Japanese and Finnish

[Mrs. Camui]

I've noticed some cute similarities between Japanese and my native language, Finnish, while studying. It's rather strange how two so different languages can have these similarities. But strange in a good way, of course! First of all, I'm not saying that the similarities are huge, but there's something... Can any of you notice similarities between Japanese and your native languages? I'd love to hear about them.

To begin with, the writing system is similar if we think of Japanese, which is written in romaji. Vowels and consonants are pronounced pretty much the same way, except for letters j, r, f, w and y. It didn't take too long to learn the pronunciation. Eeto, but I don't claim to pronounce everything perfectly here. R is rather difficult, anyway. If any of you has ever heard Finnish R, you should be able to understand.

But the pronunciation isn't the cutest part. Finnish has the same words as romaji Japanese, though the meanings are anything but the same.
Examples of Finnish words:
hana - (water) tap
risu - a stick
sora - gravel
kutsu - an invitation
kasa - a heap
himo - desire
maku - taste

Oh, and these are names for people in Finland: Aki, Minna, Ari, Saku, Eki, Esa, Jari, Kai, Taru

I bet there are more, but those examples came to mind.
By the way, my name is Minna. A nice reason to study Japanese, eh? Minna desu.

 

[SacredBlue]

Interesting..

こんばんは皆さん！

Haha, sorry couldn't resist!

 

[Mrs. Camui]

Haha! I assume you meant me. Or everyone in the forum... Whichever way I'd like to reply:
こんばんはSacredBlueさん! こんばんは皆さん！ I can read hiraganas and "minna" is one of the few kanjis I recognize (for some reason).

 

[Lacos]

Heh, so true, lucky us. Good that Japanese doesn't have all those suffixes like Finnish does. I feel sorry for the people who have to learn Finnish at older age and study all of that.

Mika is also a popular Finnish boy's name. I bet Finnish Mikas are getting some strange looks when introducing themselves in Japan.

 

[Mrs. Camui]

u-huh, lucky us! Finnish suffixes can really be a pain even to Finnish people. I've been there, done that.
Btw, what does mika mean? Translated from Japanese into English or Finnish. Never heard about that name yet.

 

[m477]

I remember reading in an old textbook somewhere about the connection between languages like Finnish and Japanese. In fact, some people even went so far as to include Japanese in Ural-Altaic family of languages, although that is not a universally accepted idea.

I'm actually half Finnish(-American), so I've always been intrigued by this topic...

 

[Mrs. Camui]

Hi @m477 ! You gave me some interesting info! Sounds great. Thank you for that! Do you speak Finnish, m477? Have you noticed the similarities yourself or have you just read about it?

 

[m477]

No, I can't speak Finnish, unfortuately. The extent of my knowledge about it is just from what my mom has told me or books I have read.

One time when I was trying to explain something about Japanese grammar to my mom, she said that it reminded her of Finnish. So, I went and looked it up.

 

[Mrs. Camui]

Well, if you ask me, m477, you should concentrate on studing Japanese. Finnish is rather useless language if you think that there aren't so many Finns with whom you could have an conversation. But it's nice to hear that you could be interested in these similarities although you don't understand Finnish.

 

[Ido]

A linguist would tell you that Japanese and Finnish belong to the same language-group, a group of their own:
'Finno-Ugrian'.

According to some that is.

Although many ppl would not like it-I must point out to the fact that-
however untrained my ear and eye is, Japanese and Korean share at least a great deal of sounds..

But I could be wrong

Finnish sounds interesting though-congrats on yer lingo

 

[Mrs. Camui]

I've heard the concept "Finno-Ugrian" before (in Finish though) but m477's "Ural-Altaic family of languages" doesn't ring a bell. Are those the same thing?
I haven't heard Korean language that much. I don't know if there're any similarities but I will check it out some day for sure. When I have a chance. Thanks for the tip Ido!

