. One Finnish word may express several words in English. Why wast time and energy saying, “the
committee dealing with negotiations for the cessation of hostilities” when you can use a simple little word like
“aseleponeuvottelutoimikunta”?
4. Learning Finnish inspires confidence in your own abilities. If you can learn Finnish, you can do anything.
5. It has bigger and better swear words than any other language.
In the light of all these facts, it will be readily agreed that the establishment of Finnish as a universal tongue would be nothing short of a
blessing for humanity in general. The problem with which we are confronted then, is that of inducing the other 99.94% of the world’s
population to learn Finnish. In this respect we have resolved to give the world the benefits of our own experience with the language, and
after months of intensive (and at times even desperate) research, have evolved the following method of attack upon what has hitherto
proved to be one of the world’s most formidable linguistic hurdles.
The Easy Way to Learn Finnish or Finnish in 90 Years Without a Teacher
Nouns and Their Cases Remember - Confidence is the key to success. Never hesitate. When about to use a noun, you should reflect
rapidly along the following lines: What is the noun in Finnish? How do I decline the noun? Singular or plural? Which case? You can
choose from nominative, accusative, genitive, partitive, essive, translative, inessive, elative, illitive, adessive, ablative, allative, abessive,
comitative or instructive. Does the noun require the use of a personal possessive suffix? Is it possible to avoid using the noun?
Having dealt with these considerations in the proverbial fraction of a second, you then inhale deeply and articulate the first half of the noun
in stentorian tones which gradually diminish to a hoarse whisper as the case ending is pronounced. This method of demonstrating you
capabilities in case-usage can be recommended as quite safe, since although you cannot prove that you were right, no Finn or anybody
else for that matter can prove that you were wrong. Above all, look confident.
Numbers Basically, the Finnish and English systems offer few indications of similarity at first glance. But the commonalities are quite easy
to see once they have been pointed out to you. For example:
nolla - zero yksi - one
kaksi - two kolme - three
neljä - four viisi - five
kuusi - six seitsemän - seven
kahdeksan - eight yhdeksän - nine
kymmenen - ten ~toista - ~teen
Don’t be over-whelmed. The following facts are sure to be of considerable help to the learner: a. “Kolme” and “Three” both have five
letters b. “Viisi” and “Five” are both obviously constructed around the Roman numeral V c. “Seitsemän” and “Seven” surely derived from
the same word, apparently beginning with s d. “~toista” is rather awkward, like many teenagers e. “kaksi” has two syllables f. “Nolla”
and “Zero” both have an “o” implying the numerical 0
Further Hints for Learning Numbers Forget the English numbers entirely. Then you will have to learn the Finnish ones in order to tell time.
If such a step causes difficulties when you try to speak English, you can easily stop wearing a watch, or employ a Finnish-English
dictionary. With numbers up to 10, you can always use your fingers. Do not waste your time learning numbers over twenty-million. You
are not likely to have that much money, even in Finmarks.
Months and Days Say “first day”, “next day”, “the other day”, “third month”, “next to last month”, etc. This will save you about two years
learning the names and makes the person you are talking to do all the work.
The Direct Object Most Finnish grammars are particularly lucid about this. They read something like this: In Finnish the Direct Object
(universally know as the Accusative) may in fact be the nominative, genitive or partitive. For purposes of clarity the nominative and
genitive will be called the accusative. There also exists a genuine accusative which is not called anything different at all.
Considerable care is thus required when interpreting grammatical terms. If you see the word accusative it may not mean the nominative or
genitive, but often not the accusative. The term nominative may mean the accusative or possibly the real nominative. Genitive may mean
accusative or just plain genitive while the partitive is always called the partitive, whether it refers to the partitive or actually refers to the
accusative. You may also use the partitive as the nominative, but only under certain partially relevant circumstances.
Verbs Our best advice is not to use verbs at all. Occasionally you may find it rather difficult to converse at any great length without using
verbs, but assiduous practice in this art will make you adept. We reduced our errors by nearly 20% when we hit upon this notion and
found that errors can be reduced by a further 50% when you cut out all use of adverbs, adjectives, pronouns and qualifiers. Conversation
does tend to fall a bit flat by following this advice, however, unless you are quite good with your hands.
Pronunciation Finnish has just a few difficult sounds, but at least the letters look the same even if they are not pronounced the same way
as in English. There is no need to get confused by this, the combination of letters and word length will quickly tip you off that you are
reading Finnish instead of English. ...but read the first few words of anything quietly in your head before you annunciate them - it is not
possible to set a sprained tongue in a cast if you continue too long before realizing what you have done.
A few practice sounds: ää - as in the “e” in “expatiatory” but longer and more vehement. Mouth open wide, ears well back. äy -half
palatal, half alveolar, half dental, scornful expression. h -just clear your throat lustily. That’s it! r -rolled stringently. False teeth have a
huge advantage here.
Adapted from Richard D Lewis Finlands Pictorial no. 11 vol VIII
"Bingeley bingeley beep!"
- Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay
[QUOTE]Originally posted by heiks:
Finnish and Hungarian are supposedly related languages belonging to the Finno-Ugric (or what ever it is called in english) which apart from those two includes estonian and several smaller (some nearly exctinct) languages that are spoken in karelia and in the Ural region. Estonian and Finnish are closely related (they have a very familiar sound to someone who can speak the other) while Hungarian is quite different.
Turkish on the other hand is IMO not related to these languages, and neither are German or any other Indo-european (or, again, what ever it is called in english ) languages. I don't speak turkish, but english and german differ structurally a lot from finnish, for example there are no prepositions in finnish but instead you add a special ending to the words to change the meaning.
