Difficulties of Finno-Ugric

[hashi]

Ok. So far we have a good response about the idea for language difficulties.

What I want to do here is discuss how we are to rate the FU languages.

Included in the FU languages on WL are:
Finnish
Estonian
Hungarian
Karelian
Võro
Livonian
Khanty

So the way it's broken up is: Grammar , Lexicon , Pronunciation , Regularity* (in all elements)

* The higher the regularity score, the more irregular.

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What I want from people is: An idea of what you would rate each of these languages (you must have SOME knowledge of how they work) and if you agree with the votes as above. I also want to know why.

ITS OUT OF 5 (you can only go to halves)

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I can vouch for Estonian:

Grammar: 5
> Highly agglutinating, 14 cases - not all are easy to form or use, word order is difficult although relatively free - where you place things changes implied meaning.

Lexicon: 3
> It's very different for native English speakers, although the large number of sounds and letters and relatively high regularity, its not too hard to learn vocabulary. Finnish I would rate harder because it has less letters and is likely to have more similar words.

Pronunciation: 3
> Again, this is really regular. There is only one sound English speakers can't natively make: õ, however the rest is all quite easy. Stress is regularish although there is a 3 vowel length policy implemented which can be a headache.

Regularity: 2
> Very regular in pronunciation and most verb forms. Theres some odd stems which are illogical, but other than that pretty okay.

[邪悪歌]

I'm going to talk about Finnish.

Grammar: 4
Indeed Finnish is highly agglutinating, the endings are fairly regular so that helps a bit with the difficulty.

Lexicon: 3
The words are a bit different from English so would take English speakers a while to get the hang of certain words, especially with bizarre diphthongs like yö and öy that they would not be accustomed to hearing or speaking.

Pronunciation 3.5
The words are pronounced for the most part as they are written and pronunciation is pretty much always with stress on the first syllable.  However, there are some odd diphthongs that would be different for English speakers due to vowel harmony.

Regularity 2
Although there are a number of different endings for verbs, they are fairly regular.  There are only a few irregular verbs.

[hashi]

I'm going to talk about Finnish.

Grammar: 4
Indeed Finnish is highly agglutinating, the endings are fairly regular so that helps a bit with the difficulty.

Lexicon: 3
The words are a bit different from English so would take English speakers a while to get the hang of certain words, especially with bizarre diphthongs like yö and öy that they would not be accustomed to hearing or speaking.

Pronunciation 3.5
The words are pronounced for the most part as they are written and pronunciation is pretty much always with stress on the first syllable.  However, there are some odd diphthongs that would be different for English speakers due to vowel harmony.

Regularity 2
Although there are a number of different endings for verbs, they are fairly regular.  There are only a few irregular verbs.

I would probably argue 1.5 for regularity (its more regular than Estonian it seems)

What makes the pronunciation difficult? or more so than Estonian anyway? They have mostly the same diphthongs which aren't too hard.

And what makes you say that Estonian grammar is harder than Finnish? Finnish has more cases, more suffixes and stuff, plus vowel harmony to worry about.

Regarding Estonian grammar, I might change that to a 4.5.

[maggy]

As for magyar


Grammar: 5
Highly agglutinating, 17-20 something cases, most are regular but some endings to have assimilation. Vowel harmony can be tricky because of long lost vowels which merged. Mostly it's pretty regular though. Word order is free ofc but can cause changes in meaning.

Lexicon: 5
This one /is/ hard because our words are all non-English. There are modern loans form English and Romani, older loans from German and Slavic, before that Turkish, before that Indo-aryan, and various other minorities languages. Nonetheless the core vocab is completely foreign.

Pronunciation/orthography: 2
Some sounds like ty gy final h (or even ny for Americans) and the rolled r are tricky for anglophones, as are the a ö ü vowels. The length distinction and gemmination are also hard. sz for /s/ and s for /ʃ/ are counter-intuitive, word boundaries CAN present ambiguities as can ly which is today identical to j. Also, the ts/cs pair are confusing as are nj tj dj lj vs nny tty ggy lly. Otherwise there is a 1:1 correlation between spelling and writing


Regularity: 2
due to historical changes many words contain vowels which become shorter or v's which appear in some forms. The number of truly irregular verbs is very limited. Predicting the vowel harmony of a word can be very difficult owing to the mergers of rounded and unrounded vowels. nonetheless the affixes are regular and word stems tend to be pretty predictable given the historic forms.

