Talk:Finno-Ugric languages

Archived old entries to Talk:Finno-Ugric languages/archive1 on November 27, per the instructions at Wikipedia:How to archive a talk page. The page was HUMONGOUS (more than 86 KB), and I think the discussions I moved had all petered off anyway. Hope I didn't step on anyone's toes. Dbenbenn 02:42, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I had to archive the present talkpage to Talk:Finno-Ugric languages/archive2 on December 25, as it after AFU's last addition has reached 88 KB.--Wiglaf 21:01, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Contents

1 Including more critics 2 another case? 3 About László Marácz 4 history 5 disputes 6 Map 7 User:Antifinnugor's RFAr 8 Possible origins 9 Odd gloss

Including more critics

Seeing that the 'Critique' page is now a redirect, I think we should find some way to include reference to Dr. László Marácz and his stuff (http://www.acronet.net/~magyar/english/1997-3/JRNL97B.htm). Of course saying that it is a piece of non-peer-reviewed crankery. dab (ᛏ) 18:47, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

added external link to Merlijn de Smit's link collection. I don't know if 'entirely unsuccessful' is too strong a term, but the claims do seem rather hopeless. while, technically, we can now say that Maracz has been peer-reviewed. That is, if the following counts as a peer-review:

"Dutch-Hungarian linguist László Marácz here presents the usual tin-foil hatted conspiracy theories about Finno-Ugric language relationships being the result a conspiracuy between Austrians, communists and intelligent snails from the star system of Epsilon Eridani (OK, not the latter one, but you get the picture) to oppress the Magyar nationality and obscure their true origins and linguistic relationships (with, of course, the Sumerians, which as the builders of the first civilization happen to be a bit more prestigious). It contains a wonderful rant against László Honti - someone who, as opposed to Marácz, knows about historical linguistics. Anyway, the piece is morbidly fascinating in its pathology, in the same manner a train wreck is fascinating."

dab (ᛏ) 19:04, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sweet. I believe this is the linguistic equivalent of what bloggers call a fisking. - Mustafaa 22:18, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

another case?

people watching this page may be interested in checking out Balto-Slavic languages, edited by somebody claiming "deepest research" proves Baltic and Slavic are unrelated... (diff (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Balto-Slavic_languages&diff=9011147&oldid=8950811))There are references, this time, and the edits do not seem completely unreasonable, but the article has certainly been unbalanced, as such claims are at best obscure. dab (ᛏ) 16:59, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Apparently, the Burushaski language is no longer a language isolate, as well. Linguistic hypotheses presented as facts.--Wiglaf 17:37, 1 Jan 2005 (UTC)

About László Marácz

Dbenbenn, in your last edit comment you write: "This section should be about linguists who criticize. We don't need to debunk László Marácz here, since he isn't a linguist anyway"

Actually this is not correct. Marácz is a linguist, although I'm not aware him publishing any journal papers on this subject.

He wrote a book: Hungarian Revival, 1998, ISBN 9075323115

Although I haven't read it myself, it is Károly Rédei criticises it in his book:

• Rédei Károly: Őstörténetünk kérdései, A nyelvészeti dilettantizmus kritikája, Balassi Kiadó, Bp., 2003. ISBN 963-506-515-9 (Questions of Our Ancient History, Critique of Linguistic Dilettantism)

Much of Marácz's arguments are reflected in Antifinnugor's edits and other "alternative" theories in Hungary:

• the original proponents of Finno-Ugric theory were not Hungarians
  • First not entirely true, Sajnovics was Hungarian. Second the nationality of the scholars doesn't matter, especially after 150 years. This reminds me of the urban legend that Darwin revoked his theories about evolution on his death bed.
• the theory was pushed under Habsburg rule to supress the national pride of Hungarians
  • The real reason was that it the time of Habsburg opression coincided with progress in linguisics in general at the end of the 19th century.
• The theory is pushed for political reasons. They claim that the (former) communists don't want the Hungarians to learn about their "true" origins. (For the same reasons as the Habsburgs.)
  • This is a cheap excuse for all the "alternative" theorists (most of whom don't have any linguistic background) who run out of linguistic arguments. Every one of them repeats this claim. People who think Hungarian is related to Celtic, Sumerian, Japanese, etc. Every single last one of them keeps repeating that the "true" reason that the Hungarian Academy of Sciences refuses to answer them or dismisses them as crackpots is because they want to "supress" the truth for political reasons.

Marácz also point out that neighboring countries created their own nationalistic myths like the daco-romanian theory and a lot of legend around Great Moravia which helps strengthening their national identities. This is actually true and helps us remember that when you see people arguing this strongly about such "boring" (sorry) a topic as linguistics, it is because they see it not as a scholarly debate but one attacking their "true" national identity.

