Posted by kristaga
A lot of people might wonder why such a thing as Norwegians exist at all living in a country of ice. This is a story written by Odd Børretzen and translated by Katherine M. Pickering. As Esato is a Norwegian invention this might be of interest. Also explaining the ice-blue colours of the Esato web pages. I'll show you the first lines here, then you should go to http://www.columbia.edu/~kmp30/boerretzen.html#english to read the whole story!
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The First Norwegian
by
Odd Børretzen
[Excerpted from The Norwegian People's Sorrowful Life and History (1968).]
Our story began about 10,000 years ago. It was then that the ice age began to recede, and The First Norwegian packed up his family, followed the melting glaciers north, and we were on our way.
Already at this point we, his descendants, are sitting and gazing mournfully out over a typewriter, pondering what might have become of us, his descendants, if he hadn't happened to do just that. If he had gone about doing something completely different. Stayed put on the continent where he was born. Began plucking grapes in the hill country. Perhaps taken up a trade of some sort. Or, if he had to wander, wandered south, maybe taking part in the decline and fall of Rome.
Let's try to draw ourselves a picture of The First Norwegian. It is no small task to create an accurate portrait. Curiously, in many historic works he is not mentioned at all.
Nevermind, we don't know what he looked like. We don't know what his name was. But nevertheless we do know quite a bit about him. About his intelligence, his sensitivity, his status in his tribe. Let us take a look at the situation as it stood shortly before he made his celebrated and fateful decision:
Scandinavia was covered by several hundred meters of thick, layered ice. The First Norwegian lived his hardy life with his tribe near these icy regions, in an area south of Jutland. In the cold gusts from the glaciers, he existed in a kind of fog of sickness and melancholy.
Slowly the glaciers began to shift and melt and pull back north, grumbling all the way. This caused a more habitable climate to begin forming in The First Norwegian's homeland.
What does The First Norwegian do now?
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I will stop here, because the story is copyrighted, read the rest at http://www.columbia.edu/~kmp30/boerretzen.html#english
[ This Message was edited by: kristaga on 2004-07-21 23:51 ]
Posted by BobaFett
@kristaga takk! Det er fantastisk.
Posted by axxxr
Did'nt know u spoke norwegian boba?
Posted by BobaFett
Takk is on norwegian, the other is danish, what i speak and understand a bit.
Posted by Atlis
boba you are hungarian, aren't you? So if you are, you are supposed so understand finnish a bit too, don't you?
Posted by BobaFett
No, i dont understand it. Indeed, we had a kind of relationship a very long time ago, some touches between tribles, but thats all.
Posted by kristaga
Finnish and Hungarian have drifted apart during the millenia. They have a common ancestor, Finno-Ugric, but they had a split there. From this diagram
made by me you can see what the Finno-Ugric family looks like. I guess Bobbafett would recognize some words like an Englishman would recognize some words in Greek. I also think Finnish and Hungarian have a grammatic system which can be recognized. But a Finn can (with some practice) understand Estonian. The Finn would also recognize lots of words in Saami.
The word "three" (3) in Finnish is "kolme". In Estonian "kolm" and in Northern Saami "golme".
The word "News" in Finnish is "Uutiset". In Northern Saami "Oððasat". I leave to Bobbafett to supply the same words in Hungarian. They will most probable be quite different.
Have you ever encountered the languages Khanty and Mansi? Mansi is considered the closest relative to Hungarian: http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=MNS
[ This Message was edited by: kristaga on 2004-07-21 12:39 ]
Posted by BobaFett
3 means hàrom, news means hìr. The chanti and mansi tribals (finno ugric) lived in the former sowietunion, so this finnish hungarian connection was forced by the socialists and communists to use it as a link to the big brother. We came here from china, got even with japanese more to do then the finns.
