Verdurian words that look like Finnish words

[Ofeig]

The Swedish word for prison (F?ngelse) is pretty hard for a finnish person to pronounce. So it is likely that the word is taken from tower: "torn" or perhaps the tower: "tornet".


I saw that the Swedish word for eagle, "?rn" is the same as in Verdurian.

[hwhatting]

The Swedish word for prison (F?ngelse) is pretty hard for a finnish person to pronounce. So it is likely that the word is taken from tower: "torn" or perhaps the tower: "tornet".

I don't think that's the source - it's highly unlikely that it would have given a Finnish tyrm?. Most likely is that Finnish borrowed it from Russian - Finnland was part of the Russian empire for more than one hundred years, so it's quite probable that the Finns would take their word for prison from Russian.
Best regards,
Hans-Werner

[Jar Jar Binks]

The Swedish word for prison (F?ngelse) is pretty hard for a finnish person to pronounce.

Replace "Finnish person" with "Finnish speaker" and we're all happy.

[Ofeig]

Jar Jar Binks wrote:

Replace "Finnish person" with "Finnish speaker" and we're all happy.

Well, perhaps "speaker of Finnish" is even better? A "Finnish speaker" would perhaps say "God kv?ll!" instead of "Hyv?? iltaa!" depending on he/she is from Mariehamn or from Karelia... Enough of that


Hans-Werner wrote:

I don't think that's the source - it's highly unlikely that it would have given a Finnish tyrm?. Most likely is that Finnish borrowed it from Russian - Finnland was part of the Russian empire for more than one hundred years, so it's quite probable that the Finns would take their word for prison from Russian.

Well, and Finland was a part of Sweden for over five hundred years and after that; during the russian rule, swedish was the primary language of schools, government agencies and newspapers.
It wasn't until 1901 that russian was declared official language, and the governor who did it was later murdered.

I think that the word for prison would have entered the finnish language before 1800, and it would likely be from swedish...

Or perhaps...!

The finns took the word from some other language, even before Swedish ruleship?

I don't know

[hwhatting]

Well, and Finland was a part of Sweden for over five hundred years and after that; during the russian rule, swedish was the primary language of schools, government agencies and newspapers.
It wasn't until 1901 that russian was declared official language, and the governor who did it was later murdered.

I think that the word for prison would have entered the finnish language before 1800, and it would likely be from swedish...

Or perhaps...!

The finns took the word from some other language, even before Swedish ruleship?

I don't know

Neither do I - I think someone with access to an Etymological dictionary of Finnish could shed light on that. OTOH:
1. The word looks very similar to Russian tyurma
2. It doesn't look like a likely result of a borrowing from Swedishtoren (and does anybody know whether that ever had the meaning "prison"?
3. It sure does not look like v?ngelse
4. I don't think it likely that the concept of a prison as an institution was known to the Finns before Swedish rule, so your last proposal doesn't seem likely at all to me.
5. Finnish might well have had some other word for prison under Swedish rule, and then replaced it by a Russian word - Imperial Russia was a quite oppressive place (although not by far as oppressive as its Soviet successor), so a loan in that area does not look unlikely to me.
So I still think the borrowing from Russian is the most probable explanation.
Best regards,
Hans-Werner

[Drydic]

I don't think that's the source - it's highly unlikely that it would have given a Finnish tyrm?. Most likely is that Finnish borrowed it from Russian - Finnland was part of the Russian empire for more than one hundred years, so it's quite probable that the Finns would take their word for prison from Russian.

Well, and Finland was a part of Sweden for over five hundred years and after that; during the russian rule, swedish was the primary language of schools, government agencies and newspapers.
It wasn't until 1901 that russian was declared official language, and the governor who did it was later murdered.

I think that the word for prison would have entered the finnish language before 1800, and it would likely be from swedish...

Or perhaps...!

The finns took the word from some other language, even before Swedish ruleship?

I don't know

Let us think. Which power was more likely to throw a given person in a prison. Royal Sweden, or Imperial Russia. I'd say Russia.

BTW Ofeig, you can put the quotee's name in the quote line by using the set [ quote = " NAME " ] without the spaces.

[Ofeig]

Hans-Werner, fair enough, I'll accept your explaination

But, I would bet that much money on that the Russians were more evil than the Swedes, we weren't very nice to the finns I'm afraid...

Drydic_guy: Thanks very much, I was just wondering...

[Miekko]

Russia were mostly relatively lenient in Finland (compared to in the rest of Russia), except for some of the time during late 19th century - early 20th century.

Also, f?ngelse / f?nge (prison / prisoner) seems to have the borrowed form vankila / vanki - tho' they seem rather conservative, and I suspect vankila is independently formed from vanki, or pseudo-calqued from f?ngelse in some way.

[hwhatting]

I checked a Russian Etymological dictionary (a small one for school usage by Shanskij & Bobrova - unfortunately I have no access to a really comprehensive one, like Vasmer's). Seems I have been on the wrong track for Russian tyurma - it seems to be from a Turkic language. Unfortunately, Sh&B don't supply a detailed history; they state that the word was already known in Old Russian (this definitely speaks against a German borrowing, as the German influence began only in the early modern period) and quote a Turkic *t?rm? (which funnily looks like the Finnish word - sometimes things come full cycle, at least in their orthographic form), meaning "dungeon, prison", from a root *t?r "heap, build", so the original meaning would have been "building".
I'll see whether I can trace that further. Anyway, this etymology solves the puzzle of the "palatalizing u", and it also explains the ending -a and the female gender, which would be hard to explain for a borrowing from German Turm; the Turkic suffix -me/ma has become -ma in other loanwords, too, and the gender was triggered by the ending.
Best regards,
Hans-Werner

[valinta]

German ? is the same IPA as Finnish y right?

[hwhatting]

German ? is the same IPA as Finnish y right?

AFAIK, yes.

[Rory]

German ? is the same IPA as Finnish y right?

Yes. It is indeed IPA [y].

[Jaaaaaa]

German ? is the same IPA as Finnish y right?

Yes. It is indeed IPA [y].

I thought the short ? (eg in f?nf (I think), as opposed to that in ?h or ?ber) was /Y/.

[Miekko]

I think Finnish spelling should be harmonized with Estonian.
Thus, the vowels, orthographically would be
u o a
? ? ? - look what beautiful symmetry
i e

instead of
u o a
y ? ? - do you spot that glaring hole in symmetry there?
i e

This looxxors real cool with vowel harmony.

[valinta]

Probably makes more sense, but using y and/or w as vowels makes you really awesome!