Ethnicity of Finns/Egyptians

[Konrad]

Were the ancient Egyptians arabs? They speak arabic now but is that just the result of an arab invasion? Along the same lines, were the Carthiginians arabs?

I've heard people talk about the "native people" of Finland, who live in the north of the country. I don't think they are Indo-European. Are they Turkic?

Also, if the current residents of Finland aren't native Finns, where are they from? Are they scandinavians or balts and what is their relation to the Hungarians?

[tomndebb]

The ancient Egyptians survive, today, among the ethnic Copts.

The Carthaginians were immigrants from Phoenicia (modern Lebanon and Syria). They were a semitic people, but it is not yet clear where they came from, originally. They pre-date any group that we would identify as Arab, today. The Arabs erupted from their peninsula to bring Islam to the world. While their language and religion overwhelmed all of North Africa and Asia Minor, penetrating Europe in Spain and the Balkans, I am not sure how much of that conquest led to occupation by ethnic Arabs as opposed to simply imposing their language and religion on the existing inhabitants.

------------------
Tom~

[BobT]

Most of the native Finns were overrun by the Swedes during the early Middle Ages. Swedish is the second official language of Finland. There is also another ethnic group, the Saami, (aka Lapplanders), who are a completely different ethnic group.

As for the Finnish language, it is part of the Finno-Ugric language group and is actually pretty close to Estonian. It doesn't sound much like Hungarian. The only two things those two languages have in common is that they are EXTREMELY hard to learn if you're a native English speaker.

Finnish has a lot of noun cases and suffixes and uses the letter 'k' a lot.

Once I was attending a hockey game in LA and the three men behind me were speaking in a foreign language. To me, it sounded like some Asian language. When I turned around, I discovered that the men were Finnish. (At least one of the guys had some clothing that had a Finnish flag on it and they seemed very interested in the Finnish players.)

[DSYoungEsq]

Finno-Ugric, name of a group of peoples and languages of the Finno-Tataric division; includes not only inhabitants of Finland, but similar peoples in Russia, as well as the Ostiaks, Voguls, Magyars, and other related peoples of Ugric stock, named from Yura or Ugra, country on either side of Ural Mts.

From the Compton's Online Encyclopedia, located at http://www.optonline.com/comptons

Magyars are, of course, known to us now as Hungarians.

Finno-Ugric is related to Samoyed. It is less closely related to Altaic languages like Turkic, Mongolian and Manchurian.

[Jorge]

"Arab" is no more of an ethnic group than, say, Americans, really. I'll tack one thing on to Tomndebb's reply: the Balkans most certainly were occupied, hence the long standing hatred between Greeks and Turks, Serbs and Moslem Yugoslav ethnic groups, etc... After so many years, though, the lines did blur a bit: culturally, musically, ethnically, et al.

Example: many foods & musical traditions we would think of as Greek are more Turkish in origin; you'd have to go to places in Greece where Turkish influence was weaker (Ionian islands, Crete...) to get closer to pre-Occupation culture. Even the common name suffix, "-opoulos" is a Hellenized version of the Turkish patronymic: "No last names ! you are Bob, son of John !" etc..., quoth the Effendi.

Spain, though, was less of an occupation in that sense, and more of an accomodation...

[dlv]

To me, it sounded like some Asian language.

I'm surprised - Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, etc languages all tend to have extremely long words, while Chinese tends to have one-sylable words (seldom two or more).

[Little Nemo]

Back before the rise of Islam, places like Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, Persia, Greece, and Iberia all had relatively distinct cultures. After most of the Arabs converted to Islam, they conquered these nations for various lengths of time. In each case, Arabs formed a new ruling class which governed the natives and imposed their culture to some degree. Egypt and Syria were the first non-Arabic lands conquered and were the closest to Arabia. Therefore, their native culture was almost completely replaced by Arab culture.

[{:-Df]

And according to The Heartland (author forgotten) the Turks and the Huns are descendants of Central Asian tribes that used to have dealings with (read: inhabit some of the lands of) the proto-Mongols.