One of the reasons for this is that many of the "alternative theorists" and 90% of the laypeople do not distinguish between ethnic and linguistic relatedness.

In his book Marácz doesn't claim that Hungarian is not related to Finno-Ugric languages, but he says that the relation between Hungarian and other language families like Turkic or Sumerian should not be discarded. He also used to publish in a Hungarian magazine called "Turán" (his "untenability" article was published there, too). This makes me wonder whether these his theories should be discussed under Turanian.

László Honti debunked most of Marácz's theories in Magyar Tudomány (sorry couldn't find it online) . Rédei calls a lot of Marácz's linguistic claims "pseudoscience".

I think it is telling, that when you google for Marácz's articles most often you find them on the website http://www.kitalaltkozepkor.hu which is dedicated to Heribert Illig. It is also telling that in his "Untenability" article, Marácz references Bobula Ida and Francisco Jos Badiny (Badiny Jós Ferenc). They both think that Hungarian is related to Sumerian. Badiny also claims that Jesus was a Parthian prince. You can google for their works in English.

To sum up: most of what Marácz writes about is political and those parts which are about linguistics have been harshly criticized by people in the field.

Nyenyec 22:16, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

from what I gather, he wrote a reasonable book on politics, containing "layman's" linguistic conclusions. Just the fact that he speculates about linguistics does not make him a linguist, imho (otherwise, afu is a linguist, too). But we can include his stuff anyway, I don't care. We just have to say that real linguists laugh their asses off when they read his stuff (we don't have to quote Merlijn's "pathological interest" though, it's enough to say that he has no support in the linguistic community whatsoever) dab (ᛏ) 22:36, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for correcting me, Nyenyec. Actually, the main reason I removed the sentence:

Entirely outside the sphere of linguistics is the claim of "untenability" of the Finno-Ugric family by László Marácz, referenced by de Smit for its "morbid fascination"

is that it seemed non-neutral to me. If Marácz's criticisms are notable enough to go in, they should be stated first, with the linguistic response second. It isn't fair to demolish him from the get-go. Dbenbenn 23:36, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Actually Marácz does have a degree in linguisitcs from the University of Gröningen from 1984 and he got his PhD in 1989 at least that's what he writes in one of the articles AFU copied to the Hungarian Wikipedia. I don't know what's the best way or phrasing to mention him though. Nyenyec 00:29, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

This should not be about this Marácz too much anyway. I agree with Dbenbenn about the removal of my sentence. This was an attempt of how we could include him at all. He is either non-notable, or notable as a curiosity, it appears. I am sure however, that there are respectable critics of FU. Everything is criticized in linguistics, so it must be possible to find something. Angela Marcantonio is a beginning: At least she seems to be recognized as a good-faith linguist, even though her reviews are devastating. Once we have Marcantonio, there is really no need for Marácz, linguist od no linguist, because his inclusion will only add to the ridicule of the critics. I am sure there are others, but, well, we are not obliged to hunt for them. We are obliged to allow fair mention if somebody brings them up, but this is as far as it goes. dab (ᛏ) 11:45, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

btw, the "breakthrough" bit I added to the "Criticism" section does not properly belong there. It belongs to the Conversely, there have been suggestions that the Germanic languages evolved from an Indo-European language such as Celtic imposed on a Finnic substrate passage in "History". It ended up where it is now purely to give some background to the Marácz mention, and could now be moved. dab (ᛏ) 11:59, 4 Jan 2005 (UTC)

— *lol* I had overlooked the reference to Heribert Illig. I know that theory, and it is a fine example of crackpottery if there ever was one. (I realize that Maracz does not himself cite Illig, but it seems very fitting to find them sharing the same webspace). It seems also strange that most literature critical of FU seems to be written in Hungarian, in spite if Soviet censorship (i.e. countries that were never censored by the Soviets never developed such FU criticism). If people insist on linking to Maracz (Gubbubu apparently is), how about mentioning Maracz together with Karoly's 'recension', Critique of Linguistic Dilettantism? Somebody would need to access that book, of course. dab (ᛏ) 15:57, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

history

well, I have been whipped into doing my own literature search now, and I came up with

Merritt Ruhlen, A Guide to the World's langages

it is a very good, scientific book, that does not just state its 'facts' but gives background of the history of classification, and presents different theories alongside each other. The section on 'Uralic-Yukaghir' is very enlightening (p.65ff.), and I will add some of it (with references!) to the history section. (note that the book does not claim genetic relationship of Uralic and Yukaghir. Ruhlen talks about apparent 'taxonomical coordination', and mentions various suggestions. dab (ᛏ) 12:37, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Awesome! Great work, dab! That sounds like exactly what's needed. Dbenbenn 13:26, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

see the new 'history' section. I think the 'criticism' section looks quite out of place now. Ruhlen does not gloss over controversies, and he gives quite some detail on the various arrangements of Finnic that are suggested. As to uralic, he gives the arrangement:

