Finnish and Japanese

Learn and discuss the Finnish language with Finn's and foreigners alike
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Richard
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Post by Richard » Fri Apr 07, 2006 11:26 pm

raamv wrote:Ananas in Finnish = Pineapple ( that Finns never produced) But is the same in Hindi ( which in tirn was borrowed from Dravidian).
It's ananas in Italian as well, and no doubt many languages, so I guess the Finnish adoption has no direct link to Hindi.



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Post by Hank W. » Sat Apr 08, 2006 1:41 am

the potato is
- jordappel (earth-appel) in Swedish, german
'peruna' in Finnish (from peru)
and 'kartoffel'... in the rest
Cheers, Hank W.
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trentti
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Post by trentti » Sat Apr 08, 2006 4:02 am

I've stumbled across the following similarity between Finnish and Indonesian:

jalan (Finnish) - on foot

jalan - (Indonesian) - road (walkway, thoroughfare etc)
berjalan - walk, travel
berjalan kaki - on foot


They are probably not related whatsoever, consider jalan would come from jalka ... but I thought it was interesting anyway. Maybe Finnish has some origins in Sanskrit as does Indonesian???
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Kompostiturska
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Re: konnichi wa! moikka!

Post by Kompostiturska » Sat Apr 08, 2006 9:28 pm

I forgot to mention the double consonants, which, by the way, work the exact same way in Finnish and in Japanese. However, they might seem different at first glance. In Japanese, gakkoo is ga-kkoo but in Finnish, kokko is kok-ko. Despite this difference probably caused by the birth of literature, they are identical in context. After all, consonants like K and T are not voiced, so what we know in Finnish as "double-K" could easily be considered a pause and a K, and this has obviously been the way the creators of hiragana saw it.
As for the double vowels, well, see for yourself. I see nothing else than similarity in those.
matildemichi wrote: btw, are you a man or a woman?
Technically neither. Calling me a "man" would be too flattering, so let's just say I'm a male who hasn't grown up and does not plan to anytime soon.
My age means you have no need to worry, since you have a lot of time to officially prove all this before me, as I'm just a high school student that has no status whatsoever as any kind of linguist.
Last edited by Kompostiturska on Wed Aug 16, 2006 4:38 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: konnichi wa! moikka!

Post by efx » Sat Apr 08, 2006 9:59 pm

Kompostiturska wrote:
matildemichi wrote: btw, are you a man or a woman?
Technically neither.
OOOOooooooooooooo :lol: :wink:
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Post by Kompostiturska » Sun Apr 09, 2006 6:09 pm

Perhaps that did not come out right... :roll:

Anyways, I felt so enthusiastic about this subject that I made some more research (= googling, the youth of these days...) and found this page, which handles the relation between Japanese and Hungarian. Although quite disaccord, it does give the impression that people easily consider the tone of Hungarian and Japanese similar.
This, of course, does not tell us anything new, it just gives more proof of what I have been saying all along. And that is not all: there is even a genetic research which proves that Hungarians and Japanese are distantly related (distantly = the Indoeuropeans have spread their bastard genes into our cousins, too :evil: ).
So I'm just waiting for someone to stick some needles into Lapps or Samoyeds and tell us something similar... :wink:

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Post by mrjimsfc » Mon Apr 10, 2006 5:17 am

Kompostiturska wrote: which proves that Hungarians and Japanese are distantly related (distantly = the Indoeuropeans have spread their bastard genes into our cousins, too :evil: ).
So I'm just waiting for someone to stick some needles into Lapps or Samoyeds and tell us something similar... :wink:
Well duh!! Christians believe we are all genetically related with Adam being our common ancestor. :roll:
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Post by enk » Mon Apr 10, 2006 10:21 am

Kompostiturska wrote:So I'm just waiting for someone to stick some needles into Lapps or Samoyeds and tell us something similar... :wink:
Been done, you just need to find the results of the research.

-enk

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Post by raskarhu » Thu Apr 27, 2006 12:19 pm

Hei,

I was reading this thread and think it's an interesting debate. However, what really made me laugh is the assertion of Argan that the finns are for a great deal of Flemish descent. ??? On what does he base this 'fact'? This is what he wrote:

That would be quite strange as Finns are mostly of germanic origin (largest group originates from Flanders region in Belgium), only the language is Uralic. Fenno-Ugric peoples, like the Sami, have very dark hair instead of blonde.

