Re: Finno-Ugric
| From: | BP Jonsson <bpj@...> |
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| Date: | Tuesday, June 6, 2000, 12:24 |
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At 06:39 05.6.2000 -0500, Anthony M. Miles wrote:
> From what I've seen Estonian could almost be dialect of Finnish!
Well, the split wasn't too long ago (13th century CE or so), and moreover
standard Finnish is quite archaizing by the fact that it relies quite
heavily on eastern dialects(*). South-western dialects are much much
closer to Estonian. FWIW my inlaws who are from northern Finland have no
trouble whatsoever following the Sunday-afternoon Estonian-language
programs on Swedish national television (which conveniently are aired just
after the Finnish programs! :-) Estonians have, of course, been watching
Finnish TV for decades. No accident that the East Bloc began
disintegrating there and in East Berlin!
(*In fact standard Finnish can almost be taken as the proto-language of
Estonian, since it only reflects one phonological change not shared by the
latter language, viz. the diphthongization of *ee *öö *oo to _ie yö uo_
(e.g. FIN _nuoli_ "lightning" vs. EST _nool_).
/BP
B.Philip Jonsson mailto:melroch@mail.com
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