Finnish & Hungarian's long lost cousin - The Nganasan Language (Subtitles/Субтитры)

Studies, Essays, Articles:
- [THE NGANASANS]: web.archive.org/web/201109261...
- The Nganasan Language: lingsib.iea.ras.ru/en/languag...
- [List of materials and links for everything related to Nganasans (mostly in German)] - web.archive.org/web/201109261...
- Numeral system in Nganasan: lingweb.eva.mpg.de/channumera...
- Proto-Uralic Gradation: Continuation and Traces: web.archive.org/web/201110021...
- GREAT SOURCE: Nganasan - a fresh focus on a little known Arctic language. Janhunen, Juha. 2020 helda.helsinki.fi/server/api/...
- Samoyedic Linguistic Reconstruction and Proto-History of the Samoyedic People. Eugene Helimski. 2000 [RU]: www.philology.ru/linguistics3/...
Videos:
- Consonants gradation in Finnish: • Finnish for Foreigners...
- Poem read in Nganasan: • Ӈә'' ӈонәә ӈулиаӟә (Ng...
- Nganasan language - greetings! [RU] • Нганасанский язык | Те...
- The tragedy of the Nganasans [RU]: • Трагедия нганасан. Нар...
- News in Nganasan: • 17102022 ВЫПУСК ТСТ НА...
- Nganasan Life, History, Facts [RU with ENG subtitles]: • Нганасаны. Самый север...
- We Are Nganasan (1967) [RU, but fascinating footage nonetheless]: • Мы - нганасаны (1967)
- “How to keep living?” Why the Nganasans are disappearing [RU]: • «Как дальше выживать»....
- Nganasan People, Culture & Languages (ILoveLanguages): • NGANASAN PEOPLE, CULTU...
Image sources:
Wikimedia commons
Wikipedia
Thisistaimyr.org (Nikolay Schipko, Denis Kozhevnikov, Nornickel Press Office)
Britannica.com
Shuttershock.com
Dreamstime.com
00:00 - The weirdest and most divergent Uralic language
03:39 - Vocabulary of Unknown Origin
05:11 - Dual Pronouns
06:32 - Consonant Gradation
09:02 - The REAL reason this is all so interesting
13:35 - Symptoms of a disappearing language
16:56 - Бəнде” ӈанасанə” ӈəтукəнды” нендя”туо” ӈонə хонсы хелиде” ӈиле мəнəй (правай). Сытыӈ хонды” ӈиле ӈонда ӈонə сяру, дүзытəндыӈ ихүтүӈ нягəə” сүөарусə”.

[@merchrich9758]

this guy is literally just the Wendigoon of languages. only missing some weird background music

[@imshawngetoffmylawn]

This might be the best, most unexpected compliment I’ve ever received. Thank you, It really means a lot. I absolutely love Wendigoon!

[@merchrich9758]

@@imshawngetoffmylawn definitely looking forward to language related icebergs. much love, from estonia

[@tomje-ll7dm]

@@imshawngetoffmylawn high is nagasan ng=M in hungarian magyar: magasan= up, high fenn= up, high, magasan...finn fény= light high up there = fame, fine, fain, poem, pun, fun

[@tomje-ll7dm]

@@imshawngetoffmylawn magasan= magician, mexican, mechanican

[@tima_dyak]

hey! a little note: nganasan is pronounced with the accent on the last vowel (nganasAn) :) I’m from Dudinka which is the town where nganasans live and I’ve been familiar with their culture since childhood, it’s always been fascinating! this is an incredible and informative video!!

[@Federation1323]

о, они ещё остались! ооо

[@evgenykislyakov2410]

Меньше тысячи на 130 тысяч квадратных километров.@@Federation1323

[@ellaalexeisdaughter2636]

@@Federation1323 Ещё... ну ничего, машина геноцида народов рф обо всём позаботится.

[@ikbintom]

You should learn a few words from their language! Like hi, bye, thanks, I like it - that would be cool right :D

[@JuhanaSiren]

Also, Helsinki is pronounced with the accent on the first vowel (HELsinki) :)

[@andreahoehmann1939]

It might interest someone here: I've been doing fieldwork on understudied languages ​​of the former Soviet Union and India, and I've created software to greatly facilitate such work: a powerful tool for searching through a large corpus of text, making it work like a combination lexicon and grammar textbook can be used. I also created a software that can convert foreign alphabets, including syllabaries, into Latin letters and vice versa. This also works with very extensive texts. The aim of this work is to slow down the rate of language extinction and to make their own history accessible to the descendants of speakers of rare languages.

[@DalilGubinsky-re8iz]

Peace to you! If you accept suggestions, I really wish to use such program for old-church slavonic and church slavonic, for example Ostrog Bible and Pomorskie otvety. This is because I personally think, that religious texts are most influential for language development and great in preservation of deep semantics and morphology If you will need testers or something like that, you can send me an email: [e-mail]

[@DRAKE-mi9rc]

Cool 👍

[@toomaskotkas4467]

It sounds like you are being funded by the CIA.

[@markusmakela9380]

many finnish loanwords borrowed from russian language are pronouncing aslike they are written. Voda (water) is voda, correct vada (i 🤔) , other way words like datšha (cottage) pronounce almoust ok but only datsa because lack of š/sh. Not good example but Harlamov in english ”Charlamov” was weird because we pronounce it exactly Harlamov (h= h, aslike the last alphabet in Winnie the Pooh). In the 19th century our written form was Harlamoff. ( last two pronounce aslike pfaff in german). Lithuan language is related sanskrit. Very much indeed. There is theory that Finlands nationality name ”Suomi” (yes, in finnish lang finnish=suomalainen) related lithuan zémé=land, area, ”there is country”, and we hear it ”soome, shome, zhome etc. Nowadays lithuans use word Somija and thus last week lithuan truck driver didn’t hear any similarity. Ok 😕. Pirts is somekind of sauna in lithuan, pirtti is old house in finnish.

[@andreahoehmann1939]

@@markusmakela9380 All languages ​​in the Indo-European language family are related to Sanskrit. The modern European languages ​​are second-degree grandnieces of Sanskrit. It's quite common for two languages ​​to have similar-sounding words with the same meaning. Then it is a complex detective work to find out which language was influenced by which.

