Nukkua, istu alas, sy?d?, rentoutua

[Hella]

a) nukkua
b) istu alas
c) sy?d?
d) rentoutua

a) min? voin
b) minun t?ytyy
c) min? voin
d) min? tulen

Hella

[Daniela]

Hi,
Just out of curiosity - what kind of language is this?
Thanks.
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[Conchita]

[Alan]

Hi,

Help us finish it! Or is that the end?

Alan
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[Conchita]

[Daniela]

Hi Conchita,
Thanks for enlightening me. I realize the words are a translation of the answers and somehow they seem like Hungarian to me (although I am well aware this is not Hungarian language). In fact, if I think about it, Finnish and Hungarian do belong to one and the same language family, don't they?
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[Spencer]

Hey All,
That's right, in school We've been tought Hungarian and Finnish both belonge to the "Finnugor language-family" although we don't understand any of their words.
Spencer

[Spencer]

Hey All,
That's right, in school We've been taught Hungarian and Finnish both belonge to the "Finnugor language-family" although we don't understand any of their words.
Spencer

[Jamie (K)]

Finnish and Hungarian both belong to the Finno-Ugric language family, as Spencer says. A friend who studied at the university of P?cs told me that the language closest related to Hungarian is Samoyedic, which is spoken in Siberia, I think. All of them are members of the larger Ural-Altaic language family, which includes Turkish and Korean, and it's suspected that Japanese is distantly related to them.

[Spencer]

If you speak Hungarian then is really hard to belive that those languages have anything to do with ours.
Anyway, they are probably right, they are the experts.
By the way, is that possible that there was one main language, and divided to those families?
As I've heard, this Finno-Ugric language stuff is an old theory, actually it's not true at all.
(just like evolution)
Spencer

[Conchita]

All this is very interesting and completely new to me. I always erroneously thought that, like the Basque language, Finnish was of unknown origin. Well, well, see there!

[Jamie (K)]

In "linguistics school" they taught us about the Finno-Ugric and Ural-Altaic language families as if the theories were still current and correct. I believe they still teach it in Hungary as if it were still valid, so I think that experts still believe it.

The theory absolutely is that there was an original language long ago that branched out into Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, Turkish, Korean, etc., but at one point or other disappeared. These languages differ a lot -- probably more than members of other language families -- because the original language, and the newer languages, were spoken by nomadic tribes for many centuries, and geographic distance is what creates those large degrees of variance.

Keep in mind that English, Swedish and German are descended from the same original language, but they're not mutually intelligible either. The various dialects of Arabic are generally not very mutually intelligible. Speakers of Spanish and Romanian can't come close to understanding each other, and their grammars are hugely different. So languages from the same family can be very different but still have structural and phonological features in common.

When I lived in Europe, a college student in my neighborhood spent the summer in the remote Upper Altaic Republic. When she came back, someone asked her, "What kind of language do they speak there?" Based on exposure to Hungarian, Finnish and Turkish, I started babbling some nonsense that I thought sounded like an Ural-Altaic language. The student looked surprised and said, "How did you know it sounded like that?!"

[Spencer]

As I've noticed, if they are still teaching something it doesn't mean that's the latest, and best theory, they just can't update ,and build a new system right away.
( who knows?)
For me, if I hear any of these languages You were talking about, It's so easy to hear the difference between them.
In America there are only two main languages actually, that could be the reason why you guys feel this way.
I was in the gym in Canada, a Russian guy came in and brought a CD. It was Ramstein, a really hard German band.
The trainer was a friend of mine,came up to me, and asked me if I liked this Russian music. He couldn't make difference between these two thouroghly different languages.
I don't think it could ever happen in Europe.
Spencer

[Jamie (K)]

Well, I at least know that the latest, best theory is definitely NOT that Finnish and Hungarian would be unrelated. It's simply not what historical linguists believe and have proven. And the theory that Korean is distantly in the same language family is a century or two newer than the idea that Finnish and Hungarian are related. The similarities go deeper than the average person walking down the street will be able to detect from hearing the languages spoken.

I found it kind of weird that you'd assume the same level of language knowledge on the part of a gym trainer and my PhD linguistics professors, who are always up on the most current linguistic theory.

[Spencer]

Don't get me wrong, I really have no idea what is the current theory of the languages at all.
I only said that what I've heard from a friend of mine who is actually getting her degree just now (the second one)
so according to her, the professors tell them this new theory in class.
(She happens to be here at the moment)
What I mean to say, just because they are teaching it , it is not the latest FOR SURE. They could be wrong again, right?

I didn't think if someone is a gym-trainer then he's got the same knowledge of languages as a professor.
Nor did I write
Spencer