A hungarológia térhódítási esélyei az európai tudományos szférában
Két összefoglaló jellegû, lényegre törõ cikket olvashatunk a Hitel ez évi, februári és júniusi lapszámaiban.
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Két összefoglaló jellegû, lényegre törõ cikket olvashatunk a Hitel ez évi, februári és júniusi lapszámaiban.
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Review on: В. К. Кельмаков, Образцы удмуртской речи 3. Южные говоры I. Научное издание, Ижевск, Удмуртия, 2015
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One of the primary goals of the project “Grammatical comparison of Finnish and Estonian”, initiated in the 1980s, was to compare the syntactic structure of the two languages. From the Estonian perspective, the scientific dialogue that took place due to the project provided considerable information and new ideas to those who were researching Estonian syntax and compiling a scientific grammar of Estonian. As regards the comparison of the syntactic structure of Finnish and Estonian, however, this was merely a preliminary phase. Concrete results were achieved in the 1990s, when typology became a leading trend in international linguistics. In the follow-up project “Grammatical comparison of the languages of the Baltic region” (SCLOMB), initiated at the University of Turku, a corpus bearing the same name was created, also including the contact languages of Finnish and Estonian. The 1990s saw the publication of numerous contrastive studies; particularly impressive results were achieved in the comparison of tense and aspect systems. The compendium “Lähivertailuja”, which had previous focused primarily on the results of error analysis, began to include comparisons of language structure and became more scientifically significant.
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In the article the field data collected by the author during the work with native speakers of the Gydan dialect of Tundra Nenets in Gyda village (Tazovski municipal district, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug) in September 2011. The article deals with the problems of suprasegmental phonetics of the Gydan dialect (the idiom of Gyda and the Gydan tundra of the Tazovski municipal district). The basic and secondary acoustic correlates of stress (word accent) in the underived nouns with homogeneous vocalic structure (with low and mid vowels) in the Gydan dialect are considered in the article. In the paper the combinatorics of the primary and secondary acoustic correlates of stress in the Gydan dialect is considered and the conclusion that the word accent in the Gydan dialect is expiratory and quantitative with tonal features is presented, i. e. The main acoustic correlates of stress are temporal, expiratory and tonal marking of a stressed vowel compared with the unstressed. While marking of a stressed vowel of the first syllable is mainly based on the expiratory emphasis, marking of a stressed vowel of the second syllable is mainly based on the temporal emphasis and tonal and expiratory marking is not obligatory.
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The handwritten monument of the «Словарь Языка Черемисскаго» (Hermitage collection No. 216; Dictionary of the Cheremiss Language) dates from the second half of the XVIII century. It is a copy of another unpublished Mari dictionary, which is stored in a single copy in the «Adelung’s Materials» in the manuscript department of the Russian National Library. The dictionary is compiled by semi-joint. The monument does not use remote letters, superscripts, which was characteristic of the letter of the end of the XVIII century. Of superscripts, the exception is an acute (´); it is not found in all words. In the dictionary, along with the Cyrillic letter г, the grapheme g is often used. In some positions octal и is replaced with decimal i. As in many monuments of writing of the XVIII century, certain difficulties were in the presentation of the Mari specific phonemes: back-lingual sonant η, frontal labial phonemes ӧ and ü.
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The materials on the calendar rites of Krasnoufimsk Udmurts collected by the author in the 1990s, with texts and ethnological and etymological comments are presented, describing the New Year, Shrovetide – Pancake festival, the Great Day – Easter, end of ploughing, Semik – Trinity Day, the great summer sacrifice and praying for rain. Krasnoufimsk Udmurts were the most eastern peripheral Udmurt group, never formally Christianized, who for more than three centuries lived separately from other Udmurts but together with Mari and thus under their great cultural and linguistic influence. Therefore the Krasnoufimsk dialect, discovered and first described in the 1970s by R. Š. Nasibullin, developed into a very special Udmurt vernacular with strong features of interference from the Mari language, which became dominant among the Krasnoufimsk Udmurts in the late 20th century. Nowadays the Krasnoufimsk dialect is very probably extinct and the published materials represent the last information available on the language and culture of this interesting group.
