User talk:Ante Aikio

Welcome!

Hello, Ante Aikio, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

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I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!  —Khoikhoi 02:20, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Bures ja bures boahtin!

Voisitko vilkaista pohjoissaamen ekan sivun keskustelua ja ottaa kantaa? Huomasin, että sinulla on jo saamen natiiviloota (sme), mutta ei näytä olevan muille tasoille vielä noita lootia. Olisi ehkä hyvä idea saada ne aikaan pikku hiljaa?

Giitu ollu!

-Yupik 13:45, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Čállen dunnje gažaldaga du sámegielat Wikipedia geavaheaddjisiidui. --Skuolfi 02:04, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

Ubmisámegiella

Bures! Dárogiel teavsttas lea: Umesamisk har, som sørsamisk, ikkje stadieveksling.. Juos dát ii leat riekta, molssut go dánge? Giitu! -Yupik 06:46, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Muđui gal mielas, muhto in dađibahábut máhte čállit ođđadárogiela... --AAikio 08:16, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Dance capitalization

I noticed that you listed yourself as a linguist. There is currently a dispute at the Lindy Hop article the Dance WikiProject about the capitalization of dances that could use the expertise of a linguist. If you think you might be able to help, we would certainly appreciate your comments. Thanks! --Cswrye 05:02, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Dravidian and Uralic

Hello Ante! As far as I know, the Uralic affinity hypothesis has, right from the time it was suggested by Caldwell, been rejected out of hand by Uralic linguists but has, nonetheless, continued to be taken seriously by Dravidian linguists. This isn't an area I've looked at in a while, but two other papers which I have at hand are:

• Tyler, Stephen (1968), "Dravidian and Uralian: the lexical evidence". Language 44:4. 798-812.
• Burrow, T. (1944) "Dravidian Studies IV: The Body in Dravidian and Uralian". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 11:2. 328-356.

Mikhail Andronov has also written widely on this topic, but I don't have any of his papers with me at the moment. Zvelebil gives a more complete bibliography in Comparative Dravidian Phonology (Mouton, The Hauge: 1970) at p. 22 which, I think, also includes papers skeptical of any connection. I'm not aware of more recent work, but that could well be because these references are from my student days, and it's not a debate I'm actively following. -- Arvind 10:13, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the information. I checked Tyler's paper and found it to be seriously outdated as regards Uralic data and reconstructions, and also methodologically completely faulted; e.g., Tyler mostly limits himself to comparisons of initial syllables, ignoring the rest of word-stems, and there are also many purported sound correspondences that are attested from one case only. A bit of googling also revealed that Genèse de l´Inde (1997) by Bernard Sergent includes some argumentation on Uralo-Dravidian, but this book is not available in our university library; I'll have to try to obtain it from somewhere else. However, it's already starting to seem that the whole thing is just a bubble. --AAikio 11:37, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

It's interesting to hear that, I'd also be interested in hearing your opinion of Thomas Burrow's work, since he was quite a respected scholar in the area of Indian linguistics. I think part of the problem is that Uralists were very dismissive of Caldwell's original findings and have therefore paid very little attention to the theory since - which is probably why the proponents of the theory have been relying on outdated material, etc. The only even remotely recent paper on the thesis by someone familiar with the Uralic languages is a paper from 1971 by Pentti Aalto which I've not read but which, according to a book I have, discusses similarities in case suffixes between Dravidian and Fenno-Ugric. As I've pointed out on the talk page of that article, the theory does have its critics even amongst Dravidian linguists, but is still considered pretty mainstream. Perhaps someone specialised in the Uralic languages should write a paper in a journal specialising in Indian linguistics putting an end to the theory once and for all? If it's that bad, it shouldn't have mainstream acceptance. -- Arvind 12:39, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Altaic

Hi Ante, there's a dispute regarding Altaic at the Turkish language article. Could you please join-in on the discussion here and here? e104421 is not convinced that the Altaic languages are disputed, perhaps you could provide sources for him? Thanks. —Khoikhoi 01:32, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

---

Dear Ante,

I searched Alexander Vovins page, there are tons of references there, and most of them are seem to be conference papers (procedings). Maybe better to refer some articles form the citation index, i could reach them from the library. Can you advice some of them (please give me just a few from the citation index that's enough). I'm not an expert on this field. After reading these, i can turn you back.

My main objections are related with the statements as "someone believe something" which do not scientifically make sense, cause they are related with a guess or a belief. These cannot be accepted to be relevent from academical point of view. Maybe there are some minor uncertainities about Altaic Family definition or classification, but this does not mean Altaic language family is totally disputed.

Altaic subgroup classifications (Mongolian, Tungus, Turkic) are quite consistent, cause each member of these subgroups have certain relations with each other. There are also tons of articles and books about them, you know. For this reason, in my opinion, it is safer to consider these three subgroups (Mongolian, Tungus, and Turkic) under Altaic Family. In the Wikipedia page of the Turkish language, there is no valid reason to state as "disputed" for Altaic family classification for Turkish. One may change the name Altaic, but these three subgroubs themselves constitute a family whatever the name given to it. e104421 1 August 2006, 19:07 (UCT).

Dear e104421,

I'm afraid I can't help you with the citation index, as I don't use such. But I do recommend checking Janhunen's 1996 monograph Manchuria - an ethnic history (Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 222). From Alexander Vovin you could check his extensive review article The End of the Altaic Controversy of Starostin, Dybo, and Mudrak's "Etymological dictionary of the Altaic Languages" (Central Asiatic Journal 49.1: 71-132, 2005). If you like, I could provide more extensive references after a week or two when I'm back at the university (it's difficult for me now as I'm travelling).

