Questions on Finnish and Estonian Phonology and Orthography [split]

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Re: Questions on Finnish and Estonian Phonology and Orthography

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Vlürch wrote: 22 Nov 2021 11:38
Xonen wrote: 21 Nov 2021 22:38The modern standard pronunciations were established in the 19th century, so the relevant Swedish influence is 19th century Swedish-speaking intelligentsia getting caught up in Finnish nationalism and starting to learn Finnish. It has absolutely nothing to do with Old Swedish or Vikings or even Agricola.
So we're kind of talking about two different things. If /θ/ was spread because of Old Swedish or Old Norse influence or both, and if it was the standard pronunciation before the modern standardisation, it is relevant in that it was the "standard" before the standard. That's what I find hard to believe in the first place, or I mean I believe it was widespread, but like I've said many times, I also believe /ts/ was more widespread at least at some point. It's possible all the dialectal pronunciations derived from /θ/ in a straightforward way, but it seems more likely it spread from the west. That's the core of what I'm trying to say, that it doesn't matter even if /θ/ really had become the most widespread pronunciation before standardisation (which I doubt, but whatever) because during standardisation it "reverted" to /ts/ and that became the most common.
Well I mean, obviously if /θ/ was a reflex of earlier /ts/, then /ts/ would have been widespread before it turned into /θ/. But apart from that, all I can say is that Setälä's argument seems pretty solid, especially since he cites numerous fairly unambiguous contemporary sources. And in general, I'm kind of inclined to trust the experts on this (as I am in most matters); there's literally hundreds of years' worth of scholarship on this, so a couple of hours of Doing My Own Research™ on Google or whatever is... unlikely to give me any real insight they've somehow never thought of.

To summarize, /θ(:)/ was considered standard and was fairly widespread in western dialects in the 17th and 18th centuries at least. Although it seems to have been replaced in Turku by /t(:)/ during the latter, and there's some weirdness regarding Ostrobothnia (Vhaël, who was from Oulu, describes /θ(:)/ as occurring "in most dialects" in the early 18th century, but some other sources from a little bit later give the Ostrobothnian pronunciation as "tz" or "z" - apparently as a difference from "anglorum th", which was said to occur in Satakunta - so go figure).

By contrast, Savonia seems to have had /ht/ fairly early on: according to this, it was in place by about 1550 at the latest.

Xonen wrote: 21 Nov 2021 22:38Now, dental fricatives were probably on their way out from Finnish anyway at that point, so the fact that Swedish-speaking folks couldn't pronounce them either isn't the only or even the main reason why they were phased out from the standard. However, the pronunciations that replaced them, namely /ts/ for <tz> and /d/ for <d>, were quite clearly chosen at least partially because they were intuitive spelling pronunciations for Swedish-speakers; neither of these had much support in actual spoken Finnish dialects. Going by those, we'd expect /t(:)/ or maybe /s(:)/ for the former, and /r/ or nothing for the latter.
Sure, but there was also intentional influence from eastern dialects even outside of Finland (and maybe even other Finnic languages?) when the language was standardised, so that's another reason for /ts/. It was probably a mix of both influences, but there was /ts/ in extreme southeastern dialects throughout all the changes in other dialects.
Yeah, maybe. There was considerable debate in the 19th century on which dialectal features should be represented in the orthography, so I'd imagine there would have to be something on the rationale for using <ts> as well, but I'm not finding anything on Google right now. At least Carl Borg and Reinhold von Becker apparently wanted to replace it with <ht>, though.

Incidentally, here's Borg complaining about anti-vaxxers in 1807:
Kuinka nostit hullut huhut
estäväiset epälūlot
vastān vaccīnin panoa
somā lastes suojelusta
Orthographies come and go, but at least some things never change. :roll:

Xonen wrote: 21 Nov 2021 22:38However, /t͡s/ > /θ/ is a perfectly natural sound change, so I don't see any reason why we'd necessarily have to attribute it to any outside influence at all.
Maybe I'm just drawing a blank, but I can't think of any language that had the shift /t͡s/ > /θ/?
Spanish is the most famous example, and there's a few others here. There are also some (such as /tʃ/ > /θ/ and /ḱ/ > /θ/) which seem like they've probably gone through an intermediate stage, which I would assume is most likely /t͡s/.