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The article focuses on lexical relations of the Finnic languages. Here we studied whether lexical data is suitable for detecting the coarse-grained and fine-grained substructure within the Finnic group. We evaluated this by clustering old lexical variation from a dialectal dataset covering the whole Finnic speaker area (Atlas Linguarum Fennicarum; ALFE) using quantitative methods adopted from population genetics, and by comparing our results to groups suggested by earlier linguistic literature. We found the main lexical division between north-eastern and south-western Finnic. According to our lexical analysis, the Finnic languages are Finnish, North Estonian, South Estonian, Livonian, Karelian, Veps, and Votic-Ingrian. These groups matched well with the earlier suggested divisions, and we concluded that lexical data could be utilised more often in defining linguistic sub-structures, especially in linguistic situations that involve dialect continua.
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The article provides an analysis of the Komi phrase та вылö видзöдтöг ’regardless of this, in spite of this, however’ which serves as a sentential and textual connective element. The construction is considered a borrowing (pattern replication) from Russian. Its analysis is an outcome of research on Komi concessive constructions. In the center of attention are the syntactic positions, the functions and semantics of the construction in question.
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The paper examines a class of Estonian transitive verbs referred to as ‘partitive verbs’: verbs that appear with partitive-marked objects. This class is more heterogeneous than previously assumed. Firstly, there are verbs that cannot have total (accusative) objects. Secondly, there are verbs that can have total objects in lexically restricted combinations. Thirdly, some verbs combine freely with a boundary marking element. Finally, there is a group of less studied verbs that normally represent unbounded situations but nevertheless allow total object marking if the context highlights the boundary of a situation or result. We clarify the conditions of partitive verbs appearing with total objects, hoping to enhance Estonian L2 instruction and lexicography.
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The societal changes in Estonia have altered the beliefs and values related to childrearing in the direction of stressing more autonomy and self-direction in children. This study addresses the question if and to what extent the amount of talk and communicative intents of Estonian mothers have changed over time period of approximately 25 years.With this aim, we compared mothers’ interactions with two-year-old children in years 1992, 2000, and 2017. The results show that mothers have become less directive during puzzle solving but not at meals. Mothers’ interaction with children has not changed in respect of the amount of talk produced by mothers and children. Moreover, the study demonstrated that mothers’ conversational style, as well as changes in it over time, depends largely on interactional context.
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Estonian language instruction and research in Finland began in the 1800s, although comparative studies of Finnish and Estonian date back as far as 1650. C. N. Keckman, the university's first lecturer of Finnish after its move to Helsinki in 1828 as a result of the Great Fire of Turku, was also responsible for the teaching of Estonian. In his courses during the 1830s he discussed Estonian and other related languages in comparison with Finnish. This period also saw the beginning of research on Estonian, the first major achievement of which was M. A. Castrén’s dissertation comparing the declension of nominals in Finnish, Estonian and Sami. Elias Lönnrot, the author of the Kalevala, made a half-year research trip to Estonia in 1844 and became well acquainted with the Estonian language.
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The Estonian language matriculation exam comprises two parts that are used to assess text comprehension and composition skills, i.e. functional reading and writing skills. As a compulsory national exam, it is a high-stakes test and its results determine graduation from secondary school as well as continuation of studies in university. This article analyses the quality of tasks in the reading component of the matriculation exam in 2013–2018. The analysis of the complexity of the exam tasks revealed that very often (in 74% of 132 tasks) the tasks measure text comprehension of the lowest level, where the examinee has to find explicitly presented information in the text.
