Talk:Critique of Finno-Ugric and Uralic language groups

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[edit] deletion vote

For a December 2004 deletion debate over this page see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Critic of Finno Ugric and Uralic language Groups

I set up the critics on a different page to avoid reversions without end. Antifinnugor 20:45, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia knows of other ways to avoid reversions without end, but let's not argue about that.
which one(s)? Antifinnugor 17:37, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
A separate article might be a good idea, I don't know. More to the point, the article includes the following sentence:
More and more linguists criticize characterization of some languages as being in the Finno-Ugric and Uralic Group.
At present, only two linguists are known to subscribe to and endorse this 'Critic of Finno-Ugric and Uralic language Groups', namely Maracz and Marcantonio. I think that using the phrase 'more and more' in this context is a little tendentious. What do you think? — mark ✎ 00:42, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
It has been changed. However,there are more than the two, since the theory is so unlogical. For example Mr. Bakay Kornél, a Historican. Antifinnugor 17:37, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Is this page presenting original argumentation (not appropriate on Wikipedia) or summarizing arguments already published in scholarly journals? Ben Kovitz 11:46, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It presents a summary of arguments of scholars, linguists and also historicans. The finnougric/uralic theory is so erroneous, that it has never been freely accepted by anybody, who thinks. Antifinnugor 17:37, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
At the moment, the References section still only has the two usual suspects, Marcantonio and Marácz. Since the Finno-Ugric grouping "has never been freely accepted by anybody", it should be easy to present many references. Could you please expand this section? Dbenbenn 21:03, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Problems with this article

IANALinguist, but I see a number of problems with this page. Several of these issues have been discussed already at Talk:Finno-Ugric languages and Talk:Uralic languages.

The current text says that Hungarian has a verb "to have" ("van"). This has been discussed at Talk:Uralic languages#About "have" in Hungarian and it is simply incorrect. (AF has never provided any sources that support this.)

You say in Hungarian "van egy kutyám"= I have a dog. What sources do you need other, than the language itself? Antifinnugor 15:48, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The "Selected cognates" table has some changes compared to Uralic languages#Selected cognates like listing the Hungarian word "apa" as a cognate with the Finnish "isä" which is incorrect. They mean the same thing but are not cognates.

There is also no explanation why some of the entries in the table are bold.

OK, It is now explained that in the article. Linguistical books usually show differences by bolding the very different words in words tables, that try to illustrate similarity, for the sake of correctness. Antifinnugor 15:48, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Again, I'm no linguist but I'm not sure whether quoting a sentence from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a proper way to educate the reader about language families. There is absolutely no reference to comparative linguistics, or regular sound changes.

The texts illustrates the languages. That's why they are there. The Finnish and Estonian ones are quite similar, aren't they? Antifinnugor 15:48, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I would guess that I could write a very similar article "criticizing" the Indo-european language group if I switched Finnish and Estonian to English and German and Hungarian to Hindi or maybe even Polish. I strongly believe that these word lists and quoting the UDHC are not the arguments that serious linguists would use. (I guess not even the supporters of the Turanian theory.)

Well, languages are words and rules, how we create text out of words, what we call grammar. If two languages are related, both the words and the grammar need to be related somehow. In this group the word relation is absolutely marginal, and also the grammar has only one common feature, agglutination, which is also present in other languages in the same style. THat information is stressed here. Antifinnugor 15:48, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

AF also writes the following: "many grammatical cases (Turkish, Finnish) or no grammatical cases at all (Hungarian)". This is another topic that has been discussed over and over: Talk:Uralic_languages#Cases_in_Hungarian.

I find it unfortunate, that some of the information simply contradicts assertions made on the other two pages.

So do I. Antifinnugor 15:48, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This page says Hungarian has no cases but Uralic languages says it has 24 cases or more. Both pages list this as a fact. The cognate tables also contradict each other. This is just not right.