[@mysteriousDSF]

Consonant gradation exists in Hungarian, albeit only in very few select, exceptional cases. For example the word "inni - to drink" can turn into "igyad" or "idd" (both meaning imperative "drink it!") or iszod (you drink it). Only in the most core vocabulary words' cases though.

[@hyksos74]

I was wondering that. The 'group of seven' imperative conjugations - but there are also some other verbs where a terminal t/d turns into an s/z in the imperative ('fut' -> 'fuss' for example) that might count (assuming it's not assimilation instead).

[@LangAniko]

And the core vocabulary are almost exclusively finno-ugoric heritage, which makes perfect sense

[@TobiasEngstrom]

Consonant gradation is most complex in North Sámi amongst Finno-Ugric

[@excitedaboutlearning1639]

​​@@hyksos74I don't know much about Hungarian, but as a native Finnish speaker, that seems to be consonant mutation and not gradation as such. Finnish has had a very simi Fut -> fuss Vete->veti->vesi. The word for water was originally vete. Later, word-final "e" sounds changed to "i" sounds in pretty much all two-syllable words. Later still, many ti combinations became si. My guess is that futt and fuss originally had different vowels at the end. When the consonant mutation took place, it only took place in one sound environment and not in the other. Vete+nä is still vetenä, because the "e" was conserved given that it wasn't at the end of the word when the mutation took place. Became the combination was te instead of ti, this form still has a t to this day. The plural is vesinä which coincidentally has the plural market "i" which it has always had, but the sound change happened in this form, too. Vetinä->vesinä.

[@milantoth6246]

I can absolutely attest to the hilarity of linguistic beef. During Hungarian language reform, neologians and orthologians made big public efforts to ‘humiliate’ each other in POEMS. They made poems making fun of each other! Its truly an amazing field.

[@petercsakai-szoke7569]

As a Hungarian this was a very interesting video to watch. Thank you for sharing this knowledge with us!

[@Vuosta]

While losing language to a dominant culture is definitely a huge issue for these languages, the immense amount of loanwords might not necessarily be due to language death (i'm referring to the end of the video). In Sami we use a lot of loanwords for new concepts like technology (camera or kamera being a great example) because no word existed for that before.

[@S3lkie-Gutz]

i apologize for this comment being late but in inuktitut we have loanwords too, like kaapi(with the p being pronounced with a ‘ph’ sound in this case) tii and suqaq(coffee tea and sugar because before colonization us inuit had no concept of these things before they were introduced to us from the south- qallunaat nunangat)

[@rateeightx]

Yeah, Even in Italian, Which is still a pretty widely spoken language, I've often seen English words just used as they are, Not even nativised at all.

[@realtalk6195]

@@S3lkie-GutzAnd those foreign words from English are themselves often loanwords. Actually they're loanwords the majority of the times in English.

[@forgottenmusic1]

Most likely, there were several language families in Northern Eurasia, who disappeared completely before any records were made. The Saami languages have been more analyzed, and in their case it is believed that the unknown substrate language(s) became extinct like 1500 years ago. And Hungarian has a huge list of words with unknown origin as well, despite of the fact, that unlike Nganasan or Saami, their ancestors never lived "in the end of the World".

[@LuisAldamiz]

Sure thing, but the substrate situation in Siberia and in Northern Europe is prehistorically different. Before the Uralic expansion (post-LGM) the specialists of Siberia or Northern Asia were the precursors of Native Americans, who clearly expanded from a Western-related root at Altai since c. 47 Ka BP to the East (at least Mongolia and parts of North China, c. 30 Ka BP) and then to Beringia and America (c. 18 Ka BP?). So my take is that the unknown vocabulary among Nganasan should be from branches of the broadly Native American conjectural super-family, which is a linguistic mystery on its own right (too ancient to be properly reconstructed). Meanwhile there are no real precursors to Uralic in Northern Europe, as Fenno-Scandia was a massive glacier (Greenland style) until the Holocene, when the first settlers must have been Western Uralics (already with Paleoeuropean admixture but clearly Uralic in much of their genetics anyhow). The unknown vocabulary in Western Uralics such as the Sámi may be from that Paleoeuropean admixture (extinct language family or families, as proto-Vasconic and proto-proto-Indoeuropean are Neolithic arrivals to Europe, and that may also be the case with the North Caucasic families). There are other options, I guess, but, unless brought from Siberia, it's unlikely it has the same roots as the Nganasan unknown origin vocabulary. Probably the same can be said of Hungarian, as I understand that their roots are west of the Urals (other Ugrics probably migrated to West Siberia already in the Bronze Age, judging on ancient genetics, re-displacing a likely Tungusic migration that in turn displaced the original Uralics from that area).

[@Southern_Ural]

Probably, the ancestors of the Hungarians in the Southern Urals and Western Siberia were surrounded by speakers of unknown languages (perhaps even unknown language families), which disappeared after the expansion of Turkic-speaking peoples.

[@Southern_Ural]

The same can be said about Nganasan and other similar relict languages. Perhaps, the speakers of the "Proto-Nganasan" language are surrounded by similar relict languages (at the time of Proto-Nganasan's existence) from language families that disappeared thousands of years ago, traces of which have reached us in the form of words of unknown origin. Perhaps some of these words were repeatedly borrowed from one language into another.

[@ppn194]

Hungarian has has a huge list of words or Slavic, Romanian, German(ic) origin.

[@Southern_Ural]

These are late borrowings, after the Hungarians came to the Pannonian Basin.@@ppn194

[@martintuma9974]

Dual pronouns, like the whole dual inflection, existed in Proto-Slavic and two modern Slavic languages, Slovene and Sorbian, still use it; traces of dual number (now considered to be the irregular plurals) can be also found in Czech.

[@usmcbf3090]

What traces of dual number are present in Czech? Can you give me some examples?

[@elwont]

there is an old Hungarian form of "we" and "us" , which is "mink", sometimes used in rural dialects beneath the official word "mi"

[@yrath5034]

My wife's grandmother in Slovakia (Felvidék) would use that often.

[@Vizivirag]

Yeah, mink, tik, ők

[@Nakkiteline]

in finnish we=me. haven't found much similar in our two languages although they are in same family. but that's very similar! i guess the core of the languages have more similarities because the vocabularies itself has had quite different impressions from their neighbours, finnish having much of swedish loan words and influence in the language so the soundings are so much different the languages are unintelligible to each others.

