From: ryyti@jyu.fi (Jarmo Ryyti)
Subject: Re: Bulgarians - descendents of a Finnis tribe?
Organization: University of Jyvaskyla, Finland
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 07:14:34 GMT

Rich Alderson (alderson@cisco.com) wrote:
: In article <Bzz20F.JAu@NeoSoft.com>, claird@NeoSoft (Cameron Laird) writes:
: >In article <tervio.9@katk.Helsinki.FI> tervio@katk.Helsinki.FI (TERVI| MARKO J) writes:
: >
: >I'm having a hard time understanding this thread, but perhaps it will be
: >useful to note that linguists generally agree--though not without ongoing
: >disputes-- that there is a Ural-Altaic language superfamily which subsumes
: >Fenno-Ugric and Turkic branches, among others.  My impression is that the
: >genetic connections between modern Finnish and Turkish are less apparent than
: >those between Portuguese, say, and Russian.

When I was in Turkey I was told that the turks and the finns are  relatives
linguistically. It was told that there is indeed a ural-altaic language
group which is devided into two brances fenno-ugrians languages and
turkic languages. It was told  that we the turks and
the finns come originally from Central-Asia.

Just superficlially comparing turkish and finnish at least for me turkish
and finnish grammer seems to be very similar.

In addition to that I met some years ago koreans, they show me a book written
in english about the origin of the koreans. There was told that korean language
is related to finnish. They also said that the koreans, like the finns come
originally from Central Asia. I tend to believe in this too.
The fenno-ugrian peoples have allways lived on vast areas as nomads in
Asia and Europe and certainly there has been contacts during the ancient times.
One should not mix the race and language but anyone who visits Finland
can notice that the finns have asian blood. It is also scintifically prved,
a finnish scintiest some years ago, sorry I do not remember the name,
showd that by the blood test that the finns have a lot "mongol" factors
in blood.

: 
: Linguists generally do *not* agree on the existence of Ural-Altaic:  This was
: posited on *typological* grounds in the 19th century, when typology was assumed
: to recapitulate ontogeny, or something like that.  The basis of the claim of
: relationship was that both families show widespread vowel harmony.
: 
: If there is anything to the Nostratic hypothesis, Uralic and Altaic may be
: co-equal branches of the super-family, but I doubt that they are any more
: *demonstrably* closely related than Uralic and Indo-European.
: 
: >There is no doubt "that the Turks and the Finns are somehow related".  I'm not
: >in a position to judge how best to map the latest scientific scholarship on
: >this question onto the "widespread belief[s] in Turkey".

In Turkey, it is wide spread belief however that the finns and turks are
relatives. Still 1970's in turkish teachers seminars war red a book
named: A land of white lilies written by a russian. In the book
Finland was used as an example how a country and its people can come out
of "darkeness" by learning to read and write. The same book was used
as far as I know in Officiers Schools in Turkey too.
 
That book was used during decades in Turkey and therefore many educated
turks from elderly generation share the belief of kinship between the
turks and the finns. I do not see it as a bad thing at all, the opposite.
The same with koreans, I think it is a nice thing. And knowing the achievements
of the koreans and the turks in a modern society I think the finns are
in a good company.
: 
Regards,
jarmo ryyti

Newsgroups: sci.lang