I think this could be a more scientific explanation on the origins of Finns etc.:

http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/english/where_do.html

But if it happens to be true that the Finns are of Flemish descent (whatever Flemish may mean, since it must be one of the most mixed 'races' in Europe, because of all the invaders that have enjoyed our hospitality 8) ) then that would maybe explain my affinity with the finnish 'race' :D

Raskarhu

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Post by Hank W. » Thu Apr 27, 2006 1:01 pm

raskarhu wrote:
I was reading this thread and think it's an interesting debate. However, what really made me laugh is the assertion of Argan that the finns are for a great deal of Flemish descent. ??? On what does he base this 'fact'?
Some DNA testing study that was in the paper or somewhere. I read it as well... might have been "tieteen kuvalehti" or then not. The closest match with Finns was people from Flanders. Maybe its the other way around though - Flemish are of Finnish decent :lol: Though there have been found a bunch of "merovingian swords" on the west coast from Bronze Age tombs... so there has been trade... some horny Merovingian merchants entertaining the ladies when men are up north hunting ;)
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Genetic Origins of the Finns

Post by Svangius » Wed Jun 07, 2006 4:13 pm

EDIT: Here is an article on the subject from Virtual Finland:

Where do Finns come from?
http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/english/where_do.html


Actually, the "Flemish as the closet relatives of the Finns" explanation that has been circulating is partially misleading. While the mtDNA (maternal) lineage of the Finns is typically most closely related to the Flemings of Belgium, the Y haplogroup (paternal) lineages indicate a dual paternal origin -- from Asia and from the Baltic. The ancestors of today's Suomalaiset came from East, South, and West.

In short, as one Finnish site put it: genetically, today's Finns are of "25% Siberian, 25-50% Baltic, and 25-50% Germanic" origin.

But, yes, both the Finns and the Saami's mtDNA (maternal) lineages appear to be "European" in origin, though, for the most part, from different Upper Paleolithic groups (i.e. groups that drifted apart from a common population at the beginning of the last ice age ~25kya, and migrated into different glacial refugias by the end of the UP ~10kya) . Recent genetic evidence seems to support the theory that the "ancestral mother" of the Saami resided in the Iberian (also: Franco-Cantabrian) ice age refugia, whereas the "ancestral mother" of Finns resided in the Carpathian refugia (between the Carpathian Mountians and the Volga River... perhaps along with the ancestress of the Flemings.)

Also, I should point out that emigration to Finland from Sweden during the Medieval period, and the subsequent population "boom" in Finland, especially in Western Finland, from the 18th century onwards, has increased the frequency of "Germanic" genes in the Finnish population. Nevertheless, Finns are a remarkably distinct population -- the result of geography and genetic bottle-necking.

Finally, please do forgive me in advance if I've made some gross error above; I'm not a geneticist, but I have been studying up on this subject as of late so I thought I'd jump at a chance to share.

Cheers. :)




Dual Origins of Finns Revealed by Y Chromosome Haplotype Variation
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJHG/j ... 69388Guest

Specifically, we find evidence that the initial group of settlers provided a substantial contribution (55%) to the present Finnish Y chromosome gene pool. These settlers were of Asian ancestry and were followed by a second, genetically distinct wave of settlers. This second group, possessing haplogroup B, may have arrived in Finland with the wave of agriculturists who shaped much of the genetic landscape of Europe (Sajantila and Paabo 1995). These estimates are consistent with archeological data that suggest that the first settlers were Uralic speakers who arrived ∼4,000 years ago (Fodor and Czeizel 1991) and that a later group settled along the southern shores ∼2,000 years ago (Luho 1976).

...In summary, our interpretation of the Y chromosome data is that two separate founder populations provided a substantial contribution to the Finnish gene pool. A strong clinal distribution of Y haplotype frequencies was observed, indicative of a migration of males from the Lake Ladoga region into the interior of Finland. This pattern contradicts predictions of the single-origins hypothesis of a single homogeneous group of founders arriving in the south and slowly dispersing into the north (de la Chapelle 1993; Lahermo et al. 1996). Concordant with the archeological evidence for the dual-origins hypothesis, significant differences between eastern and western Finland exist for two common yet polyphyletic Y chromosome haplotypes.





Geographical, Linguistic, and Cultural Influences on Genetic Diversity: Y-Chromosomal Distribution in Northern European Populations
http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/conte ... /18/6/1077

Using a Y-chromosomal base substitution ("Tat") that seems to have arisen in Asia, Zerjal et al. (1997)Citation proposed a significant Asian contribution to the paternal gene pool of the Finns, the Saami, and the Estonians but less of a contribution to the Norwegians; subsequent work has identified the same marker in the Latvians (Lahermo et al. 1999Citation ). Thus, the Y chromosome is an effective genetic tool for revealing the patterns of variation in this area.