Xonen wrote: 21 Nov 2021 22:38Although I'd argue that patsas might fall into the more literary register of words; how often do we actually talk about statues in casual speech?
Dunno, occasionally there's talk about a certain statue in Roihuvuori that some people find controversial since it's two naked ladies and it's outside an elementary school (and at least once someone put bras on them, which also caused some controversy). But of course it's not like you'd randomly ask someone "hey, what do you think about that statue?" when you walk past it and another person walks past it in the opposite direction or anything...
Well yeah, obviously people talk about municipal politics, but I still wouldn't say kunnallispolitiikka and all its associated terminology are exactly casual-register everyday words. Also, topics tend to come and go, so even if some issue is important enough that you need to use words relating to it in almost every conversation you have with anyone for a week, there's probably some other ridiculous controversy by the next.


sangi39 wrote: 22 Nov 2021 14:01
Vlürch wrote: 22 Nov 2021 11:38
Xonen wrote: 21 Nov 2021 22:38However, /t͡s/ > /θ/ is a perfectly natural sound change, so I don't see any reason why we'd necessarily have to attribute it to any outside influence at all.
Maybe I'm just drawing a blank, but I can't think of any language that had the shift /t͡s/ > /θ/?
Spanish had /t͡s̪/ > /s̪/ > /θ̟/
Come to think of it, I suppose Finnish could've gone through the same intermediate stage... Would fit well with how some Finnish dialects have (or used to have) seseo. Then again, I'm not sure if an intermediate stage needs to be assumed; I guess would be articulatorily fairly plausible to go directly from /t͡s/ to /θ/ as well. And unfortunately, unlike for Spanish, we don't have much in terms of direct attestations of Finnish from the relevant time period, so I guess we can't really know for certain.
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Re: Questions on Finnish and Estonian Phonology and Orthography

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sangi39 wrote: 22 Nov 2021 14:01Spanish had /t͡s̪/ > /s̪/ > /θ̟/
That was the one I could think of too, but didn't think it counts since it had an intermediate stage.
Xonen wrote: 22 Nov 2021 23:28Well I mean, obviously if /θ/ was a reflex of earlier /ts/, then /ts/ would have been widespread before it turned into /θ/. But apart from that, all I can say is that Setälä's argument seems pretty solid, especially since he cites numerous fairly unambiguous contemporary sources. And in general, I'm kind of inclined to trust the experts on this (as I am in most matters); there's literally hundreds of years' worth of scholarship on this, so a couple of hours of Doing My Own Research™ on Google or whatever is... unlikely to give me any real insight they've somehow never thought of.
Yeah, but again, it's the timing and "universality". I still believe it never became /θ/ in all dialects, and that at least some of the dialects where it later became /ht/ or /ss/ or whatever didn't necessarily have /θ/ as an intermediate stage even if /ht/ and /ss/ might have been approximation of /θ/ (or not). So from this perspective, it doesn't make sense to say "Finnish used to have /θ/" as a universal statement because it wasn't a universal sound in Finnish and it shifted away from /θ/ even in most dialects where it unquestionably used to exist. Also, in the wider context of sound shifts within Uralic languages (or just Finnic languages), it's irrelevant.

