Uralic Language Family 

13 Responses to Uralic Language Family

1. 
   pakistani1414918 May 20, 2013

   There is a mistake here. Hungarian belongs to the Ugric branch of Finno-Ugric, the other being Finnic which Finnish is correctly labelled under. Point is Hungarian should fall under the label of Ugric, not Finno-Ugric as that would include the Finnic languages.

    
   • 
     Irene Thompson May 28, 2013

     Thank you for pointing out the error. We will make sure to correct it.

      
2. 
   Hendrik August 3, 2013

   You also have some mistakes with the Estonian common words. Thank you in Estonian is “tänan” or “aitäh”, whereas “tänama” means to thank. You also seem to have mixed up the Estonian and Hungarian words for please. However, while “meeldima” is an Estonian word, it means “to like” and not “please”. “Please” in Estonian is “palun”. Otherwise, this site is really awesome.

    
   • 
     Irene Thompson August 6, 2013

     Thank you very much for your comment. We will make the changes in the Estonian page.

      
3. 
   Aivar June 24, 2014

   Thank you for this article!

   Mistakes that was mentioned 10 months ago by Hendrik about some mistakes with Estonian words, are still not corrected 😉

    
4. 
   Jennifer July 11, 2014

   “Kérem” is not an Estonian word; “please” in Estonian is “palun”.
   “Thank you” in Estonian is “Aitäh” (another way to say it is “tänan”). Without the dots over the a, “tanama” has no meaning in Estonian, and with the dots “tänama” is not a way to say thank you but rather the infinitive form of the verb “to thank”.

    
   • 
     Irene Thompson July 12, 2014

     Thank you for the corrections.

      
5. 
   Karlsen September 25, 2014

   Thank you for this site! My grandparents were reindeer herders in Lapland, Sweden. How can I learn to speak Sampi?

    
   • 
     Irene Thompson October 10, 2014

     I have no information about it. You may have to do some research to find an answer.

      
6. 
   Finn February 14, 2015

   There are some mistakes in the list of common Finnish words as well.
   -“Good bye” would be “näkemiin” (“hyvästi” is more final, meaning “farewell”)
   – “Mielyttää” is the infinitive form of the verb “to please” (but even then should be written with two l’s as “miellyttää”). “Please” in sentences such as “please do …” this should be “ole hyvä …” (when speaking to one person informally) ) or “olkaa hyvä …” (when speaking to many people or when using a polite form)
   – “Yes” is “kyllä” (“joo” is very casual, “yeah”)
   – “Man” is “mies” (“herra” means “mister” or “master”)

    
   • 
     Irene Thompson February 18, 2015

     Thank you for the corrections.

      
7. 
   Rev Snowfox March 3, 2015

   Greetings,

   I value the information found on this site and the idea behind it, but please let me submit some corrections regarding Hungarian, including some explanations. I would be glad if they would be incorporated into the article.

   There are inaccuracies in the common phrases table:

   Hello! – “szervusz” should be “szia, szervusz, helló”, “szia” is used way more often, though only in informal contexts, so older people tend to avoid it with fellow seniors. “Helló” is a loanword not so old, so you might even omit it.

   Goodbye! – “ist enhozzád” should be “viszlát/viszontlátásra”, “viszontlátásra” literally means something like “for seeing in exchange”, but it’s a parting word subtly implying the speaker doesn’t mind or would like to meet again, as opposed to saying “szia” or other, more neutral parting words. “Viszlát” is simply the shorter, more informal form. Besides it’s “istenhozzád”, meaning “God to you”, but I never really heard or read it whatsoever. It does sound awfully archaic, something from the 18th century countryside.

   Thank you! – “köszönóm” should be “köszönöm”. Although Hungarians would understand “köszönóm” said by a foreigner, it’s simply not a word here.

   Please! – “kérem” should be “kérlek/kérem”. “Kérlek” is the form for an indefinite object, and “kérem” is the form for a definite subject. Since the English exclamation “please!” in itself has no definite object, it is certainly “kérlek” in Hungarian, if we use informal language, that is.

   Excuse me! – “pardon, bocsánat” should be “elnézést, bocsánat”. In the sense of the English “Excuse me!” exclamation, “elnézést”, short for “elnézést kérek” (literally “I ask for looking away”) is probably better. “Bocsánat” is fine too, but it translates into English more closely as “sorry”. “Pardon” is really not used that much in informal contexts, I don’t think you should include a French loanword which is not really used in informal contexts.

   Yes – “igen” should be “igen/de”, generally Hungarians use “igen”, but “de” is used to answer negative questions affirmatively.

   No – “jelentéktelen, nem” should be “nem/ne”, “nem” being the general “no”, and “ne” being the exclamative and directive “no”.

   Man – “ember” should be “férfi”, since in the sense of a person of male gender, Hungarian uses “férfi”. For man in the sense of human or person, it does use “ember”.

   Woman – “asszony, nő” should be “nő, asszony”. In the most general sense, “nő” means any person who is female, but most often it refers to adult women. “Lány” refers to “girl” or “young woman”. While “asszony” is correct and valid, it tends to refer to more older women, and it is often used as a title similar in usage to the English “Mrs.” in more formal contexts. Anyway, for “woman”, “nő” is the most used term.

   As for the number word listing from 1 to 10, “kettö” should be “kettő”.

   As for Hungarian being Finno-Ugric, I think that’s actually a supergroup for Finnic and Ugric, thus Hungarian should be called Ugric, but I didn’t checked this in reliable sources.

   And lastly, the Finnic word links to the Wikipedia article for the Ural Mountains, I find this odd, it should point at an article about the Finnic people, if there is any such article, that is.

   Keep up the good work though!

    
   • 
     Irene Thompson March 4, 2015

     Thank you very much for the corrections. We will take care of them promptly.