Then on your claim that "Maybe there are some minor uncertainities about Altaic Family definition or classification, but this does not mean Altaic language family is totally disputed". To me this shows that you are not very well acquainted with the field. Everyone doing Altaic linguistics - or even just occasionally following the field, like me - knows that the question of the Altaic debate is not a matter of "minor uncertainities about ... definition or classification", but a controversy at the heart of Altaic linguistics. The "Anti-Altaic" scholars such as Janhunen and Vovin argue that the Altaic langauges are only related through areal influence, and consequently there is no Altaic language family, just a Sprachbund.

From your comment above ("Altaic subgroup classifications (Mongolian, Tungus, Turkic) are quite consistent, cause each member of these subgroups have certain relations with each other"), I'm not sure what the "certain relationships" are you refer to? In order to form a language family, languages must be shown to derive from a single ancestral language, by demonstrating regular correspondences in phonology, grammar and basic vocabulary. The reason for the Altaic controversy is that such correspondences have not been demonstrated to the general satisfaction of Altaic. --AAikio 06:37, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Ante. As i told you, i'm not an expert on this field. These certain relationships i mentioned above are simply, morphological, syntactical, and semantical ones, also for each subgroup the organization of words in to sentences are quite similar. In addition, there exists wovel harmony. Furthermore, Altaic family shows productive-predictive correspondences.

All languages are influenced by languages they are in contact with. By stating there is no Altaic language family, do you mean the altaic languages are hybrid ones? What kind of method is applied to reach this conclusion? What about the correlations between the languages?According to the standards set by linguists, languages that make up a family must show productive-predictive correspondences. The shape of a given word in one language should be predictable from the shape of the corresponding word, or cognate, in another language. Altaic family satisfies all these. I still do not understand the dispute about the existance of Altaic language family.

We can continue after your holiday, by the time i'll have time to read the articles if i reach them. As a note, i prefer sources from the science citation index, cause our library has a membemship to them, so i can get them easily. Anyway, i shall try to find the ones you cited above. Have a nice holiday, e104421 12:22, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi e104421, and thanks for your reply. Yes, I'll get back to the references once I have the chance to use our library again. As for the methodology and the data behind the Altaic controversy, I'm not really an Altaicist, so I can only give you my outsider's impression of the issue. But in general methodological terms, syntax is not considered very reliable evidence for genetic relationship by many comparativists, because on the other hand syntax is too iconic and on the other it is very susceptible to contact influence. The research done on comparative syntax in general seems to support the idea that syntax can be more reliably used to determine contact than relationship. Moreover, the reconstruction of syntax is also a methodologically more controversial field than the reconstruction of phonology, morphoplogy and lexicon (this is described in detail e.g. in Anthony Fox's monograph: Linguistic reconstruction - theory and method). The same is pretty much the case with phonological typology - including, for instance, vowel harmony. Basically only shared material between languages can serve as indisputable evidence of genetic relationship, but not shared rules - whether syntactic or phonological.

As for "productive-predictive [sound] correspondences", I guess this is just what the whole controversy is about: the Anti-Altaicists maintain that such correspondences do not exist and that there is little or no shared basic vocabulary. While Pro-Altaicists claim to have shown such correpondences, Anti-Altaicists argue that these can be explained as both loanwords (mainly non-basic vocabulary) and chance resemblances or wrong etymologies produced by too lax an application of the comparative method. In my impression, the issue resembles rather much the controversy over Indo-Uralic or Nostratic whose proponents also claim to have demonstrated productive-predictive correspondences, but they have failed to convince the majority of scholars because the presented etymological material turns out to involve a large number of problems under closer examination. In the Altaic debate it is also often pointed out that there are many Turkish-Mongolian and Mongolian-Tungusic lexical correspondences but only few Turkish-Tungusic ones, a situation that is consistent with the hypothesis of language contact but abnormal in the case of genetic relationship.

I don't think anyone suggests the Altaic languages are some sort of hybrid languages - the Anti-Altaic school maintains that they are a set of several independent language families that originate from roughly the same geographic region and due to this prehistoric contact have a shared typological profile and many layers of mutual borrowing and influence, but as yet no demontrated genetic connection underlying the layers of borrowing (which wouldn't exclude the possibility of demonstrating such in the future, of course). --AAikio 14:00, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Claus Schönig has pointed out that, applying Indo-Europeanist standards, there isn't even a proper reconstruction of proto-Oghuz, much less of proto-Turkic. It would involve digging through masses of medieval texts usually written in Arabic script, i. e. without the vowels so important for Turkic languages, diligently working out dialectal traits found in them (but frequently vanished in the Mongol era), etc. Unfortunately, Turkology is a small field, and manpower is lacking; if there wasn't so much intellectual energy being wasted with nationalistically motivated outlandish comparisons and similar nonsense, I'd suspect with the help of native scholars reconstruction of proto-Turkic, proto-Mongolic and proto-Tungusic would progress much faster and only then you could think about comparing them. Florian Blaschke 14:45, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

---

"(disputed)" tag

The problem is to put the discussion on the right place. If we continue the discussion under Turkic Languages pages, this would lead to conclusion that there is a dispute of Turkic languages being Altaic cause only in the Turkic language pages there exist "disputed" tag. This is my main objection for removal. Ante, if you seach the pages of all Altaic languages, you'll see the "disputed" tag only in the articles about Turkic languages not for the others in the Altaic group. I think someone, on purpose, is trying to create speculations all Turkish related articles. Otherwise, he/she sould have done this for all languages under Altaic classification.e104421 3 September 2006, 10:15 (UTC)