[@istvanbaba7937]

münk / tük -- nem székely?

[@Vizivirag]

@@istvanbaba7937 ott is használhatják

[@nonniperkl6273]

As a Finn I have to say that the Russian accent really prevents me to noticing such heavy similarity. I can for example understand native karjala without much trouble but you lay Russian accent on top and there it all does

[@-AxisA-]

Joo en kyllä hirveesti kuullu yhtäläisyyksiä itekkää.

[@elainelouve]

Sama, kovin kuulosti venäjältä, vaikka ei ihan kuitenkaan.

[@inimene3796]

It's really suprising for me as a native Estonian speaker how similiar the personal pronouns are in Nganasan! mənə - mina; tɨŋ - teie; and the Nganasan sg2 "tənə" sounds similair to the Estonian sg3 "tema". Wonderful video, been wondering which endangered fellow Uralic language to learn, and now i believe i've got an answer

[@mysteriousDSF]

In Hungarian, they're virtually the same as well.

[@RolandHesz]

​@@mysteriousDSFand looks like we actually kept the dual pronouns (mi, ti) and "promoted" those, and lost the other one. (min, tin). Although I've heard people using "mink" but I think that's just a local version of "mi", same as "tik" for "ti".

[@tj-co9go]

Yup, same as a Finnish speakers Minä (me) Sinä (you) Se (this) Hän (he/she, though often actually "se" is said instead) Me (we) Te (you) Ne (they, objects) He (they, people, though again in practice, informal speech, "ne" is used more often) We know that "ti -> si" is a regular change in the history of Finnish language, still strong traces in consonant gradation and word stems. So the 2sg word used to be "tinä" which became "sinä"

[@tj-co9go]

Finnish also has a 3rd singular "tämä" (this) and 3rd plural "nämä" (these), also "tuo" (that) and "nuo" (those) but they are unrelated to the other wordstem, I guess, or some kind of formations from it. I think Estonian 3rd singular teme is a close cognate

[@tainahollo8567]

[@mysteriousDSF]

Omg I can't believe you just made this video when I'm in the midst of researching Nganasan, the deepest and most intriguing Uralic culture. From a lost Hungarian desperate to find his spiritual roots.

[@verttikoo2052]

🙄

[@oisinmaguidhir2902]

Good luck :) Hope you find the answers you're looking for.

[@floranse5205]

Sok szerencsét! ^^

[@siyacer]

turkey

[@rootkite]

Uskomattoman kiinnostavaa! Kiitos! ❤

[@turkoositerapsidi]

Niin.

[@Kangsteri]

Joo.

[@ipp3l1]

Interesting. Both examples of Votic language in their basic form are exactly the same in finnish. "Karsia" means to trim, especially a tree from its branches. (There are some really interesting historical trees and even forests with trees with cut down branches with carved initials of the deceased, so their spirit would understand that they are dead and not to haunt their home, called karsikko.) Luku is still very much in use in finnish, meaning pretty much a number (of).

[@cerebrummaximus3762]

"Finnish and Hungarian's long lost cousin" Estonians: 😢 Jokes aside, great video!

[@Hiljaa_]

Well, to be fair, Estonia is not real so it does count :D

[@tepetti]

Some of the pronouns are almost the same as in Finnish. Mene - Minä, mi - me, ti - te. That votic language seems interesting. Words you used (except for the russian loan) in their basic form are same as in Finnish but when conjugated they sounds like Estonian but still intelligible to a Finnish speaker.

[@nikocat2008]

In Hungary: èn, te, ő, mi , ti, ők. But instead of mi (means we) ín some area we mink is used. Just like in the video. IT is so cool, that after tousends of years we still have so many similarities.

[@markkutahkokorpi4193]

There was an interesting theory about Germanic influence into Finnic languages and Nganasani. The similarities between those languages could more easily be explained by recent genetic evidence. There was an influx of Siberian genes into NE-Europe about 3000-4000 years ago. Best match to those genes can be found from Nganasans. Ie. they might have also brought some language features into these most northernmost Finnic languages. The article is in Nature Communications and called "Ancient Fennoscandian genomes reveal origin and spread of Siberian ancestry in Europe"

[@mysteriousDSF]

I also do believe that there are particular similarities between Sámi languages and Nganasan and that may be due to the isolation of its people. Sámi also has a large amount of words of unknown origin (and so does Hungarian, btw). Another such example from outside the Uralic family is the striking similarity between Sanskrit and Lithuanian. Since both languages are very conservative, (Lithuanian having been isolated for a long time since their region just inland of the southeast Baltic sea was outside of the interest of any major power for a long time, so just like Basque, they remained largely intact), both Sanskrit and Lithuanian bare a large amount of resemblance to Proto-Indo-European and therefore have a lot in common. Sámi and Nganasan resemblance could be of similar nature.

[@user-jl2kk8ps9i]

They are both in the indo-european family

[@riku782]

Lauri Posti was a professor of Finnic languages, and I'm fairly sure his theory tries to explain the consonant gradation of just the Finnic languages, and not Nganasan.

[@mullergyula4174]

6:30 In Hungarian Pl1 is "mi" and "mink" is also used in some regions. Could be that Du1 replaced Pl1, probably just shorter and easier to pronounce. Accusative of "mi" is "minket" which is interesting, could be the remnant of an old form.

[@floranse5205]

Wonderfully spotted!!

[@Eugensson]

The other interesting feature of most Samoyedic languages is the fact that a word cannot start with a vowel. All vowel starting words have acquired and initial NG-.

[@Eugensson]

@@williammkydde i believe the word Nganasan is exceptional (i have no solid proof there), but i feel like here the NG

[@williammkydde]

@@Eugensson Interesting. I didn't even consider the resemblance. It's obvious though.

[@Eugensson]

@@williammkydde or it actually could be the opposite in "Nenets" (NG>N), because Nenets and Enets are clearly cognates.

[@Pepijn_a.k.a._Akikaze]

@@williammkydde That is not true. Many old Slavic words started with a vowel, e.g. Old Church Slavonic and, but; if -- I -- around, concerning; against - eye -- etc. Russian was more influenced by Old Church Slavonic than Ukrainian but both languages are equally Slavic.

