7 ms·

Finnish is one of the few European languages with no connection to Latin

by seesomesense 10y ago

Spearchucker 10y ago
One of two, I believe. The other being Hungarian.
- fulafel 10y ago
  Celtic languages, Estonian is another Fenno-Ugric one, Sami, there are lots.
  - DonaldFisk 10y ago
    Celtic languages (Scottish Gaelic, Irish, Manx, Welsh, Cornish, and Breton) are all distantly related to Latin, and probably closer to Latin than other branches of Indo-European. Basque is a language isolate spoken in parts of Spain and France. There's also Turkish - part of Turkey is in Europe, but not in the EU.
    - frobozz 10y ago
      Though Basque is an isolate, it has a lot of Latin-origin loan words, due to centuries of contact.
    - rbanffy 10y ago
      I live in Ireland and I can tell you Irish has very little to do with Latin. Those who say Hungarian is hard have never been here.
      - DonaldFisk 10y ago
        An bhfuil Gaeilge agaibh? I was correcting someone who didn't think that the Celtic languages and Latin were in any way related. That is not true: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italo-Celtic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italo-Celtic explains this, even if the similarities are no longer obvious. Hungarian is unrelated to Latin.
        rbanffy 10y ago
        No, I'm Brazilian/Hungarian. I've been here for months and still can't even figure out the structure of sentences, much less their meaning (unless it's obvious from external clues). I've always thought of myself as having a knack for languages, but Ireland humbled me. I can write Klingon, but I wouldn't be able to read safety warnings on the train were they not also written in English below. Which makes me want to put up some bilingual fake warnings with jokes written in Irish and innocent information written in English as if it were a translation from the text above. It'll be fun to learn Irish from my daughter as she starts school in the next months.
    - vram22 10y ago
      What is the explanation for part of Turkey being in Europe and part in Asia? AFAIK, that is not common, right, for a country to be part of two continents?
  - vram22 10y ago
    What does the "ugric" part stand for?
    - fulafel 10y ago
      Wiktionary says: > Etymology > From Russian у́гры ‎(úgry), the name of an indigenous people dwelling east of the Urals, +‎ -ic. From the indiginous peoples in Russia whose languages are thought to belong to the language family.
- tankenmate 10y ago
  Actually Finno-urgic languages include Finnish and Hungarian; but also include others like Estonian, and many others besides in Russia, northern Norway, Sweden, etc.
vetinari 10y ago
Sorry, it's one of many languages with no connection to Latin. Latin languages are French, Catalan, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and Romanian. That's it. All the others are not.
- esquivalience 10y ago
  Are you honestly suggesting that the English language has "no connection" to Latin? ... even the English word "language" is itself derived from Latin!
  - vetinari 10y ago
    That does not mean that English is a Latin descendant. English sits on Germanic/West Germanic/Anglo-Frisian branch of the language tree. The Germanic branched together with Romance, Slavic, Celtic, Baltic, Helenic from the Indo-European/European branch, but Latin belongs to Romance, not Germanic.
    - frenchy 10y ago
      Those trees are not a terribly good metaphor, though. English is more "descended" from its Germanic roots, but it also has enough in common with Romantic languages that I think it is reasonable to say that it descended from both.
    - logfromblammo 10y ago
      Perhaps that is because the language tree does not effectively express multiple inheritance. Multiple invasions of Britain by different ethnic groups have patched together so many language roots into English that the conjugation of the core existence verb "to be" is just an aggregation of the same verb from seven or eight different languages, pasted together in one etymological mishmash. At some point, English started stealing vocabulary from any language used in international trade, and simply invented any new words that needed saying, using whatever etymological root that was convenient or marketable. At some point, the Normans and Picards hammered enough French words into Middle English that there should be at least a second root extending into the Romance branch from English. How else would you get "milk" from a "cow" (Germanic), but get "beef" from "cattle" (Norman), and refer to them all as "bovine" (Latin)?

