How to learn the cases historically

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How to learn the cases historically

Postby E}{pugnator » 2018-01-01, 11:54

I've read quite often that phone you know the historical development of the Estonian language (or perhaps if you know Finnish? ) the apparent irregularity on the formation of the genitive and partitive becomes self-evident. You learn how the patterns that once we regular started to look irregular thanks to the deletion of, say, a consonant that may even reappear in other forms. How much truth is there in this that can be used for practical learning? Where to go for those sources on historical forms? Would Finnish help with this?

After almost three years studying I'm still clueless about how genitives and partitives are formed and still learn each new form separately.
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Re: How to learn the cases historically

Postby Linguaphile » 2018-01-01, 17:35

E}{pugnator wrote:I've read quite often that phone you know the historical development of the Estonian language (or perhaps if you know Finnish? ) the apparent irregularity on the formation of the genitive and partitive becomes self-evident. You learn how the patterns that once we regular started to look irregular thanks to the deletion of, say, a consonant that may even reappear in other forms. How much truth is there in this that can be used for practical learning? Where to go for those sources on historical forms? Would Finnish help with this?

After almost three years studying I'm still clueless about how genitives and partitives are formed and still learn each new form separately.

Well, after 20+ years of studying off and on, I still more or less learn each new form separately, too.... (because of that "off-and-on" part I'd say more realistically it's more like four or five years of real study, but still....) Genitive doesn't give me too much trouble anymore, and learning "each new form separately" is now usually a matter of figuring out which familiar pattern the new word fits. But partitive is still hard to remember, especially partitive plural. I also tend to forget short illatives; I understand them just fine, but forget to use them.
I'm looking forward to responses to this question from some of the other posters here who know far more about the historical development than I do. My guess is that knowledge of the historical development does help, but if you are thinking that learning historical forms would be some kind of shortcut, no. I think it would be just as difficult to learn the historical forms as it would be to learn the modern genitive and partitive.
There are also many rules about how to form most genitive and partitive forms based on which vowels they have and number of syllables and so on. I haven't "memorized" all that many of them either. What has worked better for me is just to try to do a lot of reading in Estonian. The forms start to seep in and and you start developing a sense of what "sounds right," like you already have in your native language. It makes me very happy whenever I learn that some word I've especially struggled with is actually one that doesn't follow the rules; it gives me a sense that the rules are starting to form subconsciously in my brain even though I don't know all of them consciously, and those exceptions throw me into confusion because they don't fit the mold I didn't even realize I had. But I still make lots of mistakes all the time, both with forming partitive forms and with knowing which case to use when. My solace is that I make fewer mistakes than I used to, but of course, wrong is still wrong even when it's "not quite as wrong as it was before".
Sono di continuo a caccia di parole. Descriverei il processo così: Ogni giorno entro in un bosco con un cestino in mano. Trovo le parole tutt'attorno: sugli alberi, nei cespugli, per terra (in realtà: per la strada, durante la conversazioni, mentre leggo). Ne raccolgo quante più possibile. -Jhumpa Lahiri

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Re: How to learn the cases historically

Postby ainurakne » 2018-01-05, 13:47

After I started learning Finnish, I realized how similar the two languages actually are and how it could be traced back how the seemingly random and irregular forms in Estonian actually came to be -- as Standard Finnish is much closer to Proto-Finnic, than Estonian is.

But, as fun as it is, I doubt this would be very helpful for learning Estonian. Besides these regular changes, there are also quite an amount of random stuff in Estonian :mrgreen: and things can originate from various dialects. Words from South-Estonian dialects could be especially different, because North-Estonian and South-Estonian are actually more distant relatives than North-Estonian and Finnish are.

But if you are still interested, then one source that I can think from the top of my head, is Wiktionary. There are sometimes cross-references between Estonian and Finnish. And if you want to go back even more, there is even some Proto-Finnic in Wiktionary (for example, Proto-Finnic nouns). Proto-Finnic words also have links to descendants in Estonian, Finnish and various other Finnic languages.
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Re: How to learn the cases historically

Postby Naava » 2018-01-05, 18:28

I'd say go for it if you feel like it might help you! It's not like you'd lose anything, right? :)


ainurakne wrote:as Standard Finnish is much closer to Proto-Finnic, than Estonian is.