[@equilibrum999]

not true, for example polish 'oko' or 'obserwować'@@williammkydde

[@ZemplinTemplar]

Thank you for the video. :-) Over a decade ago, I collaborated on an alternate history writing project where one of the many alternate countries of the world was a sparsely-inhabited independent Taymyr. The citizens consisted of several major and minor local ethnicities, including the Nganasan. Their language was one of the official languages of that small country.

[@maivaiva1412]

man, it blows my mind how similar Finnish pronouns are to the Nganasan pronouns ._. especially mənə and mi/ŋ, which are minä and me in Finnish. also, beautiful example of how in Finnish, t has often shifted to s (tənə versus sinä, but then ti/ŋ versus te) there's this "fox story" translated into many, many fenno ugric languages that has been compiled by G. I. Ermuškin, I wonder how the story sounds in Nganasan c:

[@erikforss1223]

The Finnish person pronouns: Minä Sinä hän me te he Amazingly similar. I was at least very astounded. So even though far related. You can instantly see the similarity. Thank you for this enlightening, very important video.

[@Selene_the_Wolf]

Estonian mina sina ta meie teie nad

[@oliviapetrinidimonforte6640]

I am a Guarani speaker from Paraguay. In Guarani, "ñandé" means "us"/"our". The Navajo call themselves "Na Dene"...these all sound similar to what these Siberian people call themselves. My mitochondrial haplogroup is A2, from Siberia. Maybe Tupi-Guarani is related to the Uralic languages?

[@ppn194]

Why not ? First people came to America when Alaska was united with Asia.

[@StarlingKnight]

There is a theory that Yenisei languages of Central Siberia and Déne languages (example Athabascan and Navajo) are related, predating the connection to before people crossed the Beringian Bridge during last ice age. There are lingual connections (especially some core words) but not many linguists support the theory, yet.

[@pia_mater]

"Na Dene" is a term coined by the linguist Edward Sapir and it has no connection to the Guarani word you mentioned

[@mysteriousDSF]

I'm a Hungarian and I've been doing Duolingo on both Navajo and Guaraní... although I love both, I only feel the presence of similarity between Hungarian and Navajo. But Duolingo is far from giving me a representative knowledge.

[@dreistein]

@@mysteriousDSF Where did you find Guaraní on Duolingo? At least they have Catalan in the Spanish version.

[@user-ii3jw5ny5v]

Круто! Спасибо за освещение такого необычного языка. Ждем видоса про тунгусо-манчьжурские языки!!!! Да и классно что ты даешь субтитры на русском, поскольку на нашем youtube мало контента про языки малых народностей.

[@ekesandras1481]

Dual forms also exist in some German dialects still today and they seem to derive from Gothic and other East Germanic languages, who made the largest detour towards the East before migrating to Central/Western Europe. Those tribes might have had contact with Finno-Ugric tribes on their migration path, before turning westwards. Also in the "Urheimat" of all Germanic languages some centuries before it is a known fact that Proto-Germanic has a Finno-Ugric adstratum or substratum.

[@rafalkaminski6389]

Some slavic languages like slovenian and sorbian have a dual number, so they have also dual pronouns.

[@martintuma9974]

It is a common feature inherited from Protoslavic.

[@martelkapo]

5:31 side note regarding dual pronouns - a set of first and second-person dual pronouns, and in their nominative forms, survived in English up until the Early Middle English period. It's interesting to know how relatively common dual pronouns are worldwide, but how they've been lost in the majority of Indo-European languages (all of which had them at one point, since PIE had them). Great video, Shawn!

[@user-yf4eu3lt9b]

There are languages in Europe that retain dual pronouns (and dual forms of other parts of speech) right to this day, for instance Slovene, both Upper and Lower Sorbian, Lithuanian etc. (though not obligatory or frequently used in the latter). An example in Lithuanian with the verb 'to be': 1st pers.: (I) aš esu; (II) mudu esava; (III) mes esame 2nd pers.: (I) tu esi; (II) judu esata; (III) jūs esate

[@aarpftsz]

@@user-yf4eu3lt9b Yep, just to add a bit to that, at least regarding the Slavic languages, there are some surviving remnants of duals, like the fossilized "oči" in Czech, which is now just a common plural for "eyes", or "nohy" and "uši" referring to two "legs" and "ears", and "oba" meaning "both", but also the "-ma" ending which no longer serves as a dual, but became productive again in Bohemian Czech as a form of plural. The thing is that although languages lose these things they've also found a way to express the same exact thing in a different way, and with similar efficiency. Just wanted to mention that because a lot of people are under the impression that languages are getting "simpler" which might be the case "somewhat", but it in no way hinders the ability of people to express stuff the way they want.

[@egbront1506]

Also the dual pronouns persist in Icelandic and Faroese in the first and second persons and replaced the plural forms in the modern language in all but the nominative case.

[@rafalkaminski6389]

​@@aarpftsznohy 'legs' actually is a regular plural, you've probably meant ruci 'hands' ;)

[@aarpftsz]

@@rafalkaminski6389 Yep, now it's a regular plural. It actually should be "ruce" or "ruky" (depends on the region), but yeah, that would have been a better example, thanks

[@burkhardstackelberg1203]

The Nganasan of the news speaker sounded to me mostly Russian first, with some diverging tone - a tad later I noticed the similarity to Hungarian, so the typical Uralic ring it had 200 years ago still seems to be there.

[@lmurci8267]

You mentioned a germanic influence., and immidetely something clicked in. I red a book from Geirmundur Heljarskin. "We know that his mother was from Siberia, therefore, he was born with Asian features. Geirmund Heljarskinn becomes the “Black Viking” - the most powerful settler on Iceland through times. Dark-skinned and with Mongolian facial features he was a pioneer in international hunting economy." The book called: The black viking from Bergsveinn Birgisson

[@adamulrich6748]

Props to this guy for his incredible English. Learning a foreign language to perfection is a rare acheivement.

[@jzjzjzj]

not really tbh, english is global it's the easiest to learn because there's so much resources for it, you have to learn english to use the internet properly.

[@whatthefrog7631]

the sheer amount of exposure to English that most people get and the overall necessity to know at least some of it certainly makes it much easier to pick up than other foreign languages, you're right - but it can still very much be a big feat nonetheless, especially when your first language is considerably different in structure. I'm sure everyone's journey is different, but I for one still struggled with learning it (or at least early on I did), despite the amount of exposure I got to it daily@@jzjzjzj

[@murrrr8288]

@adamulrich6748 you probably know dozens of English as second language speakers, but you just don't know their first language isn't English.

