A Finnish Grammar

A Finnish Grammar

In this book I have endeavoured to give a simple and clear account of the Finnish language, chiefly of that form of it which is now recognised as the ordinary vehicle of literary composition, and have thought it better to set aside as far as possible scientific disquisitions. I now proceed to briefly discuss from a purely theoretical point of view some of the phenomena presented by this curious tongue, in doing which I must express my special obligations to the various works of Professors Donner and Setl, and also to the account of Die Sprachen der Uralischen Vlker in the second volume of Dr. Friedrich Mllers Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft. The phonetic system of Finnish is characterized by a great paucity of consonants and a correspondingly great development of vowels. The alphabet has but thirteen of the former: d, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v. Of these it must be observed that d is in modern times only a literary invention, though as it exists in Esthonian and other cognate languages there is no reason to object to its use. It always represents a t which has been weakened by phonetic laws, but in the mouths of the peasantry the sound is either entirely omitted, or else replaced by a cerebral letter (represented in writing by l or r) or by v or j. G also is only found in the combination ng, which has[x] exactly the same sound as in English. The letter h is apparently never original in the middle of words. It appears to me to have really two soundsas an initial or between vowels, it is simply the English h, but before t and k, it is . The other consonants offer no remarkable peculiarities; v appears to be pronounced as in English (labio-dental), and not to be a labio-labial (modern Greek ). The simple consonants are pronounced much more lightly than in English. T and k in the middle of a word when pronounced naturally by a native, who is not trying to speak distinctly to a foreigner, often seem almost inaudible, and it is noticeable that in foreign words, with which the language is overrun, German and Swedish k, t, p (when not initial) are always represented by kk, tt, pp. It is highly probable that Finnish (like Esthonian) once had the sounds b, d, g. In Agricola are found such forms as nghe for ne, virdhat for virrat. On the other hand, everything points to the fact that the original tongue from which the Finno-Ugric languages were developed had only ten or eleven consonants: k, t, p, s, j, r, l, n, m, v, and perhaps h or . For the many curious sounds found in Lapp, Syrjenian, Ostiak, etc., all look as if they were degenerations from a simpler original. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 59795
Author: Eliot, Charles
Release Date: Jun 23, 2019
Format: eBook
Language: English