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Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5180 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian
| Message 177 of 541 04 September 2012 at 5:47pm | IP Logged |
Chung, what about writing your own material in English? If you get hold of at least 3 different sources and a good dictionary you can write a solid reference without risking plagiarizing the sample sentences.
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| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7170 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish
| Message 178 of 541 04 September 2012 at 5:54pm | IP Logged |
Expugnator wrote:
Chung, what about writing your own material in English? If you get hold of at least 3 different sources and a good dictionary you can write a solid reference without risking plagiarizing the sample sentences. |
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Sorry, I don't quite follow you.
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| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5180 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian
| Message 179 of 541 04 September 2012 at 6:06pm | IP Logged |
Writing a textbook on your favorite veriety of saami, or on a minor finno-ugric language. Since you're not a native speaker, you can't produce things like genuine dialogues, but you can use a dictionary, learn a lot about the models used at other textbooks, write your own grammar explanations based on the amount you've learned from several books.
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| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7170 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish
| Message 180 of 541 04 September 2012 at 6:40pm | IP Logged |
Expugnator wrote:
Writing a textbook on your favorite veriety of saami, or on a minor finno-ugric language. Since you're not a native speaker, you can't produce things like genuine dialogues, but you can use a dictionary, learn a lot about the models used at other textbooks, write your own grammar explanations based on the amount you've learned from several books. |
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The problem is that I don't know any of those languages to a sufficiently high level in order to put together a coherent reference on that level. In addition, reference material for lesser-known Uralic languages is beginning to accumulate which reduces the need for me to do what should be the linguists' work. For example, the course in Mari appeared only a couple of years ago and is an ongoing project with a dictionary and the second volume of the textbook in the works. In another example, Giellatekno now hosts a short descriptive grammar in English for Northern Saami. A year ago this existed only in Norwegian and Northern Saami and was another reason why I happily posted my notes for each chapter of Davvin 1 & 2 for people who know English rather than Norwegian.
However I have thought about adapting and expanding my posts on Finno-Ugric languages here into a short guide for anyone interested in the languages. A lot of the books on the subject that I see meant for non-specialists are just straight textbooks or reference books for learning one language such as "Finnish: An Essential Grammar", "Davvin" or "Halló, itt Magyarország". The material for specialists is predictably dense and often only tangentially useful to someone who just wants to learn how to read, write and speak the language (e.g. "The Uralic Languages: Description, History and Foreign Influences", "The Syntax of Hungarian").
What I'm thinking is creating something closer to "Common and Comparative Slavic Phonology and Inflection: Phonology and Inflection : With Special Attention to Russian, Polish, Czech, Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian" or "From Latin to Romance in Sound Charts" but for a handful of Finno-Ugric languages and even shorter but more accessible to someone interested in learning one of these languages by taking advantage of findings from comparative linguistic research without getting dragged into the theoretical disputes and academic nit-picking by people who in my view take themselves too seriously.
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| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5180 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian
| Message 181 of 541 04 September 2012 at 6:47pm | IP Logged |
I see your point. It's nice to know that the resources for finno-ugric languages are increasing.
Today I went to the library and I found the Hungarian edition of a book I own, which was originally written in French and more commonly used in Brazil. I had to resist buying it because I had already bought a lot, but if I ever decide to learn Hungarian I'd pick a lot from that book since I know several passages in Portuguese by heart and I could easily male comparisons. It's the same as if I learned from the Bible in Georgian, for instance.
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| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7170 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish
| Message 182 of 541 05 September 2012 at 4:37am | IP Logged |
caam_imt wrote:
Hey thanks for your answer! It will be cool if you can find some info about the other
languages relationship with Finnish, but don't sweat on it, it's not that urgent :)
Do you think that there's certain overlap with the Turkic languages of the area? I
remember somebody suggesting that certain Finno-Ugric languages had some Turkic features
but I can't really tell, since I haven't studied any. |
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I've read about some such influence on the F-U languages in central Russia, and it makes sense since languages don't exist in figurative bubbles if their speakers interact with speakers of different languages.
For example, I found the following remarks in a summary on stress in Finno-Ugric languages on the webpage of the Department of Finno-Ugric studies at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest.
http://finnugor.elte.hu/index.php?q=hangs wrote:
A finnugor nyelvekre (és még sok másikra) a dinamikus hangsúlyozás jellemző (nagyobb és kisebb hangerő váltakozása).
Más nyelvekben előfordul a zenei hangsúlyozás (pl. kínai, a magas vagy mély tónussal emelnek ki).