[邪悪歌]

I'm going to talk about Finnish.

Grammar: 4
Indeed Finnish is highly agglutinating, the endings are fairly regular so that helps a bit with the difficulty.

Lexicon: 3
The words are a bit different from English so would take English speakers a while to get the hang of certain words, especially with bizarre diphthongs like yö and öy that they would not be accustomed to hearing or speaking.

Pronunciation 3.5
The words are pronounced for the most part as they are written and pronunciation is pretty much always with stress on the first syllable.  However, there are some odd diphthongs that would be different for English speakers due to vowel harmony.

Regularity 2
Although there are a number of different endings for verbs, they are fairly regular.  There are only a few irregular verbs.

I would probably argue 1.5 for regularity (its more regular than Estonian it seems)

What makes the pronunciation difficult? or more so than Estonian anyway? They have mostly the same diphthongs which aren't too hard.

And what makes you say that Estonian grammar is harder than Finnish? Finnish has more cases, more suffixes and stuff, plus vowel harmony to worry about.

Regarding Estonian grammar, I might change that to a 4.5.

I think the vowel harmony makes it easier since you know that for the most part a word will have to contain only certain letters whereas with Estonian it's more open.  True it has more cases and suffixes than Estonian, but the inflections thereof seem a bit simpler and more regular than Estonian.  I would put Estonian at 4.5 and leave Finnish at 4 or something.

[hashi]

So, to summarise.

language	grammar	lexicon	pronunciation	regularity
Estonian	4.5	3	3	2
Finnish	4.5	3	3.5	2
Hungarian	5	5	2	2

Any issues with this? I might add the ratings to the introduction pages then, and if they change in the future, we can update it.

[Taydr]

I'd probably make suomi and eesti grammar the same. Otherwise I agree.

[hashi]

I'd probably make suomi and eesti grammar the same. Otherwise I agree.

You have to backup what you say with reason

[Taydr]

The number of cases, suffixes, the vowel harmony which in modern words isn't always present, the existence of a case that isn't really taught to foreign learners, but which can still be found. All reasons for for suomi grammar being challenging. But as jon says, it's more regular than eesti, so should be at about the same.

[hashi]

The number of cases, suffixes, the vowel harmony which in modern words isn't always present, the existence of a case that isn't really taught to foreign learners, but which can still be found. All reasons for for suomi grammar being challenging. But as jon says, it's more regular than eesti, so should be at about the same.

So both 4, or 4.5?

[Taydr]

Well I think as we are rating them as for english natives, I'd probably go with 4.5. Finno-ugric grammar can be well hard for eng natives.

[hashi]

Well I think as we are rating them as for english natives, I'd probably go with 4.5. Finno-ugric grammar can be well hard for eng natives.

Ok. I shall add those ratings to the wiki.

[ILuvEire]

I'm going to go ahead and change Finnish if it's alright with you all, you can revert it if you like for these reasons:

Grammar:
Finnish is right now on par with Estonian, I say we bump it down to just 4. Estonian has a few cases that Finnish doesn't have, and they're much harder to use. Finnish is agglutinating at least, you just pile the roots on the stem.

Lexicon: 4
Like Hashi said, there are less letters, and the biggest difference is that words seem a bit longer. Plus there's the vowel harmony, which makes words difficult to remember. Well, difficulter I should say.

Pronunciation: 1
It's the simplest thing ever! For someone used to Germanic languages, it's a total walk in the park. If Hungarian is 2, then Finnish needs to be 1. I think we should really remember when doing these lists that it's totally subjective, so we need to rate them in relation to each other.

Regularity: 1
Once again, in relation to the others. Hungarian is marginally more irregular than Finnish, but Estonian seems to be quite a bit more irregular.