Posted by kristaga
A cut-out of some parts of the following web-page:
http://www.histdoc.net/sounds/hungary.html
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THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE FINNISH AND THE HUNGARIAN LANGUAGES
Gyula Weöres (1935)
When a Finn and a Hungarian meet usually either one asks: Is it true that the Finnish and the Hungarian languages are related? This kind of question is hardly asked when lingustically closer speakers like Finns and Estonians meet, because they understand each other to some extent even though they both speak their own languages. But the relationship between Finnish and Hungarian is completely different. It only means that they belong to the same linguistical family, it is at the closest something like how the English language is related to the German language. To recognize a linguistical relationship of this kind requires linguistical expertise and is beyond the competence of a layman.
This can even lead to really significant misinterpretations. I comment some of them here. A Hungarian journalist visited Finland some months ago and noticed with astonishment how far away Finnish and Hungarian are from each other, even though they are supposed to be related. He was, however, very pleased to discover this word in Finnish: l a a t i k k o (box), with the same meaning as the Hungarian l á d i k ó. But he didn't notice that they both were loanwords, from different languages. A Finnish tourist was very disappointed when he was told that the Finnish word t a r k k a (accurate) has a different meaning from the Hungarian t a r k a (motley).
If they had allotted a little bit more time to acquaint themselves to Finnish-Hungarian vocabulary comparisons resulting from linguistical research, they had noticed, in addition to those astonishingly close similarities, that there are even a bigger number of related words which are not right away recognized as such, e.g., Hung. k é z (hand) = Finn. k ä s i , Hung. v é r (blood) = Finn. v e r i, Hung. m é z (honey) = Finn. m e s i, Hung. s z a r v (horn) = Finn. s a r v i, Hung. v a j (butter) = Finn. v o i, Hung. e l e v e n (alive) = Finn. e l ä v ä, Hung. m e n n i (to go) = Finn. m e n n ä, Hung. r e p e d (to be torn) = Finn. r e p e ä ä etc.. which give a direct hint to a common origin. To notice similarities between Hung. f e j (head) = Finn. p ä ä, Hung. f é s z e k (nest) = Finn. p e s ä, Hung. f é l (to be afraid) = Finn. p e l k ä ä, Hung. f a k a d (to become fulfilled) = Finn. p a k a h t u a and other words is considerably more difficult, if you are not aware that the letter f in the beginning of the word regularly match the Finnish p. Or, the letter n in Finnish is often replaced by ny in Hungarian, as in Finn. n i e l l ä (swallow) = Hung. n y e l n i, Finn. m i n i ä (daughter-in-law) = Hung. m e n y. The long õ, met in the end of a Hungarian word, has previously been a diphtong öü or eü and even more previously ev. The consonant v in this is still often met in words like, e.g. Hung. k õ [the accusative case k ö v e t ] (stone) = Finn. k i v i , Hung. t õ (tree base) = Finn. t y v i and Hung. v õ (son-in-law) = Finn. v ä v y.
What is the cause for these dissimilarities and is it possible to prove a relationship between the Hungarian and the Finnish languages at all? First of all, we have to notice the very large geographical distance between the peoples, one living on the coast of Gulf of Finland and the other one living in the Danube valley. Secondly, the separation of these two peoples took place a very long time ago. The scattering of the Finno-Ugric family of peoples from their ancestral home occurred about c. 4,500 years ago, this can be compared to the divergence of Germanic languages only ab. 2,000* years ago.
And furthermore, one should not forget that there are nine completely independent Finno-Ugric languages (Finnish, Sami, Mordvin, Cheremis/Mari, Zyryan/Komi, Votyak/Udmurt, Ostyak/Hanty, Vogul/Mansi and Hungarian) forming a language chain with seven intermediate links separating Finnish and Hungarian at the opposite ends of this chain. This is not of little importance. If we look for the number of common words, only ab. 200 words with counterparts in Finnish can be found in Hungarian, but between Hungarian and the Vogul/Mansi the number is two times bigger, approximately 400 words, a significant number if you compare it to a vocabulary of 5-600 words used by an uneducated man from countryside.
