Languages! Are! Weird!

Hmm it seems German doesn't space numbers like English does. So you wind up with 'dreihundert' instead of 'three hundred'. Imagine if English did the same. Similar to how German's put 'und' in their numbers I included and into the words.

67,839,076,847,842 = Sixtyseventrillion-eighthundredthirtyninebillion-seventysixmillion-eighthundredandfortyseventhousand-eighthundredandfourtytwo.

Or without spaces:

Sixtyseventrillioneighthundredthirtyninebillionseventysixmillioneighthundredandfortyseventhousandeighthundredandfourtytwo.

121 letters.

Edit: Tvtropes can't handle the full length of the word, lol.

edited 5th Feb '14 11:04:08 AM by Blackcoldren

Speaking of numbers, eleven and twelve are OE from 'one left (over from ten)' and 'two left (over from ten)' respectively. Everything 13-19 is based on '<x number> more than ten' - hence the 'teen'.

Then you have twen-ty, thir-ty and so on, there the 'ty' means one lot of ten. So two lots of ten, three lots of ten, four lots of ten up to 9 lots of ten.

Now, cardinal numbers you might notice are all Germanic apart from Second, which is Latin. That's because OE for second is Other, which as you might imagine is a little confusing. So out with the other and in with second.

A lot of naughty sex words that we think of as quite recent are also a lot older than you might think. Jism, for example, dates from the 19th century. Allen Ginsberg in his poem 'Howl' spells it gyzm for...reasons.

I feel like sharing! So Estonian has 14 cases, some of which mainly appear in the Finno-Ugric (Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian mainly) language family. I remember being surprised about learning that this is a lot when very young. How can you foreigners say anything at all?!

Let's take and example word and demonstrate! I'm feeling like going with a morbid word: haud - grave.

• Nominative: haud - grave
• Genitive: haua - graves (belonging to one)
• Partitive: hauda - a grave (i want to have...)
• Illative: hauda (hauasse) ("hauda" is an exceptional form with this word, usually the ending is -sse) - into a grave
• Inessive: hauas - in a grave
• Elative: hauast - from within a grave
• Allative: hauale - onto a grave
• Adessive: haual - on a grave
• Ablative: haualt - from on-top of a grave
• Translative: hauaks - to turn into a grave
• Terminative: hauani - up to a grave (to move until arriving near it for example)
• Essive: hauana - as a grave
• Abessive: hauata - without a grave
• Comitative: hauaga - with a grave

This, as you can imagine, makes Estonian a very rich language in poetry for example as any word has a lot more options for rhymes.

I hope this trivia was of interest to some of you! Over and out.

Wait, nouns (not just verbs) have cases too?

My feelings towards Estonian are pretty much the same as towards Finnish. Beautiful languages, but so time-consuming if you're not a native and have to memorize all cases and so forth.

Yeah, it's the same way in Finnish.

I feel that this is a great opportunity to examine the similarity between Finnish and Estonian, so I'll replicate Wiktionary's declension guide to the Finnish word "hauta" ("grave"). I'll make a note of each case's usage, but for simplicity I'll stick to singulars in my examples.

• nominative: singular: hauta - plural: haudat. (A grave.)
• genitive: haudan - hautojen (or hautain, but this is a rare and old form; a grave's)
• partitive: hautaa - hautoja. (This is the form you'd use if you were doing something to the grave - "kaivan hautaa" = "I'm [in the process of] digging a grave". But only if it's atelic - as in, not completed.)
• accusative: hauta/haudan - haudat. (This is the telic form - so you'd use this when you're indicating that something is completed; in this case, for instance that you dug a grave. The distinction between this case and the one above is subtle. English Wikipedia uses a slightly more elaborate sentence to indicate it: "John built a house in a month" v "John built a house for a month".)
• inessive: haudassa - haudoissa. (In a grave.)
• elative: haudasta - haudoista. (From a grave.)
• illative: hautaan - hautoihin. (Into a grave.)
• adessive: haudalla - haudoilla. (On or around a grave.)
• ablative: haudalta - haudoilta. (From on or around a grave.)
• allative: haudalle - haudoille. (To a grave or to atop a grave.)
• essive: hautana - hautoina. (As a grave.)
• translative: haudaksi - haudoiksi. (Becoming a grave.)
• instructive: haudoin. (A rarer case, used to indicate that the grave is/was your instrument for something you do/did.)
• abessive: haudatta - haudoitta. (Without a grave.)
• comitative: hautoineen. (With one's grave.)

For a couple of cases the singular was identical to the plural so I indicated it just once.

edited 5th Feb '14 1:50:29 PM by BestOf

Ah, useful, I can start learning Finnish here! As it's in my list of stuff to do, since I plan to study there at some point, possibly.

To us, Estonian sounds like a child trying to speak Finnish and coming just near enough to be funny and barely understood. I know this sounds very patronising, but it's just the Uncanny Valley effect, basically - the similarity is very strong but not exact, so it creates a weird effect. I'm sure it works the other way around, too. Whenever I hear spoken Estonian I can usually understand roughly what is being said, but there are words I miss. So that's how similar the two languages are. (EDIT: I should note that the amusing effect lasts only for a short while - if I listen to Estonian for more than a couple of sentences my brain realises that it's not broken Finnish and ceases to find it funny.)

edited 5th Feb '14 2:13:05 PM by BestOf

It's seems a little bit how written Dutch looks to me. Almost-but-not-quite English.

To me, Dutch is like stoned German.

