Talk:Finno-Ugric languages/Archive 2

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Archive 1 Archive 2

Disputed article???

I don't believe the NPOV warning belongs here, because there is absolutely no serious scientific dispute about the status of the Finno-Ugric language family. The fact that this page has been under attack for the past few weeks by a troll, who is clearly a psychopath (as evidenced by his rantings) and whose only source is some totally unscientific drivel published on the Web by a crackpot named "Dr. László Marácz" (surely not a doctor in Linguistics), does NOT mean that this subject is disputed. I thought there was a procedure for barring trolls from the Wikipedia, but apparently it's not working. Pasquale 22:41, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hear hear! (Although I must admit it's been entertaining to watch.) I only disagree with one tiny part of the above: this page has been attacked by a crank, not a troll.
Dbenbenn 23:32, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, Dbenbenn, I stand corrected. My Wikipedia terminology is still developing. Pasquale 23:46, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes, pasquale is crank, I agree. Antifinnugor 08:21, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Pasquale, I never saw any argumentation from you other than troll and psychopat. Obviously you are one, and try to pass your characteristic to others. Are you really so unqualified? Dr. Marácz article is important one, he is a linguist, and not a psychopat, like you. Please do not censor articles and throw your hate to your surroundings. This is senseless, characterizes only you and does not help anybody. If you have objections, please tra to express them objectively and argue. Your hate harms you, and primarily you. If we want to barr trolls, the first candidate are you. Thanks, Antifinnugor 08:21, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I don't get it. We have an outspoken critic of the FU hypothesis here. It ist true that the family is not undisputed. Somebody even dug up references for you. Yet we still don't have a decent "criticisms" paragraph. It seems you prefer to mess with the swadesh list and repeat your rantings, rather than doing some work and present a serious writeup about the linguistic criticism of the theory (and no, the criticism is no "ITS NOT TRUE! LIES!". There is serious criticism, and it would be heard, if you presented it decently). dab 21:37, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
It seems to me as if Antifinnugor is the one introducing POV to this article, for instance replacing "believe" with "point out" [1]. See Wikipedia:Neutral Point of View. [[User:Livajo|Ливай | ☺]] 09:11, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sets of cognates

Personally, I welcome the addition of sets of cognates, but with a caveat. Apparently, it leads fools to think that they are supposed to see outward, superficial similarities among the forms cited as cognates, when in fact the determination of sets of cognates has absolutely nothing to do with surface similarities, but rather with the application of the rules of phonological change in the history of each specific member of the language family. Consider the Indo-European languages: Classical Armenian erku 'two' is an exact cognate of Latin duō, English two, etc., although it bears no resemblance to them. But Armenian erku is exactly accounted for by the laws of sound change that lead from Proto-Indo-European to Armenian. Ditto for Latin d versus English t. As you learn in a beginner course in Historical Linguistics, English regularly has t vis-à-vis a 'd' in Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Balto-Slavic, etc. It's part of Grimm's Law. These laws are by definition exceptionless, although there may subsets of exceptions accounted for by subrules, such as Verner's Law within Grimm's Law, or restricted phenomena such analogy (which has its own rules). Examples: English ten (from Germanic tehun) vs. Latin decem; English tame (adj., from Germanic tamaz) vs. Latin dom-āre (verb); English tooth (from Germanic tanþuz) vs. Latin dēns (Accusative dent-em); English tow (verb, from Germanic tugōn) vs. Latin dūc-ere; and so on and so forth. The regularity of sound change is one of the most basic principles in the application of the comparative method. For a wonderfully detailed, yet brief, introduction, see Calvert Watkins, Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans, The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. 2000. online version (the explanation of the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European word for 'daughter-in-law' is extremely instructive). Incidentally, the Wikipedia article on the Indo-European languages includes no sets of cognates. Anyway, sorry for being long-winded. Pasquale 22:41, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I don't want to be seen to be taking the side of your opponent(s?) here, but sound changes are not exceptionless, if they proceed by incomplete lexical diffusion. Mk270 03:02, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Yes, Mk270, you're absolutely right, in fact, incomplete lexical diffusion may have some of the characteristics of lexical borrowing among related dialects. But, that's all "second-year stuff", as it were. Here we're trying to stick to the basics. This raging debate, as you must know, involves people who know little about linguistics, but apparently have some political axe to grind. Apparently, saying that Hungarian is a member of the Finno-Ugric language family hurts some people's national pride. Amazing? Ludicrous? Unbelievable? Downright offensive? I agree, but I have no explanation for it. And, no, you're not taking the side of (not mine, please!) this page's one and only opponent, as I don't believe incomplete lexical diffusion is what he had in mind. He keeps asking the same two questions, which no one can answer, of course, for the simple reason that they make no sense at all. Pasquale 21:53, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Hmmm, "Erku" seems like a remarkable sound shift. What is the evolution of that?
Well, you can go to Google and type these five words: "erku two regular sound change" and read what comes up. Pasquale 20:22, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Well, pasquale, you better try to concentrate here to agglutinating languages. Your ie cognates are here of not much value. Antifinnugor
Had this fool ever studied any linguistics at all, he would know that what counts most is having a correct understanding of the methodology, not which language group you apply it to. Pasquale 01:14, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

It might be nice to put something of the above explanation in the main article. You'd have to change it from Indo-European examples. The article says that the table of cognates "illustrat[es] the sound laws". I have no idea what that means. Is it possible to explain an example or two, in such a way that anyone who speaks English could understand? Explaining a Finno-Ugric example would naturally illustrate the fact that cognates aren't necessarily similar.

Linking to cognates help a little; I don't have the knowledge to add more.

Dbenbenn 01:31, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

In the table of cognates, the English column could be confusing. Just because two words are cognate doesn't mean they have the same (or even similar) meaning. I've tried to explain that a little in the text above the table.

Is it the case that most of the words in a row of the table do in fact have the same meaning? If not, we should remove the English column. I like what [[User:Hippopha%EB]] did with "ín (means sinew/tendon)". Are there other words in the table that don't translate to the indicated English word? They could be marked in the same way.

Dbenbenn 00:23, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

As User:Mustafaa pointed out in the article, there's a better meaning for the English column: it's a translation of the original word that the cognates are all derived from. Dbenbenn 02:46, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Vuo 01:20, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The Hungarian word ín might mean a sinew. However, if you check the Finnish Kalevala, particularly what it says about Suonetar in the Lemminkäinen's rescurrection scene, this change of meaning is better explained. Ancient belief was such that the veins were woven: they were more like ropes. In this context, it makes sense that in Finnish, rope-like things inside the body were suoni, whereas in Hungarian it differentiated to another rope-like thing, the tendon. Actually, the Finnish word means also "lode".

Finno-Ugric as a political issue

I found the following text by Nyenyec on Pasquale's user talk page:

"In Hungary there is a highly charged political debate between academics who support the finno-ugric theory and their usually (far) right wing critics. You are correct that there is very little serious debate in the linguistic community. But in Hungary the debate is not linguistic, it's political. We've reached a point where Hungarian academists rarely dare to speak up and criticise the proponents of alternative theories lest they be charged with being "Anti-Hungarian" and "serving foreign interests" by "trying to hide the true origins of our language" (exactly the kinds of rhetoric Antifinnougric repeats).
"The alternate theories range from relatively moderate supporters of Turkic origins of the Hungarian language to truly radicals supporting Sumerian and even Japanese origins. Usually the closer the proponents of a theory are to the fringes of the political spectrum the more off the wall their theories and the more agressive their rhetoric become."

That sounds like an interesting issue in itself, one that should be covered in Wikipedia. Possibly it should be covered on the Finno-Ugric languages page. After all, there's nothing to say the page should only be about the linguistic aspects of the Finno-Ugric group. If the political controversy is really so intense that "academists rarely dare to speak up and criticize", then it's worthy to be mentioned somewhere.

