clive@druri.UUCP (StewardCN) (11/01/85)
Actually, Finnish is related to Korean, believe it or not. They are both of Ural-Altaic origin. Nothing like either Scandinavian or Chinese. I liked hearing about the Norron. A friend of mine in the Bodo/ Lofoten area let me know a little about the feeling of that wild root in a Northern Norwegian. And also of the local and unadmittedly mixed-in Asiatics, the Samer or Lapps. Add the Celtic you can find everywhere, and that's a pretty interesting and beautiful place, besides the scenery. Clive
matt@brl-tgr.ARPA (Matthew Rosenblatt ) (11/04/85)
CLIVE writes: > Actually, Finnish is related to Korean, believe it or not. They are > both of Ural-Altaic origin. Nothing like either Scandinavian or > Chinese. Not so fast! When I studied Korean in college, my professor (Prof. Wagner) explained that Korean was an Altaic language, that Finnish and Hungarian were Uralic languages, and that there was something called the "Ural-Altaic language group." He cautioned, however, that no one had ever proved the connection between the Uralic and Altaic language groups. So in my mind, the "Ural-Altaic language group" is still just a hypothesis. Can any linguist straighten me and Clive out on this point? Also, Turkish, like Korean, is an Altaic language, although Korean is Mongolian and Turkish is (surprise!) Turkic. Does that mean that my college knowledge of Korean would be of any help if I wanted to learn Turkish? After all, Turkish uses a completely different alphabet from Korean, and there aren't even any Chinese characters interspersed with the alphabetic text to help me out semantically :-) . -- Matt Rosenblatt
edwards@uwmacc.UUCP (mark edwards) (11/05/85)
In article <2780@brl-tgr.ARPA> matt@brl-tgr.ARPA (Matthew Rosenblatt ) writes: >CLIVE writes: > >> Actually, Finnish is related to Korean, believe it or not. They are >> both of Ural-Altaic origin. Nothing like either Scandinavian or >> Chinese. > >Not so fast! When I studied Korean in college, my professor (Prof. >Also, Turkish, like Korean, is an Altaic language, although Korean is >Mongolian and Turkish is (surprise!) Turkic. > > -- Matt Rosenblatt When you were listing the Altaic group you forgot one of the most important ones, namely Japanese. mark ================================================================= gaijin: Doo nan deshoo ka. nihonjin: Uso. Nihongo wa sono grupu ni haitenai. gaijin : Uso ja nai hontoo da yo.