User talk:Antifinnugor/Critique of Finno-Ugric and Uralic language groups

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I don't think your argumentation is right.

Lots of false arguments :

The primary grammatical similiarity of these languages is agglutination. But agglutination also
occurs in non-Finno-Ugric and non-Uralic languages, like Turkish, Basque, Etruscan, Persian,
Armenian, and Sumerian.

That doesn't prove that they are unrelated : the germanic family is caracterised by declension of nouns ; latin, greek and russian too ; does that meen that the germanic family is false ?

These language categories came into existence at the end of the 19th century and were created by
foreigners (no Finns, Estonians, Hungarians or others whose languages are categorized to be in
this group). In Hungary the linguist who promoted this group was Joseph Budenz, who learned
Hungarian when he was 23 years old, and was never able to speak it on the level of a native
speaker. The categories came into existence for political reasons and not for linguistic ones.

And what ? The indo-european family was discovered by an Englishman basing himself on Sanskrit, Greek, Latin and Persian. He was neither an Indian, nor a Greek, nor a Latin, nor a Persian. But the indo-european family does exist and is reconized.

Extensive use of independent suffixes, also known as (agglutination)

Also exists in Amerindian languages, so don't tell me it's Sumerian influence.

No noun classes, that is no grammatical gender of words

Like in most languages.

Finnish and Estonian have no article (grammar)s, Hungarian has both determinate (the=a,az) and
indeterminate (a = egy) articles.

"Egy" is the number "one" and "a, az" is a demonstrative, there isn't any real article.

Finnish uses the plural even if the sentence clearly indicates that plurality, Hungarian uses the
plural inflection only if plurality were otherwise unclear. Example: five boys = öt fiú (five boy)
in Hungarian.

This construction using singular after a numeral also exists in finnish.

Finnish ending order is: case ending-ownership ending. In Hungarian ownership ending always precedes
the place, art, or time defining ending, e.g. házának.

English word order is : adjective - noun. French's one is : noun - adjective. They are nevertheless related.

Hungarian has and uses 6 levels of endings (ház, házak, házaké, házakéi, házakéié, házakéiétól
/=house, houses, belongs to houses, belong to houses, belong to objects, that belong to houses,
from objects, that belong to objects, that belong to houses/), Finnish/Estonian have maximal 4
levels, they do not have two level ownership endings.

German has 4 cases of declension, English none. They are nevertheless related.

Finnish conjugates the adjectives with the noun: nices girls, Hungarian does not: nice girls.

German conjugates the adjectives with the noun: nices girls, English does not: nice girls. They are nevertheless related.

Finnish does not have a have verb in the sense of have in "I have a dog", Hungarian has such a verb
(nekem van = I have)
The verb "have" either not existing or seldom used, as in Hungarian

You should not contradict yourself, it's not serious.

Hungarian verbs can easily express, doing something repeatedly or only once for a short time.
(csavar-csavargat-csavarint /= sqeeze, squeeze repeatedly, squeeze once, shortly/). Finnish
misses this concept.

English can easily express, being doing something (I'm talking). German misses this concept. They are nevertheless related.

Finnish contains 17 diphtongs, while Hungarian contains none.

This is only a different way to treat ancient long vowels.

Estonian uses sometimes lots of vocals following each other, like in the sentence: Kuuuurijate
töööö jäääärel. This is not the case for Hungarian

Hungarian would write Kúúrijate tõõ jéérel.

Dual, which means, besides singular and plural there is also a dual (grammatical number) form of
nouns. This is completely unknown in Hungarian.

It has simply been merged with plural, just like indo-european dual extant in latin.