Dbenbenn 02:22, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Politikai okkultizmus Magyarországon ("Political occultism in Hungary") by Andras Zsuppán (translation mine):

One could say that the proliferation of off the wall theories after the silencing of all criticism [of the Finno-Ugric theory] in the years of socialism could be considered natural. What's truly scary is the aggressiveness of the proponents of said theories. A professor at a department of Finno-Ugristics refused to comment on this matter, stating that "all supporters of the Finno-Ugric theory are immediately labeled as treasonous. We're simply tired of fighting this hopeless fight against crackpots/lunatics." Unfortunately, for many, the acceptance of the Finno-Ugric theory immediately means some sort of treason. [“idegenszívűség”, the closest translation I can think of would be "Anti-Hungarianism", similar to Anti-Americanism] which makes it impossible to discuss these problems in an intelligent manner. Another serious problem is the academics' refusal to popularize their point of view. Only professor Károly Rédei has taken up the burden of debunking these dilettant theories in a language understandable to non-professionals. It’s telling that Rédei teaches in Wien (Austria) so he has less reason to fear attacks from Hungary. The worst scenario could be when even the sensible moderates on the political right start accepting and supporting these self-contradicting myths. This would lead to two separate theories on the origins of the Hungarian language, one for the political left and one for the political right, which never happened in the past.

Nyenyec 04:29, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Nyenyec, you found a truly "independent" newspaper, that is well known of his dirty, unobjective and pornographic style. This is really fascinating. Antifinnugor 19:11, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Nyenyec, the point is, that this artificial little group has no common features of any kind. No common words except perhaps 8 or 10 words, no common grammar except of agglutination. It come to existence for political reasons, and now it tries to claim, that it will be eliminated for political reasons. Finnufrists & uralics call people, who see the invalidity of these artificial groups lunatics and troll and psycopat and whatever words they can create in their hate. They censor every time Mr. Maracz article here, they censor every real critic. They (finugorists & uralists) live in an irreal world, that is their problem. Antifinnugor 11:09, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Antifinnugor is correct that the cited magazine (Magyar Narancs) is leftwing ans is taking sides in matter (the Finno-Ugric side). However the points, that:

  • there is a political aspect to the debate
  • this very aspect makes true scientific dialog almost impossible
  • proponents of finno-ugrist theories are labeled as treasonous and "Anti-Hungarian"

I think are correct. I think even Antifinnugor agrees to these. Nyenyec 05:27, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I think the article should have a section on the history of the Finno-Ugric classification. Here's a bare-bones outline:

The initial work was done by Joseph Budenz (sp?). It was later found to be highly flawed, and was corrected and extended by [insert names of linguists here]. During the Soviet occupation of eastern Europe in the twentieth century, critics of the Finno-Ugric theory were repressed for political reasons. (Why exactly did the USSR care?) Recently in Hungary, the Finno-Ugric grouping has come to be seen as anti-patriotic or even treasonous.

I'm sure there's a lot more that could be said on the topic. For example, reasons why it's a popular issue. I don't think Americans ever felt the same way about English being a Germanic language.

Dbenbenn 21:01, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

"as come to be seen as anti-patriotic or even treasonous": add "by the nationalist right-wing fringe". By all means, we need this section. Even a separate article maybe. So "Finno-Ugric" became associated with "Soviet occupation" in Hungary? That's interesting, and comparable to the Aryan invasion theory that is highly unpopular in India because it became associated with British colonialism. I also wonder why the Soviets would care. You would rather think they would try to bring the Magyars to identify with other "soviet peoples", i.e. Altaic. Maybe they were trying to prevent the Hungarians from joining any developing "Altaic nationalism" seen as dangerous to the regime, and preferred to have them associate (ironically, correctly) with the Finns. The backlash of this would be even more ironical ("the Soviets tried to keep us from this, so it must be correct"). That's just my speculation, however. Somebody needs to research the history of this. Very interesting. dab 21:25, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)


Actually the story begins even earlier, with the Habsburg (Austrian) rule in the 19th century. The first proponents of the Finno-Ugric theory in Hungary were all German born (an often cited fact by the critics). Budenz and Hunfalvy (the two main proponents) were targets of accusations (repeated until today) that they conspired with the Habsburg court in Wien to supress all national pride in the Hungarians by relating them to the "fish-smelling" people in the North, who never built an empire - they didn't have Nokia back then ;). The origins of a people's language were important for the definition of the national identity. It is still important to many people. You can find parallels closer to Hungary than India: Origin of Romanians and especially the history of the daco-romanian continuity theory. Of course many people don't realize or accept that there is no direct connection between the origins of a language and the origins of the people speaking it.

A debate began at the end of the 19th century between Budenz and Vámbéry about the Finno-Ugric or Turkic origins of Hungarian. This was the Ugric-Turkic war, also discussed in Angela Marcantonio's book more than a hundred years later. Anyway, the issue had a strong political aspect even back then.

As for Soviet motivations. Many nations speaking the Uralic languages were living within the Soviet Union. Supporting the Finno-ugric theory was supposedly strengthening the "brotherhood" with these nations.

There is an ongoing effort on the Hungarian pages to write about these language groups, the alternative theories and the political aspects of the question. So far with little success, the articles don't seem to stabilize yet.

I warn you that politics in Hungary is a very intense issue. The population in Hungary (including several WP editors) is highly polarized. Think pro-life vs. pro-choice intensity and then some. This is the very reason why Hungarian WP editors don't address current political issues in the Hungarian Wikipedia at all. What I'm trying to say is that you'll open up a Pandora's box if you try it here. I warned you... And all I said before is off the record :), I was just trying to explain the intensity of this issue to people who seem to be surprised how strongly some Hungarians feel about this linguistic debate. Nyenyec 05:27, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

very interesting. I would love to have this article, but for "Finno-Ugric languages" it may indeed be better to stay on linguistic territory. You know, Hungary is great and all, but I think nobody would have to be ashamed of a common heritage with the Finns, either. If I was Finnish, I think I couldn't stop laughing about all this :D dab 08:04, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your warning, Nyenyec. :) But do we really have to "stay on linguistic territory"? After all, the page is about the Finno-Ugric languages, in all aspects. Certainly the most important aspect is linguistic, but historical and political aspects of the language grouping are legitimate too. Maybe some history could be added (Budenz and Hunfalvy), without getting into the modern intense political issues. (Hungary-specific issues are more relevant on the Hungary page, anyway.) --Dbenbenn 00:02, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

How about an article on the "Sociopathy of Language Family Affiliation" and add a link to this page as an illustration? Personally, I am quite familiar with the anti-Aryan invasion theory theories and the Daco-Romanian continuity theory and how those debates have been hijacked by non-linguists with a nationalistic political agenda, who insist on pushing their claims in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, but notice that neither of those debates involves the denial of a well-established genetic, language-family connection. So, here we have reached new heights in paranoia and phanta-linguistics. Thanks, Wikipedia! Pasquale 01:09, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hippo, please stop your terror

Please do NOT delete the selected ground words. What you do is simply terror. Also do not censor the links. Are you so afraid of the truth? Antifinnugor 07:49, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hippo: vein is ér in Hungarian. If you add words, should do that correctly. Please only ONE word for one notion. Your many words are confusing and senseless. List of similar words in these languages are typically full of mistakes, just check the internet. The wikipedia should not be that bad reference, do you agree? Antifinnugor 08:22, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hippo, please do not delete: - Mr. Maracz link - Finnish-Hungarian ground word list - The text of the critic. It is short, but true.

What you do is blind terror. Are you really that primitive, and without arguing, you just eliminate others work;

ín is not vein in Hungarian.ín is leader/sinew/tendon in English, but not vein. Please stop including erroneous words. Or correct the English word and the others also. Your list is simply wrong.