Oh, I just got reminded of this one thing: Polish and Russian word for bassoon is very similar to a certain English homosexual slur of some memetic popularity. And both me and my flatmate often exchange puns based on either literal translation of idioms, or using words that sound similar but mean completely different things in those two languages. And since my flatmate smokes pot, I once posted a picture of a guy playing a bassoon with the caption that could be translated as "FOURTWENTY BLAZE IT YOU BASSOON".

edited 5th Feb '14 2:22:56 PM by NotSoBadassLongcoat

I rather obviously don't speak Old English as a first language. Still having trouble differentiating cases and moods and the like.

I tried to give an example of the word mann conjugated. Here's my results, odds are my grammar's horrible:

Nominative: Sē mann bierneþ. "The man is burning."

Nominative (pl): Sē menn bierneþ. "The men are burning."

Accusative: Iċ bierne sē mann. "I am burning the man."

Accusative (pl): Iċ bierne sē menn. "I am burning the men."

Genitive: Sē mannes hund bearc. "The man's hound barked."

Genitive (pl): Sē manna hundas burcon. "The men's hounds barked."

Dative: Iċ ġeaf wæter sē menn. "I gave water to the man."

Dative (pl): Iċ ġeaf wæter sē mannum. "I have water to the men."

Anyone who's better at cases and moods and all that tell me if you spot a mistake. :B

edited 5th Feb '14 2:44:16 PM by Blackcoldren

I would say that's patronizing, but Finnish has that EXACT same effect on most Estonians. As you said, the uncanny valley effect. It just sounds like goofy broken Estonian. (Although we have plenty of odd Estonian already in the numerous dialects, like Setu, Mulgi etc) Also I find nothing funnier than really obscene swearing in Finnish.

But yeah, no disrespect intended here either, I am looking forward to learning the language and reading some high-quality Finnish literature in it's original form, especially Sinuhe.

edited 5th Feb '14 2:47:26 PM by yachar

I was pretty young when I read Sinuhe Egyptiläinen (the English translation is titled The Egyptian) so my recollection of it is a bit hazy; but the way I remember it, I read it right after I had read The Lord of the Rings (the whole trilogy, obviously). I was maybe 12 or 13 or so. After reading those books I remember telling someone that I thought Tolkien was a fantastic storyteller with a boring story; while Waltari had a fantastic story but he wasn't all that good at telling it.

I've read the LoTR trilogy a couple of times since, and I don't think the story is that boring anymore - though I don't find it quite as entertaining as most. (I'm not a Tolkien fan, but I've read LoTR, Silmarillion and The Hobbit - and I think The Hobbit was probably the best of the three.) I haven't returned to The Egyptian, but I was recently shown extracts of it and I was very impressed with the narration - so my tastes have changed.

Anyway, it would be interesting to re-read The Egyptian and see if my initial impression of it would still hold. Probably it wouldn't.

Waltari's historical novels are written with rich and somewhat obscure - or old - language, so I wouldn't recommend that you read them as the first Finnish books you read. I don't tend to like Finnish authors, but I would recommend Jari Tervo. Sofi Oksanen has written a lot about Estonia, so you might try something by her as well. Puhdistus (Purge) is probably a very good book - I haven't read it, but I've seen a stage adaptation and the film version, and both were excellent in my opinion. Be warned, though, that you'll have a hard time finding anything more depressing than Purge.

You could also try Finnish music. I'd have to know about your tastes before I should start recommending bands, though. Anyway, I'm derailing the whole thread. If you want to continue this discussion, feel free to PM me.

edited 5th Feb '14 3:10:24 PM by BestOf

Man, Norwegian is just dull compared to the languages here. 3 noun genders, 4 noun forms, 2 adjective declensions with 3 forms each and not a lot of cases...

Though, compound words can be interesting. Basically, some words get a radically different meaning if they're not properly divided/attached. For example, "røykfritt" (no smoking, lit. free of smoke) divided becomes "røyk fritt" (smoke freely) and "ananasringer/biter" (pineapple rings/diced pineapple) becomes "ananas ringer/biter" (pineapple is calling/bites). Funny, but I dunno if it qualifies as "weird".

Genders are an interesting thing that Estonian does not have for example. A whole lot of semantic play is lost in that sense. My lecturer of semiotics of literature took Russian as an example where made up words could also have a "gender" based on how they sound and extra meanings in poetry can be derived from having the opposition of genders in the words as well. In that sense our language is poorer.

In general no language is boring, definitely. They are all pretty damn complicated and worth studying in depth.

edited 5th Feb '14 4:13:23 PM by yachar

I even have a book on Lojban, the logical language. Or, I did anyway.

On the other hand, when it comes to personification in poetry, we are not restricted by the gender norms of our languages; a tree does not have to be a man, nor does the sun have to be a woman. We are free to draft whatever relationship we choose between two objects, because our languages do not assign them inherently.

So brushing up on Russian again through these nice online courses.

And I forgot how ridiculous this language is. I mean like shit man, how many gender rules, capitalization rules, and cases do you need?

I just noticed the Th-fronting in my area. Huh. I've caughten myself doing it aswell.

Five-six cases isn't that many. The original Indo-European had more. Ancient Greek retained five of them, Latin retained six. Much neater than the clunky periphrasis modern languages use.

It just me or are English numbers weird? Two out of the first three's spellings make little sense.

How they're spelled: One Two Three

How most pronounce them: Won/Wone Too Three

How some pronounce them: An Twa Threy

I mean I understand the pointless W in Two what with it's etymology. But why didn't anyone think of Tue to replace it? And why did the old spelling Wone die out in favor of One? At least it had a W.

Because if two was tue, people would pronounce it like the tue in Tuesday. And we don't want that.

But.....They're pronounced exactly the same? Too versus Tooz?

Is it true that cultures who's languages assign genders to innocuous things like chairs, tables, and fences are more sexist?

I say Chews-day. Or tuzz-dee, depending on how full of whimsy I am.