Dear Ante, I started reading "Future at Perfect Sunrise"'s reference"Telling the general linguists about Altaic" [[2]]. After finishing, i'll turn back to Altaic discussion. For your comment of putting the tag on every article: 1) This brings the problem that what will happen to the articles of the languages whose page is not complete (for example, without a table). 2) It is very difficult to carry the discussion to all articles, cause for instance, i rejected after reading Turkish Language article, what will happen for others, do we have Altaic discussion on all the the articles about each language separately. 3) Carrying the Altaic discusion to Altaic Languages or maybe better Altaic hypothesis not only informative both also easier. As you said before "One of the problems here is that there are two separate but overlapping articles, Altaic languages and Altaic hypothesis, the latter of which documents the controversy". There exist Altaic Languages and i do not think that existence of Altaic languages is disputed. 4)We all are not the experts on this field (Altaic or Anti-Altaic). For me, i'm just trying to learn something from the experienced ones. However, i'm not satified either with the Altaic thesis or the tag or the place of discussion. In my opinion, this tag causes misunderstanding. Anyway, we'll somehow end up with a conclusion (at least about the tag) e104421 3 September 2006, 10:30 (UTC)

Daldøs and Sáhkku

Hi Ante. Thanks for your fix at Daldøs; I've now made a similar fix at Sáhkku. I had used the spelling used in my source for the two articles, but I'm sure you are right. Do you think you can summon anyone to flesh out the sáhkku article (a sami board game)?--Niels Ø 08:08, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment. I don't know Sáhkku myself, and regrettably I can't immediately think of anyone who could improve this stub. But I'll keep this in mind, and see if I can find the right person for this job. --AAikio 16:47, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

ps. About the ethnonyms: the spellings "Sami", "Saami" and "Sámi" are all used in English (I use "Sami" on Wikipedia, because it seems to be the most widely used form here). The form "Sámit" which I fixed, however, is a Sami plural form, and as such should not be used in English. --AAikio 06:03, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Gulf of Bothnia in Sami

Hi Ante,

As I noted your Sami skills, could you kindly translate "Gulf of Bothnia" in Sami, thanks! --Drieakko 14:14, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply on my talk page. What is the word by word translation of "Mearrabađaluokta"? --Drieakko 08:14, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

luokta means 'bay', and Mearrabađa is the genitive singular of Mearrabahta, the Bothnian Bay (Finn. Perämeri). Mearrabahta means approximately 'sea's bottom': mearra means 'sea' and bahta actually means 'ass, behind', but this word is also regularly used in topographic designations: cf. vuotnabahta 'the bottom of a fjord' (vuotna 'fjord'). So one could very roughly translate Mearrabađaluokta as 'sea's bottom's bay'. --AAikio 18:12, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! :) --Drieakko 05:38, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

What is Davviluokta used for by the way? -Yupik 07:06, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I now notice this has also been sometimes used of the Gulf of Bothnia. I'm not sure how common it is, though.--AAikio 12:34, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

I wish I knew where I had first seen it; google isn't of any help here. I wonder if it's from Davvin. I wonder if Davvinluokta refers to Gulf of Bothnia and Mearrabađaluokta to the Bay of Bothnia? (cf. Image:Baltic_sea_map.jpg). Could gohppi be used for the Bay of Bothnia (i.e., Mearrabađagohppi?). Interesting problem! -Yupik 13:01, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I checked on where the Davvinluokta comes from; it is from Davvin. Mearrabađaluokta seems to be in more widespread use, though as I found it in both Skuvlla eatnandiehtu: máilbmámet (I couldn't find the one for Finland) and Sámi-dáru-sátnegirji, which says that Mearrabađaluokta/Davvemearrabahta is Bottenhavet/Pohjanlahti and Mearrabahta is Bottenvika/Perämeri. Strangely enough though, Davvemearra (Davvimearra) is not a synonym of Mearrabahta as it refers to Nordsjøen/Pohjanmeri. I suppose one of us should enter these in the Sámi wikipedia since they don't seem to exist there already? Even a stub would be a good idea... -Yupik 09:48, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I've created stubs now for se:Mearrabahta and se:Mearrabađaluokta. I'm going to make a map based on fi:Pohjanlahti, but I can't think of how to say Merenkurkku in Sámi (Mearrabađačoalbmi?); Selkämeri seems to be Čielgemearra at least in Skuvlla eatnandiehtu: máilbmámet. I wish I had a copy of Sámi Atlas to see what they have for them in there. -Yupik 14:48, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi Yupik. I don't have the Sámi Atlas at hand now either, but I'll try to check it sometime in the library. I'll se if I can expand the stubs on the Sami wikipedia once I have some more time (been somewhat inactive for a while due to other hurries). As for the word gohppi, I don't think it could occur in such a name. The impression I have through field work on Sea Saami place-names is that gohppi refers to relatively small bays, at most a couple of kilometres wide (such as the one here: [3]), but the bottom of an entire fjord or the like is never called gohppi. --AAikio 07:59, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Beautiful photo! Have yet to make it to that side of Sápmi; hope to some day! It would be a good thing if someone else besides me would create articles in the Sámi wikipedia as it's not my mother tongue and I've apparently forgotten most of what I did know or at least it feels that way when I try and write or translate articles there. I've been trying to figure out how to get other Sámi to participate, but no one seems interested :/ And no worries about having other things to do, I work full time, I study full time and have 3 kids :D I get around to what I get around to. -Yupik 12:54, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Kvenland nuisance

Hello. You have recently been introduced to the Kvenland revert war. The person known as Kven User has used a sock-puppet called Oikio Aikio, and he has presented an accusation that you are not the real Ante Aikio. I took the liberty to notify arbitrators of this on a related arbitration page. I hope you will not be irritated because of my action. Kind regards, 217.112.242.181 14:56, 19 September 2006 (UTC) (AKA user Kraak).

