Closest language to your language.

terve suomalainen ja jonne

Missä te asutte Suomessa? Minun iso sisko ja hänen suomalais aviomies asuvat hyvinkällä. Minä asun usa:ssa. Opiskelen suomen kieli.

Isn't it true that standard Finnish is understood nationwide and in pockets of Sweden, Norway, and Karelia? Do you guys feel that Karelia should be returned to Finland along with Salla and Petsamo?

<<Could it be personal?Or depending on dialect?Education? /:) >>

No, it's because we share a lot of words. The problem is that Drunkie is speaking without knowing the facts.

Oh of course I don't know the facts. Being a user of two Slavic languages (Russian and Ukrainian) for alll my bloody life, having the passive knowledge of two others (Serbian and Belorussian), having travelled to Poland, Serbia anf Czechia, I obviously don't know crap about Slavic languages.
If somebody likes to believe that Bulgarian is closer to Russian than it is to Serbian, that is clearly his prerogative, but that doesn't make it true, for god's sake.

Okay, I guess I better give a very simple - although sad - example. Ed, have you heard of that Bulgarian peace-keeping soldier who was murdered in Kosovo by Albanians because he was mistaken for a Serb? They asked him what time it was, and he answered in his native Bulgarian, so his answer (oh how strange, isn't it) turned out to be exactly as it would've been in Serbian. Boom - he was killed on the spot. A Russian wouldn't have even understood a question like "koliko je sati", let alone answer it.

Terve Riko!
Minä asun Raumalla, Länsi-Suomessa. Rauma on suunnilleen yhtä suuri kaupunki kuin Hyvinkää. Olen lukion (high school) opettaja. Hauska kuulla, että USA:ssa opiskellaan suomea. Onko sinulla itsellä juuria (roots) Suomessa?
You can say that standard Finnish is understood nationwide in Finland. The Finnish dialect that differs most from standard language is spoken here in Rauma and surroundings but of course everybody knows standard Finnish that is taught at school and used by mass media. In fact, my students don´t know any more peculiar words of Rauma dialect that I sometimes ask them.
On the coast and in the archipelago there are areas where even young people speak only Swedish. There are 300 000 Swedish speakers in Finland, but many of them are bilingual.
In parts of Northern Sweden and Norway they still speak old Finnish dialects. The main problem why people there can have difficulties in understanding standard Finnish that they haven´t adopted modern vocabulary that has been invented in Finnish since 19th century but instead borrowed from Swedish/Norwegian. In Sweden there are more than 300 000 Finns who have migrated since 1960´s.
In Russian Karelia they speak a language that is rather close to Finnish (as you can see, Jonne and I have slightly different opinions whether it is a language of its own or a Finnish dialect).
Finnish is widely known in Estonia, especially around Tallinn because during the Soviet era the Finnish TV was a window to west. Nowadays massive Finnish (liquor) tourism helps to preserve knowledge in Finnish.
Well, the question of areas we lost for Soviet Union is another matter. I will return to this later. Now the students wait me to the lesson.
Terveisiä Amerikkaan!

May I correct you? :D

"Missä te asutte Suomessa? Minun iso sisko[ni] ja hänen suomalai[nen] aviomie[hensä] asuvat hyvink[ä]ällä. Minä asun usa:ssa. Opiskelen suomen kiel[tä]. "

Minä asun Oulussa. Ei kovin suuri kaupunki.. Oulun kaupungissa asuu yhteensä noin 125 000 ihmistä.. Mutta koko Oulun alueella sunnilleen puoli miljoonaa.

I live in Oulu. It isn't very big town.. There are around 125 000 inhabitants in the city, and around 500 000 in the Oulu area.