The two hundred common words for both Finnish and Hungarian belong to the oldest stratum of the basic language representing staple words needed in everyday language and describing simple concepts: parts of the human body, family members, natural phenomena, elementary tools, hunting and fishing etc. The related words in Hungarian are not, of course, precisely similar to the corresponding Finnish words. During the separation of 4,500 years all sorts of modifications took place in both languages, both in phonetics and sometimes also in the meaning of the word. Loanwords from foreign languages also diversified the development of the sister languages, sometimes, however, leading to a common source in Latin, Germanic or Slavic languages even though being borrowed from different languages.
In addition to common words, one of the hardest feature to resist any changes has been the very structure of the language, the similarity of grammar, especially the similar system for inflection of words and deriving new words which gives the most important proof of a linguistical relationship, . Word endings are very typical to Finno-Ugric languages, they are much more common there than in Indo-Germanic languages. Even multiple endings can be attached to words making it possible to create words bearing a resemblance to an anaconda, like in Finnish t u n t e m a t t o m u u d e l l a n i ("ignorance-with-my", with my ignorance) = Hung. t u d a t l a n s á g o d d a l or Finn. u i s k e n t e l e m a s s a, ("swimming-being-when", when doing the swimming) = Hung. ú s z k á l g a t v á n.
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Finally I put out a few simple sentences in Finnish and in Hungarian for comparison:
Jég alatt télen eleven halak uszkálnak.
Jään alla talvella elävät kalat uiskentelevat.
(Ice under in-winter living fish swim = In wintertime living fish swim under the ice)
Kivistä verinen oli vävyn käsi.
Kövektõl véres volt veje keze.
(By-stone bloody was brother-in-law's hand = Stones had made the brother-in-law's hand bloody.)
Árva szeme könnyel tele.
Orvon silmä kyyneliä täynnä.
(Orphan's eye tears full = The orphan's eye, full of tears).
Ken meni meidän edessämme?
Ki ment mi elöttünk?
(Who went us before? = Who went before us?)
Miniäni antoi voita.
Menyem adott vajat.
(Daughter-in-law-my gave butter = My daughter-in-law gave butter)
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Posted by BobaFett
Impressive job @kristaga.
Posted by bahbahsupercar
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What kind of touching?
Posted by BobaFett
@bahbahsupercar not that way u are thinking... Btw its a nice thread, we should go off it.
Posted by bahbahsupercar
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I am English and the only Greek I understand is Kebab, Pitta and Chilli sauce. Please enlighten me
Posted by Vlammetje
Many many many contemporary words in 'western' languages are derived from greek. Words such as bureaucraty or indeed any word ending in -craty, theology, telescope, to name a few. Tele meaning far and scopos meaning to see or view if I'm not mistaken. There are countless words like that.
Posted by BobaFett
@kristaga the changed name of thread is very nice of u. Takk.
Posted by kristaga
Eng. - Greek
mother - mitera
father - pateras
one - ena
two - dyo
three - tria
my - mou
star - asteri
grass - grasidi
The similarity is clear. It is because both originate from Indo-European, which is farther back in time than the common ancestor of Finnish and Hungarian, so the similarities of Hungarian and Finnish are probably more frequent. English (and other European languages) has (have) also a lot of newer loan words from Greek:
Examples:
Eng. - Greek.
field - agros (which in English have become the root of agriculture)
politics - politiki
graph - diagrama (which in Egnlish have become diagram)
A linguist would probably know more. I'm just an amateur.
Edit: Vlammetje explained my last point better than me.
[ This Message was edited by: kristaga on 2004-07-22 10:40 ]
Posted by BobaFett
Only japanese and hungarians use family name first and given name as second.
Posted by kristaga
I think the Chinese also do that.
Posted by Atlis
@boba - the question I asked - if you understand finnish was because my girlfriend is hungarian and she is able to understand few words in finnish... Of course not everything, but she does... I was surprised that you said no I don´t...