Exactly that's why this page must exist. Just to present more correct information for this "group", or at least no one-eyed information. Antifinnugor 15:48, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

So these are the problems I can spot as a layman. I'd like to see what editors with a background in linguistics think.

And don't even get me started on the POV wording.

Nyenyec 01:15, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)


[edit] goto

Talk:Finno-Ugric languages. This page is an offshoot of the discussion there. dab (ᛏ) 18:26, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

bachman, you never contributed anything in the subject, except hate, defamation and deletions. Now you add one more- vandalism. Your redirection is simply vandalism, and illustrates, that you do not even understand the subject. Sorry for you, as you are an absolutely incorrect person. Please do not vandalize, this is no good for vikipedia. Thanks, Antifinnugor 09:00, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

this page is a fork of Finno-Ugric languages. You simply copied stuff from there, and made your own povvy version here. This would be ok on Wikinfo, it is not ok here. dab (ᛏ) 12:48, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] WP:RM discussion

[edit] Critic of Finno Ugric and Uralic language Groups → Critique of Finno-Ugric and Uralic language Groups

  • Critic is the improper term, critique is the proper term. Critic was copy pasted to critique.... So there's also duplicated content (not a redirect, yuck. The edit history is at critic, so that needs to be moved over. 132.205.15.43 03:56, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Support, but with greater support for Smyth's capitalisation version. Oberiko 16:42, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Support, but with Smyth's capitalisation. Guettarda 17:11, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Support but fix capitalization per Smyth. —Tkinias 22:44, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Removing ér from the table of cognates

I removed ér from the table of cognates. I don't know of anyone who thinks that ér is cognate with suoni. The last time ér was added to the table [1], the edit summary was

ér is now bold to indicate, it is no cognate with suoni. OK, Dbennben? Otherwise this would indicate, we do not know the Hungarian word for vein.

On the contrary, as the article explains immediately after the table,

Bold illustrates words being quite different in form from the other in a line.

Since the table is described as a table of cognates, it should regardless only have cognates in it. Dbenbenn 20:59, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

OK, Dbenbenn, in this case the whole "vene" line needs to be removed. Is that what you want? In fact, in all lines are very unsimilar words. Do you believe, that in this "language group" there are no cognates at all? I did not want to be that direct, and I did not want to simply delete that table, because there are some really lightly similar words. However, ér and suoni have nothing in common, as do some other words in the list likewise. I put now ér back in ()-s, since Hungarian has a word for vene. I disagree with removing ér from the list, because that would suggest, that Hungarian has no word for vene, which is a nonsense. What do you suggest otherwise? Removing the whole line? But why to remove Finnish's simularity with other languages? Or do you agree with the () and comment solution? Antifinnugor 07:41, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I checked that list again. The words jan and ten are also clearly not cognates with suoni. Why do you attack the word ér, and not those? The complete cognate list is quite full of non-cognates. I should like to understand the logic here. Antifinnugor 11:28, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Question on cognates

The section on cognates contains the following comment:

Bold illustrates words being quite different in form from the other in a line. The word "father", Finnish isä, could be a cognate of the Hungarian word ős (ancestor), but the correct Hungarian word for father is apa.

When talking about cognates, it is entirely irrelevant what the present Hungarian word for father is. Since languages can be developing apart from each other for a very long time, it is not surprising at all to find that a shift in meaning has occured. Given that, the comment contains the proper Hungarian cognate of Finnish 'isä', namely 'ös', 'ancestor'. If no persuasive argument can be given to the contrary, it would be best in my humble opinion to change the bolded 'apa' in the table to the most probable cognate 'ös'.