You'd love my dialect, then. It's even closer to Proto-Finnic than Standard Finnish is. :p

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Re: How to learn the cases historically

Postby ainurakne » 2018-01-09, 12:49

Naava wrote:You'd love my dialect, then. It's even closer to Proto-Finnic than Standard Finnish is. :p
Oo...

You may have already mentioned it, in which case I have overlooked or forgot it, but what is your dialect?
And where could I hear/see it?
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Re: How to learn the cases historically

Postby Naava » 2018-01-09, 15:44

ainurakne wrote:
Naava wrote:You'd love my dialect, then. It's even closer to Proto-Finnic than Standard Finnish is. :p
Oo...

You may have already mentioned it, in which case I have overlooked or forgot it, but what is your dialect?
And where could I hear/see it?

Southern Ostrobothnian (Etelä-Pohjanmaan murre in Finnish). :)

You can hear it spoken here (she sounds exactly like my grandma, and it's so creepy because she's been dead over 15 years), here and here - these all have transcriptions with them. The last one is the newest, recorded in 2005. However, she's been living outside of Southern Ostrobothnia, and you can hear it in her speech. Also, I don't think the transcription is 100% accurate.

There's more but without transcriptions here. Just click "kuuntele" after any place name that has (4). The numbers refer to the areas on this map. Some people have made youtube-videos in the dialect, too.

There's also Donald Duck comics, and then there's the translated parody version of the Lord of the Rings.

The reasons why I think it's closer to the Proto-Finnic language than the Standard Finnish is:
1. The intervocalic H has been preserved (eg. in the Donald Duck comics: käyrähän vs standard käydään, jätetähän vs standard jätetään, perähän vs standard perään).
2. The allative is -llen (eg. in the same comic, nottei sillen tuu haiku or in the Lord of the Rings parody, mummoollen ja paapoollen, äireellen ja isseellen - to grandmothers and grandfathers, to mothers and fathers).
3. The inessive is -sna or -hna before a possessive suffix (eg. in the comics, leuoosnansa - in its mouth, or literally, "in its jaws") and in the words mihnä (standard missä, 'where') and johna (standard jossa, relative clause 'where').
Btw, this -sna has a locative marker -s and -na, which is the essive nowadays. It developed into -ssa elsewhere and then to -s, which is also what happened in Estonian.
4. The /ɣ/ (weak grade of /k/) has changed into either /j/ or a long vowel (eg. jälki - jäljet, selkä - seljät or seläät, jalka - jalaat; standard Finnish is more random because it's sometimes taken the Western variant with a /j/ and sometimes the Eastern variant with nothing, eg. jäljet, selät, jalat.)
5. Some nouns also have a word final consonant that has been lost in standard Finnish, eg. standard Finnish vene, 'boat', is venes, and sade, 'rain', is saret
6. The diphthongs that have been lost in standard Finnish have become long vowels in the dialect: eg. äiti, 'mother', is äitee; it used to be something like äitei or aitei or something in some Germanic language.

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Re: How to learn the cases historically

Postby Linguaphile » 2018-01-10, 6:01

Naava wrote:Southern Ostrobothnian (Etelä-Pohjanmaan murre in Finnish). :)

You can hear it spoken here (she sounds exactly like my grandma, and it's so creepy because she's been dead over 15 years),

Awww, it's nice to hear what your grandma sounded like.
Thanks for the links and information!
And I have to admit my knowledge of Finnish geography is so limited that I hadn't realized Ostrobothnia and Pohjanmaa were the same place. (Sorry, don't be mad. :silly: ) I had assumed Pohjanmaa was further north. (Okay, that's because I was thinking of it like põhja. :oops: It never ceases to amuse me that põhi means both "north" and "base, low part." Finnish is only slightly less confusing with pohja/pohjois and since I get those two mixed up anyway, the fact that they are different words doesn't really even help me. I still can't remember which is which half the time. I just think, okay, that's like põhja. It must be "north".)
And don't even get me started on etelä/edel and lounas/lõuna..... :mrgreen: I mean if the whole compass had shifted I could accept that that as kind of logical but just switching two of them?! It's like someone with a twisted sense of humor was inventing words for the two languages by sitting around in a snowy forest someplace saying "hehehe... let's get them really lost." LOL.
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Re: How to learn the cases historically

Postby ainurakne » 2018-01-10, 11:11

Oh, wow! Thank you!