[@glbrtgillie]

I think he has said he went to an English speaking high school

[@hulakan]

Many thanks for this. Historical-comparative linguistics in general and Uralic languages in particular are very interesting to me. Liked and subscribed.

[@GeneralFalcon3847]

Let’s save the Nganasan language. Anti-imperialists, are you with us?

[@mysteriousDSF]

💯

[@LebowskiDudeful]

Here's a language sample: 1. ŋuəδu' syrajkuə ŋarka, muŋku ŋarka na ŋətəu'əgəj. #1. Once the polar bear met the brown bear. 2. təľiany ńiŋygəj torumə'? #2. They started fighting each other. 3. təŋkəďəgəj ihwaδugəj #3. They seemed equally strong. 4. təgətə syrajkuə ŋarka munu'ə #4. Then the polar bear said: 5. maaďa toraŋumi torəbtumu? #5. Why do we fight? 6. what is ńinyďəmi ńintuumi? #6. Aren't we brothers? 7. mäumi tantəgəə #7. Our land is wide. 8. maa tarurŋumi əmny? #8. What should we share? 9. muŋku ŋarka munu'ə: #9. The brown bear said: 10. śüəbti'iai' hičibśjami maagəľičə ďaŋku #10. Actually, the two of us have nothing to share. 11. ńera'a ńisyδəm tuu'narə' bərə ďa #11. I don't come to the beach anymore. 12. syrajkuə ŋarka munu'ə: #12. The polar bear said: 13. kaŋkəgəľičə ńisyδəm tuu'narə' muŋku' ďa #13. I will never come to the forest again. 14. muŋku ŋarka muŋku' ďa bii'jaiδə. #14. The brown bear went into the forest. 15. syrajkuə ŋarka kou'ə baaguδə bərə. #15. The polar bear stayed on the seashore

[@klpuhelin2816]

There are actually some words which are quite near to Finnish. Like "torume" (I don't have the right keyboard for that e upside down) which resembles the Finnish word "torua". Also a word "tora" could be of same origin. Those are a little oldish words and maybe fading away from use. We should continue using those words or otherwise those who come after us won't recognise them anymore. Then they will wonder why certain languages are related since they don't have any words in common. I think I have to read that again, and again... Now I see something weirdly familiar in it.

[@romafreespace]

That's cool that there are young people out there passionate about such obscure topics. Thanks for sharing the video 👍

[@aregaydayd]

unknown fact about nganasan language: in Nganasan language, there is no word that describes the number thousand. Yes, and nganasans themselves are not numbers greater than 999.

[@TP-om8of]

Also, Nganasan has no word for “entrepreneur”.

[@-AxisA-]

​@@TP-om8ofIsn't that a pretty new word thought? I would think that can't be older than capitalism, which is max 500 years old.

[@Eugensson]

About the accent. Be careful there. For example, the Nenets may sound very similar to Russian, however it is such a wild coincidence, because it just by chance has similar archaic features which are similar to the modern Russian. E.g. Consonant palatalisation and vowel reduction. Damn it even has two schwa like sounds which (would Nenets acquire alphabet a century or two earlier) would be ideally covered by the archaic vowels Ь and Ъ.

[@tinfoilhomer909]

I'm glad you made this video.

[@nikolaikrassilnikov]

This is one of the rare occasions when a video was helpful! Thank you very much!

[@vaenii5056]

Subbed! I love languages and especially channels that geek about unusual features and such. 👌

[@nurrnena7798]

I feel you when you spoke about Nganasan reporter having a strong Russian accent, because as an Estonian that's what I hear a lot when listening to these small Uralic languages. I feel like originally they wouldn't sound this way. Also Russian accent is very noticeable when Russian natives try to speak Estonian. BUT listening to Uralic songs, the Russian accent melts away and you can actually hear the raw language hidden somewhere, because the vowels shine (which I think is what makes Uralic languages sound Uralic). Would be interesting to hear native Finnic or Sami try to speak Nganasan. My crazy theory would be that maybe Finnic, Sami and Nganasan people did some seafaring during the Bronze age, when it was warmer? I mean, there are petroglyphs from the Bronze age of large boats, wouldn't be hard to sail across the coast. Also sea level was higher back then.

[@EdwardJermendi]

please do a part two this was such a good video

[@just1frosty516]

Incredible video, the decline of nganasan is sad to see as with any language but fascinating none the less.

[@eetuthereindeer6671]

The 2 examples of votic you showed, luku and karsia, are actually both the same in finnish too. Only the plurals are different. Cool

[@paulbennett7021]

Very interesting - and I like your style! Subscribed

[@AlexandrSV1]

Шикарно. Молодец

[@psychedelicspider4346]

Totally unrelated but the way you explain things is so cool, I subscribed instantly

[@markusmakela9380]

Suur tänu, privet, köszönöm, kiitokset. Thänks for very interesting Nganasan juutupecontent 😀!

[@L-mo]

I absolutely love this channel which I have only just discovered.

[@syystomu]

Oh god, I got taught the whole "consonant gradation in Finnic languages is due to Germanic influence" thing back when I was in uni... I was like "that sounds weird but I don't know enough about Germanic languages to dispute it." I guess I really should have disputed it a bit more. I had no idea Nganasan had it too. Unfortunately Samoyedic languages were massively sidelined at least in our curriculum when I was a student

[@klpuhelin2816]

What is this thing that Finnish culture and language and history is always being belittled, even by our own country and people? It really is a weird thing. I just wondered why I didn't apply to study languages when I was younger. Well, maybe it was a good thing not to learn all the bs. 😂

[@closetmonster5057]

The reason why it was/is thought to be Germanic influence is because Proto-Germanic had very similar sound change called 'Verner's Law': "Verner's law describes a historical sound change in the Proto-Germanic language whereby consonants that would usually have been the voiceless fricatives *f, *þ, *s, *h, *hʷ, following an unstressed syllable, became the voiced fricatives *β, *ð, *z, *ɣ, *ɣʷ." "An exact parallel to Verner's law is found in the neighboring Finnic languages, where it forms a part of the system of consonant gradation: a single voiceless consonant (*p, *t, *k, *s) becomes weakened (*b, *d, *g; *h < *z) when occurring after an unstressed syllable." If consonant gradation is inherited from Proto-Uralic, you would think that the other Uralic languages that have lost it would show some signs in their grammar that this kind of system once existed?

