Question:
HOw is it that Hungarian and Finnish are so distantly related yet they have such similarity in sound?
anonymous
1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
HOw is it that Hungarian and Finnish are so distantly related yet they have such similarity in sound?
Five answers:
Yes, I am
2011-01-30 18:25:38 UTC
Hungarian and Finnish are distant relatives, that's why there are some similarities between these two languages, but don't get too excited. An English-speaking person can't understand German language without studying, although these languages are also related. You found some phrases which sound similar in both Hungarian and Finnish but there are much more words which sounds different.
anonymous
2016-04-26 09:26:01 UTC
Finnish and Hungarian are apart of the Finno- Ugric language group which include Finnish, Hungarian and Estonian. Just coz they have the same language doesn't mean that they are related people wise, just like Mexican people speaking english as a native language, or australian aborigines speak english.
anonymous
2011-01-30 18:22:46 UTC
They're not that distantly related, they are both Uralic languages.
.
2011-01-30 18:23:19 UTC
Its just like English and Spanish, they originate from Latin. The other two languages could have at one time been the same but evolved to two separate languages.. Who knows, maybe one day they will sound the complete opposite.
Laura
2011-01-30 18:30:40 UTC
GREAT observations -- careful and detailed. For someone who doesn't know anything about linguistics, you have an excellent ear. In fact, as it happens, Hungarian and Finnish are actually in the same language family, the Finno-Ugric family, and that's why they have the commonalities you noticed. That family also includes Estonian and the Lappish languages. "That funny way of pronouncing the letter T" is that it is not aspirated, as linguists say -- that is, it doesn't have that little puff of air after it. The technical explanation is this. With that type of sound (a "stop"), you start by building up air pressure behind your tongue, which is closing off the airflow in your mouth. To make the sound, you move your tongue tip down and allow the air to flow through. The difference is that with an English T such as the one in "top", you release the airflow a split-second before you start vibrating your vocal folds, and that's what makes the puff of air. To say an English D sound, you start the vibration before you release any air; and to say that "funny" T you start the vibration at the same time.



Also, English and Hindi are indeed distantly related, but perhaps not as distantly as you might think, as they are both members of the Indo-European family of languages (of which Finno-Ugric is a sub-family), and they do in fact have most of their sounds in common, if not the "melody" (technical term: "prosody", pronounced PRAHZodee).



See the Wikipedia article for more information:


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
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