I'm not good enough in Finnish to notice all the subtle differences, but it indeed looks different than Standard Finnish. Sounds different too, especially when spoken by older people.

I also noticed that the word-final m hasn't changed into n in some places. Especially "om". :D

Naava wrote:The last one is the newest, recorded in 2005. However, she's been living outside of Southern Ostrobothnia, and you can hear it in her speech.
What's the audible difference? Is it more monotonous, like "regular" Finnish?

(or is this monotonicity just younger people's thing in Finnish?)


It's quite difficult for me to follow the transcriptions, because it always seems to me that Finnish people speak so fast. I don't know whether this just seems so, because I'm not very good at Finnish, or is it because Estonian words have shortened so much (less syllables), that Estonians can speak slower while maintaining the same rate of information in speech.

Naava wrote:Just click "kuuntele" after any place name that has (4). The numbers refer to the areas on this map.
Haha, some of 8b sound kind of like Estonian. :lol:


Linguaphile wrote:It never ceases to amuse me that põhi means both "north" and "base, low part."
And don't forget the "bottom"!

I think I have heard or read from somewhere that people used to think that earth is tilted: the south being up and the north being down. So, if you go north far enough, you finally reach the bottom. :lol:

Linguaphile wrote:And don't even get me started on etelä/edel and lounas/lõuna..... :mrgreen:
Well, the two words have always been existed, but they have probably been officially mapped to specific cardinal directions quite recently, and done so differently in both countries.

"Lõuna" is midday or the lunch time. The time of day when the sun is somewhere around south-east to south-west, depending on how early or late the lunch is traditionally held.

"Edel" referred to the front side of the dwelling - where the entrance (or the hole in the wall, if we're talking about ancient times) is located. The entrance was placed towards the direction where the sun was the hottest, in order to accumulate heat during the day. So again, approximately the same direction.
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Re: How to learn the cases historically

Postby Linguaphile » 2018-01-10, 14:05

ainurakne wrote:Haha, some of 8b sound kind of like Estonian. :lol:

Wow, it really does! Or Votic.

edit: I hadn't found the Suomen murrealueiden kartta so I hadn't realized 8b is/was mostly spoken outside the borders of modern Finland. Now I see why it sounds so much like Estonian and Votic! Very close geographically as well.
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Re: How to learn the cases historically

Postby Naava » 2018-01-10, 15:07

Linguaphile wrote:Awww, it's nice to hear what your grandma sounded like.
Thanks for the links and information!

You're welcome! :D I wonder why she sounds so much like my grandma. Maybe it's the intonation pattern and something in her voice, too.

And I have to admit my knowledge of Finnish geography is so limited that I hadn't realized Ostrobothnia and Pohjanmaa were the same place. (Sorry, don't be mad. :silly: ) I had assumed Pohjanmaa was further north.

I'm already used to hear people say Finland is "somewhere in Africa, right?" so that you not knowing that Ostrobothnia and Pohjanmaa are the same place is no big deal. :lol:
Also, it's confusing af. This is Etelä-Pohjanmaa
(South Ostrobothnia). This is Keski-Pohjanmaa (Middle Ostrobothnia). This is Pohjois-Pohjanmaa (North Ostrobothnia). This is Pohjanmaa (Ostrobothnia). This is also Pohjanmaa (Ostrobothnia). The last one is a historical province, though, so it's rarely mentioned. And, when people speak of "pohjalaiset" and "Pohjanmaa", what they usually mean is Southern Ostrobothnia... :ohwell:

(Okay, that's because I was thinking of it like põhja. :oops: It never ceases to amuse me that põhi means both "north" and "base, low part." Finnish is only slightly less confusing with pohja/pohjois and since I get those two mixed up anyway, the fact that they are different words doesn't really even help me. I still can't remember which is which half the time. I just think, okay, that's like põhja. It must be "north".)