<<Okay, I guess I better give a very simple - although sad - example. Ed, have you heard of that Bulgarian peace-keeping soldier who was murdered in Kosovo by Albanians because he was mistaken for a Serb? They asked him what time it was, and he answered in his native Bulgarian, so his answer (oh how strange, isn't it) turned out to be exactly as it would've been in Serbian. Boom - he was killed on the spot. A Russian wouldn't have even understood a question like "koliko je sati", let alone answer it. >>

As far as I know "koliko je sati?" means "what time is it?" (and that's because I had heard it before). That question in Bulgarian would be "kolko e chasat", and in Russian, as far as I know, "kotoriy chas?". As you can see, the word for time (or actually hour) in Bulgarian is the same as in Russian. If someone had asked me "koliko je sati", I wouldn't be able to understand, because "sati" doesn't sound like anything familiar to me. The Russian question, however, is much more familiar to me because of the word "chas". Now, as far as the soldier is concerned, don't you think that he understood the question because knew some Serbian? After all, they learn some of the language while on location. Besides, I never said that Bulgarian and Serbian aren't close. All I sais was that it's easier for me to understand Russian.

Actually, in Serbo-Croatian you can use both words for "hour": "sat" and "čas" (chas). As a matter of fact, "čas" is more common in Serbia and "sat" is more common in Bosnia and Croatia. So you could ask "koliko je sati?" and "koliko je časova?".

No niin! :)

Minun juuria (?) on (latinalais)Amerikasta mutta minun äiti puoli on suomalainen nainen pohjois suomesta. Minun ammattikorkeakoulu on mainen osavaltiossa.

No, ei oon (?) suomen kieltä opiskelija minun koulussa. Opiskelen suomen kieltä kanssa minun tietokone ja Englanti+Suomi+Englanti Sanakirja.

Minä kuntelen yleisradio kanavan. Mutta suomi on VAIKEA!

Koko Karjala on Suomen maa!!! :)


Now back to English. I thought Finnish would be easier but it is one tough nut to crack. The noun cases are just killing me.

When you go to Estonia can you speak Finnish entirely without having any problems communicating with the locals? What about latvia and valkoviena?

I'll correct you again :)


"Minun juuria (?) on (latinalais)Amerikasta"
Minun juureni (juuria= juuri in partitive, juureni = my roots.) ovat latinalaisesta Amerikasta,

"mutta minun äiti puoli on suomalainen nainen pohjois suomesta. "
mutta minun äitipuoleni (compound + the possessive suffix) on suomalainen nainen (I'd leave the 'nainen' out) Pohjois-Suomesta.

"Minun ammattikorkeakoulu on mainen osavaltiossa. "
Minun ammattikorkeakouluni (the possessive suffix) ...

"No, ei oon (?) suomen kieltä opiskelija minun koulussa. Opiskelen suomen kieltä kanssa minun tietokone ja Englanti+Suomi+Englanti Sanakirja."
(Sorry but I am not absolutely sure what you meant with this :S) Maybe: No ei, olen suomen kielen opiskelija koulussani. Opiskelen suomen kieltä tietokoneen ja sanakirja avulla (=I study Finnish with the help of computer and dictionary)

Minä kuntelen yleisradio kanavan. Mutta suomi on VAIKEA!
Minä kuuntelen yleisradiota (=I listen to yleisradio). Mutta suomi on vaikeaa (partitive)

Koko Karjala on Suomen maa!!! :)
...maata, maybe ?

I noticed you leave the possessive suffixes out. You should always include them in formal language.. Anyhow, they don't say "minun kirjani" in spoken Finnish, but "mun kirja"



"When you go to Estonia can you speak Finnish entirely without having any problems communicating with the locals? What about latvia and valkoviena?"

No. They aren't really THAT similar.. They share lots of same words, but grammar is very different.. Case usage is different, for example... If I was reading a text in Estonian, I am most propably able to figure out what it is about.. But it's much more difficult to catch the meaning "live", from spoken text.
And if you go to Latvia, it's impossible, since their language belongs to a different language group.
Maybe you meant "valkovenäjä" with "valkoviena" ? I am not sure, but I think they speak Russian there. Or something very close to it.

