Re: English compared to other European languages


Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> Rasmus Underbjerg Pinnerup wrote:
> >
> > "Seán O'Leathlóbhair" <jwlawler@xxxxxxxxx> mælte sligt:
> >
> > >> As for Finnish, it has reformed itself so much that you looks as
if
> > >> it never was Germanic or IE in the first place ;-)
> >
> > >I just noticed that my last sentence is more bizarre than it was
meant
> > >to be. I guess that I changed my intended phrasing half way
through
> > >the sentence. This version may make more sense.
> >
> > >As for Finnish, it has reformed itself so much that it looks as if
it
> > >never was Germanic or IE in the first place ;-)
> >
> > Oddly enough, that's how I read it. I didn't notice the "you" until
> > after reading your correction ;)
>
> But it doesn't look like Hungarian, either.
> --
> Peter T. Daniels grammatim@xxxxxxx

This has returned to my first ever post to sci.lang. I got myself into
a discussion of Finnish and mentioned that it was (distantly) related
to Hungarian. One of the others disputed this and said that the link
was just speculation and not proven. The thread appeared to confirm my
understanding that the evidence of a relationship is good.

One of the first topics that got me interested in linguistics was the
relationship and history of the IE languages. Later, I looked at other
families but in most cases there is much less data available. It would
be easy to pick two contemporary IE languages that do not look related.
So it is easy enough to understand that Finnish and Hungarian can look
dissimilar yet be related. It is just harder work to establish the
relationship.

--
Seán O'Leathlóbhair

.

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