Posted by BobaFett
Got u, well, there are some identical words, but thats all. To tell the truth i am more interested for the ujgur connection, a chinese tribal, its where we actually came from and the link to japanese.
Posted by Atlis
Honestly boba I know only few things about your history - Atilla
hero...
Posted by Vlammetje
Chinese (and possibly other asians too) do indeed use family names first as well. And sorry for boba, the relation between the japanese and the hungarians is even thinner than that between finnish and hungarians. :-) Pronounciation between hungarian and finnish is so different that I'd be suprised to find they'd be able to have a spoken conversation. Reading a few words might be possible, but I don't think speach is possible for the untrained individual. I knew a Hungarian in Finland. Didn't grasp a word
Posted by Atlis
@Vlamm - I see, she isn´t able to speak or understand whole conversation... that was my point
Posted by BobaFett
Bloodtest by a japanese professor gave very identical result between the 2 nation.
Posted by Vlammetje
Oops wrong post!
[ This Message was edited by: Vlammetje on 2004-07-22 17:31 ]
Posted by Vlammetje
Meant to ask you what you mean by 'bloodtest'
Surely ones blood says nothing about ones cultural and linguistic background. So what are you talking about?
Posted by Atlis
@Vlamm - replationship between Hungarians and Japanese
Posted by BobaFett
He tested cromosomes, structure of gens, blood etc i was on a very interesting conference of it some years ago.
Posted by kristaga
As Vlammetje says, common genes don't say anything about the language. As far as I remember is the Finnish people not of Ural-Altaic stock, but they took the language from people living in that area earlier.
Still, it is of course interesting if Hungarians and Japanese share some of the same genes.
Atlis, show your girlfriend the web page I quoted. Maybe interesting for her.
_________________
Einn Hringur ræður þeim öllum, einn skal hann hina finna,
einn skal hann safna þeim öllum og um sinn fjötur spinna.
Úr Hringadróttinssögu Tolkiens
[ This Message was edited by: kristaga on 2004-07-23 00:05 ]
Posted by BobaFett
Its just an apart of the whole story, if i ll have pc gonna post here more details. Language is continualy changing. The hungarian is one of the hardest in the world, contains many segments of different other languages. We came here from the other side of the world and its to recognize in our traditions, cultur, behavour etc the vikings changed many cultures by their oversea visit.
Posted by Vlammetje
Boba, the way I see it, and there are scientists out there (although not necessarily japanese ones :p ) that support the idea, that ALL modern man stem from one relatively small tribe that lived on the African continent and from there spread around the world. In other words: if you were to investigate the link between Siberians and Zulus, when you in back far enough I am convinced you'd find a common factor. This does NOT mean they have anything in common culture-wise.
Posted by Vlammetje
Ran out of space on that post. Moral of my story is that science can prove or disprove a whole lot of things depending on what we look at and what we omit.
I have a different question for you though: reading your replies so far, it appears to me as if you wish for a strong connection of your people to the Japanese, and you resist possible shared roots with the Finns. And I cannot help but wonder why.
Also I wonder what makes you say 'we came from Asia' suggesting you were the only ones. To be continued...
Posted by Vlammetje
Ran out of space on that post. Moral of my story is that science can prove or disprove a whole lot of things depending on what we look at and what we omit.
I have a different question for you though: reading your replies so far, it appears to me as if you wish for a strong connection of your people to the Japanese, and you resist possible shared roots with the Finns. And I cannot help but wonder why.
Also I wonder what makes you say 'we came from Asia' suggesting you were the only ones. To be continued...
Posted by Vlammetje
Your people, just like all neighbouring people, are a mixture of tribes from Asia and tribes that were already there (wherever they came from)
What separates you from them is not your blood, not your religion, not your culture but your language. Like it or not
Posted by BobaFett
Indeed, i am more interested to the asia connection, the finnish link is the only mentioned and forced one generally, i am bored of it. We lived with turkish tribals aswell, the northern link is just an apart of our history, not the basic of it.
Posted by Vlammetje
Nobody claims it is.