[@mysteriousDSF]

@@closetmonster5057 as a Hungarian I can confirm there are definitely signs that we once had it too

[@Kahdeksanpenninen123]

​​@@klpuhelin2816 It's the soul of colonized peoples (old memory).

[@0mgskillz96]

⁠​⁠​⁠@@closetmonster5057 The same could be argued about the Verner’s Law, couldn’t it? It only happened in the Germanic branch, so where did it come from? Couldn’t it have been loaned from an Uralic language, since it’s present in more than one language branch and is much more complex and evident in these languages? I don’t know much about Verner’s law or Indo-European languages, but the presumption that any similarity between Indo-European and non-Indo-European languages always originated from the Indo-Europeans has always bugged me out..

[@mysteriousDSF]

6:20 mi and ti are literally we and you (pl.) in Hungarian. Also there are archaic forms mink and tik which (could) cognate with their "min" and "tin".

[@Eugensson]

These two pronoun forms are very similar in Indo-European, Uralic and Turkic languages.

[@tommytowner792]

@@Eugensson No they're literally not, tell me which Indo-European language has that as their nominative form?

[@Eugensson]

@@tommytowner792 "ti" - many of them. "Mi" - agreed

[@SiiriRebane]

@@tommytowner792 mi (we, 1st person pl): мы in russian (identical), mes in lithuanian and latvian; ti (you, 2nd person pl) maybe similar вы in russian. jūs in lithuanian. true, 2nd person pl is not so similar to 'ti' or 'te' at least in those indoeuropean languages i happen to know.

[@tommytowner792]

@@SiiriRebane That's plural not singular

[@Taalen]

Unrelated, but reminded me of a joke a friend told me ages ago when she was studying in the Finno-Ugric languages department (whatever it's actually called) in the University of Helsinki. Apparently lecturers would jokingly threaten assistants with sending them to Udmurtia on scholar exchange unless they behave.

[@ankkaah1809]

super interesting stuff as a finn who's very curious about our language and past

[@charley7953]

Very interesting video on a fascinating language, if I could leave a like twice I would!

[@TheSpiikki]

This is very interesting! Thanks from Finland!

[@renatofigueiredo603]

Thank you very much.

[@quite1enough]

I just love how KZbin recommendations sometimes works so I found your channel и подписався, of course :з

[@Nooticus]

Absolutely brilliant video. Nerdy but not too technical.

[@dvinb]

ngl, when I saw that Nganasan pronoun chart I almost had like an epiphany or something. Because there's just no way that the first letters of the singular pronouns in Nganasan (and in Proto-Uralic for that matter) correspond exactly to the first letters of the singular pronouns in some declination of Proto-Indo-European! In other words, there has to be some connection between for example Nganasan "mənə, tənə, sɨtɨ" and Latin "me, te, se". These pronouns have to prove an ancient connection between Proto-Uralic and Proto-Indo-European that goes beyond borrowing, but that suggests a very ancient common substrate underlying the two language families' pronoun system!

[@gary4130]

cap

[@nikiindzhiev5369]

You wish

[@IThinkICare]

Or the latin took some from everywhere they reached? I think it might be more important that the Hungarian mi & ti is exactly the same, and tene is te.

[@vx8431]

I think Nganasan is a product of ancient inter mixing of older Finnic and Samic tribes with the Nganasan before the westward migration of the Sami and Finnic tribes since all Uralic tribes is suggested to have come from the same general area I perosnally lean towards Juha Janhunens theory that all Uralic speaking tribes originate from the areas around Ob river, Yenisei river and lake Baikal area. Listening to Ngansan even though not understanding a word I still got the same feeling you talked about that it is strangely familiar but can't point to what makes it so and I am a Finnish/Karelian speaker. Also Nganasan is probably older than most other Uralic languages still spoken it got that extremely ancient feel to it but might just be my imagination.

[@alecpayne4503]

Valentine stetsyuk also writes about an Anglo Saxon group migrating east, tracking place names the whole way. He says they were firmly established as a Scythian group, as many of kings can be easily decoded using old English, to not gothic. There are tons of place names in Ukraine and Russia and he says that they were the Alans , who eventually moved to the Caucasus, another group going west with the goths, and a third migrating east basically to Mongolia . If nomadic tribes easily crossed west, the opposite is also the case ... The word in Ossetian for Prince or leader is the same etymology as Elder in modern English.

[@vlagavulvin3847]

Мужик, ты крут. Спасибо 👍

[@LordJordanXVII]

Fantastic!

[@Pepijn_a.k.a._Akikaze]

Old English used to have dual pronouns for the first and second person: 'wit' and 'git'. It is interesting that Nganasan shares the initial consonants of the first and second person pronouns with Indo European first and second person singular.

[@Potato-yd3hv]

Awesome video! Could you do one on Yukaghir next? I've been studying it to find links between it and the broader Uralic sphere.

[@mysteriousDSF]

Do Yukaghir, Ket and Nivkh!

[@excitedaboutlearning1639]

Finnish consonant gradation has gone through three phases: #1 consonant gradation doesn't exist. #2 consonant gradation (weakening) is activated when a syllable containing k, p or t ends in a consonant: pität->piðät, mentäk->menðäk. #3 Consonant gradation "grade" (weak or strong) is locked in place. Today, Finnish is in the third phase. For the most part, the "locked" grades follow the rules of phase 2, but consonants have been lost between two consonants without changing the grade.

[@vandyke4945]

It would be so sad if we lose another language.

[@Nakkisesonki]

We've lost them for centuries in 60s we lost a uralic language near mongolia there was a grandma who spoke it and they cayght it on tape, i think it was on yt

[@a.v.j5664]

​@@NakkisesonkiIt was in the eighties and the language was kamassian

[@Nakkisesonki]

@@a.v.j5664 oh yeah so i got the year wrong😅

[@a.v.j5664]

@@Nakkisesonki We actually have enough information on kamassian to revive it

[@DarthMarr2009]

@@a.v.j5664Kamassian was such a cool language along with all of the other extinct/dying Siberian languages. Such a shame not much attention is out towards them and information is so sparse, especially hard to get good info since I am from the US and I am 14. I really hope indigenous cultures can be preserved

[@Flozone1]

You left out Ket as possible source for the unknown vocabulary or perhaps you want to make something about Ket later as well. To my knowledge Vajda proposed that the Ket themselves migrated northwards themselves and absorbed a previous population living along the Yenisei. I am not sure whether he published something following on that, but he hinted on the Eskimo-Siberian hypothesis. Some scholars like Vovin also think that a long distance connection between Uralic and Eskimo-Aleut is possible.

