Dutch, Scandinavian, Finnish

On Mon, 13 Jun 2005 18:24:46 GMT, "spamfree"
wrote:

I agree, Dutch and Danish are similar but I also remember Icelandic
as being similar to both. Finnish comes from another planet though.

Not another planet. Finnish is related to Estonian and Hungarian.

Did you really think he meant it literally?


************* DAVE HATUNEN ) *************
* Tucson Arizona, out where the cacti grow *
* My typos & mispellings are intentional copyright traps *

spamfree wrote:

When I was in Copenhagen a week ago, I talked with a man who
told me that Dutch and Danish were so similar that he could read
Dutch. He also said that the Dutch language had diverged some-
what verbally, as the ach or auch (or something like that) sounds
made spoken Dutch very difficult to understand. I had no idea
that Dutch and Danish languages were so similar. I always heard
that Norwegian and Danish were very similar, so can Norwegians,
Dutch, and Danish people read each other's newspapers? How
about Swedish?

My first experience with Nordic languages was Finnish, having
traveled there before Scandinavia. I was always greeted with Hei,
pronounced like hay. In Sweden, I was greeted with Hei
pronounced like high, leading me to initially believe that the speaker
recognized me as an American. But they greeted local people the
same way. Do all Scandinavians, including Icelanders, pronounce
Hei like high, with the Finns being the only ones to pronounce it like
hay?


Pete


In Finnish it is written HEI and in Swedish HEJ, both are pronounced "hay".

On Mon, 13 Jun 2005 20:00:37 -0700, Hatunen wrote:

On Mon, 13 Jun 2005 20:14:11 GMT, Deep Foiled Malls
wrote:

On Mon, 13 Jun 2005 18:27:10 GMT, "spamfree"
wrote:

My first experience with Nordic languages was Finnish, having
traveled there before Scandinavia.

Finnish has no relationship with the others at all.

Yes, I knew that. That's why I wrote that Finnish was included in
the set of Nordic languages. I would never have written that Finnish
was included in the set of Scandinavian languages, as Finnish is
related to only Estonian and Hungarian.

Albeit very, very distantly. Finnish and Estonian are not mutually
understood, and they usually communicate with English instead.

Hm. Not my Finish relatives when I go to Estonia with them. It
appears to not be too difficult for Finns to communicate with
Estonians. As part of the Soviet Union the Estonians were blessed
with being able to watch Finnish TV, which they could easily
receive and fairly easily understand.

I was going off the word of a pack of Finns I met in Tallinn. They
told me that the languages only shared a few similar words but the
rest was different.

It all sounded bizzare to me though. Neither sounded like Hungarian to
my ears.
--
---
DFM - http://www.deepfriedmars.com
---
--

Kristian wrote:
wrote:



spamfree wrote:
I agree, Dutch and Danish are similar but I also remember Icelandic
as being similar to both. Finnish comes from another planet though.

Not another planet. Finnish is related to Estonian and Hungarian.


Pete

but what are Estonian and Hungarian related to ?

The "Uralian" family of languages:
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/finnish-intro.html

Kristian

Uralian's, I'm sure they attacked the USS Enterprise in one episode.

Martin wrote:

On 14 Jun 2005 01:28:33 -0700, wrote:



Kristian wrote:
wrote:



spamfree wrote:
I agree, Dutch and Danish are similar but I also remember Icelandic
as being similar to both. Finnish comes from another planet though.

Not another planet. Finnish is related to Estonian and Hungarian.


Pete

but what are Estonian and Hungarian related to ?

The "Uralian" family of languages:
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/finnish-intro.html

Kristian

Uralian's, I'm sure they attacked the USS Enterprise in one episode.

Usually they are dormant in broom cupboards.

Urinalians.....!?

Kristian

Gregory Morrow wrote:
Hatunen wrote:

Not exactly; Finn is also related to a number of obscure
languages scattered in small clusters across northern Asia.