Apparently, one of the main tribes in what is now NW China were the Xiong-nü, a 'red-haired,' 'Caucasian' people. They were a problem to the Empire long before the Mongols even appear in the records. I've also often wondered what their connection to the Ainu was (the 'Caucasian' aborigines of Hokkaido, I believe).

[Rmat]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To me, it sounded like some Asian language.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
responsive quote:


I'm surprised - Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, etc languages all tend to have extremely long words, while Chinese tends to have one-sylable words (seldom two or more).

-----------------------------------

Yeah, like anyone can reliably distinguish a word from a syllable in a language he doesn't understand.

[Konrad]

So the language that the Finns speak now is the language of the original ihabitants? Does that mean that the invading Swedes were the minority and were absorbed by the natives?

[mazirian]

The Swedes have always been the minority, although from 1155 to 1809 they were the RULING minority. When Russia conquered Finland in 1809 and it became an autonomus Grand Duchy, the language situation (and power structure) remained the same. After Finland declared independence from Russia in 1917, both Finnish and Swedish became official languages. Nowadays Swedish is spoken as a mother tongue by about 6 % of the people.

Finnish is indeed a very difficult language to master, there are 14 cases, numerous verb forms and an army of suffixes. These can be very confusing to foreigners:

Suomeksi (In Finnish): Kun lakkaa satamasta, haen lakkaa satamasta. In English: When it stops raining, I'll get varnish from the harbor.

If you are still interested, check this page out: http://www.hut.fi/~jkorpela/Finnish.html

Does any of this make sense? It's 3.30 AM here in Finland and I must hit the sack before Santa arrives...

[Earl Snake-Hips Tucker]

Since Finnish is such a fiendishly difficult language for an English speaker to learn, it sounds as though once you start trying to learn it, you never really. . . "Finnish."

[Doobieous]

I'm surprised - Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian, etc languages all tend to have extremely long words, while Chinese tends to have one-sylable words (seldom two or more).

Well, not all Asian languages have short words. Take Tagalog for an Example (an Austronesian language, BTW): magsipagpasyal (mag-si-pag-pas-yal), which means "to take a walk".=)

[Jorge]

Aw c'mon, Doobieous:

1. Asian not Austronesian;
2. Magsipagpasyal is a compound word off the Spanish root, not really a Tagalog word.

But you're right, although I'd have picked other examples, in Thai or Japanese for example...

[Konrad]

This means that Finnish doesn't fall into the "silly" category of languages in the Konrad classification system. (Unlike Swedish and Norweigan.) It uses suffixes like slavic languages but it has even more of them. Same thing with the double letters. ("panna" in Polish is young lady, but "pana" means "belonging to the gentleman"). I wonder how hard it would be for me to learn to pronounce Finnish words.

According to the link mazirian posted Finno-Ugric languages are not related to Turkic. In that case where does Turkic come from? Somewhere north of Pakistan probably, or maybe even further east.

[dlv]

It uses suffixes like slavic languages but it has even more of them.

A minor Finno-Ugric language spoken by some minority in Russia holds the record with 27 cases. (I don't have my books here and I don't recall which one - it's Permian or Vepsian or Izhorian or something close.)

In that case where does Turkic come from?

No one knows for sure, but it's generally believed that Turkic speakers started out in the Altai mountains (Southern Siberia) and migrated to Eastern Siberia (Yakuts), Central Asia (Kazakhs, Ujghurs, Uzbeks, Turkmens, etc), and the Urals (Bashkirs and Volga Tatars). Not so long ago, a branch of Turkmens migrated to Caucasus (Azerbaijan) and Asia Minor (modern Turkey). Many Turkic speakers are more Caucasian than "Asian" in appearance.

[NanoByte]

Well, shouldn't we be informed here as to the detailed criteria that set out the "Konrad Silly Language Category"?

Ray (I thought English was about as silly as they come; almost every word has many meanings, you have to use words that include meanings you don't want in there, and ya kain't spel tha stuf nowize.)