[@Qvadratus.]

genetically Kets are relatives of American Natives.

[@istvannemeth1026]

​@@Qvadratus.Only the Na-Dené/Athabascan group (Apache, Navajo etc.)

[@julianfejzo4829]

I find that to be implausible given Yeniseian languages originated further south where Ket is now.

[@Flozone1]

@@julianfejzo4829 Shared substratum though?

[@julianfejzo4829]

@Flozone1 Well we first need to see if Ket actually does have it or not

[@charlesquinnell469]

I wonder if the similar features to be found in Nganasan and the Finnic languages are an example of the "edge conservatism" (probably not what boffins call it) to be found in other languages on the periphery of their language group? There are some marked similarities for example between the dialects of Gaelic spoken in the north of the Scottish mainland and those spoken in the southwest of Ireland - stuff you wouldn't find necessarily in between those two places.

[@hakanbjrnson124]

Is it also potentially the case that the Goidelic languages themselves (as well as the extinct Hispano-Celtic languages) are/were conservative edge cases within Celtic more broadly? My understanding is that a defining feature of Proto-Celtic was the loss of prevocalic p, which means the reintroduction of prevocalic p via sound shift in other environments in P-Celtic (or Gallo-Brythonic) would have been a latter innovation, whereas Goidelic and Hispano-Celtic (or Q-Celtic) languages on the western fringes maintained more conservative forms.

[@Flozone1]

Modern Turkish is really weird in that regard. It has absorbed an absurd amount of vocabulary from Arabic, Persian and French, but the grammar is at its core quite conservative. For example it is the only Turkic language, apart from Orkhon Turkic (8th century) which preserves "ben" as first person pronoun instead of men, män or min or something like that. Although Chuvash also preserved epĕ, it has the m- initial forms in all non-nominative cases. Also first person plural past tense ending on -ik and the -dik converb forms are also archaisms.

[@Eugensson]

As a slaviatics linguist A. Zaliznyak once said "the center is often innovative the periphery is often conservative"

[@Flozone1]

@@Eugensson There is some truth to it, but I wouldn't make it a hard point. You have examples and counterexamples. Others say, where there is the greatest diversity, the origin lies, but look at Chinese languages. Originating in the North, but being most diversified in the South. As for conservatism I'd point at Romance. Is French periphery or center? Because it is is very much not conservative at all. For Germanic, sure there is Icelandic at the fringes, but is High German at the fringes too? It is also more conservative than English or most of the Skandi langs.

[@Eugensson]

@@Flozone1 Yeah, agreed on every point I would also argue that the periphery could be very innovative because it is usually where the contacts with other languages happen.

[@nolanmaisey]

I would love to see a video on Michif, one of the language of my people (the Métis). I believe you mentioned us in your video on Canadian Gaelic. Moreover, I think you'd just find Michif to be genuinely interesting, if you haven't looked into it already!

[@AvrahamYairStern]

Super interesting!

[@that1niceguy246]

watching this at 2 am in bed fully sleep deprived yet i still wish this video was several hours long

[@Gilbertineable]

I share a full DNA sequence with these people (Mitochondrial dna). My mother is Swiss. Just found your channel and it's excellent. Thank you!

[@jerzyblinowski5177]

6:12 Dual pronousns also occurs in Europe in Slovenian as a separate grammatical compartment, and of course in other Slavic languages as oddities in the plural form, especially even-numbered body parts (hands, eyes, ears, legs).

[@Vizivirag]

I'm Hungarian and this is so cool! All the grammar makes logical sense :) it would be interesting to learn these languages, and use logic - unlike with English :D

[@Yplykytyt]

Like person who have been mesmerized of Taimyr peninsula for seven years couldn't pass by this video. I also have nganasan language textbook and tried to read it (mind-blowing!). Just try to pronounce these two Byrranga montains rivers names: Nyunkarakutari (Нюнькаракутари) and Malakhaytari (Малахайтари). But I'm not sure that it's true nganasan origin words, but absolutely looks different from Dolgan (Yakut).

[@AndreiBerezin]

Посмотрите путешествие Марины Галкиной (пешком через весь Таймыр от Хатанги через горы Бырранга к мысу Челюскин).

[@Yplykytyt]

@@AndreiBerezin смотрела конечно уже) она крутая

[@jontiswe]

​@@AndreiBerezinгде можно смотреть?

[@Yplykytyt]

@@jontisweна одноимённом канале.

[@jontiswe]

That's so interesting and cool! Seems as if hello is doroba or something like that, really similar to Дорообо (doroobo) in Yakut/Sakha

[@elainelouve]

Doroba kind of sounds like "terve", which is hello in Finnish. And especially I'm thinking of the dialects where it's elongated to "tereve".

[@marjoryrainey73]

Doromba in Hungarian is a drum

[@jopeteus]

Your pronounciation of Finnish was almost perfect! Only your stress was off

[@artoodiitoo]

Well they do look like we share the same ancestors in Finland Friends!

[@eetuthereindeer6671]

They call themselves as "FRIEND"?? What could possibly be a better word than that 😂

[@MrBern91]

As Swedish person, I'd argue that the uralic languages has had a much bigger impact on specifically northern-germanic languages rather than the other way around... xD I mean... If you listen to faroese and icelandic and also specific norwegian dialects, you hear much clearer uralic tendencies than in swedish and danish. Germanic languages, ofcourse, are indo-european in origins, and so is the northern branch. But there are much more twangs and rapid speech patterns in this branch than in the rest of the germanic branches most likely because of the vicinity to the east.

[@alexowright]

Thank you, great video! I wish you had included some of these words posited to stem from an unknown substrate language(s). Do you know where I can find out more about them?

