Re: Finnish national anthem

On Oct 7, 12:43 am, hol...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Eugene Holman) wrote:
In article
<d1fc3c74-d245-4223-9261-bbe31f329...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,

tadas.bli...@xxxxxxxx wrote:

<deletions>

Thank you for that comprehensive and entertaining explanation.  

Much obliged, or, obrigado.

Sounds
like the differences between Finnish and Estonian are on a level
comparable to the differences between Spanish and Catal=E1n.  

I would sugest that the difference is more similar to the one between
Spanish and Portuguese. In both cases we have what until recently was a
dialect continuum in which two focal points have establishedthemselves as
norms. One is decentalizing (= unstressed syllable pronounced distinctly
and essentially the same phonological oppositions made in stressed as in
unstressed syllables); the other is centralizing (= historically
unstressed syllables are reduced or lost word internally (= syncope) or
word finally (= apocope). The situation in the Finnish/Estonian case is
rendered more complex by the major role of phonetic attrition,
compensatory lengthening, and Germanic-like stress patterns have played in
the history of Estonian, but not Finnish.

Visually,
perhaps the one most noticeable difference is that Estonian has the
letters b, d, g whereas Finnish doesn't.

Correct, but Estonian <b>, <d>, <g>, are not voiced plosives but rather
lenis, extremely brief voiceless plosives: Estonian <b> = IPA [b] with a
ring underneath; Estonian <tuba> ›['tub(ring underneath)a(slight
lengthening)] 'room', cf. Finnish <tupa> ['tupa] 'main living room in a
country house'); Estonian <sada> ›['sad(ring underneath)a(slight
lengthening)] 'hundred'; cf. Finnish <sata> ['sata] 'hundred'.

But Wikipedia is hard to understand on this: "There is one series of
stops, unvoiced unaspirated, with three phonemic lengths, written b d
g, p t k and pp tt kk."

Probably the most important phenomenon differentiating phonologically
conservative Finnish from phonologically innovative Estonian is
compensatory lengthening.

Words with the structure CVCV are unaffected: Estonian <kala> 'fish' =
Finnish <kala> 'fish', although the Estonian word has a more energetic
attack on the initial syllable as well as a somewhat higher pitch there;
the vowel of the second syllable in the Estonian word is ever so slightly
longer than it would be in Finnish. They are almost the same, but audibly
different,. Estonians speaking Finnish (and Finns speaking Estonian) hve
difficulty mastering these subtle differences.

Words with the structure CV:CV (bimoric stressed syllable) in Finnish are
CV:.C (trimoric stressed syllable) in Estonian: Finnish <saari> ['sa:ri]
'island' is <saar> ['sa:.r] in Estonian. The mora lost due to apocope
shows up in the form of a 'trace': a lengthening of the vowel in the
stressed syllable in Estonian.

As to the examples that you gave, <-b-> = [b(ring underneath)], <-p-> =
[p(caron above).p], <-pp-> [p.p]. Estonian has three contrasting degrees
of duration, although whether they are phonemic or not is a controversial
question, since there are accompanying phonetic hints that help determine
which is which.

In any case, the so-called overlong grade in Estonian (and certain
south-western Finnish dialects) is the consequence of compensatory
lengthening:

Finnish                 Late Proto-Finnic                Estonian
tupaan  <   *tupahan    <   *tupasen   >  *tup@h@n  >   tuppa
'into the (living) room'                                'into the room'

Estonian, like Portuguese with respect to Spanish, Danish with respect to
Swedish, and Latvian, with respect to Lithuanian, has undergone changes
due to phonetic attrition that have increased the amount of information
that can be expressed by contrasts made in stressed syllables, but
correspondingly decreased the amount of information that can be expressed
by contrasts made in unstressed syllables. My experience with asymmetrical
language pairs of this type is that speakers of the more phonologically
innovative decentralizing languages have, *ceteris paribus* and all other
things being equal, an easier time understanding the spoken form of the
more conservative decentralizing language than vice versa. Thus, Estonians
understand spoken Finnish, which sounds old-fashioned and slow, more
easily than Finns understand spoken Estonian, which sounds like crucial
parts of words are being mumbled or dropped: compare the cardinal numerals
one to five in Finnish <yksi>, <kaksi>, <kolme>, <neljä>, <viisi> with
their Estonian cognates <üks>, <kaks>, <kolm>, <neli>, <viis>. Note that
Finnish <yksi> 'one' is ['yk.si], Estonian <üks> is [yk:s], with a
lengthening of the plosive and a structurally more comples stressed
syllkable compensating for the apocope of the unstressed vowel. The same
sound change is currently underway in southern spoken Finnish, where the
words for 'one', 'two', etc. are currently closer to their pronunciation
in Tallinn than to their pronunciation in the Finnish literary standard.

Regards,
Eugene Holman

Très intéressant. As to: "My experience with asymmetrical
language pairs of this type is that speakers of the more phonologically
innovative decentralizing languages have, *ceteris paribus* and all other
things being equal, an easier time understanding the spoken form of the
more conservative decentralizing language than vice versa."

Well, I can see why that might be so in some cases (e.g. "Estonians
understand spoken Finnish, which sounds old-fashioned and slow, more
easily than Finns understand spoken Estonian, which sounds like crucial
parts of words are being mumbled or dropped), although in my experience most Letts find it harder to understand Lithuanian than vice versa. To us, yes, Lettish sounds like pidgin Lithuanian with endings shortened (e.g. all the masculine singular nominatives in -as bcoming just -s) and 'unnecessary' platalisations (tik > cik; kirsti > cirst) and the stresses hopelessly wrong (all on the first syllable like baby/foreigner talk, instead of in the 'right' places) ), but the Letts usually say they could hardly understand any of the Lithuanian at all, maybe just a few monosyllables, like 'tas', 'pats' and 'kur' or a few bisyllabic words like 'nauda' (although they would think we are talking about money! :-)

One thing amuses me: for all the heavy Livish influence on Latvian
(tonic stress out the window, mobile stress likewise; oodles of
loanwords), there is one Finnic feature the Lithuanians picked up that
the Letts didn't, namely, the imperative -k. Dredging up the cobweb-
ridden wreckage of my Latvian, I think the sing./pl. imperatives of
'maksât' are 'maksâ!' and 'maksât' respectively. In Lithuanian they
are 'mokëk!' and 'mokëkite!'.
.

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