Haplogroup 16 showed the opposite pattern: high frequency among the populations on the eastern side of the Baltic Sea, accounting for more than 60% of the Finnish, 42% of the Saami, and 47% of the Lithuanian chromosomes, and low frequency on the western side, falling to 4% among the Norwegians (fig. 3c ). Again, this fits its known worldwide distribution (Zerjal et al. 1997Citation ; Karafet et al. 1999Citation ), where it is well represented in Northern Asia but absent from most of Europe.

This result supports the idea that the genetic history of Y chromosomes within these two populations is distinct from that of the Uralic speakers. This conclusion does not challenge the earlier suggestion that haplogroup 16 chromosomes arose in Asia, but suggests that there were two distinct early migrations of haplogroup 16 chromosomes into Europe.

In summary, our interpretation of the Y-chromosomal data is that the major genetic difference in this area is geographical, distinguishing populations living on the western side of the Baltic from those on the eastern side. However, a significant difference was also detectable between Finno-Ugric speakers and Baltic speakers on the eastern side, where the Latvians showed greater genetic similarity to the Lithuanians than to the Estonians, demonstrating that linguistic differences can have a lesser, but still important, influence on the distribution of genetic diversity.





Y chromosomal polymorphisms reveal founding lineages in the Finns and the Saami.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/quer ... t=Abstract

Y chromosomal polymorphisms were studied in 502 males from 16 Eurasian ethnic groups including the Finns, Saami (Inari Lake area and Skolt Saami), Karelians, Mari, Mokshas, Erzas, Hungarians (Budapest area and Csangos), Khanty, Mansi, Yakuts, Koryaks, Nivkhs, Mongolians, and Latvians. The samples were analysed for polymorphisms in the Y chromosome specific Alu insertion (YAP) and six microsatellites (DYS19, DYS389-I and II, DYS390, DYS392, DYS393). The populations were also screened for the recently described Tat polymorphism. The incidence of YAP+ type was highest in the Csangos and in other Hungarians (37.5% and 17.5%, respectively). In the Karelians and the Latvians it was present at approximately the same level as commonly found in other European populations, whilst absent in our further samples of Eurasian populations, including the Finns and the Saami. Aside from the Hungarians, the C allele of the Tat polymorphism was common in all the Finno-Ugric speaking populations (from 8.2% to 63.2%), with highest incidence in the Ob-Ugrian Khanty. The C allele was also found in the Latvians (29.4%). The haplotypes found associated with the Tat C allele showed consistently lower density than those associated with the T allele, indicating that the T allele is the original form. The computation of the age of the Tat C suggested that the mutation might be a relatively recent event giving a maximum likelihood estimate of 4440 years (95% confidence interval about 3140-6200 years). The distribution patterns of the 222 haplotypes found varied considerably among the populations. In the Finns a majority of the haplotypes could be assigned to two distinct groups, one of which harboured the C allele of the Tat polymorphism, indicating dichotomous primary source of genetic variation among Finnish males. The presence of a bottleneck or founding effect in the male lineages of some of the populations, namely in the Finns and the Saami, would appear to be one likely interpretation for these findings.




Fathers of Finland [auth: Department of Human Molecular Genetics
National Public Health Institute Helsinki]

http://www.scienceblog.com/community/ol ... 11641.html

Scientists have found that the human Y chromosome contains a number of gene variations, called SNPs, which can be used to trace paternal lineage in human populations. In the current study, Syvänen and colleagues report a method using 'gene chips' to simultaneously detect dozens of SNPs in an individual. The researchers used this method to analyze 25 Y chromosome SNPs in men from three different regions of Finland, three groups of Saami, and two other populations belonging to the Uralic language group. Out of six specific SNP combinations found in these populations, two combinations prevail among both the Finns and the Saami. Moreover, the relative prevalence of these two SNP profiles appears to vary between the Western and the Northern/Eastern Finns and subgroups of the Saami. These results support the idea that two separate groups settled Finland and point to shared genetic structure between the Finns and the Saami.




The Origin of the Baltic-Finns from the Physical Anthropological Point of View
http://www.mankindquarterly.org/samples ... rected.pdf

Whenever the Finns’ ancestors arrived in Finland, we cannot deny the European origin of the Baltic-Finns and other Finno-Ugric people based on available physical anthropological and archeological data. The genetic and possibly linguistic ancestors of most of the Finno-Ugrian people were very likely the hunter-gatherers who inhabited the periglacial zone located between the Carpathian Mountains and the Volga River during the last
glacial maximum. We could say that from a purely physical anthropological point-of-view, the Baltic-Finns are either the easternmost Northwest Europeans or the westernmost Northeast Europeans.





