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Post by finsobruce on Mar 2, 2015 18:15:04 GMT
Estonian and Hungarian are roughly as closely related as are English and Sanskrit. i meant the link between Finnish and Hungarian....just in case this was misunderstood. |
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Post by Devil Wincarnate on Mar 2, 2015 19:15:52 GMT
My Finnish colleague agrees that Estonian is "Finnish gone mad".Not sure what Estonians think... There is apparently one more case and one more letter, but is comprehensible. The much quoted link with Hungarian does not mean Finns can understand it...oh no. Some Hungarian and Finnish grammar is apparently remarkably similar despite there being no mutual intelligibility. Both, for example, have vowel harmony when adding case endings. |
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john07
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Post by john07 on Mar 2, 2015 23:32:54 GMT
My Finnish colleague agrees that Estonian is "Finnish gone mad".Not sure what Estonians think... There is apparently one more case and one more letter, but is comprehensible. The much quoted link with Hungarian does not mean Finns can understand it...oh no. Some Hungarian and Finnish grammar is apparently remarkably similar despite there being no mutual intelligibility. Both, for example, have vowel harmony when adding case endings. I do recall discussing this sitting in a bar in Copenhagen in the company of a Swede, a few Danes, a Finn and a Hungarian. Apparently they found one word in common with the two languages. Finnish and Estonian was a very different case. I also found it interesting to hear the Swede conversing with the Danish bar staff, all speaking their own language. |
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Post by East Anglian Lefty on Mar 3, 2015 0:43:35 GMT
Some Hungarian and Finnish grammar is apparently remarkably similar despite there being no mutual intelligibility. Both, for example, have vowel harmony when adding case endings. I do recall discussing this sitting in a bar in Copenhagen in the company of a Swede, a few Danes, a Finn and a Hungarian. Apparently they found one word in common with the two languages. Finnish and Estonian was a very different case. I also found it interesting to hear the Swede conversing with the Danish bar staff, all speaking their own language. It's the old thing of a language being a dialect with an army. Swedish and Danish are basically the same language, just with different pronunciation and slightly more Low German influence on Swedish. Similarly, written bokmål Norwegian is to all intents and purposes Danish and spoken Oslo Norwegian is like Copenhagen Danish pronounced by an Englishman. Mutual intelligibility is much easier than between English and doric. |
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Post by Devil Wincarnate on Mar 3, 2015 8:52:32 GMT
Bokmal is a bit of a joke really- and Nynorsk too for that matter.
Nynorsk reminds me of Ulster Scots.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 3, 2015 15:03:02 GMT
I tend to speak a vague approximation of conservative Oslo Norwegian wherever I am in Norway, Sweden or Denmark.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 4, 2015 3:07:34 GMT
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