Please argue, your deleting terrorism is senseless. Obvoiusly you will continue this forever- let's see, who has more patience, the terrorist hippo, or the rest of the world.

The finish Hungarian word list is not specific finish words with this or that origin, but fundamental words, that are contained in every language. Please do not delete them, they illustrate both languages elementar, original words.

Antifinnugor 11:19, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)


terror indeed. (*yawn*) AFU, you are making a fool of yourself. Each and every of your statement makes it painfully obvious you have not the slightest idea of linguistics. Take some university classes and come back in a year or two. dab 21:16, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Verbs inflected by person?

The last sentence of the top section of the article is:

Another feature is that verbs are inflected by person.

What does that mean? Could someone provide examples in Hungarian and Finnish, with translations to English?

In Finnish one would say:
kävelen = I walk
kävelet = You walk
kävelee = He walks
kävelemme = We walk
kävelette = You walk
kävelevät = They walk
kävellään = Passive form
Here is a cool site with all ways of inflecting a verb in finnish: http://www.cc.jyu.fi/~hetahein/tiede/verbikaava.html -- Jniemenmaa 10:44, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
ok, but that is hardly notable. It would be hard to find a language that doesn't do this (ok, it's eroded in English, but even English retains 3rd sg, and archaic 2nd sg, endings) dab 11:12, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I think that it would be better to write that the usage of the inflected word itself is sufficient in the Finno-Ugric languages and thus a personal pronoun is not needed (if there exist any: On the Talk page of the article Uralic Languages, it is dicussed if personal pronouns exist in the Uralic language family at all). Contrary to that, Finnish does feature personal pronouns but I once read that they might have been introduced due to heavy influence of the neighbouring IE-languages. At least the 3rd person singular/plural pronouns hän/he (hän kävelee, he kävelevät) may not be omitted. Does anyone know something more detailed about the personal pronoun issue? I could well believe that the original/genuine absence of personal pronouns is the actual feature of the language group, instead of the "verbs inflected by person" property. (e.g. English, German or Russian do this as well but there are personal pronouns and they have to be used!) Oliver Uwira 11:27, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
"Another feature is that verbs are inflected by person."
This statement is correct and I think there is no reason to change it. It is also valid for Indo-European languages, but there are many languages in which verbs are not inflected by person, e.g. Chinese (and other isolating languages). --Hippophaë 20:00, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
The Uralic languages have personal pronouns but no possessive pronouns. At least I haven't heard there were possessive pronouns in any Uralic language, but correct me, if I'm wrong. In Finnish, personal pronouns are often omitted, because the personal suffix indicates the person and there is no need to repeat it. The 3rd person singular hän and plural he can also be omitted, if it is clear who is referred to. In Italian, personal pronouns can also be omitted. --Hippophaë 20:00, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification, Hippophaë. I've added your explanation to the article. I also changed inflection to conjugation, which is the term (as I understand it) that applies specifically to verbs.

Please fact-check what I've added. --Dbenbenn 23:25, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Come to think of it, perhaps the last two paragraphs of the intro section should be split off into a "Structural features" section. The features could get expanded explanations and examples. --Dbenbenn 23:42, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Possessive Pronouns and Suffixes

Alright, I decided to be bold. I used User:Oliver Uwira's hazy recollection, "I once read that [possessive pronouns] might have been introduced [to Finnish] due to heavy influence of the neighbouring IE-languages". Obviously one should find a reliable source to support this claim, or remove it from the article. --Dbenbenn 00:29, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I hoped someone around here would know more - I have unfortunately forgot where I've read that - some Google hit on the Finnish language and its history - but it might as well be incorrect. Though, couldn't "hän" resemble the Swedish "han/hon" 3rd person singular pronoun? Oliver Uwira 09:32, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
That's just a coincidence. Finnish "hän" is of Finno-Ugric or even Uralic origin. It is etymologically equivalent to Estonian "end, enda", North Sami "son", Erzyan "son", Hungarian "ő", etc. --Hippophaë 17:34, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)
There are no possessive pronouns in Finnish at all. They have never existed nor introduced to the language. Instead of possessive pronouns (my, your, his, her, etc.), the genitive of the personal pronouns is used to express possession. Examples:
Finnish: minun koirani - my dog
Estonian: mu koer - my dog
North Sami: mu beana - my dog
In English (German, Russian, etc.) you cannot say "I's dog", "you's dog", "he's dog", "she's dog", but you have to use separate possessive pronouns. The difference is very evident in languages (like German or Russian), which have both possessive pronouns and genitive forms for personal pronouns. --Hippophaë 18:04, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Just to be absolutely clear about the terminology, English "my", "your", etc. are possessive adjectives rather than pronouns. While this is a minor point in terms of the present discussion, it is worth clarifying. The difference between a possessive adjective and a possessive pronoun is very simple: The adjective is followed by a noun (e.g. "my book", "your book") while the pronoun is not ("mine", "yours"). It is the same difference as between a demonstrative adjective and a demonstrative pronoun (e.g. "that book" vs. "that"). It may be that the reason these are often confused is that in many languages they are identical (e.g. Italian "il mio libro" vs. "il mio"; "questo libro" vs. "questo"). Many languages do not have either possessive adjectives or pronouns because — as Hippophaë says — they simply use the genitive of the personal pronouns, strictly speaking the equivalents of "of me", "of you", etc., but with a case ending instead of a preposition; e.g. Japanese "watashi" ("I") : "watashi-no hon" ("my book"), where the suffix "-no" is the equivalent of a genitive case ending. Pasquale 21:36, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Sorry guys, but this is getting more and more confusing. The possessive pronoun page clearly states that "my" is a possessive pronoun, too. Also, recently I wrote this on the discussion page of Uralic languages:
Maybe I misunderstand something, since I'm not a linguist. But in Hungarian the (for the lack of a better word) possessive pronoun enyém (mine) is declined. Thus nom. enyém, acc. enyémet, dat. enyémnek, gen. enyémé, etc. However, enyém, tiéd (yours), etc. are independent possessive pronouns, unlike mein in german. Hungarian lacks determinative possessive pronouns, as discussed above, we say az én kutyám (the I dog-my) or simply a kutyám (the dog-my). Hippophaë, what do you think? --Dhanak 20:37, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Would someone clarify, please? --Dhanak 21:52, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I am sorry. It may just be that my terminology is obsolete (at least as far as the Wikipedia is concerned). I was using "possessive adjectives" as an exact synonym of determinative possessive pronouns, and "possessive pronouns" as an exact synonym of independent possessive pronouns. I should perhaps add a note on that to the Possessive pronoun page. As Hungarian enyém, tiéd, etc. are declined, then they clearly are independent possessive pronouns (what I was referring to as just "possessive pronouns"). Hungarian lacks determinative possessive pronouns (what I was referring to as "possessive adjectives") because it uses possessive endings which serve the same purpose: a kutya 'the dog' vs. a kutyám 'my dog'. This type of morphology is obviously quite different from the Finno-Lappic data cited by Hippophaë; instead, it closely matches the Turkish morphology; cf. the following Turkish data:
ben 'I' (Genitive case benim)
at 'horse'
benim atım, or simply atım 'my horse'
sen 'you' (Genitive case senin)
senin atın, or simply atın 'your horse'
Hasan (a man's name; (Genitive case Hasanın)
Hasanın atı 'Hasan's horse'
etc. (Can someone please double-check my Turkish?).
Incidentally, German mein is both a determinative possessive pronoun (e.g. mein Buch 'my book') and an independent possessive pronoun (e.g. Das ist mein. 'That's mine.').
Pasquale 22:41, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
"Das ist mein." is not a correct German sentence. If "mein" is used without a substantive, it has to be inflected for gender. i.e: Das ist meins. (mein Buch) <=> That's mine (my book). Oliver Uwira 09:32, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
What??? Das ist mein. (as in Das ist alles mein., or French C'est à moi.) is a perfectly good German sentence. It just has a different meaning than Das ist meines. (as in Das ist mein Buch., or French C'est le mien.). It is the former that I had in mind. My point was just that mein occurs also as an independent possessive pronoun (as a predicate uninflected for gender). Or is that not the case? Pasquale 19:32, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Pasquale, I hope I haven't been offensive. But German is my native language and I'm sure that "Das ist mein." as well as "Das ist alles mein." are wrong. (More precisely "Das ist alles mein" (That's all mine!) is colloquial and old-fashioned.) Please look at the following table
noun used in sentencenoun not used
der Schlüssel (the key)Das ist mein Schlüssel. '(That is my key.)'Das ist meiner. (That's mine.)
die Tasse (the cup)Das ist meine Tasse. (That is my cup.)Das ist meine. (That's mine.)
das Auto (the car)Das ist mein Auto. (That is my car.)Das ist meins. (That's mine.)