I trust experts on things like this, too, but I don't trust that the reserach was in-depth enough to paint a clear picture of the big picture. If it's safe to say that sounds other than /θ/ existed throughout in eastern dialects, it just means it's known that /θ/ was the standard for some time in western dialects... so it might not have been /ts/ anymore in most eastern dialects either after whatever point, but the sounds they did/do have didn't descend from /θ/ at least directly.
Xonen wrote: 22 Nov 2021 23:28By contrast, Savonia seems to have had /ht/ fairly early on: according to this, it was in place by about 1550 at the latest.
Hmm, that'd seem to support Omzinesý's suggestion more than the idea of it being an approximation of /θ/. I wonder if another possibility could've been an intermediate stage of /*th/ that was metathesised? I mean, some dialects have actual aspirated and preaspirated stops (or even simultaneously aspirated and preaspirated!) so even though it wouldn't have been the same sound or in the same contexts... well, dunno.
Xonen wrote: 22 Nov 2021 23:28Incidentally, here's Borg complaining about anti-vaxxers in 1807:
Ugh, so anti-vaxxers aren't just a modern thing...
Xonen wrote: 22 Nov 2021 23:28Spanish is the most famous example, and there's a few others here. There are also some (such as /tʃ/ > /θ/ and /ḱ/ > /θ/) which seem like they've probably gone through an intermediate stage, which I would assume is most likely /t͡s/.
Interesting! But it says Proto-Finnish had /θˑ θː/, when that'd either imply the eastern dialects of Finnish that never had /θ/ are not Finnish at all or that they had that bizarre /t͡s/ -> /θ/ -> /ts/ shift that makes no sense to assume, and also that standard Finnish still has /θ/ so I'm not sure what to think.🤔
Xonen wrote: 22 Nov 2021 23:28Well yeah, obviously people talk about municipal politics, but I still wouldn't say kunnallispolitiikka and all its associated terminology are exactly casual-register everyday words. Also, topics tend to come and go, so even if some issue is important enough that you need to use words relating to it in almost every conversation you have with anyone for a week, there's probably some other ridiculous controversy by the next.
I guess that's true. And it's not like the statue itself is controversial, even though apparently it was back when it was first made, and has been the couple of times someone has decided to try to make it controversial...
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Re: Questions on Finnish and Estonian Phonology and Orthography [split]

Post by Omzinesý »

Sellane ol' Viipuri is more or less the only context I have heard this seseo thing.
"Tieshää Nuutipoja passas
Että syvämes ja vassas
Viipurlaise rakkaus assuuki vain
..."

I have heard in Pohjanmaa "Se avaan on siällä pattahan päällä." but "pattas" rather means 'pylon' "pylväs" than 'statue'.
Last edited by Omzinesý on 23 Nov 2021 15:54, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Questions on Finnish and Estonian Phonology and Orthography

Post by Omzinesý »

Vlürch wrote: 23 Nov 2021 13:17
Xonen wrote: 22 Nov 2021 23:28Spanish is the most famous example, and there's a few others here. There are also some (such as /tʃ/ > /θ/ and /ḱ/ > /θ/) which seem like they've probably gone through an intermediate stage, which I would assume is most likely /t͡s/.
Interesting! But it says Proto-Finnish had /θˑ θː/, when that'd either imply the eastern dialects of Finnish that never had /θ/ are not Finnish at all or that they had that bizarre /t͡s/ -> /θ/ -> /ts/ shift that makes no sense to assume, and also that standard Finnish still has /θ/ so I'm not sure what to think.🤔
/t͡s/ -> /θ/ -> /ts/ probably did not happen.
If /ts/ was once lost, it makes more sense to directly derive the observed dialectal variants from /θ/.
/t͡s/ -> /θ:/ -> /s:/
and
/t͡s/ -> /θ:/ -> /ht/ (however that is possible)

No traditional dialect has /t.s/.
/t.s/ in kirjakieli can well be a strange thing like /d/.


I have just read, in contexts discussing metathesis rather than historical linguistics, that Savo /t.s/ => /h.t/ is an example of metathesis but it is well possible that it's just wrong.
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Re: Questions on Finnish and Estonian Phonology and Orthography

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Omzinesý wrote: 23 Nov 2021 15:50No traditional dialect has /t.s/.
Well, yeah, but the dialects traditionally spoken outside of Finland's modern borders in the Karelian isthmus had the affricate /t͡s/, and deaffrication isn't a big change. I don't know if it always remained /t͡s/ or if it was reintroduced by migrants from the north/west/whatever before the shift to /θ/ happened (if it happened in those dialects), but the simplest explanation is that it always remained /t͡s/. It having been reintroduced by migrants isn't impossible since at least according to the English Wikipedia article (the Finnish one is much less detailed) about the relevant region under Swedish rule a lot of the migrants came from Karelia (and Savo lol), and of course they (partially) replaced the previous Karelian/Ingrian population... or it could've re-become /t͡s/ under influence of the Karelians/Ingrians who still remained, regardless of what sound the migrants used. Or it just remained /t͡s/ throughout. Maybe the continuum even between Finnish and Ingrian and Karelian still existed, I mean it did more than now, but how much, who knows...

However, if the sound change site Xonen linked is correct and the /t͡s/ -> /θ/ shift already happened between Proto-Finnic and Proto-Finnish, then the shift /*t͡s/ -> /*θ/ -> /*t͡s/ had to have happened at some point in those dialects... or alternatively the dialects where it remained /t͡s/ split off before Proto-Finnish and thus shouldn't even be considered "Finnish", but that sounds like an ideological imposition of post-WWII borders upon the dialect continuum that existed before then since it neatly cuts out the dialects spoken in the lands Finland lost in the war but none of the dialects spoken within the modern borders. It's not like Ingrian Finnish and the Ingrian language are synonyms, but of course there used to be a continuum so maybe that argument could be made... just seems weird to do that if still including all the eastern dialects spoken within Finland's modern borders, you know?
Omzinesý wrote: 23 Nov 2021 15:50I have just read, in contexts discussing metathesis rather than historical linguistics, that Savo /t.s/ => /h.t/ is an example of metathesis but it is well possible that it's just wrong.
This whole discussion is making me wish I had been interested in things like this when my family still had a summer cottage in Savonranta haha. The locals definitely spoke some kind of "weird" dialect, but... well, I've forgotten pretty much all of how it sounded like. My dad still remembers some things about it and he's told me some anecdotes about when it was even stronger when he was young, but I don't really remember any details.😔
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Re: Questions on Finnish and Estonian Phonology and Orthography

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Vlürch wrote: 23 Nov 2021 13:17
sangi39 wrote: 22 Nov 2021 14:01Spanish had /t͡s̪/ > /s̪/ > /θ̟/
That was the one I could think of too, but didn't think it counts since it had an intermediate stage.
Why would that matter? Just like speakers are unlikely to reject a sound change because their ancestors already had it, they're unlikely to reject a natural sequence of sound changes just because some other language already did the same sequence. Although as I mentioned, I can't think of any particular reason why simple /t͡s/ > /θ/ wouldn't also be plausible.

Xonen wrote: 22 Nov 2021 23:28Well I mean, obviously if /θ/ was a reflex of earlier /ts/, then /ts/ would have been widespread before it turned into /θ/. But apart from that, all I can say is that Setälä's argument seems pretty solid, especially since he cites numerous fairly unambiguous contemporary sources. And in general, I'm kind of inclined to trust the experts on this (as I am in most matters); there's literally hundreds of years' worth of scholarship on this, so a couple of hours of Doing My Own Research™ on Google or whatever is... unlikely to give me any real insight they've somehow never thought of.
Yeah, but again, it's the timing and "universality". I still believe it never became /θ/ in all dialects, and that at least some of the dialects where it later became /ht/ or /ss/ or whatever didn't necessarily have /θ/ as an intermediate stage even if /ht/ and /ss/ might have been approximation of /θ/ (or not). So from this perspective, it doesn't make sense to say "Finnish used to have /θ/" as a universal statement because it wasn't a universal sound in Finnish and it shifted away from /θ/ even in most dialects where it unquestionably used to exist.
Right, but no-one's said the sound was ever universal in Finnish, just that it was standard.

Also, in the wider context of sound shifts within Uralic languages (or just Finnic languages), it's irrelevant.
Yeah, but this started from (what was intended to be a brief mention of) Agricola's orthography, in whose context it is probably relevant.

I trust experts on things like this, too, but I don't trust that the reserach was in-depth enough to paint a clear picture of the big picture.
Well, the problem here isn't really that the research isn't in-depth enough, it's that this is the kind of factoid that gets thrown around when discussing Agricola and old Finnish orthography (as just happened here)... It's not always explicitly mentioned that "oh yeah, other dialects had other sounds for this one even back then" (although hey, I did, in fact, mention /ts/ existing as a dialectalism), because that part isn't considered relevant in a discussion of Agricola. Especially not in some brief summary targeted at a general audience, which is where I'm guessing most of us first heard this. Kind of like most descriptions of how a language is supposed to be pronounced tend to ignore dialectal variation, really.

Xonen wrote: 22 Nov 2021 23:28By contrast, Savonia seems to have had /ht/ fairly early on: according to this, it was in place by about 1550 at the latest.
Hmm, that'd seem to support Omzinesý's suggestion more than the idea of it being an approximation of /θ/.
Maybe... But we don't actually know where and when /θ(:)/ originated, so I wouldn't rule it out. And the simplest explanation for how /t͡s/ turns into /ht/ would be to assume it's an approximation of /θ:/ - especially when /θ:/ is directly attested and the alternative proposed intermediary steps are pure conjecture.

Xonen wrote: 22 Nov 2021 23:28Incidentally, here's Borg complaining about anti-vaxxers in 1807:
Ugh, so anti-vaxxers aren't just a modern thing...
Yeah, these were the original pro-poxxers. I was actually surprised to realize that vaccines got to Finland that early (since they had only just been invented about ten years earlier), but apparently it's true.

Xonen wrote: 22 Nov 2021 23:28Spanish is the most famous example, and there's a few others here. There are also some (such as /tʃ/ > /θ/ and /ḱ/ > /θ/) which seem like they've probably gone through an intermediate stage, which I would assume is most likely /t͡s/.
Interesting! But it says Proto-Finnish had /θˑ θː/, when that'd either imply the eastern dialects of Finnish that never had /θ/ are not Finnish at all or that they had that bizarre /t͡s/ -> /θ/ -> /ts/ shift that makes no sense to assume, and also that standard Finnish still has /θ/ so I'm not sure what to think.🤔
Well, the Index Diachronica is a collaborative project by various hobbyists - although they do tend to cite sources, if you're curious. Those particular changes were apparently added by Tropylium (who was for a long time active on these forums and might still sometimes post on the ZBB, and whom I've also met a few times in real life). The dude's a serious Uralicist these days (as in, writing a doctoral thesis), but I don't know when he made that contribution to the ID.

In any case, if you follow the link, you'll note that he doesn't actually claim that Standard Finnish has /θ/, only that /θˑ/ > /θ/ happened at some point between "Proto-Finnish" (meaning, apparently, the ancestor of modern Finnish dialects - not Proto-Finnic) and modern standard Finnish. But yes, he does claim the sequence /t͡s/ > /θ/ > /ts/. Which... well, it's not strictly speaking wrong, in that it has undeniably happened in some dialects of Finnish, in the same sense that the aforementioned sequence /r/ > /Ø/ > /r/ has taken place in New York English. Although yeah, it might be kind of misleading to treat that as a normal sound change.


Omzinesý wrote: 23 Nov 2021 15:40 Sellane ol' Viipuri is more or less the only context I have heard this seseo thing.
Yes well, the feature is rapidly going extinct, unfortunately. Although I have seen (and used) kassellaan as an occasional variant of kat(s)ellaan.

I have heard in Pohjanmaa "Se avaan on siällä pattahan päällä." but "pattas" rather means 'pylon' "pylväs" than 'statue'.
Pretty sure that's still the same word, small differences in meaning notwithstanding.

Omzinesý wrote: 23 Nov 2021 15:50No traditional dialect has /t.s/.
Well, this page seems to claim otherwise:
Yleiskielen mukainen metsä : metsän -ääntämys tunnetaan kansanomaisena vain Karjalan kannaksen ja >Inkerin murteista. Ilmiö oli vielä 1930-luvulla verraten yleinen Laatokan luoteisissa ja pohjoisissa rantapitäjissä.

But it does seem like a brief summary intended primarily for non-linguists (even though it's on a university site and the writer appears to be a university lecturer), and at least the map doesn't explicitly distinguish affricates from clusters, so maybe that's just a detail it's ignoring.

I have just read, in contexts discussing metathesis rather than historical linguistics, that Savo /t.s/ => /h.t/ is an example of metathesis but it is well possible that it's just wrong.
Hmm, metathesis would be /ts/ > /st/. But it's clear that Savonian /ht/ doesn't descend from earlier /st/, since original /st/ is preserved; ee ou piästynnä tästä puusta pitkään. I guess you could suppose /ts/ > /th/ and then metathesis into /ht/, but... I don't know if I'd be immediately ready to buy that idea. Some evidence would be nice.
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Re: Questions on Finnish and Estonian Phonology and Orthography

