Finnish and Japanese

Learn and discuss the Finnish language with Finn's and foreigners alike
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Københavner
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Post by Københavner » Wed Oct 31, 2007 12:07 am

Rob A. wrote:
Mies Belgiasta wrote:
Rob A. wrote:Should I even bother to mention the "amazing coincidence" between the Chinese numbers 1 to 4 and the Japanese numbers 1 to 4...
If you are referring to the way they are written : "一二三四" as kanji/hanzi, it's not really that a coincidence. If you are referring to the pronunciation, "yi er san si", it doesn't have any relation with "ichi ni san shi/yon" in my opinion. :?
Well...I'm not professing to be an expert in Asian languages...but I was taught how to count to ten in Cantonese...I can only remember 1 to 4, now...I've also hear these numbers in Mandarin...and it all seems close enough to Japanese numbers which I've also heard, to suggest a similarity. But I'll certainly defer to someone who can demonstrate a greater knowledge on the subject... :wink: :wink:

timtak: I tried to find the link to the list of names, which I didn't bookmark as I thought it would be easy to find again...but I can't... :oops: Sorry... the list was in a forum discussing languages issues... But it should be easy enough to confirm the list...
Thanks to Wikipedia, I can give an indirect answer to this:
present-day Japanese includes a great number of words that were either borrowed from Chinese or constructed from Chinese roots following Chinese patterns. These words, known as kango, entered the language from the fifth century onwards via contact with Chinese culture, both directly and through the Korean peninsula. According to some estimates, Chinese-based words may comprise as much as 60%–70% of the total dictionary vocabulary of the modern Japanese language and form as much as 18%–40% of words used in speech.
Japanese also coined many neologisms using Chinese roots and morphology to translate Western concepts. The Chinese and Koreans imported many of these pseudo-Chinese words into Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese via their kanji characters in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For example; seiji ("politics"), and; kagaku ("chemistry") are words derived from Chinese roots that were first created and used by the Japanese, and only later borrowed into Chinese and other East Asian languages. As a result, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese share a large common corpus of vocabulary in the same way a large number of Greek- and Latin-derived words are shared among modern European languages



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AleksisMichael
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Post by AleksisMichael » Wed Nov 07, 2007 7:33 am

Umm.. well if you look at it biblicly all languages are linked, thiers a core human language that they all rooted out from during the tower of babyl... and then you have that time when the jewish warrior nations fell and were captured and enslaved which ended in their being some arabs among their bloodlines and then them finally leaving the middle east thousands of years ago except for like Israel.

And those tribes that left supposedly went south, to africa proly the tip of it and then east through southern asia, to japan for some, and up the coast then splitting off and the remainders either going up and left through russia to spread out their and in scandinavia an along the coast while the other half of that remainder had gone right, across the supposed landbridge to alaska and through out canada, america, central america, and south america.

A common remark to be made is to mention the high cheek bones common in the native americans, finns, and japs. i said finns an japs not in insult, just... caus i like saying it.... :o

and then with the finnish language they spent a few thousand years as the chess board between sweden and russia, not to mention having thier culture constantly screwed with, and struggling to repair the language even though it was nearly killed out several times, so thiers obvious damage to meanings their not to mention finally writing it down.

O.K., the japanese with the more or less same language suffered less damage to it... its pretty simple plus finns adapted to other cultures and had to have fluid use of their language and adapt to others meanings.

Eh. Scattered to the corners of the earth. Pretty simple idea.

Raar

finn
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Re: Finnish and Japanese

Post by finn » Mon May 19, 2008 8:27 pm

I have been trying to find out if there is any connection in ancestry between Finnish and Mongolian people, and I found this site. I am Finnish, am blond and blue eyed, and yet have asian shaped eyes. My mother told me long ago that Finns have Mongolian in their ancestry, but it's hard to find anything about it. My 4 year old granddaughter is only 1/4 finn, is blond and fair skinned, but has very distictive asian eyes. More than once when she was out with her dad, who is 1/2 finn but doesn't have have the distictive asian eyes, he has been asked if his wife is asian - because his daughter has asian eyes. (His wife is very blond and has big round eyes!) Do any of you have any info about the Mongolian/Finnish connection?

EP
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Re: Finnish and Japanese

Post by EP » Mon May 19, 2008 10:03 pm

My mother told me long ago that Finns have Mongolian in their ancestry, but it's hard to find anything about it.
Well, no. Mongols never got this far on their conquest trips. It was just a popular Swedish racial theory 100+ years ago. It started when it became clear that Finnish belongs to the same language family as for example Samoyed languages and some other Finno-Ugric languages whose speakers are Asian by race.

Nowadays even the old theory of "the Volga bend" as the original living place of Finns and other Finno-Ugric people is questioned. It seems that Finns have lived in Finland way longer than was thought before.

And last but not least: genetic research. When that was done it gave the final kiss of death to the Finnish-Mongolian connection.

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easily-lost
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Re:

Post by easily-lost » Tue May 20, 2008 11:23 pm

timtak wrote:Chinese imported Japanese numbers are (phonetically) ichi ni san shi
Who imported from whom?!
Se ei pelaa, joka pelkää.