Kiitos Jonne

Pitkää aika tietallinen, minä tiedän. Joskus mä luen helsinginsanomat.fi koska haluan tulla järkinsa. Oppia viisi sanoja joka päivä. Kirjoittan muistikirjassa ja minun PC:ssä. Mikä on sun sähkoposti?

I'm a native galician speaker, the closest language to my language is “Portuguese” because, in fact, they are the same language!!. It's true that popular galician dialects are heavily influenced by spanish but when we speak properly and avoiding spanish lexicon and structures... we speak exactly (or very similar) to a North Portuguese (actually, we are in the North of Portugal). There is an isolated and spanish-alike norm for Galician (the only we learn in schools) but portuguese is constantly growing among the youngsters galicians. Nowadays, we prefer to write directly in Portuguese in order to defend the full re-integration of the Galizan oral varieties into the system to which they belongs, the Portuguese-speaking world, particularly in order to reverse the process of language shift toward Spanish in Galiza, and to recover Galizan-Portuguese for all language uses.

How can be different languages whit (trees): carvalhos, salgueiros, pinheiros, freixos, loureiros, laranjeiras, castanheiros, nogueiras, figueiras, or (animals) águias, aranhas, cão, cervos, coelhos, corujas, cavalos, ratos, porcos, and so on...?

For me it is certainly italian, I am french, then spanish and catalan, portuguese(curiously,brasilian portuguese is more intelligible for un french rather than the european variety) and romanian.
In the non-romance languages english is easier(with 70% from a latin origin) than german or dutch.

Mais si un ami québécois me parlait en "joual", ou un belge en wallon , j'aurai peut-être plus de difficultés à le comprendre qu'un italophone ou un anglophone, et pourtant c'est la même langue:-)
Some different languages seems easier to listen than in our own languages with dialects and spelling in the same language.

Xavier Carvalho

Spanish and Portuguese elements in grammar and vocabulary are very alike, so I have no idea how to know which is which.

What happened is that long time ago the Kingdom of Galicia became part of the Kingdom of Castille which, at that time was "swallowing" the kingdoms near it. That is the case of el País Vasco, Cataluña, Valencia, Asturia, Andalucia and Galicia which became part of Castille. But, is it that important? I mean, the whole Iberian Peninsula can understand itself.

Riko,
Estonian and Finnish are not close enough to be mutually intelligible. Well, I teach Estonian to volunteers at secondary school and I can explain many simple everyday things in Estonian to my students already before they have really learnt the language because I know which words and constructions a Finn can understand, but normally almost every longer meaning contains elements that make understanding too hard between Estonian and Finnish. But in Tallinn pretty many Estonians know Finnish (that they learnt through TV during Soviet era), and therefore you can do rather well there if you speak Finnish.
In norhern part of Eastern Carelia (did you mean that by 'Valkoviena'? - Viena lies in the north of Eastern Carelia that reaches the coast of White Sea) they understand rather well Finnish because their language is virtually a dialect of Finnish but in the south (Aunus or Olonets) the language is much more difficult for a Finn (and Finnish for them).

Jonne, here are some other examples of Aunus Karelian:
1. Nikus ei paista mostu tshomua kieldy kui luaskavan Luadogan randazil!
Missään ei puhuta sellaista somaa kieltä kuin lempeän Laatokan rannoilla!
Nowhere not speak such nice language as on the mild Ladoga´s shores!
2. Rengin perze mureni.
Ämpärin pohja meni rikki.
Bucket´s bottom was broken.
3. Midäbo meil nygöi ruadua, anna opastuzimmo karjalakse pagizemah?
Mitäpä meidän nyt tehtävä, jotta oppisimme karjalaa puhumaan?
What we now have to do, in order to learn to speak Karelian?

I think that on linguistic grounds we can consider Aunus Karelian a separate language. But I agree with you that without the border between Finland and Russia we would probably consider Karelian a Finnish dialect -partly because then the Russian impact wouldn´t have made Karelian grow apart from Finnish (now Swedish impact has again changed Finnish away from Karelian).