Talk:Finno-Ugric languages/Archive 2

message: I found the following text by Nyenyec on Pasquale's user talk page:
:"In Hungary there is a highly charged political debate between academics who support the finno-ugric theory and their usually (far) right wing critics. You are correct that there is very little serious debate in the linguistic community. But in Hungary the debate is not linguistic, it's political. We've reached a point where Hungarian academists rarely dare to speak up and criticise the proponents of alternative theories lest they be charged with being "Anti-Hungarian" and "serving foreign interests" by "trying to hide the true origins of our language" (exactly the kinds of rhetoric Antifinnougric repeats).
:"The alternate theories range from relatively moderate supporters of Turkic origins of the Hungarian language to truly radicals supporting Sumerian and even Japanese origins. Usually the closer the proponents of a theory are to the fringes of the political spectrum the more off the wall their theories and the more agressive their rhetoric become."
That sounds like an interesting issue in itself, one that should be covered in Wikipedia.  Possibly it should be covered on the Finno-Ugric languages page.  After all, there's nothing to say the page should only be about the linguistic aspects of the Finno-Ugric group.  If the political controversy is really so intense that "academists rarely dare to speak up and criticize", then it's worthy to be mentioned somewhere.
Dbenbenn 02:22, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: One could say that the proliferation of off the wall theories after the silencing of all criticism [of the Finno-Ugric theory] in the years of socialism could be considered natural. What's truly scary is the aggressiveness of the proponents of said theories. A professor at a department of Finno-Ugristics refused to comment on this matter, stating that "all supporters of the Finno-Ugric theory are immediately labeled as treasonous. We're simply tired of fighting this hopeless fight against crackpots/lunatics." Unfortunately, for many, the acceptance of the Finno-Ugric theory immediately means some sort of treason. [“idegenszívűség”, the closest translation I can think of would be "Anti-Hungarianism", similar to Anti-Americanism] which makes it impossible to discuss these problems in an intelligent manner. Another serious problem is the academics' refusal to popularize their point of view. Only professor Károly Rédei has taken up the burden of debunking these dilettant theories in a language understandable to non-professionals. It’s telling that Rédei teaches in Wien (Austria) so he has less reason to fear attacks from Hungary. The worst scenario could be when even the sensible moderates on the political right start accepting and supporting these self-contradicting myths. This would lead to two separate theories on the origins of the Hungarian language, one for the political left and one for the political right, which never happened in the past.
Nyenyec 04:29, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: Nyenyec, you found a truly "independent" newspaper, that is well known of his dirty, unobjective and  pornographic style. This is really fascinating. Antifinnugor 19:11, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: Nyenyec, the point is, that this artificial little group has no common features of any kind. No common words except perhaps 8 or 10 words, no common grammar except of agglutination. It come to existence for political reasons, and now it tries to claim, that it will be eliminated for political reasons.  Finnufrists & uralics call people, who see the invalidity of these artificial groups lunatics and troll and psycopat and whatever words they can create in their hate. They censor every time Mr. Maracz article here, they censor every real critic. They (finugorists & uralists) live in an irreal world, that is their problem. Antifinnugor 11:09, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: The initial work was done by Joseph Budenz (sp?).  It was later found to be highly flawed, and was corrected and extended by [insert names of linguists here].  During the Soviet occupation of eastern Europe in the twentieth century, critics of the Finno-Ugric theory were repressed for political reasons.  (Why exactly did the USSR care?)  Recently in Hungary, the Finno-Ugric grouping has come to be seen as anti-patriotic or even treasonous.
I'm sure there's a lot more that could be said on the topic.  For example, reasons why it's a popular issue.  I don't think Americans ever felt the same way about English being a Germanic language.
Dbenbenn 21:01, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: very interesting. I would love to have this article, but for "Finno-Ugric languages" it may indeed be better to stay on linguistic territory. You know, Hungary is great and all, but I think nobody would have to be ashamed of a common heritage with the Finns, either. If I was Finnish, I think I couldn't stop laughing about all this :D dab 08:04, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: How about an article on the "Sociopathy of Language Family Affiliation" and add a link to this page as an illustration? Personally, I am quite familiar with the anti-Aryan invasion theory theories and the Daco-Romanian continuity theory and how those debates have been hijacked by non-linguists with a nationalistic political agenda, who insist on pushing their claims in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, but notice that neither of those debates involves the denial of a well-established genetic, language-family connection. So, here we have reached new heights in paranoia and phanta-linguistics. Thanks, Wikipedia!  Pasquale 01:09, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Finno-Ugric as a political issue

message: Please do NOT delete the selected ground words. What you do is simply terror. Also do not censor the links. Are you so afraid of the truth?  Antifinnugor 07:49, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hippo, please stop your terror

message: Vuo 01:42, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: well, the point of the Swadesh list is to give cognates, if extant. Hence AFU's constant sinew/tendon reversions (because, obviously, he cannot be expected to grasp the concept). Of course, nobody is assuming genetic relationship on Swadesh grounds alone, without morphological comparisons. It's a hint, not a proof. dab 15:54, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Swadesh Lists

message: When I reverted Antifinnugor's usual changes, I left in the "list of ground words" that she added.  I don't think they are relevant here, since they don't illustrate anything about the Finno-Ugric language grouping.  They aren't cognates or anything.  But I'll leave it to a linguistic expert to make that decision.  --Dbenbenn 20:49, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of ground words 

