Welcome

marcelbdt

August 20, 2008, 09:18 AM posted in General Discussion

Hi Changye!

Welcome to the North of Europe! You are an amazing person, and it would not surprise me a bit if you knew some Scandinavian.

I was to Kyoto once, like twenty years ago, and on an afternoon off, I wandered around the town. I passed by a market, and a shop keeper asked where I came from (Sweden), and then he said "how do you do" in perfectly recognisable Swedish - amazing.

If it wasn't because the Yen was so expensive at the time, I would have bought something from him, but I couldn't afford it on my pocket money.

changye

August 20, 2008, 11:20 AM

Hi marcelbdt,

Thanks for your pleasant misunderstanding. Actually, I know nothing about Scandinavian languages, but I’m very interested in the linguistic situation in the Scandinavian Peninsula. I heard before that Swedish and Danish are very similar to each other, since both belong to so-called Nordic languages, and the two peoples don’t have much difficulty communicating.

And what I would like to know is about Norwegian and Finnish (Suomi). I know that Suomi is not a Nordic language, so probably it is not compatible with Swedish and Danish, but how about Norwegian? Can you managed to communicate with Norwegian people without an interpreter or Google translator? Are Finnish people ethnically different from others?

P/S. I’m very pleased to know that you’ve been to Kyoto! Fortunately for you, Euro is much stronger than before.

leonard90

August 30, 2008, 08:55 AM

ok, thanks I'm beginner in chinese but I will work on it=)

auntie68

August 20, 2008, 12:02 PM

Changye, I hear that Norwegian is reasonably intelligible for speakers of Swedish and Danish, but Finnish -- with its (what?) 11 grammatical cases -- is completely, totally unique.

Dear Nordica group, thanks for having me. I'm not sure I belong here, coz I don't speak any Scandinavian languages, but I am friendly towards all of the countries on that neat map. Essentially, the only thing I "know" about this part of the world is from reading "Hello Magazine", or else it's in connection with Moomins (I love them), or my F-1 heroes (Mika Hakkinen, Kimi Raikkonen, Heikki Kovalainen - sp.? and Keke & Nico Rosberg).

Already, one question from me for the Nordica group, which you will probably find staggeringly ignorant: Is Icelandic considered to be part of the Scandinavian language family? I had a flight on an icelandic airline once, and was fascinated by the in-flight magazine, which used many characters which I had never seen before (or since).

All the best to all of you in this group!

auntie68

August 20, 2008, 12:02 PM

Dear marcelbdt, I think our posts crossed! Thanks for answering my questions even before I managed to ask them.

P/s: There are so many things which I find absolutely fascinating about Nordic countries, which are so distinct from each other. I did a couple of business trips to Denmark, and was surprised by how much the Danes loved pageantry and tradition despite the cool, modern image projected by Nordic design. And on my first long-haul Finnair flight, I was very startled by the "hymn" track on the inflight entertainment, having had this superficial (but tenacious) preconception that everything in the land of Alvar Aalto would be... oh well, I'm done with pre-conceptions. You guys are here now! My too-shallow reading throws up all kinds of startling (to me) ideas to digest: The role of Russia, the language situation (Eg. Swedish language in Finland, Åland Islands etc etc).

Again, many thanks.

changye

August 20, 2008, 01:16 PM

Hi marcelbdt and auntie68,

Thank you for information on Norwegian and unexpected bonus info on Icelandic! I didn’t know that Icelandic still preserves the flavor of an old Nordic language, which is probably because Iceland is an “island” country separated from other European countries.

Both Finnish and Japanese used to be regarded as members of the same language family “Ural-Altaic languages”, but not anymore today. I remember I felt very excited when I read about it for the first time, “Wow, there is our sister language in such a distant country!!!”

P/S. Auntie, they must be Runic alphabets.

marcelbdt

August 20, 2008, 01:33 PM

Finnish has many relatives, Estonian is said to be rather close, and there are many other languages scattered all over Russia. If Japanese is related after all, it would be very far out, and it won't help you to build a vocbulary in Finnish...:)

The nordic languages all have a few extra letters, which are added to the usual letters. For instance : æåø. Icelandic has for instance þ (for unvoiced 'th') and ð (for voiced th). I suppose that at least þ is derived from the runes, but the runic alphabetes as such is not used any more.

changye

August 20, 2008, 01:46 PM

Hi marcelbdt,

What a shame they are not Runic alphabets, such cute characters. I love them very much, of course, I can't read them at all.

leonard90

August 20, 2008, 02:17 PM

I'm not sure but I think the Norwegian language is from the Danish language, heard it on the school once!

marcelbdt

August 20, 2008, 11:54 AM

Swedish, Norwegian and Danish are rather close to each other, I would say closer than for instance some dialects of German. With some effort, they are almost mutually understandable. They are Nordic languages, and so is Icelandic. Icelandic used to be close to Norwegian, since Iceland was colonized from Norway. However, while Norwegian has changed over the centuries, Icelandic has almost remained as it was in the Viking age, and today it is definitely hard to understand for a Norwegian!

Finnish is a very different language. In Viking times, Scandinavia was inhabited by Nordic peoples in the South and Same peoples in the North. People speaking Finnish entered Scandinavia in the Middle Ages, but there has been a huge amount of mixing in of peoples and cultures in the area, so a large part of the present Swedish populations has Finnish and/or Same ancestors (without necessarily knowing about it), and I believe that the situation in Finland is similar.

adjusting

August 28, 2008, 07:36 AM

Hej.

I was an exchange student in Sweden several years ago. I figured this group would be a good way to practice my swedish while I learn chinese.

leonard90

August 28, 2008, 03:01 PM

Hi, can someone tell me what this mean??

marcelbdt

August 28, 2008, 03:35 PM

Yes, it's pronounced "qin2", and it usually means diligent... Has someone been giving you tips on how to study Chinese?

leonard90

August 29, 2008, 12:38 PM

People have but its just a friend of me asked me what this mean. nothing more!

daisyyum

August 29, 2008, 01:29 PM

Hello..

Yeah..“勤”is really an important word in chinese,when we were a child,our parents and teacher told us that we should 勤奋好学.

And you know ,China is a diligent country,everyone is very 勤奋 from their childhood~~~~