I would not agree with that, since that would indicate, that father means ős in Hungarian, which is incorrect. This article is for the English speaking reader, therefore the English words in front of the lines should match with the meaning of the words in the line. Even cognates should bear similar meaning, anyway, therefore if the word "table" in language A is "boy", and the word "table" in an other language B means "tree", the words table are not cognates in language A and B and do not prove any kind of relation. Antifinnugor 07:49, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Thanks for your answer. I am afraid I do not understand you. Do you contend that cognates in different languages have to have exactly identical meanings? That would be rather strange, since it seems clear to me that meanings can change over time. Also, if you take that view, you are holding a definition of cognate that is really very different from the usual definiton of cognate in linguistics (see the article). I have the feeling that your boy/table example is not the best analogy — certainly 'father' and 'ancestor' are much closer to each other than table and boy. From a semantic/historical linguistic point of view, it is not surprising at all to see word meanings that are drifted away from each other like this. So I think your argument is not persuasive enough; I don't understand why you would want to keep a arguably clear cognate out of the table of cognates.

[edit] Finnish scientists

The Finnish scientists K. Wiik, A. Künnap, K. Julku, Meinander also criticize the Finno-Ugric/Uralic dogma. Antifinnugor 09:00, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Basic Words

In order to find out, if languages are related, linguits created sets of basic words, that are typically used by people living in a simple environment, like family words (mother, father, brother, sister), words for body parts, like eyes, leg, hand, foot, neck, etc., words for living environment like house, grass, way, path, and the like, household tools like fork, bottle, and vessel, and foods like bread, fat, corn, and flesh.

For example, the similarity of the Indoeuropean languages, in this example English and German was based besides of grammatical similarities on the similarity of basic words like Mother (Mutter), Father (Vater), child (Kind), brother (Bruder), sister (Schwester), garten (Garden), house (Haus), water (Wasser), flesh (Fleisch), book (Buch), and the like.

[edit] To the redirectors

Since the criticism of the finno-ugric groups does not contain:

  • The historical background of these groups (Joseph Budenz & Co)
  • The typology of the Turanic languages
  • The differences between the uralic languages
  • Basic word list of the Uralic group
  • Sample texts of these languages
  • reference to Dr Marácz-s article about the unteniability of these groups

and

  • The cognate list contains erronous words

It cannot be considered as a useful information for those, who want to understand, why these groups are unteniable.

Also this article criticizes both the finno-ugric and the uralic groups, which are in fact the same, therefore a redirection to the finno-ugric page is completely incorrect. The typology is one of the woundest point of the finno-ugric/uralic groups.

And also the so called critics text of the fino-ugric page is more critics of the critic, it is not sufficient as a real critic, and no good user information. If we merge the articles, and this text, exactly as it is here, can go into the uralic text, without reverting orgias and zynical deletions, then it is ok from me. If it works for 6 months satisfactory, then I agree with that. Otherwise, it makes no sense. Antifinnugor 16:57, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I do not want to censor any of this. Budenz and Marácz can go on the main article, if we can agree on a npov wording. typology and sample texts should go to the individual language articles. and there can be articles with specific swadesh lists, e.g. Swadesh list of Finnish and Hungarian. This should just be a list, and not make any claims about "untenability". dab (ᛏ) 16:22, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Please put link to the Marácz article into both articles. Please also put reference about Budenz to the pages, that is essential. Then the Swadesh list-Yes, please do that. There is Komi, Mordvin, Finnish, Estnish and Hungarian available in the Swadesh Table. You should set up a correct and full Swadesh list. At least all the words, that Komi contains, should be in the table, best alphabetic. You may use my list. This illustrates a lot. You do not need to write about untenability, leave that to the reader of wikipedia. Antifinnugor 16:52, 26 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Protection

I've protected this page, as per request. Please work out any issues here. Jayjg | Talk 17:43, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

why was this unprotected? there was no agreement with afu, and the reverts will just continue. dab (ᛏ) 12:24, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
See Special:Log/protect. silsor 12:28, Jan 2, 2005 (UTC)
so User:Michael Snow has summarily unprotected pages because of "Happy New year!"? I am afraid I do not see the connection. dab (ᛏ) 13:00, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)
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