The usage of the pronoun is similar to the usage of adjectives, which are inflected differently, depending on whether the described noun appears in the sentence or not. You have written "Just to be absolutely clear about the terminology, English "my", "your", etc. are possessive adjectives rather than pronouns. While this is a minor point in terms of the present discussion, it is worth clarifying" - I believe this suits well for German too, and it is still a minor point. Oliver Uwira 10:23, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)


Hang on - minun koirani, at least, contains both a pronoun in the genitive case (minun) and a pronominal possessive suffix (-ni). I don't know the analysis of the other two, but surely the possessive suffixes should be commented on here. - Mustafaa 23:49, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well, in that case, the Finnish structure is very close to the Hungarian one, in fact it matches exactly the Turkish structure I have discussed above, i.e. 'I'-Genitive suffix + 'dog'-Possessive suffix. Can anyone comment on the Estonian and Sami examples quoted above by Hippophaë? Do those forms of the noun meaning 'dog' also contain a possessive suffix? If so, the section of the article can be revised accordingly. It then becomes clear that the Uralic morphology which replaces the "determinative possessive pronouns" closely matches the corresponding Altaic morphology. Pasquale 01:38, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Estonian and North Sami have no possessive suffixes (any more). In Finnish, the personal pronoun can be omitted and you can also say "koirani" 'my dog' (koira 'dog' + ni 'my'). --Hippophaë 17:00, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Swadesh Lists

Vuo 01:42, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC) Go and follow the links to the Swadesh lists. Unbelievable. For some reason, terminating long vowels are removed inconsistently. It's like the compiler had a Finnish dictionary and a mild case of dyslexia. In addition, there are recent words like "person" in the list; henkilö is a derived word. (henki breath, or a life/animacy; -lö place indicator.) Most people use the word "human" (ihminen) nowadays.

Also, the Swadesh list uses single words, which is a broken method. For example, the word iso in Finnish means "big", and I-E loan suuri means "great". In Estonian, only the latter is in use. Result? Contrast between iso vs. suur. Totally borken. And the issue of dialect wasn't even mentioned yet.

well, the point of the Swadesh list is to give cognates, if extant. Hence AFU's constant sinew/tendon reversions (because, obviously, he cannot be expected to grasp the concept). Of course, nobody is assuming genetic relationship on Swadesh grounds alone, without morphological comparisons. It's a hint, not a proof. dab 15:54, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Ground words (base vocabulary)

Hippo, whenever I put the list of some simple ground words onto the page, you delete. Do sou shame the Finnish language, your mother tongue? By parroting about my "incompetence" and other personal insults again me you only reveal your simple mindedness and ill behaviour. Antifinnugor 15:49, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Here some of the ground words in Finnish and Hungarian.

English Finnish Hungarian English Finnish Hungarian
father isä (but notice: äijä "old man") apa, atya mother äiti (ancient word: emo) anya
brother veli fivér sister sisar (Indo-Eur.) nõvér
leg jalka, (acc.) jalan láb fire tuli tûz
earth maa, (humus) multa föld forest metsä erdõ
lake järvi tó sea meri (Indo-Eur.) tenger
way tie út path polku, ("alley") kuja ösvény
god jumala isten luck onni szerencse
border raja határ grass ruoho (but: "tanner" = ground) tenger
family perhe család child lapsi gyerek
tooth hammas (ancient word: pii) fog nose nenä (ancient: pulmonary disease) orr
language kieli "tongue" (but: "pharynx" = nielu) nyelv milk maito tej


A list of unrelated words does nothing to disprove a language relationship. I could cite any number of unrelated words between English and German. The task is to find as many related words as possible, and then judge those. dab 15:59, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I do not want to disprove relationship, I know, because it is evident thru agglutination, that Hungarian and Finnish are related. I just want to show, that these groups (fu/uralic) are nonsense groups. Antifinnugor 16:40, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

These are not arbitraryly selected words, but ground words, I took from a linguistic book. The parts of the body, the family, the living environment. If you have an other selection, please list the words, and we can use also them, if they are ground words. Thanks, Antifinnugor 16:36, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

What is a "ground word", anyway? --Dbenbenn 04:28, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
It has probaly a better English word. Please name it. I call ground words the parts of the body, eye, nose, ear, leg, hand, the family like father, mother, brother, sister,, the living environment, like house, way, sea, that people living in a simple environment, for sure use. Antifinnugor 09:13, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
it is true that the Swadesh list (which should get its own article) relies on 200 (or 100?) specially chosen words of the 'basic vocabulary' assumed to change slowly over time. This assumption is one of the criticized points of the approach. fwiiw, a Swadesh list does simply take the normal words for these 200 items and compares them. If a word has changed its meaning from vein to sinew, however, it should by all means be quoted as "common vocabulary". After all, the section here is entitled not "Swadesh list" but "Common vocabulary", so I ask AFU to stop his inappropriate replacement of in (apparently cognate to suoni?) with er (which is not cognate). AFU, if you want to be useful, go and build a Swadesh list of Hungarian and Finnish, listing exactly the 200 words proposed by Swadesh, and come back with a number how many of them are cognate. It is poitless to list unrelated words under a heading "Common vocabulary". [[User:Dbachmann|dab (T) ]] 13:01, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
If you want to do a Swadesh list, do it in the Wiktionary Wiktionary:en:Swadesh_list and link it from this article 21:56, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This list makes no sense here and it contains several errors:

  • õ and û do not belong to the correct Hungarian orthography
  • isa, puhekykky, sairaanhoituja, and nemä are not Finnish words at all
  • the list contains Germanic and Baltic loan words, e.g. hammas, äiti, meri etc.; one should use original Finnish words instead
  • some words are already in the other list on the same page, there is no need to repeat them
  • Finnish and Hungarian are not the only Finno-Ugric languages; the table should also include Estonian, North Sami, Erzya, Meadow Mari, and Komi at least.
  • Wikipedia is not a dictionary, use Wiktionary instead

--Hippophaë 21:25, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I corrected the spelling errors and added possible cognates. Is this in line with the general practice? --Vuo 00:32, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Seems like isa ought to be isä = father and sairaanhoituja ought to be sairaanhoitaja but this is not sister but nurse. Compound words would anyway be not the sort of words we are interested in because they are usually coined more recently. Oliver Uwira 09:51, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

what? We have tons of "list of..." articles on WP. On Wictionary, a definition of "Swadesh list" would be appropriate. An actual Swadesh list should be on Wikipedia. [[User:Dbachmann|dab (T) ]] 10:45, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree, but Wiktionary already has lots of Swadesh lists. Perhaps one reason for having them there is that they can easily link words in the list to definitions. Anyway, it would be kind of silly to have a Finno-Ugric list here when all the others are at Wiktionary. Note that someone brought up this point on the Wiktionary Swadesh list talk page. --Dbenbenn 16:35, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Finnish seems to have borrowed heavily from IE languages during the ages, even including vocabulary for such basic concepts as "water" and "mother".
OK, looked this up, seems like water is disputed: http://virtual.finland.fi/netcomm/news/showarticle.asp?intNWSAID=25830 "Some loanwords are shared by several Finno-Ugrian languages, and the oldest-established loanwords can in fact be identified as having passed from Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Finno-Ugrian.