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Vlürch wrote: 23 Nov 2021 23:35However, if the sound change site Xonen linked is correct and the /t͡s/ -> /θ/ shift already happened between Proto-Finnic and Proto-Finnish, then the shift /*t͡s/ -> /*θ/ -> /*t͡s/ had to have happened at some point in those dialects... or alternatively the dialects where it remained /t͡s/ split off before Proto-Finnish and thus shouldn't even be considered "Finnish", but that sounds like an ideological imposition of post-WWII borders upon the dialect continuum that existed before then since it neatly cuts out the dialects spoken in the lands Finland lost in the war but none of the dialects spoken within the modern borders.
I'm not sure what Trop's Proto-Finnish means, but it might mean the ancestor of western Finnish dialects - eastern ones are historically descended from Old Karelian! So if anything, calling Savonian and the Isthmus dialects "Finnish" could be called ideological imposition of post-1323 borders on Karelian... Although obviously, that imposition has been going on for hundreds of years now, which is enough time that there's been some genuine linguistic coalescence within those borders. Especially with the Savonian conquest of all that historically Tavastian land. [¬.¬]

But still, I'm pretty sure if you'd taken an illiterate Savonian peasant about, say, 250 years ago and took him to see the world, he might've had an easier time getting understood in Uhtua than in Rauma.
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Re: Questions on Finnish and Estonian Phonology and Orthography [split]

Post by Vlürch »

Ah, I thought "Proto-Finnish" could mean basically "Proto-North Finnic" since it went straight from Proto-Finnic to Proto-Finnish, and was just a matter of terminology and categorisation and referred to the entire continuum excluding the "proper Karelian" and "proper Ingrian" at the extreme eastern end. But if that's not what it means, then I guess it makes sense if the shift happened early enough to have been present already in the western branch.🤔

Someone should just invent a time machine already, so a clear picture of the development of the Finnic languages could be understood. [:'(] And all other languages... but then all mysteries would be solved, which could make the past a little less interesting...
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Re: Questions on Finnish and Estonian Phonology and Orthography [split]

Post by ɶʙ ɞʛ »

It previously used <ö> for both /ø/ and /ɤ/ (because those sound more or less the same to someone who speaks German as a first language - and perhaps also because some Estonian dialects actually merge them); the Estonian <õ> is a variant of <ö> introduced by Otto Wilhelm Masing in the 19th century.
I believe it's in Saaremaa that /ø/ and /ɤ/ merge - again the most geographically consistent location, as there would be more German/Swedish influence there, and they have /y ø/ but not /ɤ/ (At least some dialects have unstressed /ə~∅/ though), while /ɨ ɤ/ are more prevalently found in Slavic and other Uralic languages further eastward or inland.
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Re: Questions on Finnish and Estonian Phonology and Orthography [split]

Post by Omzinesý »

Can we really speak about "Standard Finnish" before 19th century? There were some religious texts, but was there really any standard way of reading them. I would guess everybody read them aloud according their own dialect. Of course, they were mostly read by priests whose L1 was usually Swedish and they notoriously had odd pronunciation. Even the orthographies were quite idiosyncratic at the time. There were things like wanha bibliasuomi etc. but how it was read aloud?
Or did a cultivated farmer of 18th century read his Bible in some standard way?
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Re: Questions on Finnish and Estonian Phonology and Orthography [split]

Post by Xonen »

Omzinesý wrote: 28 Nov 2021 12:04 Can we really speak about "Standard Finnish" before 19th century? There were some religious texts, but was there really any standard way of reading them. I would guess everybody read them aloud according their own dialect. Of course, they were mostly read by priests whose L1 was usually Swedish and they notoriously had odd pronunciation. Even the orthographies were quite idiosyncratic at the time. There were things like wanha bibliasuomi etc. but how it was read aloud?
Or did a cultivated farmer of 18th century read his Bible in some standard way?
I have no idea how a cultivated farmer read his Bible in the 18th century (or even if he was that likely to actually own one). And I'm not sure if anyone really does; the quality of 18th-century sound recordings is notoriously poor. But yes, spelling was fairly standardized since at least about 1642, and there were grammars with instructions on how to pronounce said spelling, so in that sense at least, a standard did exist.

I would suspect people were also taught to read along the principle of one spelling = one sound (because that was clearly the intention of the orthography), and would more or less mechanically produce pronunciations in accordance with what they were taught, to the best of their ability (which probably varied). It's not like the religious texts they had to read would've resembled their everyday speech much in any way, so it being in a somewhat unfamiliar dialect would probably not have made that much of a difference. Heck, people still learn Bible verses by rote in confirmation school, often only gaining a vague idea of what they actually mean (and certainly without adapting them to their normal speech patterns), so I see no reason to assume this wouldn't have been the case for some 18th-century peasant.
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