Welcome to VandalProof!

Thank you for your interest in VandalProof, Ante Aikio! You have now been added to the list of authorized users, so if you haven't already, simply download and install VandalProof from our main page. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me or any other moderator, or you can post a message on the discussion page. Prodego ^talk 01:54, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

You are using the new 1.3 version, right? Prodego ^talk 18:20, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

You had problems with both versions? Do you have cookies enabled in Internet Explorer? Prodego ^talk 16:09, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Kerek

What's your source for the statement that Kerek is now extinct? I'm saddened but not surprised to hear it, since five years ago there was reputed to be only one elderly speaker (Ekaterina Khatkana) still alive. Ngio 09:12, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Hello Ngio. The reference for this sad news was Fortescue 2005, which I had cited in the article Kerek language. I now added the reference to Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages as well. --AAikio 09:41, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Varhaiskantasuomesta

Tervehdys. Tiedän, ettei Wikipedia ole paras mahdollinen väline pyyntöihin, muttei muutakaan oikein ole. Osallistun projektiin jonka tarkoituksena on elvyyttää varhaiskantasuomi, jos sellaista edes oli, eläväksi rituaalikieleksi suomalaisten - ja miksei muidenkin - uuspakanoiden käyttöön. Pyydän anteeksi jos olen väärässä, mutta oletan teidän tuntevan kyseisen kielen rekonstruktiot hyvin, tai ainakin paremmin kuin minä. Tästä syystä pyydän apuanne. Koska asun pienellä paikkakunnalla, en pysty turvautumaan kovinkaan hyviin kirjastopalveluihin tai kirjakauppoihin, joten joudun etsimään lähteitä tätä kautta. Mikä tahansa apu olisi erittäin tervettullut. En odota teidän selittävän minulle yksityiskohtaisesti kaikkea mahdollista, mutta pyydän teitä tarjoamaan käyttööni kaiken tiedon, jonka vain kohtuullisella vaivalla voitte. Pyydän suuresti anteeksi tätä vaivaa ja muistutan, että voitte toki kieltäytyä. Se ei johtaisi minkäänlaisiin negatiivisiin tunteisiin. Kiitos. --Fagyd 02:11, 14.10.2006 (UTC+2)

Kiitos viestistä. Valitettavasti minä (tai kukaan muukaan) ei voine auttaa teitä projektissanne kovinkaan paljoa, koska ajatuksenne on jo lähtökohdiltaan epärealistinen: varhaiskantasuomen rekonstruktioista ei ole olemassa mitään sellaisia yleistajuisia tai muutenkaan yksiselitteisiä lähteitä, että niitä voisi käyttää kielen "elvytyksen" pohjana. Kielen sanaston ja kieliopin rekonstuointiin "projektinne" tarvitsisi alan eksperttejä. Toisekseen, tällöinkään ette saavuttaisi haluttua tulosta, koska näin muinaiset kantakielet voidaan tieteellisin menetelmin rekonstruoida vain fragmentaarisesti: niistä ei ole enää mahdollista saada niin yksityiskohtaista tietoa, että kieli voitaisin "elvyttää" tai herättää eloon rekonstruktion kautta. Mikäli tästä huolimatta haluatte tiedon muutamasta aihetta koskevasta keskeisestä lähteestä, voin ne tietenkin antaa, mutta totean vielä kerran että projektinne on tieteellisestä näkökulmasta kaikin puolin mahdoton. --AAikio 17:50, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Sääli. Kiitos kuitenkin. --Fagyd 01:05, 19.10.2006

Aika mielenkiintoinen yritys on dialogi elokuvassa Unna ja Nuuk (saatavissa videovuokraamoista). En ole pystynyt tutustumaan siihen kirjallisessa muodossa mutta ensikuulemalta johonkin tällaiseen vaikutelmaan on pyritty, ehkä kuitenkin niin, että käytetty sanasto on olennaisesti esi-itämerensuomalainen. "Varhaiskantasuomalainen" sanasto, saati sitten syntaksi ja morfologia, ei varmaan olisi riittävän kattava mihinkään elokuvadialogiin.

Talk:Sami_music/to_do

Bures!

En tiedä, kuinka paljon tiedät aiheesta, mutta tämä artikkeli on tynkä sinänsä ja käsittelee vain ja ainoastaan pohjoissaamelaisten joikua. En tiedä, pystytkö auttamaan tai tunnetko jonkun, joka pystyy, mutta olisi kivaa nähdä tämän artikkelin laajennetuna! Yritän itsekin jossain vaiheessa tehdä osuuteni, mutta ajattelin pyytää sinua mukana! Saat muuten levittää tämän sanoman eteenpäin. Kiitos :) -Yupik 12:08, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Kiitos vinkistä. Joo, tuon tilanne näytti toistaiseksi vähän heikolta. Toisaalta tämä ei ole minun alaani ollenkaan, joten jätän toistaiseksi tämän tarkkailuun siinä toivossa että joku muu tarttuisi tähän. Mutta jos ei, niin pitää kai yrittää laajentaa joidenkin sopivien lähteiden pohjalta.--AAikio 12:37, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Oslårhålvar