Supposedly Mongolian and even very distantly Korean...


No. The "Ural-Altaic" hypothesis is not widely believed now. Korean is
not definitely related to anything, although some think it's one of the
"Altaic" (Turkish and Mongolian) languages.

Finnish is closely related to Estonian, Saami ("Lappish") and various
languages scattered through northwest Russia. Hungarian is a more
distant relative, more distant still are the Samoyedic languages of the
Russian Arctic. This is the "Uralic" family.

Edmund

In article t.dk,
says...
Martin wrote:

On 14 Jun 2005 01:28:33 -0700, wrote:



Kristian wrote:
wrote:



spamfree wrote:
I agree, Dutch and Danish are similar but I also remember Icelandic
as being similar to both. Finnish comes from another planet though.

Not another planet. Finnish is related to Estonian and Hungarian.


Pete

but what are Estonian and Hungarian related to ?

The "Uralian" family of languages:
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/finnish-intro.html

Kristian

Uralian's, I'm sure they attacked the USS Enterprise in one episode.

Usually they are dormant in broom cupboards.

Urinalians.....!?

Oh, and I thought they were saying "You're an alien!"

Thanks for clearing that up.

"Børre Stokke" wrote in message
news:mNjre.1221$vS6.403@amstwist00...
People from Norway, Denmark and Sweden understand each other without
great
difficulties.
Dutch may be understood if you have some knowledge of German. Finnish is
quite different. Icelandic is Old Norse,

Icelandic is NOT Old Norse. It's the closest of all modern
languages to Old Norse, but it's not Old Norse. Danish and
Norweigian are very similar -- and Swedish likewise. Icelandic,
Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish are all from the "North Germanic"
branch of the Germanic family of languages.

Dutch, like English, is from the "Low German" group of languages
from the "West Germanic" branch. Like English, Frisian, and Low
German, Dutch is not closely related to Danish, and Danish
speakers do not generally understand Dutch just by knowing
Danish.

And as been pointed out, Finnish is not a Nordic language
at all, being related to Estonian, Hungarian, and other
languages from much farther east.




and very difficult for us. In
Norway we pronounce HEI like HIGH.

"tim (moved to sweden)" wrote in message
...

"spamfree" wrote in message
nk.net...
When I was in Copenhagen a week ago, I talked with a man who
told me that Dutch and Danish were so similar that he could read
Dutch. He also said that the Dutch language had diverged some-
what verbally, as the ach or auch (or something like that) sounds
made spoken Dutch very difficult to understand. I had no idea
that Dutch and Danish languages were so similar. I always heard
that Norwegian and Danish were very similar, so can Norwegians,
Dutch, and Danish people read each other's newspapers? How
about Swedish?

My first experience with Nordic languages was Finnish, having
traveled there before Scandinavia.

Finnish has no relationship with the others at all.
My colleagues tell me that they can get by in Norway
and Denmark (possibly because we get Danish TV),
but can't understand a word of Finnish.

tim

"Børre Stokke" wrote in message
news:mNjre.1221$vS6.403@amstwist00...

In Norway we pronounce HEI like HIGH.

Where in Norway would that be? Listen to yourself when you are saying hei --
I'm sure you're not pronouncing it like 'hai' (the fish), which is closest
to the English word 'high'.

Instead you say something like 'haei', don't you.

The Rev Gaston wrote:
On 2005-06-13 19:56:16 +0200, "B=F8rre Stokke" s=
aid:

People from Norway, Denmark and Sweden understand each other without g=
reat
difficulties.
Dutch may be understood if you have some knowledge of German.

I keep hearing this, but I get by understanding Dutch on the basis of
very shaky Swedish, and many things in Dutch seem more similar to
Swedish than German.

If I have another drink I may even remember some examples...

G;

I tried telling some Dutch people that Dutch was very close to German
but they denied it and pointed out a number of differences although
they may have missed the other 99% of similarities.