Evidence for mtDNA Admixture between the Finns and the Saami
http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/pr ... elNr=53372

Conclusions: The high frequency of certain mtDNA haplotypes considered to be Saami specific in the Finnish population suggests a genetic admixture, which appears to be more pronounced in northern Finland. Furthermore, the presence of haplogroup Z in the Finns and the Saami indicates that traces of Asian mtDNA genotypes have survived in the contemporary populations.




Saami and Berbers—An Unexpected Mitochondrial DNA Link
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articl ... id=1199377

The sequencing of entire human mitochondrial DNAs belonging to haplogroup U reveals that this clade arose shortly after the “out of Africa” exit and rapidly radiated into numerous regionally distinct subclades. Intriguingly, the Saami of Scandinavia and the Berbers of North Africa were found to share an extremely young branch, aged merely ∼9,000 years. This unexpected finding not only confirms that the Franco-Cantabrian refuge area of southwestern Europe was the source of late-glacial expansions of hunter-gatherers that repopulated northern Europe after the Last Glacial Maximum but also reveals a direct maternal link between those European hunter-gatherer populations and the Berbers.

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Post by Hank W. » Mon Aug 14, 2006 9:38 pm

AFAIK that the Cavalli-Sforza findings are in big dispute - but thanks for this. I was so much on vacation in June I was still bugged what was the Finnish-Flemish connection ;)
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Post by Matula » Tue Aug 15, 2006 2:43 am

Kompostiturska wrote: Thousands of years ago, when Altaic-Uralic languages separated, the Finns went up North, where it was so freezing nobody wanted to come there and ruin their linquistic heritage.
Can you proove that? Japanese isn't even Altaic language.
As for the genetics, we, the "actual" Finns, are a dirty mixture of who-knows-what resembling Flemish people, but the Sami are very... asianish. And when we go across the Ural mountains, we meet the Samoyeds, a genetically Asian group who speak Uralic languages.
Everyone knows that finns genetically are germanic/slavonic/ugric. In that order. Just because our language isn't germanic or slavonic, it doesn't mean the people aren't.

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Post by Matula » Tue Aug 15, 2006 2:47 am

Timbeh wrote:I knew an italian guy who used to say that finnish sounds like somekind of mix between arabic and japanese. So there. :wink:
That's interesting since Finnish is known to utilise a lot of vowels (like Italian) and in Arabic there's just two vowels (i/e intermediate and a/o/u intermediate).

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Post by Kompostiturska » Wed Aug 16, 2006 4:32 pm

Matula wrote: Can you proove that? Japanese isn't even Altaic language.
True, nor is Finnish. I meant to say Japonic-Uralic or something like that. The first post of this topic messed my thoughts. My bad.
Everyone knows that finns genetically are germanic/slavonic/ugric. In that order. Just because our language isn't germanic or slavonic, it doesn't mean the people aren't.
Did I state otherwise? As it looks to me, you are just rephrasing what I already said. My point was that us Finns are genetically very European, but the Sami and Samoyeds (who I consider the more "rightful bearers" of Uralic languages thanks to their genetics) are not THAT Germanic or Slavic. Genetic studies are going back and forth with the origins of Sami, as some say Asian and some say European.

Perhaps I should have kept my mouth (err, fingers?) shut about genetics, as they are not the point of this topic at all. I just wanted to point out what I think about the origins of Uralic people, as people like Kalevi Wiik want to think it this way:
"Yeah, we were Middle European and just came up with this sort of language during the ice age. The Samoyeds are just some chinks that adapted our language. And BTW, I base this on absolutely nothing."
The big difference between myself and him is that I do not make an ass out of myself in scientific circles (this forum does NOT count) if I do not have solid proof.


The main point of this topic, however, still remains. Japanese has been suggested to be a relative of so many languages (including English :x) that I think it is fair to say the Finno-Ugric connection has been dramatically overlooked. To make this post worth of something, have a look at a pretty big list of similar words in Japanese and Hungarian, which does not exactly prove anything, but provides more material to study on. Add this to the structural and phonetic similarities of Japanese and Finnish/Estonian, and we have a pretty clear connection.

I am by no means saying my theory is complete. It is merely a reasonable hypothesis, which I hope to develop into a more scientific form. Steal my life's work and I will beat you to death with a fish.
Last edited by Kompostiturska on Wed Aug 16, 2006 6:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.


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