Hi, perhaps you can help... someone in Polish Wikipedia wrote the article pl:Oslårhålvar claiming it is some sort of archaic sleigh used by Sami people. We suspect it is a hoax and consider deleting the article. Google doesn't find this word, but perhaps it is misspelt? Thanks, tsca @ 19:56, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

Never heard of such, I guess this is based on some misunderstanding. "Oslårhålvar" cannot be a Saami word, it looks like Swedish, but doesn't make sense at least with my limited Swedish skill. I suppose no harm is done if you just go ahead and delete this. --AAikio 09:45, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, thank you very much! tsca @ 12:51, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

It is not Swedish either. --MoRsE 13:53, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Altaic (again)

Hi, Ante. Sorry, i forgot to reply. After checking the sources and considering the Altaic controversy again, i now agree that the information related with Altaic controversy should be mentioned in more detail in the Altaic languages page, and the Altaic hypothesis page should be merged with Altaic languages page (which is already done, actually the Altaic hypothesis page was nearly a copy-paste edit). Together with Khoikhoi, we proposed a new solution to the tag problem also keeping your comment "the infobox says "Language family", and if Altaic is not a family then removing the tags could eventually turn out to be misleading" in mind. The solution is as follows:

Genetic Classification:Altaic (controversial)

As an example, see Turkish. What do you think? Cheers! E104421 15:19, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Hi E104421, thanks for the note. This looks like a good solution to me; "controversial" is a more informative word than "disputed". --AAikio 07:50, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

biedis heikka

Hi! This is not related to Wikipedia, but my mother is singing a text in "lappish" and would like to know a translation. We have come as far as that it must be in some Sami language, but which one, we're not sure. Since you seem to be a native speaker, I thought, perhaps can you identify the text and perhaps tell-us what it means? :)

   Na, Piete Heikka snuuren aalttudža jo nuu,
   de Ko maanaditte,
   Loi, loi, lonko, loi

   Na, lokkameattun thaalla da la,
   Kultte loi, loi,
   lon laajiistuoddares vel
   Loi, loi, lonko, loi

We are not even sure if the words are concatenated in the right way. And the diacritics are missing, too.

--Gerrit ^CUTEDH 22:18, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Paleo-European substratum in Saami and etnic continuity

I refer to your research paper about paleo-european substratum in modern Saami from 2004 where you also reject ethnic continuity between the earlier paleo-european population and the later Saami population. I feel wondered how there can not be ethnic continuity after this language shift, before the language shift the people where hunters, fishermen and gatherers so they also were after the language shift, as you state in your work a significant part of the lexica from some semantic fields seem to have survived the language shift, I am just an amatur, but I cant really see the big differences in their lives from before and after the language shift as you suggest it happend as far back as the iron age. By the way do you think joik come with the proto-sami language or is it a paleo-european cultural relic that survived the language shift?

Thanks for your note. I think it's necessary to make a difference between 'cultural' and 'ethnic' continuity. There has certainly been a considerable degree of cultural continuity, and this is indeed implied by the retention of many substrate words connected with hunting, fishing, etc. - as you note. However, I don't think we can speak of the same ethnic group before and after the language shift. Usually a change of ethnic identity is the ultimate result of language shift, at least after a few generations. For example, the descendants of Saami who have shifted to Finnish a few hundred years ago in central Finland have become Finnish, and do not retain any Saami ethnic identity.

I guess the same must have taken place in Lapland. When the peoples there shifted to (Proto-)Saami, they also assumed a new "Saami" identity - and even took the new name for that, the Proto-Saami word *sāmē 'Saami'. And I think we can't really know about the ethnic situation before this language shift: most probably there were many languages and ethnic groups in Lapland, but we can't say how many, or how big the linguistic differences between these groups were.--AAikio 16:38, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. Is it possible for you to say anything about how as far as you know the linguistic science community in general and especially the uralic linguistics have reacted to this new evidence? I understand that at least one linguistic support you (Saarikivi 2006).

Well, in the course of personal communication I've received mostly positive comments, and many linguists have told me that they subscribe to this substrate hypothesis. But as of yet, there are not many published sources that would document this. But note Janhunen 2007 ("The Primary Laryngeal in Uralic and Beyond", in MSFOu 253) and Christian Carpelan's article "origins" in "The Saami - A Cultural Encyclopedia" (ed. by Ulla-Maija Kulonen, Irja Seurujärvi-Kari & Risto Pulkkinen, 2005). --AAikio 09:33, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

You did not mention the specific DNA literature in this text, what literature did you actually refer to, mtDNA or classical markers? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.202.76.147 (talk) 05:51, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I understood the question correctly, but in any case I did not refer to any genetic publicatons; the issue of substrate in Saami and its dating is a purely linguistic question and as such basically independent of any genetic findings.--AAikio 07:38, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Kemi Sami

Hi. I see that you have recently edited the Kemi Sami article. I have made an attempt to translate the Swedish version of the first poem on the page to English (a non-poetic translation). Maybe you might check it out to see if I've made any gross errors! The person who requested the translation on the article's talk page as retired from Wikipedia, so I thought I'd turn to people who edited the article recently. Also, is it worth my while trying to translate the second poem in a similar fashion?. Thanks, Pikiwedian 21:47, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the note; your translation looks fairly exact. However, the book which is the source of the Swedish translation (Björn Collinder's Lapparna) is also published in English, so I guess this could be used as a source of the English translations. I don't have the book at hand right now as I'm travelling, but I could check this sometime later when I'm back at my university. --AAikio 12:31, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Siida

Have you noticed this article? It's rather weirdly structured and should probably be reworked. I'll see what I can do, but make no promises. And don't worry about it either right now, have a good trip :) -Yupik 14:25, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the note - you're right, it looks weird. Maybe I'll try to fix it a bit once I have the time and inspiration... --AAikio 09:53, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Ah, I hope you don't lose your inspiration and motivation! It would be quite unfortunate! Perhaps you would like to consider joining us on the Finnish wikipedia in the kieliprojekti? Right now we're trying to improve the Italian article, but the next article will likely be one of the Sámi languages. -Yupik 12:05, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Ter Sami

Good work! And I'm glad to see you're not losing your motivation, it would be a shame if you were! I have to admit that I don't know a thing about Ter Sámi, so I can't help you there, sorry! -Yupik 16:05, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Székely language

Hi,

I had found a new Finno-Ugric language, and it made me excited. Namely, this is the Székely language. Székely is truly a Hungarian dialect, but not a language. Also, this dialect does not differ from standard Hungarian much, but mainly only in vocabulary, e.g., Székelys say törökbúza instead of kukorica 'maize'.

Or this is only my opinion? You seems to be an expert of the question, so this is why I was such bold to contact you. (The article was written by User:Székely Attila.) See you, --Cserlajos ^{(talk) (contribs)} 17:31, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

NON. What realy mean this "garbled English" word ?????

N: The major diferrence between pseudoscience and Popper non-science lay in number of participants.

A: (rv further: the edit by User:Nasz is garbled English, and furthermore it is obvious that the main difference between science and pseudoscience is *not* in number of practicioners)

1 Did you omit the leters NON in non-science? [4]

Nasz 02:50, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for the ommission. But the real reason for my reverting that edit was that it is too bad English, so that I cannot really make sense of it; and in the way I think I understand it, it doesn't seem to make sense. Please just try to formulate it more clearly, I'm sure it can be discussed then.--AAikio 08:38, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Skolt Sámi

Bures! I was wondering if you would have time to translate the phonology section you wrote for this article in English into Finnish as fi:koltansaame is the project of the week for the Language Wikiproject on the Finnish wiki. Your help would be greatly appreciated! -Yupik 21:50, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Finnish translations

Hello! Just to let you know that a place has been created for any Finnish --> English translation requests you would like to make at (Wikipedia:Translation/*/Lang/fi) to make them easier to add, find and take care of. Thank you for your contributions! -Yupik 20:52, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Proto-Indo-European in North Sami

How is called Proto-Indo-European language in North Sami? Where in North Sami Wikipedia is article about PIE itself, but not about Indo-European languages? I can't localize it. It is true that PIE in North Sami is called Indoeurohpálaš Vuođđogiella, or Vuođđoindoeurohpágiella? Which name is used in North Sami? Please correct me if I'm in error, or confirm if I'm correct. I need these informations to finish finding best PIE paradigms across Wikipedias and to make proper link to interwiki PIE article in Italian: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indoeuropeo For all other languages I succeeded in localizing relevant articles or confirming lack of their existence. Please answer very quickly - Thanks in advance. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.5.59.207 (talk) 15:42, 6 March 2007 (UTC).

Only article about Indo-European languages I found is Indoeurohpálaš gielat but it is same as Indo-European languages. And that "article" is only a list of Indo-European languages in Sami language. So there is no PIE article in North Sami Wikipedia and the article of Indo-European languages is a stub. --Skuolfi 20:24, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Doh!

Thanks for the correction. Nice to see you back :) -Yupik 09:47, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Northern Sámi phonology

Bures! Sorry to bother you again. Would you have time in the near future to knock up a section on the phonology of Northern Sámi like you did for Skolt? Thanks for your time. -Yupik 12:29, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Yep, this would be a good idea, and there are quite a few other things that could be improved in that article as well, e.g. references are missing. But there's a problem that should be discussed first, maybe on the article's talk page. Unlike Skolt Saami, there are quite notable phonologial differences between North Saami dialects. As there is no standard pronunciation, I'm not sure which system(s) should be described in the phonology section, and how should dialect differences be explained?--AAikio 15:02, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to get back to you so late on this. I was thinking about splitting the Northern Sámi article up anyways at some point in time into separate articles about the different dialects as even the grammar differs from dialect to dialect and I haven't quite figured out how to get them all in the main article. Would that help at all? Totally OT, but would you be willing someday soon to translate the phonology section of the Skolt article into Northern Sámi and put it on the Sámi wikipedia? I'd appreciate it greatly. -Yupik 09:00, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it would be a good idea to split this into several articles,as the differences outside phonology are not very substantial, certainly not any larger than between Finnish dialects, for instance; and at any rate North Saami has a rather stable literary standard. I think the problem here involves mainly phonology, as North Saami has no standard pronunciation comparable to Finnish "yleiskieli", or the like. I'd rather suggest that we start a separate article titled Northern Saami phonology (or perhaps: Northern Saami dialects), and describe the main dialectal differences and a few representative phonological systems there - and keep the information on phonology in the main article at a very general level.

About the Skolt Saami article, I'll see what I can do once get into a translation mood... --AAikio 13:45, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Uralo-Siberian and beyond

Hi! Reading this Linguistlist post again, I found the following:

A third example might perhaps be involved in PE *igø- 'swallow' that Fortescue compares with a PU verb meaning 'to eat'. However, the comparison is not as straightforward as the previous ones, as the Mordvinic points to a PU form *sewi- and not *sexi- (the evidence from other languages is ambiguous), and the tentative equation PU *puwa- 'to blow' with PE *puvø- 'to swell', *puva-k 'lungs' suggests that PU *-w- might rather correspond to PE *-v-.

I find that very interesting. Because I'm not a Linguistlist member and because the post is 6 years old anyway, I'll comment it here.

Is it possible that the Proto-Uralic form was "both" *sexi "and" *sewi – that is, *sexwi? Or are (for example) such consonant clusters illegal in PU? Because if such a reconstruction is permissible, interesting comparisons are possible. As cited in the Nostratic languages article, there is a Proto-Indo-European root *seh₃(w) "satiated" (apparently the ancestor of satiated via Latin satis "enough", and of German satt "satiated"). I don't know what the evidence for or against that *(w) is, but if it's real (and if *xw was possible in PU), it might be a common innovation of IE and Uralo-Siberian…

Furthermore, Kaiser & Shevoroshkin (1988), my source for the Nostratic article, list a proposed cognate from Proto-Kartvelian and one from whatever partial reconstruction of Proto-Afro-Asiatic they relied on. Both end in /ʁ/. The PIE *h₃ seems to have been a voiced fricative of some rear place of articulation: [ɣ], [ʁ], [ʕ], or [ʢ]. From IE data alone it seems not to be possible to decide between these possibilities, but various Nostratic comparisons favor [ʁ] – and point to the same value for PU *x. The Proto-Eskimo *g is supposed to have been [ɣ], right? And no phonemic contrast between [ɣ] and [ʁ] is reconstructed, right?

Wrong, apparently, to answer my own question. David Marjanović 20:21, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Under such circumstances, changes between velar and uvular fricatives must be easy (e. g. the Alemannic dialects of German have [χ] where most others have an allophone range [x~ç]). No opposition between velar and uvular fricatives is reconstructed for Proto-Nostratic, -Afro-Asiatic or -Kartvelian either.

In short, what do you think – can I add "Proto-Eskimo */iɣə/-" to the 3^rd-to-last set of proposed cognates in the Nostratic article, and can I change the PU reflex "*sexE" into "*sexi or *sewi", or even into "*se(x)wi", citing your Linguistlist post for both?

Many thanks in advance. David Marjanović 22:48, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the question. First, concerning the reconstruction: in theory the form might perhaps have been PU *sexwi-, but there's no real evidence for that kind of cluster in the data. And at least the Mordvin and Permic forms do not support *-ex-, because the vowel in these cognates does not point to the expected lengthening the "laryngeal" *x is known to have caused. Moreover, there are apparently no other examples of a PU cluster *xw. The evidence for *-w- is Mordvin /seve-/; PU intervocalic *-x- is reflected as -j- in Mordvin. Moreover, both me (in Finnisch-ugrische Forschungen 57) and Daniel Abondolo have argued that this stem is also present in Samoyed in a derived form: Proto-Samoyed *timä ´tooth´ (< *sewi-mä or *sexi-mä). This seems to be incompatible with the form *sexwi-, which would presumably regularly give Proto-Samoyed *tiə(w)-.

As for extra-Uralic comparisons, please note that in the post you refer to, and the follow-ups to it, I explicitly reject all presented Eskimo-Uralic comparisons, and furthermore I do not subscribe to any form of the Nostratic hypothesis. So if you cite this, it should be clear that I do not support any such comparison, which then raises concerns of original research. Moreover, I'm not really sure if mailing list discussions can really be consider reliable scholarly sources? --AAikio 18:29, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks again.

Interesting that *-x- gives -j- in Mordvin; this is compatible with a value such as [ɣ] for *x. But of course I can't say anything against the Samoyed evidence.

You didn't sound that categorical in that e-mail…

Of course proper publications are preferrable to mailing list posts. But in the absence of properly published material, I'd ignore all rules and wouldn't hesitate to cite a mailing list discussion by professional linguists! In the light of the problems you mention, I won't, though. I'll emend the Nostratic article to say "or *sewi-" and keep waiting for publications. David Marjanović 20:21, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

In the meantime I have come across another question. Kortlandt of Indo-Uralic fame argues (p. 4) that the PU *δ and *δ' were actually [rʲ] and [lʲ] "because they pattern like resonants [not further explained] and are reflected as *r and *j in Samoyedic and as *l and *l' in Finno-Ugric (cf. Sammallahti 1988: 485, 511f., 518, 532), cf. also the variation between Proto-Finno-Permic *śülki and Proto-Ugric *sül'ki 'saliva'." If correct, this would introduce two sounds also reconstructed for Proto-Altaic and Proto-Nostratic, but, ironically, it would probably screw up some proposed sound correspondences. What do you think? David Marjanović 20:21, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, by "reject" I only meant that I do not accept these hypotheses due to insufficient evidence. As for PU *δ and *δ', there have been several suggestions of their original phonetic nature. I don't know what Kortlandt's "pattern like resonants" means, but in many languages they have developed in a manner similar to liquids. However, it seems more likely that they originally were some kinds of weak (voiced?) stops or something similar (as suggested bu Juha Janhunen), because both have developed into a stop d/d' in Mordvin, an unvoiced (!) stop t in Finnic, and a spirant *δ in Saami (in some Saami languages this further became a voiced stop d). As it is much more natural to assume a shift from a stop to a liquid than vice versa, I'd be more inclined to accept this interpretation. As for the word meaning 'spit', perhaps this could involve a sporadic assimilation caused by the initial sibilant in the Ugric form: *śülki >> *śül'ki > Ugric *sül'ki ? --AAikio 14:27, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

I see, thanks! David Marjanović 20:34, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Proto-Uralic or Proto-Finno-Ugric Audio or Video File?

Buorre Beavi & Moikka!

I see that you are a linguist.... I am curious if you know of any audio or video files of pronounciations of reconstructed proto-Uralic or proto-Finno-Ugric words that might be added for those not yet familiar with the phonetic alphabets to those pages' lists of links? If not, might be you be interested in creating one yourself (for example, an mp3, ogg, or even a video on YouTube)?

Giitu & kiitos! --Peer Gynt 06:24, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. However, this doesn't seem like a very good idea to me, because we cannot really ever be sure what the actual pronunciation of the reconstructed forms was like. Hence, linguistically less knowledgeable readers might easily mistake the audio files as suggesting that we actually knew what Proto-Uralic sounded like. We should find another way to explain the Uralic phonological transcriptions on the pages for readers unacquainted with the system - perhaps a reference to the article Uralic Phonetic Alphabet would be in order?--AAikio 14:38, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. I appreciate your feedback. I believe there is already a hyperlink to the UPA article in the Proto-Uralic article, at least. (I suggested an audio version, as learning accurately the UPA via reading Wikipedia might take quite some time for the casual reader.) I'm not sure what the difference between a textual "reconstruction" written in UPA and an audio recording of those textual signs is, but you are the linguist. I am happy to defer to your opinion, but, as a side note, if one were to record such a file, a disclaimer could be included with it (say, in text or by voice). Cheers! -Peer Gynt 11:30, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

The difference would be that the symbols are less explicit about specific sound values. An example is the use of *x in reconstructions of Proto-Uralic: we simply don't know how it was pronounced. From the manner it disappeared, there seems to be circumstantial evidence that it was a voiced non-sibilant fricative or approximant, but that's it. Sure, as I write above, Nostratic comparisons suggest that it was derived from [ʁ], but who says it hadn't changed to [ɣ] or whatever by the time Proto-Uralic had evolved, and Nostratic is controversial in the first place. David Marjanović 20:41, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

The use of UPA is among the reasons why I added IPA to that article long ago. David Marjanović 20:41, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

…And when I did that, I also added a paragraph explaining this and the use of UPA, with a link to the UPA article. I should have checked before writing the above. David Marjanović 20:45, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

David Marjanović, thank you very much for the explanation! Ante Aikio, thanks again for your reply, and my apologies for bothering you with my ignorance! Peer Gynt 08:29, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Sami verb conjugation

Can you add sample verb conjugations of Sami languages? --88.112.227.173 17:44, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Good idea. In fact, this is one thing I've been planning to do to improve the articles on Sami languages. However, I regrettably haven't had time recently to do any larger edits, but I hope I'll have the chance to work on this later.--AAikio 16:41, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Changes to Afro-Asiatic

You inserted citations needed tags to the changes I made in Afro-Asiatic. I hope the changes I have made are satisfactory, as I have now removed the tags. Warm regards John D. Croft 10:02, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I'm not not an Afro-Asiatic expert, so I only added the tags because I noticed an unsourced edit when going through my watchlist; I didn't check the article's history, so I didn't originally notice that you were making a series of edits. --AAikio 09:20, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

"Teno" is not used as a name of the municipality!

Hmm, en tiedä käytetäänkö nimeä todellisuudessa, mutta Suomi-wikipediassa artikkeli kulkee nimellä Teno (kunta) ja Finnish exonyms for places in Norway artikkelissa on myös listattu Tana bru olevan Tenon kylä. Tosin luotan kyllä siihen, että tiedät asian paremmin kuin minä. :) --Zache 21:52, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

User:Yupik/To Do

Bures! I know you're busy elsewhere right now, but the link in the header was created as a place to add info about Sámi- and Sápmi-related articles that are missing, need more info, need to be reworked, etc. Feel free to add articles that you feel should be there. Trond has written some extensive articles on the Nynorsk wiki, so the work right now is concentrating on translating those and localizing them for English speakers, but it's always a good idea to have an up-to-date list to refer to! Plus we're all busy with other commitments, so the work is progressing slowly, but surely. No rushing, no stress, no hurry :). Ollu giitu! -Yupik 15:21, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Talk:Samoyedic languages

Dear AAikio, I left you a message, sorry that it took that long to obtain a substantial reference document. Barefact (talk) 03:12, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Skadinawjo and Skádnajávju/Skadinávju or Skåne and Skaanje?

As I understand from some literature I have read the origin of the name Scandinavia is disputet, is it possible that the name may have an origin in "paleo-european" languages of Fennoskandia? There is several place names of that have similarities of Skad-, Skan- and Skaan-:

Skäddim/Skärrim/Skaddit (Sweden/Norway border) Skäddna, high mountain, Jokkmokk Skanatjåkkå, mountain, Kiruna Skånjavaratje/Skonavarre, berg, Sorsele, Lycksele. Skankaj, lake, Arjeplog. Skånjka, lake, Sorsele, Lycksele

Is this similarity (for a novice) to these place names for example just coincidental or consequence of borrowings from old-nordic?

Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by XiXaXo (talk • contribs) 22:26, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi XiXaXo. I'm sorry but I can't help you much with this, as I'm not really acquainted with the etymologies proposed for the name 'Scandinavia'. As for the rest of the names, it is very difficult to say if they are in any way connected. If there was some sort topographic feature shared by these places, then one could make an argument that they are of the same origin, but otherwise one can probably only speculate. --AAikio (talk) 13:45, 17 January 2008 (UTC)