Finnish is, along with Hungarian and Estonian, a member of the
Finno-Ugrian
language family. This puts the language in a wholly different category
to
all their Indo-European neighbours. Links with other asian languages
are
fairly tenuous, except for a number of extremely localised languages in
Siberia.
A link thereon: http://www.helsinki.fi/~jolaakso/fufaq.html
"O'Regan, Emlyn" wrote:
>
> Some finns I knew told me that their language is actually quite divergent
> from other european languages, from the same area. Apparently its a little
> island out on its own, and shares more structurally with some asian
> languages than with those of its neigbours.
>
> Anybody got more info than "some guy told me"?
>
> Emlyn
>
> > > |English: pride, envy, wrath, sloth, lust, greed, and gluttony.
> > > |Swedish: högmod, avund, vrede, lättja, vällust, girighet och frosseri.
> > > Finnish: ylpeys, kateus, viha, velttous, himo, ahneus ja mässäily.
> >
> > Im surprised there isnt more similarity between Swedish and Finnish.
> > Are they not of common origin, like English and German? spike
> >
> >