There are not many of these words, and few of them are undisputed; perhaps the most certain case is nimi (name). The words vesi (water), myydä (to sell) and nainen (woman) are also considered to belong to this stratum of loanwords."

List of ground words

When I reverted Antifinnugor's usual changes, I left in the "list of ground words" that she added. I don't think they are relevant here, since they don't illustrate anything about the Finno-Ugric language grouping. They aren't cognates or anything. But I'll leave it to a linguistic expert to make that decision. --Dbenbenn 20:49, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

References

The References section could use a lot of cleanup.

  • Foreign language titles should be presented with an English translation, in parentheses next to the original, for regular mono-lingual readers.
  • Each source should have a brief summary.

In particular, I wonder where the "list of cognates" came from. Possibly it's from one of the cited references, but I can't tell which. --Dbenbenn 21:02, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The list of cognates came originally from Encyclopaedia Britannica, but it has been corrected by many people afterwards. --Hippophaë 17:06, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I could not find them there. Where are they? Antifinnugor 12:14, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for the translations! I'm considering changing the reference that Mustafaa added from (based on the Encyclopedia Britannica) to something like (based on [4]). This scheme would require making the References a numbered list. But I think such a scheme would scale well for having lots of in-text references. Comments? --Dbenbenn 19:46, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Dbenbenn, the Swadesh list is excellent. Thanks for that. Antifinnugor 12:14, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Um, what? I didn't make any Swadesh list. --Dbenbenn 13:58, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Actually, I put in the Swadesh list links. - Mustafaa 15:24, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hippo, do not revert

Hippo, if possible, please do not demonstrate your unscrupulousness, primitivness and wildness, and unability to think by reverting again. Especially leave the reference in to the critic of these groups. Then we can avoiding your primitive reverting orgias in the future. Thanks. Antifinnugor 08:46, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

your remarks are clearly ad hominem, and thus in violation of WP policy, and showing you for the edit warrior you are. I am glad for Hippo's janitorial
Hipo breverts vandalistic and unscrupulously. Antifinnugor 12:10, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
reverts, as is everybody else here. You should recognize that your reasoning has convinced nobody here,
Why are you so sure? I am not at all. Which reasoning do you mean, if any at all? Antifinnugor 12:10, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
here, for once, I must admit you have a point. I assumed you were under the impression of using reason. dab (ᛏ)
but that you are still suffered to insert your views, as long as they are marked as minority views. If you continue to refuse accepting this deal, and if you continue to violate policy, this may not remain to be the case forever. dab (ᛏ) 13:00, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I wrote the critical page for this page, and hippo permanently deletes the link to that. I hope, too, that this this may not remain to be the case forever. Antifinnugor 12:10, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Criticism of the Finno-Ugric group

I do support a separate in-depth article about the objections to the theory. Of course, the article title should be spelled right, to begin with. Then, the objections naturally need to be qualified as hypothetical and/or minority opinion. I reproduce below the evidence of serious work disputing the group collected by mark. The in-depth article should probably start with these.

begin quote

  • Marcantonio, Angela (2004) 'What Is the Linguistic Evidence to Support the Uralic Theory or Theories?' In Linguistica Uralica 40, 1, pp40-45.
ABSTRACT by author: "One must always make a clear distinction between things that one has demonstrated with evidence, & things that one has not. Sometimes the latter might be a valuable pointer for further research, however it must be clearly labeled as speculation, because to do otherwise would be misleading to future researchers. If one is to establish a language family within the framework of the conventional Comparative Method, one must begin with a reconstruction of relevant areas of morphology, & the reconstruction of at least the top node, the proto-language. Neither of these elements has to this day been properly implemented in Uralic studies."
  • Marcantonio, Angela (2003) The Uralic Language Family: Facts, Myths and Statistics.
This book has been reviewed in Journal of Linguistics (Saarikivi 2004, 40, 1, pp187-191, PDF), in The Canadian Journal of Linguistics (Vajda 2003, 48, 1-2, pp117-121), in Linguistica Uralica (Kunnap, 2003, 39, 1, pp55-57).
  • Marcantonio, Angela (2001) 'The "Ugric-Turkic Battle": A Critical Review'. In Linguistica Uralica 37, 2, pp81-102.
ABSTRACT from Cambridge Scientific Abstracts. "The notion of a unique Finno-Ugric genetic node is challenged in a reexamination of the evidence widely held to have established it: 119 Hungarian lexical correspondences put forward during the 1870s by Jozsef Budenz, who, contrary to a widespread assumption, did not deny a remote Hungarian-Turkic genetic link but merely argued that Hungarian was more closely related to Ugric, a term that for Budenz included the Finnic languages. Budenz held that 28% of his Hungarian items have genetic Turkic cognates & another 7% are Turkic loanwords; he claims, however, that 62% of the items are purely Ugric (ie, Finno-Ugric). As the comparative method was still in its infancy, it could not be properly applied; eg, Budenz never articulated phonological criteria for his judgments. A comparison with K. Redei's Uralisches Etymologisches Worterbuch (Uralic Etymological Dictionary) shows that 52% of Budenz's correspondences are incorrect, 28% are purely Uralic, & 20% are Uralic with links outside the Uralic languages, eg, to Turkic or Yukaghir."

Thus, the claims Antifinnugor advances (whether they are accurate or not), are noted and reviewed in academic journals. I think that is the requested evidence of notability.

end quote

This is of course no endorsement of AFU's edit warring. But AFU or no AFU, the theory is disputed by intelligent people as well as by cranks. So far we only have this Marcantonio to cite, but surely the articles contain other references (get to work, AFU!). Also, what we are talking about is not scholars disputing the Finno-Ugric relationship, but rather proposing a Finno-Ugric-Turkic group (i.e. Hungarian would be related with Turkic just as much as with Finnic). dab (ᛏ) 13:47, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I would ask AFU to recognize that both his English skills and his conviction prevent him from writing acceptable articles. I invite him to continue to contribute towards the inclusion of his pov by searching the literature for articles supporting it and pointing us to the abstracts like mark did, so we can duly note the opinions of these scholars. Any other mode of contribution of AFU has proven fruitless. dab (ᛏ) 13:54, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Angela Marcantonio