Finnish is one of the few European languages with no connection to Latin

Spearchucker 10y ago

One of two, I believe. The other being Hungarian.

fulafel 10y ago
Celtic languages, Estonian is another Fenno-Ugric one, Sami, there are lots.
- DonaldFisk 10y ago
  Celtic languages (Scottish Gaelic, Irish, Manx, Welsh, Cornish, and Breton) are all distantly related to Latin, and probably closer to Latin than other branches of Indo-European. Basque is a language isolate spoken in parts of Spain and France. There's also Turkish - part of Turkey is in Europe, but not in the EU.
  - frobozz 10y ago
    Though Basque is an isolate, it has a lot of Latin-origin loan words, due to centuries of contact.
  - rbanffy 10y ago
    I live in Ireland and I can tell you Irish has very little to do with Latin. Those who say Hungarian is hard have never been here.
    - DonaldFisk 10y ago
      An bhfuil Gaeilge agaibh? I was correcting someone who didn't think that the Celtic languages and Latin were in any way related. That is not true: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italo-Celtic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italo-Celtic explains this, even if the similarities are no longer obvious. Hungarian is unrelated to Latin.
      - rbanffy 10y ago
        No, I'm Brazilian/Hungarian. I've been here for months and still can't even figure out the structure of sentences, much less their meaning (unless it's obvious from external clues). I've always thought of myself as having a knack for languages, but Ireland humbled me. I can write Klingon, but I wouldn't be able to read safety warnings on the train were they not also written in English below. Which makes me want to put up some bilingual fake warnings with jokes written in Irish and innocent information written in English as if it were a translation from the text above. It'll be fun to learn Irish from my daughter as she starts school in the next months.
  - vram22 10y ago
    What is the explanation for part of Turkey being in Europe and part in Asia? AFAIK, that is not common, right, for a country to be part of two continents?
- vram22 10y ago
  What does the "ugric" part stand for?
  - fulafel 10y ago
    Wiktionary says: > Etymology > From Russian у́гры ‎(úgry), the name of an indigenous people dwelling east of the Urals, +‎ -ic. From the indiginous peoples in Russia whose languages are thought to belong to the language family.
tankenmate 10y ago
Actually Finno-urgic languages include Finnish and Hungarian; but also include others like Estonian, and many others besides in Russia, northern Norway, Sweden, etc.

vetinari 10y ago

Sorry, it's one of many languages with no connection to Latin. Latin languages are French, Catalan, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian and Romanian. That's it. All the others are not.

esquivalience 10y ago
Are you honestly suggesting that the English language has "no connection" to Latin? ... even the English word "language" is itself derived from Latin!
- vetinari 10y ago
  That does not mean that English is a Latin descendant. English sits on Germanic/West Germanic/Anglo-Frisian branch of the language tree. The Germanic branched together with Romance, Slavic, Celtic, Baltic, Helenic from the Indo-European/European branch, but Latin belongs to Romance, not Germanic.
  - frenchy 10y ago
    Those trees are not a terribly good metaphor, though. English is more "descended" from its Germanic roots, but it also has enough in common with Romantic languages that I think it is reasonable to say that it descended from both.
  - logfromblammo 10y ago
    Perhaps that is because the language tree does not effectively express multiple inheritance. Multiple invasions of Britain by different ethnic groups have patched together so many language roots into English that the conjugation of the core existence verb "to be" is just an aggregation of the same verb from seven or eight different languages, pasted together in one etymological mishmash. At some point, English started stealing vocabulary from any language used in international trade, and simply invented any new words that needed saying, using whatever etymological root that was convenient or marketable. At some point, the Normans and Picards hammered enough French words into Middle English that there should be at least a second root extending into the Romance branch from English. How else would you get "milk" from a "cow" (Germanic), but get "beef" from "cattle" (Norman), and refer to them all as "bovine" (Latin)?