Register  Login  Active Topics  Maps  

German, Dutch, Swedish, etc.

 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages Post Reply
23 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3  Next >>
mick33
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5704 days ago
1335 posts - 1632 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Finnish
Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish

 
 Message 9 of 23
12 November 2009 at 7:57pm | IP Logged 
mike92s8 wrote:
Well I'll tell you this, Finnish isn't related to any of those other languages. That one is kin to Hungarian.

Not really. Finnish and Hungarian are both Finno-Ugric languages, and may have been very similar thousands of years ago, but now only a linguistic mastermind would be able to spot more than a very few recognizable words that aren't recent Indo-European loanwords. They are about as similar to each other as English or German are to Sanskrit. Just for the sake of comparison, here are two versions of the Lord's Prayer:

Finnish:
Isä meidän, joka olet taivaissa.
Pyhitetty olkoon sinun nimesi.
Tulkoon sinun valtakuntasi.
Tapahtukoon sinun tahtosi myös maan päällä niin kuin taivaassa.
Anna meille tänä päivänä jokapäiväinen leipämme.
Ja anna meille anteeksi velkamme,
niin kuin mekin annamme anteeksi velallisillemme.
Äläkä saata meitä kiusaukseen,
vaan päästä meidät pahasta.
(Sillä sinun on valtakunta
ja voima ja kunnia iankaikkisesti.)
Aamen.

Hungarian
Mi Atyánk,
ki vagy a mennyekben,
szenteltessék meg a Te neved;
Jöjjön el a Te országod;
legyen meg a Te akaratod,
mint a mennyben, úgy a földön is.
A mi mindennapi kenyerünket, add meg nekünk ma;
és bocsásd meg vétkeinket,
miképpen mi is megbocsátunk azoknak,
akik ellenünk vétkeztek;
És ne vígy minket kísértetbe,
de szabadíts meg minket a gonosztól,
mert tiéd az ország és a hatalom
és a dicsõség mind örökké.
Ámen!

my source.


Edited by mick33 on 13 November 2009 at 1:38am
2 persons have voted this message useful



cordelia0507
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5618 days ago
1473 posts - 2176 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*
Studies: German, Russian

 
 Message 10 of 23
12 November 2009 at 8:52pm | IP Logged 
Frankly I don't know why they are said to be similar.
It doesn't SOUND the same and it doesn't LOOK the same.

Anyone knows the Lords Prayer in Estonian?
It would be interesting to see if that looks more similar to Finnish. I suspect it will - they are a LOT more similar than Finnish and Hungarian anyway. Apparently with a bit of good will Finns can guess a lot of Estonian..
1 person has voted this message useful



Gusutafu
Senior Member
Sweden
Joined 5301 days ago
655 posts - 1039 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*

 
 Message 11 of 23
12 November 2009 at 9:02pm | IP Logged 
mick33 wrote:
mike92s8 wrote:
Well I'll tell you this, Finnish isn't related to any of those other languages. That one is kin to Hungarian.

Not really. Finnish and Hungarian are both Finno-Ugric languages, and may have been very similar thousands of years ago, but now only a linguistic mastermind would be able to spot more than a very few recognizable words that aren't recent Indo-European loanwords. They are about as similar to each other as English or German are to Sanskrit.


That's exactly what he said, they are kin. Just like English and Sanskrit.
3 persons have voted this message useful



mick33
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5704 days ago
1335 posts - 1632 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Finnish
Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish

 
 Message 12 of 23
12 November 2009 at 11:19pm | IP Logged 
cordelia0507 wrote:
Frankly I don't know why they are said to be similar.
It doesn't SOUND the same and it doesn't LOOK the same.

Anyone knows the Lords Prayer in Estonian?
It would be interesting to see if that looks more similar to Finnish. I suspect it will - they are a LOT more similar than Finnish and Hungarian anyway. Apparently with a bit of good will Finns can guess a lot of Estonian..
I think Finnish and Hungarian are said to be similar because they share some of the same basic grammatical characteristics such as vowel harmony, the use of postpostions rather than prepositions and words can inflected by multiple case suffixes. Hungarian has more vowels, more postpositions, and more case suffixes which are entirely different from the ones found in Finnish. I don't know Estonian at all; but a brief look at the Lord's Prayer makes me think you may be correct about Estonian being more similar to Finnish. Just for further comparison here is the Lord's Prayer in Estonian from the same site as before.

