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From: jbdp@jenny.UUCP (Julian Pardoe)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Hor.Hacking Finn./Eston./Hung./Turk.
Message-ID: <273@jenny.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 28-Oct-85 08:41:42 EST
Article-I.D.: jenny.273
Posted: Mon Oct 28 08:41:42 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 1-Nov-85 01:32:20 EST
Organization: U of Cambridge Comp Lab, UK
Lines: 95
Xpath: kcl-cs neon
In his good (if a little confusing) article dick@tjalk.UUCP (Dick Grune)
writes:
> They have awfully long words, by our standards.
The standard example being the Turkish avrupalilastirilamiyanlardan-
siniz (no dots on the i's, cedilla under the first s): you are one of
those who are incapable of being Europeanized -- sounds like an
artificial creation, but of course in Ataturk's day Europeanization was
a hot topic, and words like this do come naturally to speakers of these
languages.
The word is parsed avrupa-li-las-tir-il-ami-yan-lar-dan-siniz or
Europe--become-cause----unable--being--
-from-`you are'.
(Lots of `Lar's and `Ler's are usually a sure sign of Turkish, by the
way, as are `den's and `dan's.)
> Note: Finnish is by far the most difficult language I've seen, no
> insult intended.
Yes! My Teach Yourself Finnish gives twenty rules for the formation of
the plural stem and soime fifteen or more for the formation of the
genitive plural! However many of the forms such as `miesten' as the
genitive plural of the stem `miehe-' are predictable once you get
familiar with the language.
Something that wasn't mentioned in the `softening' of consonants that
takes place in Finnish and Estonian. In Finnish there are three
series, basically tt -> t -> d; pp -> p -> v; kk -> k -> 0/v/j.
Basically a consonant is softened when the syllable which it starts
becomes closed (i.e. changes from CV to CVC). Thus the genitives of
pojka (boy) and kirkko (church) are pojan and kirkon. Often assimilation
takes place: ranta (shore) -> rannalla (on the shore).
Ranta shows what the Finns do with consonant clusters: this word comes
from the Swedish strand. Skruntch would probably end up in Finnish as
ransi. The Finns have only a small number of consonants -- no `b', no
`d' except as a way of spelling the softest form of `t', no `f', no `g'
except to spell a long `ng' sound (Helsinki -> Helsingin just as ranta
-> rannan), no sh (except in a few borrowed words), no z (I'm not even
considering letters like `q'), so we have words like kirahvi (giraffe),
tohtori (doctor), Ranska (France, or Prantsu in Estonian; they've no `f'
either!)
Estonian uses the letter ~o (pronounced as a Russian hard i: `bI').
It's most unusual feature is that whereas F. and H. make do with two
grades of length Estonian has a third: over-long, though this isn't
represented in spelling except for the `t', `k' and `p' sounds, where
the series are (in the order short-long-overlong): d-t-tt, g-k-kk,
b-p-pp. (Like F. E. doesn't distinguish between voiced and voiceless
consonants, so the letters `d', `g' and `b' are spare.) Softening of
consonants seems (to me anyway) much less regular than in F: more
variations are possible, and the cause (i.e. closing of a syllable)
isn't so obvious. This maybe because the word endings have been worn
down. As Dick Grune points out the Estonian word is often the Finnish
word with the last vowel cut off. Put this vowel back and you get the
genitive, which is the base for other cases in the singular (Tallinn ->
Tallinna (gen) -> Tallinnas (in T.), Finnish Tallinna -> Tallinnan /
Tallinnassa; E. laev (ship) -> laeva, Finnish laiva) -- which suggests
to me that maybe the genitive has an ending like the Finnish `-n' but
this got worn away: this would explain the softening which often occurs
in the genitive of a noun (sport -> spordi).
One of the distinguishing features of these languages is vowel harmony
(though modern Estonian has lost it). F. and H. basically divide the
vowels into two classes: front and back, and suffixes endings occur in
front and back forms. Thus in H. (to choose rather artificial examples)
we have f"ustetlen (smokeless) and h'azatlan (houseless). In Finnish
`a', `o' and `u' are front vowels, with `"a', `"o' and `y' as their
back equivalents. `E' and `i' are neutral (though tending towards front
vowels). Thus Oulussa (in Oulu), Helsingiss"a (in Helsinki), vuodelta
(from the year), vedelt"a (from the water).
Turkish has a more complex scheme. Basically there are two harmony
families: a / e (``two-fold harmony'') and \i / i / u / "u (``fourfold
harmony'', where \i is the dotless i); and the rules are
after 2 4 from (= dan^2) our (= [i]miz^4)...
a, \i a \i father: baba-m\iz-dan
e, i e i house: ev-imiz-den
u, o a u car: oto-muz-dan
"u, "o e "u bridge: k"opr"u-m"uz-den
I could go on...
Julian Pardoe
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