| Author |
The first Norwegian, or why are we here? or What is the difference between Finnish and Hungarian? |
kristaga
Joined: Mar 12, 2002
Posts: 141
From: Norig/Norway
PM, WWW
|
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!
+ + + + + + + + + + + + +
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?
+ + + + + + + + + + + + +
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 ] | |
|
BobaFett
Joined: Jan 06, 2004
Posts: > 500
From: Kamino (wish it would be Lund)
PM, WWW
|
@kristaga takk! Det er fantastisk.
This message was posted from a T630 |
axxxr
Joined: Mar 21, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: Londinium
PM, WWW
|
Did'nt know u spoke norwegian boba? 
[addsig] |
BobaFett
Joined: Jan 06, 2004
Posts: > 500
From: Kamino (wish it would be Lund)
PM, WWW
|
Takk is on norwegian, the other is danish, what i speak and understand a bit.
This message was posted from a T630 |
Atlis
Joined: Dec 09, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: European Union
PM, WWW
|
boba you are hungarian, aren't you? So if you are, you are supposed so understand finnish a bit too, don't you?
no cellphone... |
BobaFett
Joined: Jan 06, 2004
Posts: > 500
From: Kamino (wish it would be Lund)
PM, WWW
|
No, i dont understand it. Indeed, we had a kind of relationship a very long time ago, some touches between tribles, but thats all.
This message was posted from a T630 |
kristaga
Joined: Mar 12, 2002
Posts: 141
From: Norig/Norway
PM, WWW
|
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 ] |
BobaFett
Joined: Jan 06, 2004
Posts: > 500
From: Kamino (wish it would be Lund)
PM, WWW
|
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.
This message was posted from a T630 |
kristaga
Joined: Mar 12, 2002
Posts: 141
From: Norig/Norway
PM, WWW
|
A cut-out of some parts of the following web-page:
http://www.histdoc.net/sounds/hungary.html
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
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.
{CUT}
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)
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
[addsig] |
BobaFett
Joined: Jan 06, 2004
Posts: > 500
From: Kamino (wish it would be Lund)
PM, WWW
|
Impressive job @kristaga.
This message was posted from a T630 |
bahbahsupercar
Joined: Mar 24, 2004
Posts: 248
From: Newcastle upon The Tyne
PM |
Quote:
|
On 2004-07-21 11:02:59, bobafett wrote:
No, i dont understand it. Indeed, we had a kind of relationship a very long time ago, some touches between tribles, but thats all.
This message was posted from a T630
|
|
What kind of touching?
Tanz wenig Zirkuszwerg tanz!
ja OH- ja! |
BobaFett
Joined: Jan 06, 2004
Posts: > 500
From: Kamino (wish it would be Lund)
PM, WWW
|
@bahbahsupercar not that way u are thinking... Btw its a nice thread, we should go off it.
This message was posted from a T630 |
bahbahsupercar
Joined: Mar 24, 2004
Posts: 248
From: Newcastle upon The Tyne
PM |
Quote:
|
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.
|
|
I am English and the only Greek I understand is Kebab, Pitta and Chilli sauce. Please enlighten me
Tanz wenig Zirkuszwerg tanz!
ja OH- ja! |
Vlammetje
Joined: Mar 01, 2003
Posts: > 500
From: Den Haag
PM, WWW
|
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.
This message was posted from a Z600 |
BobaFett
Joined: Jan 06, 2004
Posts: > 500
From: Kamino (wish it would be Lund)
PM, WWW
|
@kristaga the changed name of thread is very nice of u. Takk.
This message was posted from a T630 | |
|
Access the forum with a mobile phone via esato.mobi
|
Posted: 2004-07-20 22:50