[Spiritus Mundi]

{:-Df

Just had to speak up since you mentioned The Heartland. I no longer have a copy, but I remember it as an invaluable resource on the history of Turkic and Mongol tribes. I believ it was republished as Empire of the Steppes. Also, I believe the green-eyed, red-haired tribes you mentioned were also called the Hsing-nu. There were several mummified caucasian bodies recovered from northern China several years ago, which lends direct physical evidence to those early accounts.

I miss that book -- wish I still had it.

------------------

The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.

[Doobieous]

This thread is hi-jacked now, but somewhat on topic (barely).


Aw, c'mon Jorge:

[/quote]1. Asian not Austronesian;[/quote]

There are Austronesian languages in mainland Asia, mostly within the Vietnam region (Cham, Chru, Roglai, Cacgia, Haroi, Jarai, Rade), as well as in Myanmar (Moken) and Thailand (Moklen). Oh, and IIRC, Taiwan is a part of Asia, and the aboriginies of Taiwan speak Austronesian languages.

I've also heard the the tai-kadai family (Thai, Lao, and other languages of southern China and northern Burma.) is possibly related to Austronesian. I suspect that you thought because most of the Austronesian languages are in the Pacific, that there are no Asian Austronesian languages (OBviously there are. Check out the Ethnologue if you dont believe me: http://www.sil.org/ethnologue/famili...ronesian.html.

2. Magsipagpasyal is a compound word off the Spanish root, not really a Tagalog word.

Yes, I knew pasyal has Spanish roots, but that was the best I could think of. The affixing DOES make it as much a Philippine word as the root makes it of Spanish origin.
It IS a Tagalog word, it's just a borrowing from Spanish (much like a lot of the English lexicon is from Middle French, but is still English).

[quote]But you're right, although I'd have picked other examples, in Thai or Japanese for example...{/QUOTE]

Well Jorge, next time, you provide the examples.

[Konrad]

dlv: That means the Turks are probably a mix of different races (Mongols, Arabs, Indians maybe?). They definately don't look Chinese but they're too dark to be Caucasian. Iraqis sometimes have blue eyes and so on but Turks are black eyes/black hair. (Although I can't say I've really met that many Turks)

Do other Turkic speakers look more Asian? Maybe the Turks are just one branch that wandered off and whose culture dominated others around them.

Nanobyte: Well the criteria aren't very well defined. For example Danish is a member of the silly languages group but its close relative, German, isn't. (Even though it has many silly influences)

[Jorge]

Sorry Doobieous, I had responded to BobT's mention that "Asian" languages are all short-worded, which I agree with you isn't true. But it seemed he was referring to "Asian" languages, not montagnard Austronesian dialects, Sanskrit-relates gone east rather than west, etc... hence my comment. And it's a fair estimate, IMHO, that "borrowed" words with the various affixes & suffixes & infixes in most languages tend to be longer than the actual, "native" vocabulary. Whether or not they are "native" words is, I suppose, debatable. Remember, though, the preferred Tagalog root word would be "lakad", and "pasyal" would better be called a Pilipino word these days...

So to show longer words in Tagalog, say, I'd pick pandudulay or kapanibulusan... or Vietnamese Giangnghiemvien (sorry, won't bother with the accent codes); but to answer BobT I'd pick a "proper" Asian language, say Chinese:t'i wen piao, or Japanese: yoroshikuor shimaimashita...

Now back to regular programming...

[Doobieous]

Ahh, ok, i see what you mean now Jorge .

[dlv]

I've known a few Turks in my life... In my very humble opinion, as long as they don't dress in their native garb, they looked no darker than most Spaniards or (Southern) Italians, and probably lighter than many Arabs. As for their Turkic cousins further East, well, I'm not really an expert, but I've seen a few (even had an Uzbek student a couple of years ago ), and they could pass as Russians or Hungarians, many of whom too have pronounced cheekbones. You'd never think there were Japanese or Korean.