Originally posted by Ido
Finnish sounds interesting though-congrats on yer lingo

Lingo? Haha! Do I understand this word correctly? OK, but anyway it sounds fair enough. Thanks, I guess!

 

[Elizabeth]

Originally posted by Mrs. Camui
I've heard the concept "Finno-Ugrian" before (in Finish though) but m477's "Ural-Altaic family of languages" doesn't ring a bell. Are those the same thing?
I haven't heard Korean language that much. I don't know if there're any similarities but I will check it out some day for sure. When I have a chance.

My understanding is that Ural-Altaic is a more general grouping which includes Finno-Ugrian in the Ural part while Altaic encompasses various Turkic, Mongolian and Tungusic languages among others. And that is pretty much the extent of my knowledge. As far as Korean and Japanese, I don't know about sound but the grammar (and some limited vocabulary) is nearly identical (analogous to English & German) so there is pretty clearly some relationship.

 

[Sirius]

Originally posted by Elizabeth
My understanding is that Ural-Altaic is a more general grouping which includes Finno-Ugrian in the Ural part while Altaic encompasses various Turkic, Mongolian and Tungusic languages among others...

Hello...

Regarding the similarity of the languages mentioned, if we look at the Grammar of them, we also find that they belong to a special class: Agglutinating Languages.

Cambridge Encyclopedia of Languages:
... in this class of languages, words are built up out of a long sequence of units, with each unit expressing a particular grammatical meaning, in a clear one-to-one way. Turkish, FINNISH, JAPANESE and Swahili form words in this way. 'He who gets water for me' in Swahili is 'anayenipatia maji', which could be analysed as:

a - na - ye - ni - pat - i - a (maji)
he Pres. who me gets for (water).

So, if several words sound similar and they belong also to a special class of morphosyntax... probably they are related somehow.

Regards.

 

[Ido]

'Lingo'-not 'Lingam' or any such thing

Lingo as in 'language' 'your speech' ya know?

Anyway-I'm gonna follow y'all on this quest.

Btw-what about cultural similarities?

 

[Mrs. Camui]

Sirius has a point. We really make such long words as 'anayenipatia maji'. And the concept "agglutinating languages" tells exactly what the grammar is all about.

The old and much used example:
Taloissammeko? (Do you mean in our houses?)
--> talo - i - ssa - mme - ko

talo - house
i - plural suffix
ssa - inside something
mme - our something
ko - turns the sentence into a question

Ido, you didn't hurt my feeling or anything like that with your previous post, no need to worry! My English just isn't perfect. It's nice that you're taking part! About cultural similarities, I really don't think there are any. I think I'm sure now that the whole matter about conversations is compicated. Finnish is a rude language compared with Japanese. And the manners are so differing. We don't have similar movies or interest in manga or anime. (Except for a few of us, of course) I can't really recall any similarities right now. Any Finns there to help me out?

 

[Elizabeth]

This looks closer to Turkish where one word can form a complete sentence than Japanese which is agglutinative only for tense. It would be interesting if someone knows anything about Korean or other languages similar to Finnish such as Hungarian or Estonian. The only thing I'm (almost) positive of is that Japanese is in no way connected to Swahili .

 

[tobata]

I am a native Japanese speaker studying Korean and Dutch just for fun, and personally think Japanese is either one of the Japanese Family of Languages or a mixed language (Ural-Altaic + Southern Asia or South Seas). To my ears Japanese and Korean sound very much alike in grammar but not so much in sound. As for Japanese and Dutch, sometimes they are similar in word order.

 

[Ido]

Hey,cool-Dutch! My frien Masato became a football trainer in holland and likes and speaks Dutch too. (very funny to speak Dutch with him now after so many months of Japlish

Anyway-as a kid I learned in the library that Japanese and Korean were in NO WAY related.

Then I heard Korean rapmusic...I was stunned how much it sounded like Japanese rap.

 

[gokce]

This is an old thread I noticed, but couldn't resist.. I will give one famous example from Turkish

Cekoslavakyalilastiramadiklarimizdan misiniz?

