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ArchivesRe: Some links about Uralic languages
in reply to a message by Andy
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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