[@ChristianJiang]

When I was doing research on the Russenorsk language, I came across a paper that claimed that some structures were taken from Latin… Yes, as if Russian and Norwegian fishermen a few centuries ago knew how to speak Latin 💀

[@SionTJobbins]

As a Welshman 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 I approve of this video! Mutations are cool 😎 ... but can be a nuisance too!

[@sincostan7229]

im only a half hungarian kid working to learn my dads language but this video is really cool for me! thanks!! :)

[@saphorr]

5:35 You probably already know this but English (or rather Anglo-Saxon) did once have dual pronouns. "Wit" was "we two", "unc" was "us two", "yit" was "you two" (nominative), and "inc" was "you two" (accusative). Wish we'd kept these.

[@LuisAldamiz]

If you really want to search for the origin of that unknown vocabulary of the Nganasan language, I'd suggest researching the broad Native American languages' conjectural super-family. Why? Because the precursors of Native Americans were the only "Siberian specialists" before the Uralics (and afterwards only some Altaic branches and back-migrants from the Native American stock such as the Yeniseians have actually become such thing). It should be a very hard endeavor anyhow, because the conjectural NA superfamily should be at least 18,000 years old and that beyond recognition.

[@jasminekaram880]

There is no evidence to make such a claim. We do not have any basis to say such. The Samic Substrate, cannot be connected clearly to any language, including Native American languages. It is not clear if Yenesian is a back migration or if it is a left over from a late migration into to North America.

[@LuisAldamiz]

@@jasminekaram880 - Fair enough but I don't think it contradicts what I said. The conjectural Native American language family should be too old to be discernible from random noise, although there's always that Greenberg concept of Amerind, highly contested but maybe real after all. That obscure vocabulary could have other origins, sure but which ones? Which is the alternative hypothesis based on prehistory and reasonably meaningful linguistic speculation? The Yeniseians at least must have migrated from East Siberia, there's some strong evidence that they are not local: paleogenetics of West Siberia (Taiga) does exist and, at least to my eyes, it suggests the following pattern: 1. Proto-Uralics 2. Tungusics (early Bronze Age) 3. Finno-Ugrics or just Ugrics (later Bronze Age) If the Yeniseians were there they were a ghost or fringe undetected population but most likely they arrived after all that.

[@LuisAldamiz]

@@jasminekaram880 PS- This is the blog entry when I discussed paleogenetic history of West Siberia (based on Molodin 2013): forwhattheywereweare.blogspot.com/2013/05/ancient-west-siberian-mtdna.html

[@OldieBugger]

I have this feeling that some of the 'strange' features in Nganasan language may be just homegrown inventions. Maybe.

[@SK-nw4ig]

Oh cool. Finn here. This made me think I might understand votic to an extent. Those words you used as an example made sense to me.

[@Illustrate_it]

Medd'é Taattamô taivaiza, pühättü ôlkoo Sinú nimezi, saakoo ikoriikkizi, süntügoo kôik tahtozi mukkaa, maallaci, taivaizaci. Anna meilé tänävä ikäpäiväine leipä'me ja anna meilé pattumô antôôhsi, niku mööci antôöhs-annamma neilé, ced ovad vassaamô pahaa tehnü. Eläka jätä meitä ciuzoohsôô, vaitôz pääsä meit pahassa! Siittä Sinú ômazi on ikoriikki, ramoci, kunniaci. Aamin.

[@SK-nw4ig]

Wau. Of course it helps because i know what this is, but still. I didn't know votic is so imilar. Thank you :)@@Illustrate_it

[@queercomposerkarlsson3729]

I have written orchestral music where I chose a Nganasan word as the title. It is "Dyangur", which means "north". The piece represents a journey from southern Siberia towards the Nganasan area and ens off with a Nganasan shamanic ritual. It was an intresting area to research and find some common musical traits between people groups.

[@ferkohyeah]

I'm not sure if I'm right, but Hungarian does have consonant gradation. For example we have words like "menni" which means "to go" or "to walk" and pronounced with double "N", and there is "menjél", which is "go" as imperative second person singular and the "NJ" pronounced the same way you would say the "M" in "music". But let me know if I'm wrong, it just seems like a good example.

[@Hiljaa_]

memʲieːl

[@nieleoya8519]

Yes, and sometimes it happens only in the pronunciation, giving children a headache when spelling.

[@user-eh2uf3ul7l]

Топ контент

[@Philosophocat]

Круто! ✊🚩

[@mattipiirainen7440]

I think you should make some video(s) about those glorious roasts beetween linguistics. Deep dive. Would be glorious. :D

[@Anastasia-uj2bk4ml8p]

It's interesting to see how languages will often slowly decline by assimilation into the dominant language, Nganasan appears very similar to Cornish in this regard.

[@arcticbear2243]

Unfortunately also Russian state and especially USSR, systemically tried to eliminate native languages. The reason some of them have survived is probably their remoteness.

[@MsSlucyna]

​@@arcticbear2243Russian Federation continues to do it persistently. They would like Russiana and Russian to conquer the whole world, I believe.

[@Kinotaurus]

@@MsSlucyna That's why there are heavily subsidised television channels, newspapers etc. in languages that have only a handful speakers left ...

[@Kinotaurus]

@@arcticbear2243 False, minority languages were heavily subsidised and encouraged. They still are, as the existence of the broadcast in Nganasan illustrates.

[@williammkydde]

Watch some Hindi or Punjabi TV or film, and you may be surprise how many words and entire English phrases they use. And those are supposedly languages with long written traditions, and spoken by hundreds of millions of people. I'm surprised Nganasan is even spoken at all.

[@KarausTheReTeller]

Last part of the video felt like a Siberian Turkic language (Saqa language, specifically).

[@marjae2767]

Hi, I'm not familiar with the Uralic languages, but the dual number was common among earlier Indo-European languages, too, so it may be a common inheritance. As well as consonant mutation. I'm not sure how consonant gradation is supposed to differ from other types of consonant mutation, e.g. Germanic devoicing. Is the vocabulary of unknown origin associated with specific topics?

[@untitled6578]

Consonant gradation is a fortis/lenis alternation that depends on whether the consonant occurs in an open or closed syllable. I don't think this occurs in Germanic languages but correct me if I'm wrong as I'm not an expert on them. But I'm told consonant gradation has exclusively been observed in Uralic languages

[@NotOrdinaryInGames]

News broadcasts are something done quick and nobody has the time to translate every word, especially in a story mentioning towns and stores in said towns.