Fascinating, thanks. I'd read a little about the Finno-Ugric languages but nothing in great detail. As for Finnish being a difficult language, I read somewhere that Mannerheim spoke better Russian than he did Finnish. But as for Finnish being the most difficult language, I seem to recall that Sanskrit and Chinese are the worst in this aspect. Those darn characters just look all the same after awhile!
"Excuse me... I was distracted by the half-masticated cow rolling around in your wide open trap." - Michael Caine in "Miss Congeniality"
Yes, we are closely related with finns. Strange thing: if something is exellent in a military point of view it might be just not undersandable fanatic in real life and vice versa. I mean my grandfather must have been the part of one of this 20 exp lt hun infantry divisions with nearly no combat value. But I'm quite happy he wasn't part of one of the elite ss panzer division (he was a german living in hungary, you know hungarian german minority, so then I'm a half german), because the he would have a much higher chance of dieing.
Originally posted by heiks: 3. Finnish is a concise language. One Finnish word may express several words in English. Why wast time and energy saying, “the committee dealing with negotiations for the cessation of hostilities” when you can use a simple little word like “aseleponeuvottelutoimikunta”?
Of course it is . Just a little demonstration of the expressive power of the mighty Finnish language
You get those "monsters" very easily in finnish language. This happens because you can combine two (or more) words to produce a new word for something, which is quite different from english, where you usually have a new word or some of-for-to-with-<insert your favorite preposition here> construct. Some linguist would most likely disagree with me, but that's from my own experience.
for instance:
finnish: Sahatavarasatama
English: a harbor for sawn timber
(possibly there is an actual word for it but at least i couldn't find it.)
The finnish word consists of for "base" words:
saha - saw(mill)
tavara - thing,article,goods,merchandise
satama - harbor
This system is very similar to the one in german.
The longest finnish word?
Trivial:
kumarreksituteskenteleentuvaisehkollaismaisekkuudellisenneskenteluttelemattomammuuksissansakkaankopahan.
This word was invented by some professor.
I have no idea what it means and it certainly isn't in common use...
the longest single word in Finnish according to the Guinness Book of Records is:
Fascinating, thanks. I'd read a little about the Finno-Ugric languages but nothing in great detail. As for Finnish being a difficult language, I read somewhere that Mannerheim spoke better Russian than he did Finnish. But as for Finnish being the most difficult language, I seem to recall that Sanskrit and Chinese are the worst in this aspect. Those darn characters just look all the same after awhile! [/QB]
Yes. I've heard that you can actually learn to read & write chinese without ever learning to speak the language! Any truth in that claim?
Also I've heard an anecdote about the devil him-/herself (who knows...) trying to learns basque for seven years before giving up having only learnt to say "yes" and "no".
Anyway. I still vote for swedish as the most difficult language in the world.
"Bingeley bingeley beep!"
- Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay
Originally posted by Tom1939: Yes, we are closely related with finns. Strange thing: if something is exellent in a military point of view it might be just not undersandable fanatic in real life and vice versa. I mean my grandfather must have been the part of one of this 20 exp lt hun infantry divisions with nearly no combat value. But I'm quite happy he wasn't part of one of the elite ss panzer division (he was a german living in hungary, you know hungarian german minority, so then I'm a half german), because the he would have a much higher chance of dieing.
How very true...
"Bingeley bingeley beep!"
- Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay
Yes. I've heard that you can actually learn to read & write chinese without ever learning to speak the language! Any truth in that claim?
Also I've heard an anecdote about the devil him-/herself (who knows...) trying to learns basque for seven years before giving up having only learnt to say "yes" and "no".
Anyway. I still vote for swedish as the most difficult language in the world.
What do you mean? Swedish is extremely simple if you compare it to Finnish.
Regards, Rundstedt
"We never underestimated the Red Army, contrary to the general conception. The last German military attaché in Moscow, General Köstring - a very competent man - had kept us well-informed about the condition of the Red Army. But Hitler refused to believe h
What do you mean? Swedish is extremely simple if you compare it to Finnish.
Regards, Rundstedt
Ah, but swedish _is_ the most difficult language in the world, and I'll prove this using flawed logic (the most popular kind there is )
One thind that is more difficult in swedish than in finnish: Word order. Swedish - strictly regulated by the grammar, differs depending on the context.
Finnish - "free, but not random" (as I've been instructed)
thus, we can use the following perfectly flawed logic:
"Finnish is said to be difficult" and "there is at least one thing that is more difficult in swedish than in finnish" --> swedish is indeed the most difficult language in the world. QED
Ok, perhaps it is time to end this particular discussion, before it gets too far off-topic...
[ August 07, 2001: Message edited by: heiks ]
"Bingeley bingeley beep!"
- Terry Pratchett, Feet of Clay
[QUOTE]Originally posted by heiks:
Yes. I've heard that you can actually learn to read & write chinese without ever learning to speak the language! Any truth in that claim?
Don't think that's possible. IMO it's easier to speak it. Much tougher to read and write - there are probably millions of illiterate or semi-illiterate peasants in China today, especially among the older generation and in the remote provinces. And the really annoying thing about Asian languages is they are completely different. English usually ends up being the lingua franca.
"Excuse me... I was distracted by the half-masticated cow rolling around in your wide open trap." - Michael Caine in "Miss Congeniality"
) languages. I don't speak turkish, but english and german differ structurally a lot from finnish, for example there are no prepositions in finnish but instead you add a special ending to the words to change the meaning.