• Uralic
  • Samoyed
    • North
    • South
  • Finno-Ugric
    • Ugric
      • Hungarian
      • Ob-Ugric
    • Finnic

and says this is accepted by 'practically all scholars' (p.68f.). The disputes surround the classification inside the Finnic group, and the status of Yukaghir. A. Marcantonio seems to be the exception to 'practically all', and she could be included as a dissenting voice in the 'history' section. Ruhlen hints more strongly, and more assertively than I have done, to the nationalist situation in Hungary, and I think you should really write an article about that, so that it can be linked from here: I hope this will manage to take some heat from this linguistic article. dab (ᛏ) 13:56, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have now even drawn a map, after Ruhlen, p.64, showing the distribution of Finnic, Uralic, Samoyed and Yukaghir. The areas were copied manually, though, and I hope I don not step on anyone's Ugric, Finnic, Samoyed or Yukaghir toes if they are not exactly accurate. dab (ᛏ) 14:33, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Great work Dab! I haven't been around Wikipedia much lately, and it's great to see articles I haven't looked at in a couple of weeks substantially improved. - Mustafaa 02:31, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

disputes

I reviewed the disputes, and merged them with 'criticism'. I am not sure about Volgaic: We are saying that the term is obsolete, but there seem to be real disputes about it. At least, as of 1987, Ruhlen gives a series of different suggestions. Maybe the 'obsolete' should be toned down. Anyway, 'disputes' is now a subsection of 'classification', intended to contain ongoing disputes (as opposed to historical ones, which go to the 'History' section. Marcantonio is also disputing FU classification, by contesting the family even exists, and appears also under 'disputes'. I am still open towards an inclusion of Maracz, somewhere. Maybe we should link him from the 'other superfamilies' sentence? Although I am not sure he positively suggests 'Ugro-Sumerian'. dab (ᛏ) 18:02, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Map

Thanks for making the map, Dbachmann. It's always nice to have an illustration. The problem is, I can't make heads or tails of it. Is it supposed to be southeast Asia? Is that Japan off the right side? I'm deeply confused. Dbenbenn 20:10, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Euroasia, with Western Europe quite marginalized — a perspective Russians often are quite used to, but that sometimes confuse people from the West who are used to putting Germany, Britain or USA in the center. :-) This projection is the best possible in this case. /Tuomas 16:05, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Or possibly the light is land, and that's northern Russia? Dbenbenn 20:13, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

um, yes, the brown bit is land, and the blue bit is ocean. and the coloured areas are the distribution of the languages, as by the legend.

I had been happy with "Finno-Permic" in the legend. Finnic is to my knowledge (mostly?) used in much more restricted meanings. /Tuomas 16:05, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It is true by the way that the Samoyedic disputes belong on Uralic languages. That should probably be sorted out. I just couldn't be bothered to draw more than one map, one for FU, one for Uralic, one for Uralo-Yukaghir etc., so I have to say somehow that more languages are marked on the map than are actually discussed in this article. Also, the 'History' section should of course explain how the different theories tie together. dab (ᛏ) 21:05, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Okay, I just got home, and now the blue bit indeed looks like water. At work, though, the water looked dark-brown, not blue, and the land looked light-brown. I wasn't just hallucinating, I swear! Did you consider modifying Image:Rs-map.png, which has labels and includes the modern context? Would you mind if I tweaked the colors of your map? Dbenbenn 00:55, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

well, I am afraid Rs-map.png does not extend to Hungary. Before you tweak the colours, let me make another update (I have the layered orignal here, it will by much more difficult to make edits to the png. What colours would you like? I went as far as to pick the dark green of the Hungarian flag for Ugric, and light blue from the Finnish flag for Finnic, to be sure not to offend anyone by the choice of colours!) dab (ᛏ) 10:45, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I have added some labels (Finland, Hungary, Ural, Siberia) to make it easier to read. dab (ᛏ) 11:04, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Alright, the labels help a lot. Thanks! Dbenbenn 23:24, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Can you redo the map without Yukaghir? It's not a Finno-Ugric (or even Uralic) language group. Mk270 21:33, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I know, nobody said it was. It's just a map I copied from Ruhlen, showing the distribution of FInnic, Ugric, Samoyedic and Yukaghir, and it is used on all these articles. If you can be bothered, you could create a Finnic, an Ugric, a Samoyedic, a Yukaghir, a Finno-Ugric, an Uralic and an Uralo-Yukahgir version of it (you'd still have to say that they are derived from Ruhlen's book, though), but I thought making one map was tedious enough. Or maybe the caption could be amended, drawing attention to Finnic and Ugric in poarticular, for this article? dab (ᛏ) 22:40, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Ah Ok I understand. What's the best software for fixing the map? I'd like to have a go myself.