It does mean 'north', too. :P For example, North Star is Pohjantähti in Finnish. Pohjoinen is just pohja + the adjective marker -inen. (...which is -ne in Estonian, eg. eestlane, punane etc) You can add the -inen to all of them, except koillinen* which I have never seen without -inen:
pohja - pohjoinen
itä - itäinen
kaakko - kaakkoinen
etelä - eteläinen
lounas - lounainen
länsi - läntinen
luode - luoteinen

That's why I never saw the connection between Pohjanlahti and Pohjanmaa - I tought they mean "north gulf" and "bottom land". :lol: It was only when I learnt Pohjanlahti is called Gulf of Bothnia in English that I realised it might not be 'north' after all...

*I checked and it says that it's formed from the word koi, 'sunrise', 'dawn', so the marker is actually -llinen which means "having X"; so, northeast is literally "having sunrise". :D

It's like someone with a twisted sense of humor was inventing words for the two languages by sitting around in a snowy forest someplace saying "hehehe... let's get them really lost." LOL.

I swear this is how the grammar of Finnic languages came to be.

ainurakne wrote:I also noticed that the word-final m hasn't changed into n in some places. Especially "om".

Not really; that's assimilation and it happens even in Standard Finnish. /n/ becomes [m] before /m/ and /p/ (and [ŋ] before /k/, and [n̪] before /t/... poor /n/!) It's not usually shown in writing, but sometimes when people write in a dialect, they try to include everything.

ainurakne wrote:What's the audible difference? Is it more monotonous, like "regular" Finnish?

She doesn't use as many dialectal features as I would expect, and she uses more spoken Finnish features that I would've expected. :D For example, she says 'täl' instead of 'tällä' (adessive of 'tämä', this) and she doesn't have /h/ in words like "asutaan siellä ja ollaa ja viihdytää" (instead of "asutahan siälä ja ollahan ja viihrytähän", which would be 100% in the dialect). It might be that she's nervous about the recording (people tend to speak more formal when there's a microphone nearby) because she starts to have more dialect features after some time: in the 2/3 part, she says "herättihin aamulla ja mentihin saunahan" and not the spoken Finnish "herättii(n) aamul(la) ja mentii(n) saunaa(n)". There's also something that is hard to describe - the best way I could phrase it is that her voice sounds too tense. It might be something with the vowels, but it's almost impossible to say for sure. :D

ainurakne wrote:"Lõuna" is midday or the lunch time. The time of day when the sun is somewhere around south-east to south-west, depending on how early or late the lunch is traditionally held.

"Edel" referred to the front side of the dwelling - where the entrance (or the hole in the wall, if we're talking about ancient times) is located. The entrance was placed towards the direction where the sun was the hottest, in order to accumulate heat during the day. So again, approximately the same direction.

That makes so much sense. I've always been wondering why one of the directions is called "lunch"! Thanks!

Linguaphile wrote:
ainurakne wrote:Haha, some of 8b sound kind of like Estonian. :lol:

Wow, it really does! Or Votic.

That's true - there are some similarities between Estonian and Karelian dialects. :D Btw my other grandma is from the area 8a.
1a and 1b are also closer to Estonian than what other Finnish dialects are. There used to be lots of trading and so on which is why the language developed similarly to Estonian there.

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Re: How to learn the cases historically

Postby ainurakne » 2018-01-10, 18:52

Naava wrote:
It's like someone with a twisted sense of humor was inventing words for the two languages by sitting around in a snowy forest someplace saying "hehehe... let's get them really lost." LOL.

I swear this is how the grammar of Finnic languages came to be.
That reminds me of this. :mrgreen:

Naava wrote:Not really; that's assimilation and it happens even in Standard Finnish. /n/ becomes [m] before /m/ and /p/ (and [ŋ] before /k/, and [n̪] before /t/... poor /n/!) It's not usually shown in writing, but sometimes when people write in a dialect, they try to include everything.
Oh, okay.

