At first I thought it was Indo-European simply because all the other languages from Northern Europe are, but after looking at a copy of The Kalevala I'm starting to have my doubts.
2007-09-09 18:11:32 · 5 answers · asked by Z, unnecessary letter 5 in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
Finnish belongs to a different family of languages often called "Uralic" along with Estonian, Livonian (Western Latvia), Lappish (Northern Scandinavia) Karelian, Permian and Veps (Northern Russia) and even, more distantly, Hungarian.
However, all of these languages are full of loan words from Indo-European languages , primarily Germanic and Slavic. Germanic has even influenced the structure of Estonian to some extent while Slavic has influenced the syntax of Hungarian, especially in the use of words like 'meg' and 'volna'.
Some linguists think that the Uralic languages may be distantly related to Indo-European on one side and to the Tungus, Eskimo, Korean and Japanese languages on the other. They even think that Proto-Indo-European may have started out as a dialect of Finnish.
Certainly, a few words are similar between Uralic and Indo-European. For example the Finnish and Estonian words for name "nemi" and the Hungarian word for name, "név" are similar to the root word for name *nama / nome- in Indo European languages. However, this is still just speculation. More evidence is needed.
Not all people who are of Finnic stock speak Finnish. Some have gone over to Swedish and Norwegian. There also appears to be a Balto-Finnish element in the Polish and German populations, even the Irish population. So, the Finns are actually a very important people.
2007-09-09 19:57:06 · answer #1 · answered by Brennus 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Finnish isn't related to many languages. Its closest relatives are Estonian and Saami, the native language of Finland and Scandinavia. Its vocabulary, for the most part, is entirely different from most other languages, especially those in Europe. It has taken some loanwords from Swedish and English, but other than that, you really have to memorize the vocab. The grammar system is also much different. There are 15 cases for nouns. Some of these show location, possession, etc. There are also other general suffixes with many uses, such as some that mean "my" or "your," one that means "also," and several others like that. It also follows a rule of "vowel harmony," contributing to its sound. Front vowels and back vowels rarely exist in the same word. The hardest part, coming from someone studying the language, is that there is something called consonant gradation. The consonants will change if certain suffixes are added. It's hard, but it follows certain patterns that are easy to predict.
2016-05-21 00:18:40 · answer #2 · answered by ? 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Nope, it's a Finno-Ugric language (along with Hungarian, Estonian and some rarer languages). The bigger group that it belongs to is Uralic.
2007-09-09 18:34:39 · answer #3 · answered by Misanthropist 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Nope, Finno-Ugric, no relation. (The Ugric is for Hungarian.)
But just looking at a language superficially is not necessarily a good indicator of far-back relationship. I mean, would you really comment how much alike Gaelic and Latin are?
2007-09-09 18:21:45 · answer #4 · answered by georgetslc 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
is not...
it is quite different language family...
Uralitic
the same with
Hungarian
Estonian
"Lapponish"
(I don't know how to write.. it Lappish?)
and other langauges in cold deepness of russian Empire
2007-09-10 02:25:20 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