How come Finnish and Hungarian are not Indo-European?
Also, the word for horse in Korean is 'mal'/'mar' which echoes the English word 'mare'. Others are: 'Abo(ji)'/'Abba' - father/daddy; 'omoni'/'omma' - mother/mommy; 'hana' - one; 'tul'/tu' - two; 'kae' - dog (canine); 'goi' - goose; '(tan)-mil' - honey ['tan' = 'sweet']; etc...-Guest
The word for horse in Chinese is "Ma" (in the right tone, of course) and it's also the chinese reading in Japanese. The other word for horse in Japanese is "Uma" (馬-It's a picture of a horse with a tail, mane and legs.)
Abba is Hebrew for daddy or father, I think. A lot of languages have words with "M" for mother. I can see a lot of loose connections with words in the big languages. I like to imagine that it has something to do with a common language that got split into many parts, but I doubt everyone shares my belief about this.
"Ba" is another reading for that character too. I don't want to mislead.
I don't want to get off-topic, but I enjoyed the comments about Korean.
As a Korean myself, this is very interesting for me.
I've never heard of the hypothesis that Korean language may be related to Indo European before.
I have heard Korean has some common features with Turkish, Finnish and Hungarian.
In terms of grammar, Korean has a lot of similarities with Japanese, though we have few similarities regarding basic words(Core Vocabulary).
<I have known many Koreans who have naturally light brown, almost dirty blond, hair and light colored eyes (hazel/green).>
I'm afraid I have to disagree.
Typical Koreans have small eyes, high cheekbones and very dark brown straight hair.
I kind of have a typical Korean face. lol
http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=6264118
<<<I have known many Koreans who have naturally light brown, almost dirty blond, hair and light colored eyes (hazel/green).> >I'm afraid I have to disagree.
Typical Koreans have small eyes, high cheekbones and very dark brown straight hair. >
Well, I didn't say it was typical or general. Not even common, but I have seen it here and there enough over my lifetime (much more than I have ever seen among Chinese or Japanese people) to make me think it was rather unique.
Light hair and eyes among Koreans, however, is not as prominent as it is among, say, the Mongolians or Tibetans though.
<<The word for horse in Chinese is "Ma">>
This may also be a borrowing from an IE language. The Chinese, especially in the north, had contacts with IE peoples throughout their history.
...cont.
I believe that there was an important horse-dominant culture just to the west of China in present day Khazakstan. Does anyone know more about this?
>>>
<<I've never heard of the hypothesis that Korean language may be related to Indo European before.
I have heard Korean has some common features with Turkish, Finnish and Hungarian.>>
I should warn you that these theories are *extremely* speculative for now, and unlikely to become any firmer in the foreseeable future. The relation between Korean and Japanese, if any, has yet to be established; the connection with Turkish (Altaic) or Finnish (Uralic) is much less accepted by linguists (though it was once quite popular), and anything beyond that (Nostratic, Proto-World) is just a guess.
<<<
It is sometimes more useful to know what is unknown or controversely discussed by experts than to jump on every rumor and possibility. Facts are facts and possibilities are possibilities. I don't think that Korean and Indo European has not been compared enough by linguistic science and that any correspondence could have been overseen.
guest Tue Oct 09, 2007 7:43 pm GMT
<<Brennus, it's funny that you've mentioned this. I have noticed that many words in Korean are very similar to basic words in IE.
For instance, the Korean word for 'mosquito' is 'mogi', very close to German 'Muecke' (mosquito) and English 'midge' (small fly). I believe the IE root is *mugi.
Also, the word for horse in Korean is 'mal'/'mar' which echoes the English word 'mare'. Others are: 'Abo(ji)'/'Abba' - father/daddy; 'omoni'/'omma' - mother/mommy; 'hana' - one; 'tul'/tu' - two; 'kae' - dog (canine); 'goi' - goose; '(tan)-mil' - honey ['tan' = 'sweet']; etc... >>
In German, there is a word "Mähre" for engl. nag, horse, although it is seldomly used, mainly in fairy tales. In normal speech, we would rather use "Pferd". German "Oma" is grandmother, and "Opa" is grandfather. You can also use "Omi" and "Opi".
'Oppa' in Korean is a girl's older brother, as contrasted with 'au' - a girl's younger brother.
'Hyeong' is a boy's older brother; 'tongsaeng' is a younger sibling of the same sex for either boys or girls.
"older sister" for a girl is 'onni' [with a short 'o']; for a boy it's 'nuna', both closely resemble the old Magyar word for sister 'nene'. A boy's younger sister is a 'nui' -- also from the same word family as 'nuna'.
'tongsaeng' and maybe 'hyeong' appear to be words of Sinitic (Chinese) origin (definitely 'tongsaeng' as it is mirrored after words produced to sound Chinese -- usu. 2 syllable compounds)
The others I'm sure are native words in Korean.
Remember that the EU is an artificial, manufactured thing, whereas people can't help what languages fall into which category.
Of the 20 most spoken languages in the world today, 12 of them are Indo-European languages - Spanish, English, Hindi, Portuguese, Bengali, Russian, German, Marathi, French, Italian, Punjabi and Urdu.
They account for over 1.6 billion native speakers. The Indo-Iranian languages form the largest sub-branch of Indo-European in terms of the number of native speakers as well as in terms of the number of individual languages.
Indo-European languages probably originated, way back in the dawn of civilisation, somewhere in the Middle East. Over centuries, the spread westwards as far as they can go, to Portugal, France and the British Isles.
Finnish, on the other hand, is a member of the Finno-Ugric family, and isn't an Indo-European language because the Finno-Ugric family probably started somewhere in the Ural Mountains of Russia, quite far from the Middle East where the Indo-European languages probably started.
"I like the hungarian language a lot! Hungarian is a beautiful language! "
I prefer Finnish, which is closely related to Hungarian but most closely related to Estonian. The abundance of vowels and the long words makes Finnish a great language to look at, and it's completely different from almost every other European language:
I'm careful when fishing - Minä on varovainen kalastaessani
Is it true that in the Finnish Christmas tradition, Santa Claus used to be a wild boar that would eat children? - Onko totta, että suomalaisessa jouluperinteessä joulupukki oli lapsia syövä villisika?
I want a specimen of your urine - Tarvitsen teiltä virtsanäytteen.
What time does the sun set this afternoon? - Mihinkä aikaan aurinko laskee tänä iltapäivänä?
Is it OK if I bring my laptop computer in the sauna? - Käyhän että tuon kannettavani saunaan?
I've been learning Finnish for one month - Olen opetellun suomea yhden kuukaude
Does "Nokia" mean something in Finnish or it is only a commercial name?