Rob A.
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Re: Re:

Post by Rob A. » Wed May 21, 2008 4:46 am

easily-lost wrote:
timtak wrote:Chinese imported Japanese numbers are (phonetically) ichi ni san shi
Who imported from whom?!
From my recollection of that exchange of posts I would say that he meant "imported from Chinese"

But just to put your Chinese sensitivities at ease... :) From wikipedia:

Japanese vocabulary has been heavily influenced by loanwords from other languages. A vast number of words were borrowed from Chinese, or created from Chinese models, over a period of at least 1,500 years. Since the late 19th century, Japanese has borrowed a considerable number of words from Indo-European languages, primarily English. Because of the special trade relationship between Japan and first Portugal in the 16th century, and then mainly the Netherlands in the 17th century, Portuguese, German and Dutch have also been influential.

...and this:

Approximately 60% of the words contained in a modern Japanese dictionary is estimated to consist of kango(...Kango refers to that portion of the Japanese vocabulary that originated in the Chinese language or has been created from elements borrowed from Chinese), and it forms about 18% of words used in speech, as measured by the National Institute for Japanese Language in its study of language use in NHK broadcasts from April to June, 1989.


Japanese history seems to be a long series of alternating periods of "contact" and "isolation"... To say that Japanese culture has been a "sponge" for new ideas during its periods of "contact" would be an understatement, I would think... :) :)

COBHC
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Re: Finnish and Japanese

Post by COBHC » Sat May 24, 2008 9:25 am

geniedevil wrote:I once read a Japanese manga where a Japanese family had a name "Suomi". They explained to their guest that it means Finland in Finnish.
Nothing surprising that Japnese sounds like Finnish or Finnish sounds like Japanese.
I was reading the newspaper and there was a story about an eastern woman (can't remember the nationality, or the story for that matter) but her surname was pillu. I might as well say something on topic too, Japanese may be a phonetic language but it sure as hell does not sound like Finnish. I know a few Wapanese (wannabe japanese) kids who try and tell me "Finnish and Japanese are related languages". It's like they want them to be because they are so obsessed with Japan it makes them feel part Japanese or something.

Jukka Aho
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Re: Finnish and Japanese

Post by Jukka Aho » Sat May 24, 2008 10:40 am

COBHC wrote:I was reading the newspaper and there was a story about an eastern woman (can't remember the nationality, or the story for that matter) but her surname was pillu.
The Ukrainian Olympic diver Iryna Pissareva sure caused some trouble to the Finnish commentators in the 1996 Summer Olympics. They tried to pronounce some of the vowels in her last name in a needlessly drawn-out fashion so that it wouldn’t sound quite that rude to Finnish ears...
znark

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easily-lost
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Re: Finnish and Japanese

Post by easily-lost » Sun May 25, 2008 12:46 am

Finnish did sound like Japanese to me before I learned Finnish, the tones, the way they pause and stress, etc. But now I'd say they're completely different, just a personal opinion.
Se ei pelaa, joka pelkää.

Aquila
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Re: Finnish and Japanese

Post by Aquila » Wed Jun 11, 2008 3:16 pm

Well, there are many similarities between uralic, altaic, Japanese and indo-european. The number and nature of the similarities are so great that one easily can suspect a genetic connection, but not so many and systematic that it is possible to come to a good conclusion.

So there is a very fertile ground for pseudoscience.

And pseudoscience has some value, because it can suggest new ideas to be investigated more rigorously.

elisouli
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Re: Finnish and Japanese

Post by elisouli » Wed Jun 11, 2008 11:08 pm

COBHC wrote:
I was reading the newspaper and there was a story about an eastern woman (can't remember the nationality, or the story for that matter) but her surname was pillu.
Jukka Aho wrote:
The Ukrainian Olympic diver Iryna Pissareva sure caused some trouble to the Finnish commentators in the 1996 Summer Olympics.
:shock: :flowerhat:

Oh my goodness. The Ukrainian name... it's just priceless. :lol: :lol: :lol:

Kupcake
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Re: Finnish and Japanese

Post by Kupcake » Wed Jun 11, 2008 11:21 pm

AleksisMichael wrote:well if you look at it biblicly all languages are linked
Do you really believe this?
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"Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart."

Muah
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Re: Finnish and Japanese

Post by Muah » Thu Jun 12, 2008 10:19 am

geniedevil wrote:I once read a Japanese manga where a Japanese family had a name "Suomi". They explained to their guest that it means Finland in Finnish.
Nothing surprising that Japnese sounds like Finnish or Finnish sounds like Japanese.
There's an interesting page about the subject. Unfortunately it's only in finnish http://koti.phnet.fi/otaku/suomi/suomi.html

Goodfellow
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Re: Finnish and Japanese

Post by Goodfellow » Thu Jun 12, 2008 9:55 pm

I don't have the time atm to read through all the posts (I will do it after the poland - austria match :P) so sorry if this has already been said but.

Estonian (which is similar to finnish) sounds like backwards japanese :o I dont have any proof, but it was on the news. With a short japanese guy saying bad words in estonian :ohno:

Names in estonian: footballer Kaka (poop), Katarina Witt (vitt is well.. a females ....... you know what), a german sportsman called Munn ("penis" in slang) etc.
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vn
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Re: Finnish and Japanese

Post by vn » Wed Jul 02, 2008 8:42 am

easily-lost wrote:Finnish did sound like Japanese to me before I learned Finnish, the tones, the way they pause and stress, etc. But now I'd say they're completely different, just a personal opinion.
I agree. I mean, when you say they're completely different.
I know Japanese and I've been trying to learn Finnish for years (but eventually got busy and had to stop, then restarted, etc etc) but, for me, they sound totally different...
Minä olen kotoisin Imagesta, mutta asun Imagessa


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