Finland (Suomi)Linguaphile wrote:Naava wrote:Linguaphile wrote:+ Uralic languages, Hmong, Mien, Latgalian, Sudovian, Lao, Thai, Uzbek, Ewe, Twi, Ga, Burmese, Lisu, Aymara, Quechua/Quichua
How dare you delete my addition! 😤
Älä ole vihainen minulle! Olen pahoillani. I didn't even see yours so I thought aldar's was the most recent post.
Anyway I'm sorry I missed it because it's interesting. Is the -da to -ra change on the infinitive typical?
To make it up to you, I'll add some Estonian dialects, including an extinct one from Latvia (Leivu dialect from the Koiva/Gauja river region).
Estonian dialects? Okei, saat anteeksi!
The -da/-ra is not a change, but two independent phonological developments from Late Proto-Finnic phoneme /ð/. It was the weak grade of /t/ (this is why some Finnish infinitives end in -da, like juoda, and some in -ta, like maata).
In Proto-Karelian, the /ð/ was lost quite early - it was gone by the 11th century. Its descendants (Savonian and Southeastern dialects) don't have anything in its place (juua, same as in Estonian) but sometimes a glide has been added to make it easier to pronounce (saaha, standard Finnish saada). (Here's an example! There's e.g. pöyvvä alle (pöydän alle), tahot (tahdot), syy- (syödä), piettii (pidettiin), vuuvve (vuoden), hei kanssaan yhessä (heidän kanssaan yhdessä). You can listen to the records by clicking "kuuntele" above the transcriptions.
In the Southwest, the /ð/ developed into /l/ (juola) possibly during the 11th century, and spread from there to Tavastian dialects. You could still hear it about 50 years ago there. Here's an example! There's e.g. lählettiin (lähdettiin), elellisenäki päivänä (edellisenäkin päivänä), noulatettiiv vaan (noudatettiin vain), yhlen (yhden) and puhlistettiin (puhdistettiin).
/ð/ had become /r/ in some of the Western dialects by the 17th century. (Here's an example! There's e.g. kaharenkymmenev (kahdenkymmenen), tehrään (tehdään), keherannu (kehdannut), verej jotta (veden että), pirin (pidin), vuorev vanhaksi (vuoden vanhaksi).) The speakers who had /r/ mocked the ones who used /l/ with phrases like olin seittemän vuotta selälläni vanhassa kolossa renkinä (I spent seven years on my back in an old hole as a farmhand) = standard Finnish olin seitsemän vuotta sedälläni vanhassa kodossa renkinä (I was a farmhand for seven years at my uncle's old home). It worked, and now even the Tavastian dialects have /r/ or /ɾ/.
There were also a few spots in Southwest dialects, especially around Rauma, and in the North in some areas of Tornio where /ð/ was still in use in the 20th century. (Here's an example!) Nowadays it's been replaced by /r/ in the Southwest and lost in Tornio.
If you're interested, here's a map of which phonemes were used and where they were used in the late 19th - early 20th century.
/d/ was not used in the dialects, but instead comes from Swedish. When people started to write texts in Finnish, /ð/ was still present in the West dialects that the writers were most familiar with. They chose to represent the phoneme with <d> and <dh>. When the phoneme was lost (either completely as in the East, or replaced by other phonemes as in the West), nobody knew how the letter D was supposed to be read. They then chose to adopt the pronunciation that was used in Swedish (and in other foreign languages): /d/.
It took quite a long time to introduce the new phoneme to Finns. I've seen letters written in the 1940s where the writer has hypercorrected words that do have /r/ in standard Finnish, and written for example saadi instead of saari. I've also met (old) people who've been unable to pronounce /d/ and instead used /r/ or /t/ (e.g. ratio for radio).
I'd say anyone under 80 can and probably do use /d/ nowadays, but it's still common to have /r/ in West Finland and nothing in East/North Finland. The lack of any phoneme has also spread to the South to some extent. For example, it's quite common to hear nähä, tehä, yheksän, lähen, (en) tiiä instead of nähdä, tehdä, yhdeksän, lähden, (en) tiedä there. By the way, there are mocking phrases for these, too! We say that Eastern people walk around käet taskussa - cuckoos in one's pockets (kädet = hands) and that in the West you must wash your hands verellä - with blood (vedellä = with water).
Here's an example of a younger person speaking. She's originally from the same dialect area as me, South Ostrobothnia, but she's also lived in Rauma and is now in Tampere. You can see how she has both /r/ and /d/:
- /r/: kahreksantoistavuatiaaksi (kahdeksantoistavuotiaaksi), lährin (lähdin), kuurennel luokan (kuudennen luokan), hauroolla (haudoilla), oroteta (odoteta)
- /d/: viihdytää (viihdytään), ydijjuttu (ydinjuttu), aattohartaudes (aattohartaudessa)
(By the way, I think her dialect gets stronger the longer she speaks. It could be because she's nervous at first and tries to be more formal = more standard, but then her speech becomes more informal as she relaxes; or it could be that speaking of her childhood triggers the dialect.)
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