Naava wrote:1a and 1b are also closer to Estonian than what other Finnish dialects are. There used to be lots of trading and so on which is why the language developed similarly to Estonian there.
1b sounds like someone from Saaremaa. :lol:

I don't know, what is this called - rhythmic intonation or rhythmic speech or something like that?
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Re: How to learn the cases historically

Postby Linguaphile » 2018-01-11, 1:17

Naava wrote:I swear this is how the grammar of Finnic languages came to be.
:mrgreen:
ainurakne wrote:That reminds me of this. :mrgreen:
Yeah, that sounds about right.... Actually, it turns out I've seen that same story in a video: How Estonian language came to be - Welcome to Estonia!

Naava wrote:I'm already used to hear people say Finland is "somewhere in Africa, right?"

:doggy: Sadly geography isn't really taught anymore.... even in fairly academic publications I've sometimes found references to Estonia being one of the "Balkan countries". And I've heard people mix up Sweden and Switzerland pretty often. But Finland in Africa?! Yikes. At least the Balkan countries are on the same continent as the Baltic ones and have a syllable in common.

Naava wrote:It does mean 'north', too. :P For example, North Star is Pohjantähti in Finnish. Pohjoinen is just pohja + the adjective marker -inen.
Oh, I didn't realize the vowel of pohja changed to o when -inen was added, so I thought they were different words (with different vowels).

ainurakne wrote:"Lõuna" is midday or the lunch time. The time of day when the sun is somewhere around south-east to south-west, depending on how early or late the lunch is traditionally held.
That does make sense now!

Naava wrote:That makes so much sense. I've always been wondering why one of the directions is called "lunch"!
LOL - or why the midday meal is called "southern food" (in Estonia anyway - lõunasöök. I don't know if Finnish has an equivalent to that or only lounas on its own).
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Re: How to learn the cases historically

Postby ainurakne » 2018-01-11, 7:33

Linguaphile wrote:Yeah, that sounds about right.... Actually, it turns out I've seen that same story in a video: How Estonian language came to be - Welcome to Estonia!
Yeah, this story has become quite popular and wide spread, I guess.

But it seems to be originally written by this guy - an American who lived in Hiiumaa in the early nineties.
A show about him, if you are interested.
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Re: How to learn the cases historically

Postby Naava » 2018-01-11, 19:02

Linguaphile wrote: :doggy: Sadly geography isn't really taught anymore....

We were forced to learn every European country and its capital in school. I still think there's way too many small countries in ex-Yugoslavia... I have no memory of learning any non-European countries in school*, though I think we had something.
Anyway, when Azerbaijan won the Eurovision, it was lovely to see how confused people were because no one had any idea where it was. :mrgreen:

*except, for some reason, the countries in South America. My theory is that Uruguay and Paraguay sounded so funny that I would never forget them. I also remember Nauru because everyone thought it's funny that there's an island that name literally means 'laughter'.

-- even in fairly academic publications I've sometimes found references to Estonia being one of the "Balkan countries". And I've heard people mix up Sweden and Switzerland pretty often.

Wow, that's bad! I can - kinda - understand why people mix up Austria and Australia, but Sweden and Switzerland...? Lol.
I'm not going to admit that for a second or two I stared at the "Balkan countries" and wondered what's wrong, Estonia is there...

Naava wrote:It does mean 'north', too. :P For example, North Star is Pohjantähti in Finnish. Pohjoinen is just pohja + the adjective marker -inen.
Oh, I didn't realize the vowel of pohja changed to o when -inen was added, so I thought they were different words (with different vowels).

Yes, there's a rule that [a] changes to [o] before [i] and [j]. For example, the plural partitive of jalka is jalkoja. I think Estonian has a bit of that left because Wiktionary says the plural partitive is jalgu and then there's the instructive paljajalu vs paljain jaloin. It must be a very old thing because it doesn't affect the colours, eg. punane / punainen. Except if something is red (like cheeks), the verb is punoittaa... You know what? I give up. :|

Naava wrote:That makes so much sense. I've always been wondering why one of the directions is called "lunch"!
LOL - or why the midday meal is called "southern food" (in Estonia anyway - lõunasöök. I don't know if Finnish has an equivalent to that or only lounas on its own).