Meie Isa, kes Sa oled taevas,
pühitsetud saagu Sinu nimi.
Sinu riik tulgu,
Sinu tahtmine sündigu
kui taevas nõnda ka maa peal.
Meie igapäevane leib anna meile tänapäev.
Ja anna andeks meile meie võlad,
kui ka meie andeks anname oma võlglastele.
Ja ära saada meid mitte kiusatuse sisse,
vaid päästa meid ära kurjast:
sest Sinu päralt on riik, ja vägi, ja au igavesti,
Aamen.

Edited by mick33 on 12 November 2009 at 11:23pm
1 person has voted this message useful



mick33
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5704 days ago
1335 posts - 1632 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Finnish
Studies: Thai, Polish, Afrikaans, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish, Swedish

 
 Message 13 of 23
12 November 2009 at 11:24pm | IP Logged 
Gusutafu wrote:
mick33 wrote:
mike92s8 wrote:
Well I'll tell you this, Finnish isn't related to any of those other languages. That one is kin to Hungarian.

Not really. Finnish and Hungarian are both Finno-Ugric languages, and may have been very similar thousands of years ago, but now only a linguistic mastermind would be able to spot more than a very few recognizable words that aren't recent Indo-European loanwords. They are about as similar to each other as English or German are to Sanskrit.


That's exactly what he said, they are kin. Just like English and Sanskrit.
I interpret kin to mean closely related, so my point still stands though I suppose I should have made that clearer in my first post in this thread.

Edited by mick33 on 12 November 2009 at 11:28pm
1 person has voted this message useful





jeff_lindqvist
Diglot
Moderator
SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6689 days ago
4250 posts - 5710 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, English
Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 14 of 23
13 November 2009 at 12:20am | IP Logged 
Gusutafu wrote:
She may be good at languages, but she is no star at pronounciation. After more than 30 years in Sweden, she still sounds very foreign. Well, at least she's better than Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, who became Charles XIV John. Apparently he never learnt any Swedish at all.


Oops, I intended to add something like "...but it seems as she's still struggling with pronunciation".

I'd expect more (at least a little more) from someone having worked as an interpreter, lived in the country for decades and being regarded as "good at languages".
1 person has voted this message useful



cordelia0507
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 5618 days ago
1473 posts - 2176 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*
Studies: German, Russian

 
 Message 15 of 23
13 November 2009 at 1:50am | IP Logged 
Yeah --- compare Queen Silvia's accent with the Norwegian accent of Alexander Rybak's parents.

I saw an interview with them. His mother was doing most of the talking.
She sounded almost native.

Apparently she moved to Norway from Belarus in 1991 and didn't know any Norwegian (obviously). she didn't mention whether she knew German or English, but it seems unlikely that she did -- at least to a high level.



1 person has voted this message useful



Heinrich S.
Groupie
Germany
Joined 6716 days ago
63 posts - 85 votes 
Studies: French

 
 Message 16 of 23
13 November 2009 at 9:52am | IP Logged 
As someone who speaks English and learned German, I don't think it's normal to understand much, if any, spoken Dutch or Scandinavian languages from only knowing German and English. Written Dutch will be maybe 30-50% intelligible without studying it explicitly (sentences are pretty hit and miss). Reading a Scandinavian language could probably be compared to a difficult German text for you right now, one a little beyond your current ability (reading a difficult novel). It takes a level of concentration, but it's possible to figure things out. With exposure, you pick up German-Scandi equivalents (such as kein/ingen) from context. I don't think it would take much effort to gain a basic ability in either Dutch or a Scandinavian language, but it would be pretty rare to get it without at least some study or immersion. I'm thinking of studying Swedish myself because of that, even though I don't have any need for it.

Edited by Heinrich S. on 13 November 2009 at 9:55am


2 persons have voted this message useful



This discussion contains 23 messages over 3 pages: << Prev 1 2 3  Next >>


Post ReplyPost New Topic Printable version Printable version

You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum


This page was generated in 0.6094 seconds.


DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved
No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization.