this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023
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Building Solidarity - One Word at a Time

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What are some cool bits of language did you learn? (hexbear.net)
submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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This could be mechanical things like the order of adjectives, or more complex/personal things on your journey of learning another language.

I want to start learning Norwegian again and I remembered learning a lot about citrus fruits as I went on Wikipedia adjacent trips.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I’m an absolute beginner, but Finnish is interesting for two reasons.

First, noun cases. it is like conjugation of verbs in the Romance languages, but applied to nouns too. So there are no prepositions, you just modify the word endings instead. E.g. house is talo and in the house is talossa.

Second, vowel harmony. There are three vowel groups separated by mouth placement. Back vowels are a/o/u, middle vowels are i/e, front vowels are ä/ö/y. I’m not clear on the complete rules but simple words must have harmony, meaning the front and back vowels can’t be mixed together, and middle vowels are neutral and can go either way. From the earlier example, the vowels in talo are in the back of the mouth, but for sisäänkäynti (entrance) they are all front/middle. I’ve heard Japanese is similar.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

i dont think japanese is similar, but vowel harmony is widespread in uralic and turkic languages.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

That's kinda like how in Spanish vowels can be either weak or strong, with a/e/o being strong and i/u being weak. When a word contains consecutive strong vowels, they're pronounced as separate syllables, such as leal pronounced LEH-al. This is known as "hiato" which there might be word for in English of which I'm unaware. But consecutive weak vowels, or a combination of a weak vowel and a strong vowel, are pronounced as a single syllable. For example, violín is pronounced veeuh-LEEN. That combination is known as "diptongo." There's an exception though, if a word's stress is on a weak vowel it becomes a strong vowel, like in río which becomes REE-uh.