[hashi]

I'm going to go ahead and change Finnish if it's alright with you all, you can revert it if you like for these reasons:

Grammar:
Finnish is right now on par with Estonian, I say we bump it down to just 4. Estonian has a few cases that Finnish doesn't have, and they're much harder to use. Finnish is agglutinating at least, you just pile the roots on the stem.

Lexicon: 4
Like Hashi said, there are less letters, and the biggest difference is that words seem a bit longer. Plus there's the vowel harmony, which makes words difficult to remember. Well, difficulter I should say.

Pronunciation: 1
It's the simplest thing ever! For someone used to Germanic languages, it's a total walk in the park. If Hungarian is 2, then Finnish needs to be 1. I think we should really remember when doing these lists that it's totally subjective, so we need to rate them in relation to each other.

Regularity: 1
Once again, in relation to the others. Hungarian is marginally more irregular than Finnish, but Estonian seems to be quite a bit more irregular.

Which cases are those? Estonian has just 14 cases, Finnish has 15 if you include the accusative and they're not that hard to use either. Not compared to Finnish. I would put them ore on par too.

[Taydr]

Finnish actually has 17 cases if you include the obscure ones that are not much used these days

[hashi]

Finnish actually has 17 cases if you include the obscure ones that are not much used these days

Võro has 17 too. 4 of which are no longer really used. Estonian used to have the same ones, but they've been effectively removed from the language. Võro does retain them rarely though..

[邪悪歌]

the main cases that finnish uses now are:
nominative
genitive
partitive
illative
elative
adessive
inessive
ablative
essive
translative

the accusative is really kind of a weird mix of the nominative and the genetive
the other cases such as abessive, comitative, and instructive are rarely used and for the most part you can get away with not using them entirely...

estonian can be a bit more confusing with the genetive that is often the same as the nominative

[hashi]

Lol what. The Genitive is only the same as the Nominative if the Nominative ends in a vowel. I think you're meaning the short Illative which is often the same as the Genitive. The Abessive in Estonian is quite common, but certainly no harder than the other cases, same with comitative. Estonian Instructive no longer exists.

[邪悪歌]

for the most part the finnish instructive case isn't really used either, save for a few fossilized expressions like "omin silmin" "in my eyes" or something like that...

[Ger]

for the most part the finnish instructive case isn't really used either, save for a few fossilized expressions like "omin silmin" "in my eyes" or something like that...

"With my own eyes" actually

[Gbelle]

As for magyar


Grammar: 5
Highly agglutinating, 17-20 something cases, most are regular but some endings to have assimilation. Vowel harmony can be tricky because of long lost vowels which merged. Mostly it's pretty regular though. Word order is free ofc but can cause changes in meaning.

Lexicon: 5
This one /is/ hard because our words are all non-English. There are modern loans form English and Romani, older loans from German and Slavic, before that Turkish, before that Indo-aryan, and various other minorities languages. Nonetheless the core vocab is completely foreign.

Pronunciation/orthography: 2
Some sounds like ty gy final h (or even ny for Americans) and the rolled r are tricky for anglophones, as are the a ö ü vowels. The length distinction and gemmination are also hard. sz for /s/ and s for /ʃ/ are counter-intuitive, word boundaries CAN present ambiguities as can ly which is today identical to j. Also, the ts/cs pair are confusing as are nj tj dj lj vs nny tty ggy lly. Otherwise there is a 1:1 correlation between spelling and writing


Regularity: 2
due to historical changes many words contain vowels which become shorter or v's which appear in some forms. The number of truly irregular verbs is very limited. Predicting the vowel harmony of a word can be very difficult owing to the mergers of rounded and unrounded vowels. nonetheless the affixes are regular and word stems tend to be pretty predictable given the historic forms.

I disagree the orothography is very good, and makes sense, when you learn it, there are some irrrgularities, but i'd give it a 2.5 instead.

As for regularity, only the very old antiquated words do not conform to pronunciation, however they still follow the rules, the vowel harmony does mess up some of the roots at times, but the language on the whole is still very predictable. I'd give it a 1.