Finno-Ugric

>From: John Cowan <cowan@...>
>Jarkko Hietaniemi scripsit:
>
> > Sadly enough
> > I don't know enough about other Fenno-Ugrian languages like Estonian
> > and Hungarian, but I have a very strong hunch that they are similar
> > in this regard.
>
>They are, indeed.
From what I've seen Estonian could almost be dialect of Finnish!  The
difference is that in Estonian there are new letters like c, s and z with
caron (used like Latvian or Czech), and o-tilde, which is a mid-high back
unrounded vowel (IPA small gamma).  Also, where Finnish uses  <p>, Estonian
uses <b> (which is still pronounced /p/; where Finnish uses <pp>, Estonian
uses <p> -- and Estonian <pp> is actually a ultralong or tripled [!]
consonant /ppp/!

Doubled vowels are also a convention in Estonian.  And check out these two
words:

kuuuurija "moon explorer"
jäääärne "edge of the ice"

Hungarian and Ugric are pretty different, albeit still obviously Uralic.

DaW.
________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com