Cekoslavakya = Checkoslavakia
li = from
las = reflexive suffix
tir = causative suffix
a = ability
ma = negation
di = past tense
k = first person plural
lar = plural
i = harmony suffix
miz = first person plural
dan = from
mi = question suffix
siniz = second person plural

meaning: "Are you one of those that we could not have possibly turned into a Checkoslavakian?"

address:

http://www.bigglook.com/biggtraveleng/infotips/language.asp

 

[dojee]

I find this topic very interesting. I was watching this interview once with a Japanese group,
and one of the guys said "toinen tasu" (I've no idea what it means nor if that's correct romaji) which sounded extremely Finnish to me!
I've done some reading around this subject and have found that several linguists do consider Japanese and Finnish related.

Oh well, that's all.
Bye.

 

[Golgo_13]

The Japanese girls' name Yuko is pronounced like the Finnish boys' name Jouko.

Many many years ago, I was working at a Japanese restaurant in NYC. A customer came in and said he has a table reserved for two under the name "Virtannen." I took him to his table and asked if he was with the Finnish Mission to the U.N. He said no, but he's a Finnish journalist, how did I know? I told him "Virtannen" was a Finnish name, and he was so amazed (that I knew) that his jaw dropped.

 

[Mrs. Camui]

So nice to see that people are still replying to this old thread I started. I feel like commenting on your messages.

gokce, that's a great example. Thanks for that! Haha, kinda hard even
to try pronouncing it. Very similar feature with Finnish, indeed.

dojee, as for the romaji "toinen tasu" you wrote I could help you since I'm a native Finnish speaker. "tasu" doesn't mean anything. It could be "tassu" or "tasku" (or something else but those are the words that came to my mind). "toinen tassu" would mean "another paw" which doesn't make much sense, eh? But "toinen tasku" would mean "another pocket". Maybe more meaningful one. Though "toinen" can also mean "the second one" but... this is getting complicated since I don't know where the sentence have been said. I'll stop for now.

Golgo_13, that's great! Did you, by the way, know that Virtanen is the most common surname in Finland or did you just happen to know the name? Cool! Anyhow, I would also be surprized if someone knew my surname to be Finnish when abroad.

 

[Golgo_13]

Golgo_13, that's great! Did you, by the way, know that Virtanen is the most common surname in Finland or did you just happen to know the name? Cool! Anyhow, I would also be surprized if someone knew my surname to be Finnish when abroad.

At the time I meet Mr. Virtanen, I knew that most names that end in "nen" are Finnish. I found out later that it's a very common name.

Does your name end in "nen"?

Someone told me a joke once, "What is big, yellow, and has 50 fins?"

"A school bus in northern Minnesota." (there are many people of Skandinavian ancestry in the state of Minnesota)

 

[Mrs. Camui]

Haha, joke about Finns! Nice! Must sound better in spoken English when there's no way to pay too much attention to the capital letter. I have to try that with the next English speaking person I see.

About my name, it doesn't end with -nen and is very rare. But it could sound a bit Finnish. Who knows? I'm not the one to say, I'm kinda used to the name. ^_^ But it's true that most 'nen'-ending names are Finnish.

Oh btw, do Japanese names have any this kind of common endings?

 

[dojee]

dojee, as for the romaji "toinen tasu" you wrote I could help you since I'm a native Finnish speaker. "tasu" doesn't mean anything. It could be "tassu" or "tasku" (or something else but those are the words that came to my mind). "toinen tassu" would mean "another paw" which doesn't make much sense, eh? But "toinen tasku" would mean "another pocket". Maybe more meaningful one. Though "toinen" can also mean "the second one" but... this is getting complicated since I don't know where the sentence have been said. I'll stop for now.

I didn't say it meant anything in Finnish. I don't actually know any Finnish except sataana perkele.
It's just that Japanese phrase sounded extremely like Finnish to my Swedish ears.