Let's see a bit what you think to be false cognates :

heart      sydän, sydäm-   süda, südam-    čotta, čoddaga  šüm-    śələm   səm     szív    sēw
lap     syli            süli             salla, sala    šəl     syl     jöl     öl      -
eye     silmä           silm            čalbmi, čalmmi  šinča   śin     sem     szem    sew

You can see that North Sami's initial "č" and Mari's initial "š" correspond good to the other languages' initial "s", and passing from one to another of these sounds is very common. We can't say these are false cognates.

hand       käsi    käsi    giehta, gieđa   kö      ki      köt     kéz     -
  • Getting from *käti to "käsi" is called assibilation and is very common.
  • The loss of a final consonant explains "kö" and "ki".
  • "G" and "k" are very similar sounds and are interchangeable, like "t" and "đ". "Gieđa" can be so related to "käsi"
  • We can't say these are false cognates. An aproximation for the original word could be *kjätV, V designateing an unknow vowel.
father     isä     isa     áhčči, áhči                             apa     niiśe
The word "father", Finnish isä, could be a cognate of the Hungarian word ős (ancestor), but
the correct Hungarian word for father is apa.
  • Don't you see "-iśe" in "niiśe" ?
  • Words don't need to mean exactly the same thing to be cognates : words may change sense, for exemple, the french abri "shelter" comes from a word signifieing "to take a sunbath" !
  • We can't say these are false cognates.
fire       tuli    tuli    dolla   tul     ti̮l            tűz     tuu

"T" and "d" are very similar sounds and are interchangeable, like "o" and "u", so "dolla" corresponds perfectly to "tuli" with moreover the same change of final vowel we saw between "gieđa" and "käsi".

1  yksi    üks     ütś     okta    ohta    vejke   ikte    akva    egy     
2       kaksi   kaks    katś    guokte  kyeh´ti kavto   kokət   kityg   kettő   
3       kolme   kolm    kolm    golbma  kulma   kolmo   kumət   hurum   három   
4       neljä   neli    nelli   njeallje nelji  ńiľe    nələt   nila    négy    
5       viisi   viis    viiś    vihtta  vitta   veƭe    wizət   at      öt      
6       kuusi   kuus    kuuś    guhtta  kutta   koto    kuδət   hot     hat     

Just take a look to the reconstructed proto-uralic words, that perfectly explain your supposedly false cognates, according to basic well known linguistic rules : *ykte, *kakte, *kolm-, *neljä-, *vit(t)e, *kut(t)e.

7  seitsemän       seitse  čieža   sisem   sat     hét

Getting from "s" to "h" is a well known linguistic phenomenon, also found in greek : *so > ho /the/.

10         kymmenen        kümme   logi    kemeń   lov     tíz

You have there two roots, each language keeping one (cf indo-european oinos and sem, both meaning "one"). Hungarian "tíz" is an indo-european loan.

Finnish: Kaikki ihmiset syntyvät vapaina ja tasavertaisina arvoltaan ja oikeuksiltaan. Heille on
annettu järki ja omatunto, ja heidän on toimittava toisiaan kohtaan veljeyden hengessä.

Estonian: Kõik inimesed sünnivad vabadena ja võrdsetena oma väärikuselt ja õigustelt. Neile on
antud mõistus ja südametunnistus ja nende suhtumist üksteisesse peab kandma vendluse vaim.

Sami: Buot olbmot leat riegádan friddjan ja olmmošárvvu ja olmmošvuoigatvuoðaid dáfus
dássásažžab, Sudhuude kea addib huervnu ha ianedivdym ha vyigjat gakget neabbydut
gyunnuudeaset gyivdy vuekhakaš vuoinnain.

Hungarian: Minden emberi lény szabadon születik és egyenlõ méltósága és joga van. Az emberek,
ésszel és lelkiismerettel bírván, egymással szemben testvéri szellemben kell hogy viseltessenek.

English: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with
reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Finnish and Estonian are clearly very similar, their speakers understand each other in great
parts. The others are quite far in appeareance and vocabulary from the above ones.

English : All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Feroian : Øll menniskju eru fødd fræls og jøvn til virðingar og mannarættindi. Tey hava skil og samvitsku og eiga at fara hvørt um annað í bróðuranda.

These languages don't like similars, but they are undoubtedly related.


All this proves that you do not at all know anything about linguistics, so don't come and say us ""you're wrong"", you don't know what you're talking about. -- Sajasaze 18:54, 12 May 2006 (UTC)