(I think including Yukaghir along with the others is liable to confuse people). Mk270 01:25, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

try the GIMP. I can send you the layered original, if you like. Note, however, that if you drop Yukaghir, you'd want to choose a different area, and again different for Finno-Ugric (no need showing all of Siberia if you only want to map Finnic and Ugric). What you could do is just fiddle with the colours, so that related languages have similar colours (although I conciously avoided that, because I did not want the map to be accused of being suggestive of one 'theory'. although it still is, and maybe there is no way to win this). I don't know how widely accepted the Ural-Yukaghir theory is. Ruhlen presents it as disputed, but as majority opinion. If you remove Yukaghir, I fear you create a precedent, and since Uralic is also disputed, people will ask to remove Samoyedic too, which is strictly speaking inappropriate for this article. I honestly don't know which is the best presentation, but I do think it is helpful to see the distribution of these groups. dab (ᛏ) 09:05, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

"Finnic" should be replaced by "Finno-Permic". The Yukaghir languages do not belong to the Uralic languages, but if it were possible to show that the Uralic languages are a part of a bigger language family, the Yukaghir languages might be another branch of it. The Samoyedic languages belong evidently to the Uralic language family, although the relation is quite distant to the Finno-Ugric languages. --Hippophaë 03:16, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

ok, I want to make sure we are clear that we are in full factual agreement. This is a question of terminology, layout and presentation, and not of content. Yes, Uralo-Yukaghir is a shaky theory, nothing more. The book I took the map from just happened to treat them together, without making any claims beyond that. I would make another map, just for Finno-Ugric, but this map would have to be more detailed than just showing "Here is Finno-Permic. Here is Ugric", i.e. I need a source to do a decent FU map. As for Finnic vs. Finno-Permic, I know. Sometimes Finno-Permic and Finnic are used synonymously (cf. Finno-Ugric vs. *Ugro-Finno-Permic). I just copied the map's legend as it was, there is no claim in this that would conflict with the listing on this article. You may argue that since the map is not about FU specifically, we should remove it from this article. But I still think this map is better than no map, because it illustrates the geographical features discussed in the article. dab (ᛏ) 09:03, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

As a non-linguist (although student of a language :-) I could maybe add that I find it informative to include neighboring non-IE languages. The only important thing would be to stress in the legend which languages are considered Finno-Ugric and not. /Tuomas 09:13, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I hope I have made the caption unambiguous now. I am afraid that people who want to know about FU will have no choice but to read the article, in spite of there being a map. dab (ᛏ) 09:51, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I don't think this point is worth arguing much further, though I'd be interested in trying my hand with the GIMP if you're still prepared to slip me layers. Mk270 11:42, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

try http://flaez.ch/scratch/uralic.xcf (released under GFDL). I will remove the file once you confirm you downloaded it. dab (ᛏ) 12:32, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I've got it now - cheers! Mk270 01:01, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

User:Antifinnugor's RFAr

See Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/Antifinnugor.

Article editing ban

1.1) For significant disruption relating to the articles Finno-Ugric languages and Uralic languages, Antifinnugor is banned from editing these or related articles for one year. Antifinnugor may edit the related talk pages and is encouraged to work with other editors regarding article content. Other editors may add content and make changes suggested by Antifinnugor at their discretion.

Passed 7-0.

Personal attack parole

4.1) Antifinnugor is placed on standard personal attack parole for one year: if Antifinnugor makes an edit which is judged by an administrator to be a personal attack, he may be temporarily banned for up to a week by that administrator and the parole timer shall be reset.

Passed 6-2.

Good behaviour

5) If Antifinnugor can demonstrate better editing habits free of personal attacks three months from now, he may apply to have the above restrictions reduced or removed.

Passed 8-0.

Enforcement

1) If Antifinnugor, under whatever username, attempts to edit Finno-Ugric languages or Uralic languages, he may be banned for up to twenty-four hours.

Passed 6-2.

dab (ᛏ) 12:54, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Possible origins

Those Hungarian enyém 'mine', tiéd 'yours' sound eerily familiar. Writing them in Finnish orthography, they become "änjääm", "tieed". In Finnish, "oma" means "my own", and "teidän" is "yours".

I would like to hear more on this subject. --Hippophaë 00:38, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Odd gloss

The part that says "Estonian mu koer 'my dog' (literally 'I-gen. dog')" looks really odd to a linguist, since it implies that 'my' isn't I-gen when it quite clearly is. "My" is a perfectly good translation of Estonian "mu" and both of them are the genetive first person singular pronoun.

"My" is a separate possessive pronoun, not a pronoun in the genitive. If it was, it'd be "I's". "My" is a good translation of "mu", but an insufficient representation. --Vuo 22:14, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)