message: The References section could use a lot of cleanup.
* Foreign language titles should be presented with an English translation, in parentheses next to the original, for regular mono-lingual readers.
* Each source should have a brief summary.
In particular, I wonder where the "list of cognates" came from.  Possibly it's from one of the cited references, but I can't tell which. --Dbenbenn 21:02, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The list of cognates came originally from Encyclopaedia Britannica, but it has been corrected by many people afterwards. --Hippophaë 17:06, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I could not find them there. Where are they? Antifinnugor 12:14, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text:  Thanks for the translations!  I'm considering changing the reference that Mustafaa added from (based on the Encyclopedia Britannica) to something like (based on [4]).  This scheme would require making the References a numbered list.  But I think such a scheme would scale well for having lots of in-text references.  Comments?  --Dbenbenn 19:46, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  Dbenbenn, the Swadesh list is excellent. Thanks for that. Antifinnugor 12:14, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  Um, what?  I didn't make any Swadesh list.  --Dbenbenn 13:58, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text:  Actually, I put in the Swadesh list links. - Mustafaa 15:24, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  References 

message: This is the most probable development:
* Proto-Uralic: 4000 BC
* Proto-Finno-Ugric: 3000 BC
* Proto-Finno-Permic: 2000 BC
* Proto-Finno-Volgaic: 1500 BC
* Proto-Finno-Lappic & Proto-Ugric: 1000 BC
--Hippophaë 22:09, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: with a margin of error of what? 1000 years? dab (ᛏ) 09:43, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Proto languages

message: Where should extinct languages such as Meryan and Muromian be included? They were spoken in the area between Mordvinian and Estonian, but I doubt that anything is known about these languages, except from place names.--Wiglaf 14:09, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, and I have included them as such. I hope an expert will add the info there is.--Wiglaf 16:56, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I think Meryan and Muromian should not be placed in the classification tree, because their status is not clear enough. It would be more sensible not to put them somewhere in the tree but to give more information on them and their vague status within the Finno-Mordvinic languages below in the same chapter. --Hippophaë 21:45, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Do as you wish. This is more your specialty than mine.--Wiglaf 22:29, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Less known extinct Finnic languages

message: I removed the NPOV warning just now.  I think whatever problems there might have been have recently been addressed.  If you disagree, please put the warning back and state your objections here.  --Dbenbenn 21:02, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV 

message: The Finnish word for "sinew" and "tendon" is "jänne" (*jändek) not jennä. Please be more careful with the orthography. The etymological counterpart is "ideg" in Hungarian.
Ok, hipo, you center of my heart, thanks. One learns every day. Why do you write also jändek? Why do you write ten words for two in the cognates table? Are they different cases? Nominativ will be compared only with nominativ, as you probably do not know.  Antifinnugor 20:55, 21 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Jänne

message: somebody provided the examples "Afro-Asiatic, or Sino-Tibetan" in addition to Indo-European, in the criticism section. I am not so sure that this was well done, because both Afro-Asiatic (as opposed to Semitic) and Sino-Tibetan are afaik disputed, and rather on the same standing, evidence-wise, as FU.(more precisely, not AA as such is disputed, but which languages to include, and which not to) But this may be nitpicking, and I don't really care. dab (ᛏ) 20:01, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, this may be my POV speaking, but, while I too have heard people like Campbell, who have never studied either family, calling them "unproved", I am frankly at a loss for why.  Extensive etymological dictionaries of both are easily available, by strict Neogrammarians (Christopher Ehret and Sergei Starostin, for instance), and their similarities are obvious even on the face of it. - Mustafaa 12:28, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: ok, I admit I am innocent about any knowledge of Sino-Tibetan. A Chinese linguist told me it is disputed, but that may have been his pov. As for Afro-Asiatic, well, it is undisputed that there is such a family, but it does seem to be disputed which languages exactly are part of it. dab (ᛏ) 18:21, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair point.  The status of Omotic does seem to remain rather debatable; I've looked at Omotic a bit, and those languages are really remarkably different from any of the rest. - Mustafaa 18:35, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: other families

message: I removed the  tag.  Although the article isn't perfect, and has room to be expanded, it is certainly at least "Wikipedia average in regard to defects" as Wikipedia:Pages needing attention says.
By the way, people who watch this page might be interested in expressing an opinion at Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Basic words.  Dbenbenn 01:09, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  removed <nowiki>{{attention}}</nowiki> tag 

message: Also, I'd like to ask people with a background in linguistics to take a look at Critique of Finno-Ugric and Uralic language groups. Regrettably, some of the information listed there simply contradicts assertions made in this article and in Uralic languages. (Please refer to its talk page). This should be resolved properly. Nyenyec 17:30, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: well, you don't need to be an admin to make it a redirect to this article. Which is what it should be. dab (ᛏ) 18:18, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: it is also what I have done now. the VfD outcomes were 'no consensus', arguably a correct inclusionist interpretation of the vote. The page could still be needed, if substantial material accumulates in the "Criticism" section in this article. Until that happens, these pages should just be redirects. dab (ᛏ) 18:32, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Good call. - Mustafaa 18:33, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Critique page