I was about to say it's only "lounas" but no, google tells me people do speak of lounasruoka. Maybe I didn't know that because my family usually calls it päiväruoka and, similarly, dinner is iltaruoka aka day food and evening food... :p

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Re: How to learn the cases historically

Postby Linguaphile » 2018-01-11, 20:25

Naava wrote:
Linguaphile wrote: :doggy: Sadly geography isn't really taught anymore....

We were forced to learn every European country and its capital in school. I still think there's way too many small countries in ex-Yugoslavia... I have no memory of learning any non-European countries in school*, though I think we had something.
Anyway, when Azerbaijan won the Eurovision, it was lovely to see how confused people were because no one had any idea where it was. :mrgreen:

*except, for some reason, the countries in South America. My theory is that Uruguay and Paraguay sounded so funny that I would never forget them. I also remember Nauru because everyone thought it's funny that there's an island that name literally means 'laughter'.

-- even in fairly academic publications I've sometimes found references to Estonia being one of the "Balkan countries". And I've heard people mix up Sweden and Switzerland pretty often.

Wow, that's bad! I can - kinda - understand why people mix up Austria and Australia, but Sweden and Switzerland...? Lol.
I'm not going to admit that for a second or two I stared at the "Balkan countries" and wondered what's wrong, Estonia is there...


I consider myself pretty good with geography and knew that Azerbaijan is a country south of Russia, but until fairly recently I thought it was over near Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. For some reason it just sounds like it should be there instead of near Georgia and Armenia. Maybe it's because of the Z in the names?
As for Switzerland/Sweden, I think it's because the adjective for Switzerland in English is Swiss. People hear "Swiss" and can't remember which Sw- country it describes.
That's so funny about Nauru! :D And it's really called Nauru in Finnish too, right? Because apparently in Nauruan it's Naoero (I looked it up) so Finnish could have used that instead.... But then, when I looked it up, I also found that it used to be called Pleasant Island in English. So there you go.... :rotfl:
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Re: How to learn the cases historically

Postby Linguaphile » 2018-01-11, 20:27

ainurakne wrote:
Linguaphile wrote:Yeah, that sounds about right.... Actually, it turns out I've seen that same story in a video: How Estonian language came to be - Welcome to Estonia!
Yeah, this story has become quite popular and wide spread, I guess.

But it seems to be originally written by this guy - an American who lived in Hiiumaa in the early nineties.
A show about him, if you are interested.

Aitäh!
Sono di continuo a caccia di parole. Descriverei il processo così: Ogni giorno entro in un bosco con un cestino in mano. Trovo le parole tutt'attorno: sugli alberi, nei cespugli, per terra (in realtà: per la strada, durante la conversazioni, mentre leggo). Ne raccolgo quante più possibile. -Jhumpa Lahiri

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Re: How to learn the cases historically

Postby ainurakne » 2018-01-11, 21:59

Naava wrote:We were forced to learn every European country and its capital in school. I still think there's way too many small countries in ex-Yugoslavia... I have no memory of learning any non-European countries in school*, though I think we had something.

*except, for some reason, the countries in South America.
Same: we had to learn every European country and their capital. And we had to be able to name everything on a blank map (with only borders marked on it) or place listed countries to correct places on a similar map.

But I think we also had to learn all the other countries too (but not their capitals), although for some reason, I also have the most vivid memories of learning South American countries. :lol:


But back to topic:
Yes, there's a rule that [a] changes to [o] before [i] and [j]. For example, the plural partitive of jalka is jalkoja. I think Estonian has a bit of that left because Wiktionary says the plural partitive is jalgu and then there's the instructive paljajalu vs paljain jaloin.
Yes, jalg has both strong (jalgu - partitive, illative) and weak grade u-plurals (jalu - instructive and as the stem for various other cases; I haven't seen it used for genitive, though, although technically could be possible).

I think, this should be pretty consistent, for partitive at least: kala -> kalu (FI: kaloja); aeg -> aegu (FI: aikoja); etc...