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The article presents new or clarified etymological interpretations of the words peru ‘easily startled, skittish, given to bolting (of a horse)’, vaibuma ‘to grow weaker, fade away, die’, velbas ‘sly, crafty (person)’, videvik ‘twilight’, vistar ‘pimple, pustule’ and vänge ‘disgusting, foul (taste)’. Julius Mägiste speculated that Estonian peru : peru ‘easily startled, skittish, given to bolting’ (of a horse); unruly, boisterous, recalcitrant (of a person=’, Votic pero ‘recalcitrant, cunning (of a horse)’, Ingrian pero(i) id. is a derivation with the diminutive suffix *-oi̯ from the noun *perä ‘rear, back part’, which has presumably been abstractified into an adjective from the compound word *peroi̯-he̮poi̯, to “refer to a horse that jolts backward or bolts”.
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The present paper gives an overview of the Academic Phrase Bank for Writing in Estonian. The phrase bank is a language resource that supports the thesis writing process. The phrase bank is primarily intended to be used as a pedagogical tool during the supervision process, the resource can also be used by students independently. The phrase bank is a publicly available resource (teadustekst.ut.ee) which includes approximately 750 expressions in Estonian. The expressions are organized according to their function (e.g. stating the aim, indicating a gap, introducing the method, making conclusions, etc.), which are in turn connected to the three major sections in the Estonian thesis (Introduction, Main Body, and Conclusion).
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The article presents a critical analysis of the research done by the Latvian onomastician Ojārs Bušs (1944–2017) concerning toponyms of Finnic origin on the territory of Latvia. Among others, the following topics are examined: Bušs’s assessments of the work of his predecessors in the identification and etymological analysis of Finnic toponyms, problems relating to Finnic-origin hydronyms and settlement names, phonemes and phoneme clusters as eventual indicators of the Finnic origin of toponyms, and the Latvian index of toponyms as an authentic source of Livonian and as evidence of a past Estonian settlement in Latvia.
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Te aim of this case study is to research the connection between phonetic features and perception of foreign accent in Finnish. Te phenomenon is analyzed with a listener test, acoustic measurements and auditory observations by the researchers. Te speakers are very advanced L2 speakers of Finnish. Te results are compared regarding certain phonetic features. These features are distances between long vowels, sound and syllable durations, pitch (f0) range, mean absolute slope and standard deviation for f0, and articulation speed. Te results give new information not only on the perception of foreign accent but also on the pronunciation of advanced L2 learners of Finnish and their L2 learning paths. From the results we can conclude that all the features have an impact on foreign accent and all the features distinguish L1 and L2 speakers from each other to some extent. Te category of native-likeness forms a continuum where L1-Finnish native speakers, bilingual Finland-Swedish speakers and L2-speakers who have learned Finnish after puberty take different positions. Te effect on accent seems to be clearer for vowel distances and deviations in duration than for f0 features and articulation speed. Differences in vowel distances made a moderate distinction between the L2 speakers, and this feature seems, therefore, to be a promising measure for native-likeness among L2 speakers. Te effects of vowel distances on perceived accent should, however, be examined in further studies with larger speech material and different methods. Results on vowel distances imply that native-like sound qualities are difficult to attain even for very highly advanced L2 speakers. When comparing the results with earlier studies, our observations are alike: deviations in the quality of individual sounds and deviations in sound duration have the most obvious connection to perception of foreign accent.
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My paper concerns the contents and user groups of two textbooks, those of Johannes Aavik (1902) Praktilik Soome keele õpetus (A practical textbook of Finnish) and Béla Györfy (1939) Gyokorlati Finn Nyelvkönyv (A practical Finnish textbook). I will look at the relationship between the contents of these textbooks and the phenomena of the time they were written. From a cultural-historical point of view, I seek solutions in the textual content of the books that refer to linguistic relationships or possible confluences with historical realities at the time the books were published (1902, 1939). My aim is to open up perspectives to the authors’ thought and learning concepts by means of a comparison of the themes of text contents, as well as to possible special assignments set for the books at their publishing time. Te authors are linked to their own time, in this case by the time of publication of the textbook and by the reality of the writing process and the requirements it has created. What in particular can be said about the contents of the texts in these books? In the Hungarian textbook there is a strong emphasis on religious content, as it was intended for students of the Lutheran church. Te Estonian textbook has many fragments of Finnish fiction (Juhani Aho), Finnish songs (Maamme, the national anthem) and also many features of Finnish nationalism due to the difficult Russian grand duchy time. Beforehand I had thought that the texts in the Hungarian textbook were completely disregarding the historical reality of that time (the year 1939), but after reading one particular chapter at the end of the book I realized that the writer was full of worries surrounding him and Europe.
