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ArchivesRe: Why are the Finns called Finns?
in reply to a message by Lassia
Thanks so much, Lass! - But can we get even beyond "Fennic"? Or "Kvenland"? Does anybody know, what these two names originally mean? (Like "Svear" for Sweden)
Andy ;—)
Andy ;—)
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Replies
In English, a 'Fen' is a marshland or swamp. I have no idea if they're related but it might be a place to start looking :-)
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Finnia is not Latin
You are right. - But why did the Romans call that tribe "Fenni"? Tacitus, as far as I understand, is the only source for this ("Germania" 46). He itemizes the neighbouring tribes of the Teutons, here in chapter 46, north and east of the Suebes, so he talks about the tribes of the "Peucini", "Venethi" and "Fenni" and he is not sure whether these belong to the "Germani" or to the "Sarmati" (interesting, because the Sarmates seemed to have lived near to where now Hungary is, but this may be coincidence, everything got mixed up quite a bit in the following centuries).
Whenever Tacitus names a tribe, he uses the term they use themselves. So I am pretty sure that "Fennia" or whatever is not a Latin word.
Andy ;—)
You are right. - But why did the Romans call that tribe "Fenni"? Tacitus, as far as I understand, is the only source for this ("Germania" 46). He itemizes the neighbouring tribes of the Teutons, here in chapter 46, north and east of the Suebes, so he talks about the tribes of the "Peucini", "Venethi" and "Fenni" and he is not sure whether these belong to the "Germani" or to the "Sarmati" (interesting, because the Sarmates seemed to have lived near to where now Hungary is, but this may be coincidence, everything got mixed up quite a bit in the following centuries).
Whenever Tacitus names a tribe, he uses the term they use themselves. So I am pretty sure that "Fennia" or whatever is not a Latin word.
Andy ;—)
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Hmm . . . maybe, maybe not. The line along which I was thinking was that perhaps since Suomi is thought to possibly mean "marsh", there might be a link between "Fennia" and the English "fen", since a fen is a type of marsh. I babelfished 'fen' and found that in German it's 'fenn', so perhaps there was a Germanic language spoken by a people nearby the 'Fenni' who called the Suomi (people from the marsh) the same thing, but using their own version of the word marsh, which was a variation on 'fenn'. Since they would have been conquered/approached first it's entirely possible that Tacticus would have used the Germanic name rather than Suomi.
Am I making any sense? Lol. I'm trying to talk about a time period on which I'm very rusty (although I did study it, archaeologically anyway!).
Am I making any sense? Lol. I'm trying to talk about a time period on which I'm very rusty (although I did study it, archaeologically anyway!).
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Lol - that didn't help! :-D
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Well possible! So it would be like with the "Germani", whose name was probably coined by the Celts (meaning "neighbour"). So the Fenni may have been the "marsh people" in some Germanic language, as a translation of the name the Finns gave to themselves (when?).
There used to be a German word "Fenne" meaning "swamp", but it's not in use any more. The Grimm dictionary says that there was still "fehn" and "fenne" around in their time (mid 19th cent.), but it has now died out completely.
I don't know much about the history of the Finnish people and what happened to them during the migration of nations. I have always wondered why their language is related to Hungarian and obviously to nothing else.
Andy ;—)
There used to be a German word "Fenne" meaning "swamp", but it's not in use any more. The Grimm dictionary says that there was still "fehn" and "fenne" around in their time (mid 19th cent.), but it has now died out completely.
I don't know much about the history of the Finnish people and what happened to them during the migration of nations. I have always wondered why their language is related to Hungarian and obviously to nothing else.
Andy ;—)
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Finnish IS related to other languages than Hungarian. It is one of the Uralic languages which are divided into Samoyedic languages and Finno-Ugric languages. Other Finno-Ugric languages, obliviously, are closer to Finnish than Samoyedic languages.
Some information about them:
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/society/A0818716.html
http://www.fact-index.com/f/fi/finno_ugric_languages.html
http://www.helsinki.fi/~tasalmin/fu.html
Some information about them:
http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/society/A0818716.html
http://www.fact-index.com/f/fi/finno_ugric_languages.html
http://www.helsinki.fi/~tasalmin/fu.html
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Some links about Uralic languages
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9109786&query=uralic%20languages
http://www.suri.ee/uralic.html
And Uralic languages related to Altaic languages:
http://berclo.net/page03/03en-altaic-uralic-lang.html
http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=9109786&query=uralic%20languages
http://www.suri.ee/uralic.html
And Uralic languages related to Altaic languages:
http://berclo.net/page03/03en-altaic-uralic-lang.html
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Yes, of course Finnish is related to other languages, but not to those you might expect, if you don't know anything about languages. A couple of years ago I was really surprised to learn that Finnish is related to Hungarian. I understand both languages are pretty heard to learn. What about the Uralic languages? Can you speak any of those?
Andy ;—)
Andy ;—)
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Finnish is my mother tongue and I have studied Estonian but it was a long time ago. It`s interesting how similar these two languages are. You can read something in Estonian and understand most of it but a word can mean complete different thing than in your own language. For example kannatus means support, approval in Finland but suffering in Estonia. Also Karelian is quite the same kind as Finnish so they can be easily found relatives.
I don`t think Uralic languages are too hard to learn. They are just different than Indo-European languages (sentence structures etc.). And there has always been interaction between Indo-European and Finno-Ugric languages which has had its impact on the vocabulary.
I don`t think Uralic languages are too hard to learn. They are just different than Indo-European languages (sentence structures etc.). And there has always been interaction between Indo-European and Finno-Ugric languages which has had its impact on the vocabulary.
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I must also add that Finnish is said to be the 'icebox' of (Indo-)European languages. Over the centuries, the interaction between the Finnish people and the rest of Europe has made quite an impact in the Finnish language. A number of originally Indo-European structures and words have survived 'deep-frozen' in Finnish, relatively unchanged. A text-book example is the Finnish word 'kuningas' (king). Etymologists have reconstructed the original Indo-European form to be *kuningaz. The word was obviously borrowed into Finnish at an early stage. In other languages, the present-day words deriving from that root have obviously gone through major changes: 'king' (English), 'König' (German), 'kung' (Swedish) etc.
Lass
Lass
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