A hangsúlyos szótag helyét illetően napjainkban a finnugor nyelvek nem egységesek, de statisztikailag az első szótagi hangsúlyozás az uralkodó:
Finn-permi nyelvek
Balti finn és lapp: első szótag
Moksa-mordvin: rendszerint az első szótag (kivétel: i, u, redukált magánhangzó)
Erza-mordvin: tetszőleges (régen ua. volt, mint a moksában)
Cseremisz irodalmi nyelv: utolsó teljes hang (ha minden magánhangzó redukált, akkor az első hangsúlyos, ugyanez van a csuvasban = török hatás)
Votják: utolsó szótag (tatár hatás)
Zürjén: kötetlen, az első szótagi a leggyakoribb
[...]
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Rough translation:
For Finno-Ugric languages (and many others), dynamic stress is characteristic (i.e. the alternation between greater or lesser volume)
In other languages tonal distinctions are characteristic (e.g. Chinese exhibits high and low tones).
The placement of stress in the modern Finno-Ugric languages as a whole is not uniform but stress being fixed on the first syllable is the predominant pattern.
Finno-Permic languages:
- Balto-Finnic and Saamic: First syllable
- Moksha: First syllable as a rule (but as exceptions not if the first syllable has i, u or a reduced vowel)
- Erzya: Can fall on any syllable (in the past it was the same as in Moksha)
- Literary Mari: Last syllable that consists of a full vowel (if all vowels are reduced, then the first syllable - of Turkic influence as it is the same principle as in Chuvash)
- Udmurt: Final syllable (Tatar influence)
- Komi: Can fall on any syllable but stress on the first syllable is the most common placement.
***
Christopher Culver's blog also has several entries on Turkic and Finno-Ugric contacts which could be of interest.
- Hungarian-Old Chuvash contacts
- Turkic influence on Mari
- The uncertain etymology of Mari plural markers I
- The uncertain etymology of Mari plural markers II
- Mari and Chuvash days of the week
- Last year, this year, next year
- Исторические связи чувашского языка с языками угро-финнов поволжья и перми (the post isn't in Russian despite the title which is translatable as: Historical links of Chuvash with the Finno-Ugric languages of the Volga River and Perm)
- The peculiar replacement of the basic GO verb in Mari and Chuvash
- Furs for a kopek
- Udmurt and Tatar days of the week
- Two Turkic idioms in Mari
I've also noticed that Meadow Mari regularly uses SOV which I know is typical also of Turkic languages. Whether this tendency in Mari is because of Turkic influence I'm not sure, but I wouldn't be surprised and it sure stands out from the syntax of the other Finno-Ugric languages that I've studied. Estonian, Finnish and Saamic often uses SVO in declarative sentences while Hungarian's word order eludes a simple classification of SVO or SOV as it's governed by a principle where the element of the sentence that is deemed most important by the user is placed immediately before the verb (or the sentence begins with the verb).
In addition, the lexical stock of most Finno-Ugric languages contain items found in Turkic languages and these are usually ascribed as loanwords from Turkic. I know that about 10% of Hungarian's word roots have been traced to Turkic, and these aren't restricted to specialized terms (e.g. gyermek "child", disznó "pig", búza "wheat", tenger "ocean", térd "knee", gyomor "stomach", szék "chair"). As you can see, Culver briefly discusses various Turkic elements found in Finno-Ugric languages around the junction of the Volga and Kama rivers.
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Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6717 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map
| Message 183 of 541 05 September 2012 at 11:04am | IP Logged |
Writing for publication is one thing, but making a collection of examples with your own personalized setup for the rules could also function as a learning tool. I did this when I was studying French, and even though the resulting 'miniature grammar' wasn't meant for prying eyes some parts of it served as a base for some articles I wrote about specific grammatical topics - and I got an excuse for thinking hard about grammar. With your knowledge about some rather obscure languages this collection might even be useful for other learners.
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| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7170 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish
| Message 184 of 541 05 September 2012 at 5:40pm | IP Logged |
Iversen wrote:
Writing for publication is one thing, but making a collection of examples with your own personalized setup for the rules could also function as a learning tool. I did this when I was studying French, and even though the resulting 'miniature grammar' wasn't meant for prying eyes some parts of it served as a base for some articles I wrote about specific grammatical topics - and I got an excuse for thinking hard about grammar. With your knowledge about some rather obscure languages this collection might even be useful for other learners. |
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I have done this to a certain degree already under "Intelligibility to people speaking other languages" in the language profiles that I've compiled but as I noted earlier I suppose that I could always expand them in addition to reorganize them partially along the schemes used in those books for other language groups whose links are above.
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