Before you refer to any publications by Angela Marcantonio, please read the article Linguistic Shadow-Boxing by Johanna Laakso. It is a book review of Angela Marcantonio's "The Uralic language family. Facts, myths and statistics". --Hippophaë 23:52, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yes, both it and the Journal of Linguistics review linked above thoroughly debunk Marcantonio. Both reviews say a little about the history of the Finno-Ugric classification that might go in the article. --00:12, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
how sad. Especially the "looming marginalisation of historical linguistics" part. Still, I suggest a short "Criticism" section where we mention both the book and its debunking. dab (ᛏ) 07:59, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
sadly, after all this time, no real evidence for notability of FU criticism has surfaced. The article should probably note that the evidence for relationship is rather weaker than for e.g. Indo-European, and that a Ural-Altaic group is sometimes advanced, on even weaker grounds. But that's about it. Certainly not enough material to write a "criticism" article, like I suggested earlier. It appears that the field is so riddled with cranks that it is shunned by serious linguists for fear of being counted among them. Also, to appease the nationalist crusaders, we could mention, like on the excellent jolaakso page, that a language group is no evidence for racial or cultural unity. The next step for AFU is still to report numbers of cognates on swadesh lists. I expect these numbers will be rather low, and will thus demonstrate that Finnic and Hungarian are not closely related. Why do we not have these numbers, AFU? This would be a much better use for your time than wasting ours. dab (ᛏ) 08:22, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
A judicious comment, but I would dispute one point: while Uralic is a bit more distant, it has been established that Finno-Ugric is a tighter grouping than Indo-European: Proto-Finno-Ugric contains specifically Indo-Iranian loanwords (notably "honey", "honeybee"), indicating a much later date of split than PIE. Even impressionistically, I have yet to see two Finno-Ugric languages that look as different from each other as, oh, English and Armenian... However, the lack of early records (nothing comparable to Sanskrit or Latin for Uralic!) is an obstacle. Besides, Indo-European, like Semitic, has received such incredibly disproportionate attention, over centuries, from historical linguists for cultural reasons that it's slightly unfair to compare any other language family to it. - Mustafaa 11:05, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I admit that my comments are aimed at accomodating the critics (e.g. the emphasis of "does not imply racial unity", of course a linguistic commonplace). I agree that Proto-FU would have been much later than PIE, but of course the attestations are also much later, probably opening a gap between Proto-Language and earlies attestation at least as large as in the IE case. I was not aware of the "honeybee". This should by all means be included (because it not only gives a hint to the date, but also to the location of the Proto-Language). This still puts Proto-FU to 2000 BC, and for the following 3000 years, anything might have happened... As for the English-Armenian argument; well, that's why I say "most members of IE". I think of Armenian as rather pathological ;o) But of course, at some point, two languages appear "totally different" on the surface, and this point has been reached by both Finno-Ugric and IE branches. dab (ᛏ) 12:28, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
2000 BC? The article says
The "Urheimat" of the proto-language of the modern Finno-Ugric languages, known as Proto-Finno-Ugric, is believed to have been to the west of the Ural mountains, some 5000 years ago.
That is, 3000 BC. Which date is wrong? (Or am I confused?) --Dbenbenn 13:27, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
no, it's just that a millennium is about the precision of these estimates. We might say: Proto-FU: probably 3rd millennium, PIE, probably 4th millennium. It may also be (late) 4th for PFU and (late) 5th for PIE, I don't think anyone can say. If there are really Proto-Indo-Iranian loanwoards in PFU, PFU must be later than maybe 2500 BC. But how do we tell if the loanword is actual Proto-Indo-Iranian, and not rather late satem-PIE? But I realize that we say "west of the Ural", and I say "unknown" in "Criticism". I think "is believed" (by whom?) should be replaced with something more non-commital. dab (ᛏ) 14:01, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Proto languages

This is the most probable development:

  • Proto-Uralic: 4000 BC
  • Proto-Finno-Ugric: 3000 BC
  • Proto-Finno-Permic: 2000 BC
  • Proto-Finno-Volgaic: 1500 BC
  • Proto-Finno-Lappic & Proto-Ugric: 1000 BC

--Hippophaë 22:09, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

with a margin of error of what? 1000 years? dab (ᛏ) 09:43, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Less known extinct Finnic languages

Where should extinct languages such as Meryan and Muromian be included? They were spoken in the area between Mordvinian and Estonian, but I doubt that anything is known about these languages, except from place names.--Wiglaf 14:09, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Meryan and Muromian were most probably Finno-Mordvinic languages. They may have belonged to the Mordvinic languages, the Finno-Lappic languages, or they may have formed a separate language branch or language branches within the Finno-Mordvinic languages. As hardly anything is known about those languages, it it impossible to classify them more carefully. --Hippophaë 16:48, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree, and I have included them as such. I hope an expert will add the info there is.--Wiglaf 16:56, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I think Meryan and Muromian should not be placed in the classification tree, because their status is not clear enough. It would be more sensible not to put them somewhere in the tree but to give more information on them and their vague status within the Finno-Mordvinic languages below in the same chapter. --Hippophaë 21:45, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Do as you wish. This is more your specialty than mine.--Wiglaf 22:29, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

NPOV

I removed the NPOV warning just now. I think whatever problems there might have been have recently been addressed. If you disagree, please put the warning back and state your objections here. --Dbenbenn 21:02, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I put it back, since it is still discussed. Please only remove, if everybody agrees withthe contents. Thanks. Antifinnugor 20:07, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Tables

Both the finnougric and the uralic page contain wrong word tables. 

  English    Finnish   Hungarian
  vein       suoni     ér
  tendon     jänne     ín
  father     isä       apa
  ancestor   esi-isä   õs

This is how it looks correctly. If the words in the table do not match the English ones, people are badly informed, and this is therefore a bad table. Also the English words after the Hungarian ones suggest, these are Hungarian words, which is absolutely confusing. If a vikipedia editor believes, that suoni and ín are somehow relatid, should try to prove that. Father and õs's relation is somewhat more believable by looking at the words, this can be also mentioned. Thank for fixing that. Antifinnugor 20:07, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Neither father nor ancestor are on the table, and the cognacy of suoni and ín has been proved to Encyclopedia Britannica's satisfaction. - Mustafaa 20:33, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Antifinnugor, please familiarize yourself with the term cognate. The tables are not dictionaries but lists of cognates. --Hippophaë 03:10, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Maybe the 'English' column should go, and each FU word should be given with its meaning, so that even AFU (gasp) gets the point of the table. Or, if anybody is capable of this, it would be even cooler to give the reconstructed PFU word, with its recoustructed meaning, for each row. dab (ᛏ) 09:03, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I notice that the table is patiently explained,
Bachman, you can so long explain a wrong table, as you like, it remains wrong and incorrect. Once again very slowly: The Hungarian word ín has absolutely nothing to do with the English word vein, and these two words are in the same row. Do you understand, what is the problem? Also the Hungarian word ős is in the same row as the English word father, even though ős does not mean father in Hungarian. Do you understand now the problem? Summarized: The problem is the English word in front of the row, that means something completely different, than the Hungarian word. The table is incorrect, as it is. Is that clear, bachman?
specifically for AFU, right at its beginning. If this is not enough, I don't think anything can be done to make him get the point.
to get an erronous table good? bachman, it is incorrect. As incorrect, as you are. Antifinnugor 08:22, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I think there are many more people like him where he came from, and we'll just have to live with reverting the article from time to time. dab (ᛏ) 10:38, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Your hate and defamation is somewhat boring, bachman. As your incorrect tables and reverting are. Antifinnugor 08:22, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Dbachmann wrote:

If anybody is capable of this, it would be even cooler to give the reconstructed PFU word, with its recoustructed meaning, for each row.

I agree, that would be cool!

I notice that the table is patiently explained, specifically for AFU, right at its beginning.

Actually, the explanation is helpful to all us non-linguists in the audience. I still don't know what "illustrating the sound laws" means. Could someone explain that, either here or in the article? --Dbenbenn 08:54, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

sure. it is an admission that the actual sound laws are still missing from this article, and that some may be guessed from the table. To take the famous suoni  : ín case, the claim is, not mine but apparently the specialists', that these words have a common source in the Proto-Language,
In the proto language, that never existed, as we all know.Antifinnugor 11:12, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
even though they do not mean the same thing anymore. Now I suppose this statement could be disputed, but it is certainly not addressed by simply pointing out that they do not mean the same thing today. The implication is that there was a word in PFU that probably meant "vein", and after going through several sound-changes, it ended up as Finnish suoni "vein", while the same word, going through different changes, both of sound and meaning, ended up as Hungarian ín "sinew". Now of course we should state the exact changes that led to both words. So far, they are absent from the article, but some of them may be "glimpsed" from comparing the words: most prominently, the initial s is missing from the Hungarian words, so one change that I do glimpse is that apparently, PFU initial s is lost in Hungarian. dab (ᛏ) 11:23, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Like that you can easily prove, that the English word table is the same, than the German word Schule. They are in fact more similar, than ín and souni. Just invent a 'proto language', no matter, that it never existed, add a bit hate, a bit defamation, so easy is that, bachman. Antifinnugor 11:12, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
So the dogma even gets more phantastic (nobody proved anything, as usual): the Finnish word suoni was originally ín (tendon), and got later the meaning vein. And, to make the thing more interesting, they invented the word jennä for vein, which now had no name after this strange meaning-modification. Why that strange modification? Not two characters are on the same position in those words, and they sound very different. Was the old Finnish person drunken and forgot his own language? Or the other way around? Why would anybody believe such phantastic, unbelievable tales? I could not see any prove, not the lightest for this tale. Has anybody seen any? If not, why does anybody believe in that strange theory? Antifinnugor 11:02, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

could you maybe not break up my comments with your interspersals? And also, you may take me from your hitlist again. What I said is not my own theory, and I would never claim to be competent enough to decide about which FU words are cognate. I was only, like you should be doing, pointing out the opinion of experts. dab (ᛏ) 12:44, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Well, this is the way, I can make remarks exactly to the ones, I want to answer. How would you answer your single thoughts? Antifinnugor 21:02, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
let it be my private business. I can decide myself, whom I talk with and why.Antifinnugor 21:02, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
exactly that is what I am doing. I am just a wiki editor, nothing more or less. Antifinnugor 21:02, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
And I shudder to think where WP would be without your contributions! dab (ᛏ) 21:25, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Jänne

The Finnish word for "sinew" and "tendon" is "jänne" (*jändek) not jennä. Please be more careful with the orthography. The etymological counterpart is "ideg" in Hungarian.

Ok, hipo, you center of my heart, thanks. One learns every day. Why do you write also jändek? Why do you write ten words for two in the cognates table? Are they different cases? Nominativ will be compared only with nominativ, as you probably do not know. Antifinnugor 20:55, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)

About proto-Finno-Ugric reconstructions

I took the reconstructions initially from Häkkinen (1979) Suomalais-ugrilaisten kielten etymologisen tutkimuksen asemasta ja ongelmista, which appeared in Nykysuomen rakenne ja kehitys 2, SKS 1984. It gave reconstructions only for the 28 words that appear in all Finno-Ugric languages and whose etymology was uncontested in earlier literature.

Thanks! I added this reference to the references section of the article. Do you have Hakkinen's first name (or at least initial)? Also, someone should provide translations for the article and journal titles. --Dbenbenn 20:25, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Yes. (I was that anon.) Her name is Kaisa Häkkinen. This particular article name is translated, 'About the situation and problems of the etymological research of the Finno-Ugric languages', and the book/anthology means 'Structure and development of modern Finnish 2'. The complete data for the latter are (NRJK 2) Pieksämäki 1984, ISBN 951-717-360-1.
It should be noted that these reconstructions are, at best, 30 years old. Later research may have proceeded. Incidentally, K. Häkkinen has published an etymological dictionary of modern Finnish, Nykysuomen etymologinen sanakirja this year (ISBN 951027108X), aimed also for the general public. There's also the linguistic etymological dictionary Suomen sanojen alkuperä in three volumes, 1992-2000 (ISBN 951-717-692-9, ISBN 951-717-711-9, ISBN 951-717-712-7). Quite expensive, all of them. | hyark 18:35, 2004 Dec 20 (UTC)

other families

somebody provided the examples "Afro-Asiatic, or Sino-Tibetan" in addition to Indo-European, in the criticism section. I am not so sure that this was well done, because both Afro-Asiatic (as opposed to Semitic) and Sino-Tibetan are afaik disputed, and rather on the same standing, evidence-wise, as FU.(more precisely, not AA as such is disputed, but which languages to include, and which not to) But this may be nitpicking, and I don't really care. dab (ᛏ) 20:01, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Well, this may be my POV speaking, but, while I too have heard people like Campbell, who have never studied either family, calling them "unproved", I am frankly at a loss for why. Extensive etymological dictionaries of both are easily available, by strict Neogrammarians (Christopher Ehret and Sergei Starostin, for instance), and their similarities are obvious even on the face of it. - Mustafaa 12:28, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
ok, I admit I am innocent about any knowledge of Sino-Tibetan. A Chinese linguist told me it is disputed, but that may have been his pov. As for Afro-Asiatic, well, it is undisputed that there is such a family, but it does seem to be disputed which languages exactly are part of it. dab (ᛏ) 18:21, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Fair point. The status of Omotic does seem to remain rather debatable; I've looked at Omotic a bit, and those languages are really remarkably different from any of the rest. - Mustafaa 18:35, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

removed {{attention}} tag

I removed the {{attention}} tag. Although the article isn't perfect, and has room to be expanded, it is certainly at least "Wikipedia average in regard to defects" as Wikipedia:Pages needing attention says.

By the way, people who watch this page might be interested in expressing an opinion at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Basic words. Dbenbenn 01:09, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)


Critique page

Also, I'd like to ask people with a background in linguistics to take a look at Critique of Finno-Ugric and Uralic language groups. Regrettably, some of the information listed there simply contradicts assertions made in this article and in Uralic languages. (Please refer to its talk page). This should be resolved properly. Nyenyec 17:30, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You mean it didn't get deleted? How did that happen? - Mustafaa 18:01, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

well, you don't need to be an admin to make it a redirect to this article. Which is what it should be. dab (ᛏ) 18:18, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
it is also what I have done now. the VfD outcomes were 'no consensus', arguably a correct inclusionist interpretation of the vote. The page could still be needed, if substantial material accumulates in the "Criticism" section in this article. Until that happens, these pages should just be redirects. dab (ᛏ) 18:32, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Good call. - Mustafaa 18:33, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)


The issues Antifinnugor raised when he put the "attention" tag on Finno-Ugric languages and Uralic languages have been answered on Wikipedia:Pages needing attention/Linguistics by Ralesk in this comment: [2] I think these were the issues for which AFU felt it necessary to create a separate "Ctitique" article.

Nyenyec 19:27, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It is against WP policy to have two articles about the same subject. This is what the page is at the moment. This is Wikinfo practice, but not permissible on WP. I ask editors to make Critique of Finno-Ugric and Uralic language groups into a redirect to this page. I did, and AFU called me a vandal for that. I want to make sure this is not perceived my personal interest, and restrain myself from reverting for the moment. That I leave the page be for now is no endorsement of its existence. dab (ᛏ) 12:52, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Critique of the Finno-Ugric and Uralic Language Groups

For the following reasons, some linguists criticize the classification of the Finno-Ugric languages and the Uralic family:

  • The primary grammatical similiarity of these languages is agglutination. But agglutination also occurs in non-Finno-Ugric and non-Uralic languages, like Turkish, Basque, Etruscan, Persian, Armenian, and Sumerian.
  • The words of the Uralic and Finno-Ugric languages are very different. This includes the Basic Words, like family words (mother, father, brother, sister), words for body parts, like eyes, leg, hand, foot, neck, etc., words for living environment like house, grass, way, path, and the like, household tools like fork, bottle, and vessel, and foods like bread, fat, corn, and meat.
  • These language categories came into existence at the end of the 19th century and were created by foreigners (no Finns, Estonians, Hungarians or others whose languages are categorized to be in this group). In Hungary the linguist who promoted this group was Joseph Budenz, who learned Hungarian when he was 23 years old, and was never able to speak it on the level of a native speaker. The categories came into existence for political reasons and not for linguistic ones.
  • The speakers of the here grouped languages are anthropologically very different (Finnish and Estonian European, Nordic, Lappic Mixed, North European and Asian, Hungarian European mixed, others Mongolian), this indicates, that these people have never lived together (except Finnish, Estonian and the Mongolian people), and the grammatic similarities are consequences of the Sumerian cultural emission.

Grammar

Typology for Turanian agglutinating languages

Here are the features af all Turanian agglutinating languages listed, including Turkish, Persian, Basque, etc. Here we call Turanian agglutinating languages those languages that reside along the emission line of the Sumerian culture, e.g. Persian, Turkish, Armenian, Basque, Etruscian Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, etc...

Grammatical differences among languages of the Finno-Ugric and Uralic Group

  • Articles
    • Finnish and Estonian have no articles, Hungarian has both determinate (the=a,az) and indeterminate (a = egy) articles.
  • Verbs
  • Nouns
    • Finnish uses the plural even if the sentence clearly indicates that plurality, Hungarian uses the plural inflection only if plurality were otherwise unclear. Example: five boys = öt fiú (five boy) in Hungarian. This is expressed exactly in the same way in Turkish. Japanese goes one step ahead in this concept, and does not build plural at all, uses double words instead, e.g. I see hills = I see hill-hill.
    • Plural markers are very different. Hungarian uses 'k', Finnish -i, -t.
    • Hungarian has and uses 6 levels of endings (ház, házak, házaké, házakéi, házakéié, házakéiétól /=house, houses, belongs to houses, belong to houses, belong to objects, that belong to houses, from objects, that belong to objects, that belong to houses/), Finnish/Estonian have maximal 5 levels.
  • Phonems
  • Finnish features, unknown in Hungarian

Other features

Words

The vocabularies of the Finno-Ugric or Uralic languages are very different. The differences suggest that the people who spoke these languages' ancestors (if any) never lived together, and also suggest, that the grammatic similarities are consequences of the Sumerian cultural emission.

Selected cognates

The following are some cognates from across the Uralic family, which may serve to give an idea of how big are the differences in these languages.

English Finnish Estonian North Sami Mari Komi Khanty Hungarian Nenets
heart sydän, sydäm- süda, südam- čotta, čoddaga šüm- śələm səm szív sēw
lap syli süli salla, sala šəl syl jöl öl -
vein suoni soon suotna, suona šön sən jan (ér) tēn
go mennä, men- minna, min- mannat mija- mun- mən- menni, megy min-
fish kala kala guolli, guoli kol - kul hal xal'ä
hand käsi käsi giehta, gieđa kö ki köt kéz -
eye silmä silm čalbmi, čalmmi šinča śin sem szem sew
leg jalka jalg juolgi, juolggi jol láb laamp(a)
father isä isa áhčči, áhči apa niiśe
fire tuli tuli dolla tul ti̮l tűz tuu
tooth pii püj piń pöŋk, peŋk fog

Bold illustrates words being quite different in form from the other in a line. The word "father", Finnish isä, could be a cognate of the Hungarian word ős (ancestor), but the correct Hungarian word for father is apa. The other problematic word pair is suoni-ér /=vein/. Duo to the completely different word form they are clearly no cognates, therefore is the word (ér) is put into parenthesis.

This table also illustrates, that especially the so called ugric group has very big differences to Hungarian, even though the theory says, they are linguistically nearer to Hungarian, than others in the whole Finno-Ugric/Uralic category.

Finnish, Mordvin, Komi and Hungarian Basic Words

Here some of the Basic Words in Finnish, Mordvin, Komi and Hungarian. The English words are bold for better orientation. The concept of basic words is explained in detail on the Talk:Critique_of_Finno-Ugric_and_Uralic_language_groups#Basic_Words page

English Finnish Erzya Moksha Komi Hungarian English Finnish Erzya Moksha Komi Hungarian
father isä tetja alja baty apa, atya mother äiti ava tjadja mam anya
cloud pilvi pely kovol kümör felhő sky taivas menely menely enezs ég
leg jalka, jalan pilyge pilyge kok láb fire tuli tol tol bi tûz
earth maa, multa moda moda musjar föld forest metsikkö, metsä viry viry vör erdõ
lake järvi, meri eryke eryxke tü tó sea meri inevegy inevegy szaridz tenger
man mies cjora, alja cjora ajlov férfi husband mies mirde mirde verösz férj
wife vaimo ni ryva götür feleség lie valhe kengelemsz käljgotnemsz kuilnü hazugság
person henkilö lomany lomany mort személy grass ruoho tikse tise turun fű
knee polvi kumazsa plmanzsa püdzösz térd child lapsi ejkaks igy celjagy gyerek
tooth hammas pej pej piny fog nose nenä szudo salxka nür orr
tongue kieli kely käly küv nyelv day päivä csi si lun nap

The Mordvin (Erzya) and Komi words are from the Swadesh list. They are there with cyrillic letters, in this table you can see their latin form following the Hungarian phonetic rules.

See also Numbers, Word collection, Another word collection, Word lists, grammars etc..

Swadesh lists of some languages discussed here

207-word Swadesh lists for certain discussed languages can be compared and contrasted at the Rosetta Project website: Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, Erzya (Mordvin), Komi-permyak

Numbers

Here are the numbers from 1 to 10 in Finnish, Estonian, North Sami, Erzya, Mansi, and Hungarian:

Number Finnish Estonian North Sami Erzya Mansi Hungarian
1 yksi üks okta vejke akva egy
2 kaksi kaks guokte kavto kityg kettő
3 kolme kolm golbma kolmo hurum három
4 neljä neli njeallje nile nila négy
5 viisi viis vihtta vete at öt
6 kuusi kuus guhtta koto hot hat
7 seitsemän seitse čieža sisem sat hét
8 kahdeksan kaheksa gávcci kavkso ńololov nyolc
9 yhdeksän üheksa ovcci vejkse ontolov kilenc
10 kymmenen kümme logi kemeń lov tíz

Bold are the words, that are very unsimilar to the rest of the line.

Text illustrating some languages

Finnish: Kaikki ihmiset syntyvät vapaina ja tasavertaisina arvoltaan ja oikeuksiltaan. Heille on annettu järki ja omatunto, ja heidän on toimittava toisiaan kohtaan veljeyden hengessä.

Estonian: Kõik inimesed sünnivad vabadena ja võrdsetena oma väärikuselt ja õigustelt. Neile on antud mõistus ja südametunnistus ja nende suhtumist üksteisesse peab kandma vendluse vaim.

Sami: Buot olbmot leat riegádan friddjan ja olmmošárvvu ja olmmošvuoigatvuoðaid dáfus dássásažžab, Sudhuude kea addib huervnu ha ianedivdym ha vyigjat gakget neabbydut gyunnuudeaset gyivdy vuekhakaš vuoinnain.

Hungarian: Minden emberi lény szabadon születik és egyenlõ méltósága és joga van. Az emberek, ésszel és lelkiismerettel bírván, egymással szemben testvéri szellemben kell hogy viseltessenek.

English: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Finnish and Estonian are clearly very similar, their speakers understand each other in great parts. The others are quite far in appeareance and vocabulary from the above ones.

Summary

The criticizers of the Finno-Ugric and Uralic language groups say, that the languages of these "groups" are clearly related by agglutination and the features, that are common among the Turanian (Sumerian) agglutinating languages. What the criticizers maintain is, however, that these artificial mini groups have very few words common, and no common grammar except of the Sumerian type of agglutination, which is also characteristic for Turkish, Basque, Persian, Etruscan, Armenian and other languages, and therefore it is unlogical and counterproductive to classify them into this artificial, in reality by nothing justified mini groups.

See also

References

End of the critic page

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