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This paper reports on an investigation on Finnish-Estonian mutual intelligibility carried out by means of a word translation task among 307 Finnish and 118 Estonian participants. Te results confirm previous findings by Kaivapalu (2015) that both in the spoken and in the written mode Estonians understand isolated words in Finnish better than Finns understand isolated words in Estonian. Older participants performed better than younger participants. Many of the participants had at least some previous exposure to the test language and were therefore familiar with some words and sound correspondences. However, we were also interested in testing how well speakers of the two languages could understand the other language purely on the basis of the similarity of the languages. We therefore separately analyzed the data produced by a subset of participants with no or little exposure to the test language. Te results were still asymmetric, but only in the spoken mode. We looked at various linguistic and non-linguistic factors that could explain why some cognates are more easily recognized than others. To put our results into perspective, we compared them to the results of the similar experiments involving 70 Germanic, Romance and Slavic language combinations.
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M. Wellewills’s textbook for Finnish appeared in Estonia under the name Soome keele õperaamat iseõppijatele in 1919. Te name of the author is a pseudonym, and the textbook itself is a translation of the German textbook Praktische Grammatik der Finnischen Sprache für den Selbstunterricht, published in 1890. Tis article deals with whether and to what extent the Estonian translation difers from the German original. It can be assumed that the linguistic afnity between Estonian and Finnish, as well as the cultural proximity between Estonia and Finland, will cause some changes. On the other hand, the question of how Õperaamat difers from Johannes Aavik’s Praktilik Soome keele õpetus (1908) and Lauri Kettunen’s Soome keele õpiraamat (1920) is examined. It can be shown that Õperaamat difers only slightly from its German original. Te diference to the two contemporary textbooks is more striking because Õperaamat is still structured strictly according to the traditional grammar-translation method.
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The article deals with the importance of Finnish language proficiency for nonnative students and staff members in the academic life in Finland. During the last few decades, there has been a lot of discussion on the allegedly deteriorated position of Finnish at the universities and in the society in Finland. Correspondingly, as English seems to become a valid alternative for Finnish in the academic world, it is often assumed that Finnish is no longer needed at the university and the incomers need not learn Finnish. This article takes part in the discussion by representing views of non-native academic people on the matter. Te article is based on a survey data collected in 2015 at the University of Turku. The survey had three major aims: to find out to which extent Finnish is used by the non-native people at the university, to find out whether more Finnish teaching is needed (especially at the highest levels) and to find out what is the importance of Finnish language proficiency in the life of academic people who do not speak Finnish as their first language. Te results of the survey are interpreted against a theoretical background of theories dealing with personal wellbeing, integration and the importance of personal motivation for learning a language. According to the survey, most respondents think it is actually perfectly possible to live in Finland also by using English. However, 74% of the respondents who answered in Finnish thought that it is not possible to live well or to integrate into social and cultural life in Finland to the full without being able to speak Finnish. In addition, most of the respondent expressed a desire to learn more Finnish, as they were not satisfied with their proficiency in Finnish. Especially the staff members desired to have a higher proficiency in Finnish. According to the results, an improved proficiency in Finnish seems to be connected to better personal wellbeing and thus a greater degree of integration. Interestingly, the respondents did not find the difficulty of the Finnish language a major obstacle in learning Finnish, as the biggest obstacles named were the lack of time and suitable language courses. Te results point out the importance of language proficiency for integration also in the academic world and call for additional and more tailored Finnish courses at the universities – also at the highest levels of language proficiency.
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