Although, there are also weird things like for example leib -> leibu (FI: leipiä).
(I can't find how it could have been in Proto-Finnic, though)


And also, if ai hasn't changed into oi (seem to be words with weak partitive and strong genitive): hammas -> hambaid (FI: hampaita); kinnas -> kindaid (FI: kintaita); and also for example põõsas -> põõsaid

Naava wrote:I was about to say it's only "lounas" but no, google tells me people do speak of lounasruoka. Maybe I didn't know that because my family usually calls it päiväruoka and, similarly, dinner is iltaruoka aka day food and evening food... :p
In Estonian: hommikusöök (morning food), lõunasöök (midday food) and õhtusöök (evening food).
Eesti keel (et) native, English (en) I can manage, Suomi (fi) trying to learn, Pусский (ru)&Deutsch (de) unfortunately, slowly fading away

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Re: How to learn the cases historically

Postby Naava » 2018-01-12, 16:03

Linguaphile wrote:I consider myself pretty good with geography and knew that Azerbaijan is a country south of Russia, but until fairly recently I thought it was over near Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. For some reason it just sounds like it should be there instead of near Georgia and Armenia. Maybe it's because of the Z in the names?

Maybe, and because it's a long name with lots of consonants. :D

As for Switzerland/Sweden, I think it's because the adjective for Switzerland in English is Swiss. People hear "Swiss" and can't remember which Sw- country it describes.

Oh I see.

That's so funny about Nauru! :D And it's really called Nauru in Finnish too, right? Because apparently in Nauruan it's Naoero (I looked it up) so Finnish could have used that instead.... But then, when I looked it up, I also found that it used to be called Pleasant Island in English. So there you go.... :rotfl:

Yes, it's Nauru. I was almost disappointed to learn it's not Laughter in English. :( At least we still have Easter Island and Christmas Island.
I think it wasn't called Naoero because most of the names of foreign places were copied from English and because /aoe/ is quite difficult to say.

ainurakne wrote:And we had to be able to name everything on a blank map (with only borders marked on it) or place listed countries to correct places on a similar map.

I think we had the same.

ainurakne wrote:I think, this should be pretty consistent, for partitive at least: kala -> kalu (FI: kaloja); aeg -> aegu (FI: aikoja); etc...

Good to know! I've studied Estonian for one course only and we didn't learn plurals so... :mrgreen:

ainurakne wrote:Although, there are also weird things like for example leib -> leibu (FI: leipiä).
(I can't find how it could have been in Proto-Finnic, though)

I think it was /leipiðä/. If I remember right, plural partitives were just the stem + plural marker /i/ + /tA/ or /ðA/.

It might be that leib was seen as part of the same group with kala, jalg and other nouns that end or used to end with an A. Analogy? :D There's also the diminutive leipuska, so there might've been some A/Ä -> U -rule.

ainurakne wrote:And also, if ai hasn't changed into oi (seem to be words with weak partitive and strong genitive): hammas -> hambaid (FI: hampaita); kinnas -> kindaid (FI: kintaita); and also for example põõsas -> põõsaid

That's because none of these words had A and I in the same syllable. You see, they all end with a S: the plural partitive used to be hampas+i+ta > hampasita > hampahita > hampaita (> hambaid). Compare with the South Ostrobothnian dialect which has hampahia, lampahia, kintahia, pensahia... When the /h/ disappeared, the A+I = OI rule had already went out of style.

ainurakne wrote:In Estonian: hommikusöök (morning food), lõunasöök (midday food) and õhtusöök (evening food).

How are these used? Can you say that you had X for lõunasöök or that you're having lõunasöök with someone?

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Re: How to learn the cases historically

Postby ainurakne » 2018-01-12, 20:49

Naava wrote:I think it was /leipiðä/. If I remember right, plural partitives were just the stem + plural marker /i/ + /tA/ or /ðA/.
I see. Good to know.

Naava wrote:It might be that leib was seen as part of the same group with kala, jalg and other nouns that end or used to end with an A. Analogy? :D There's also the diminutive leipuska, so there might've been some A/Ä -> U -rule.
Hmm, maybe. :hmm:

Naava wrote:
ainurakne wrote:And also, if ai hasn't changed into oi (seem to be words with weak partitive and strong genitive): hammas -> hambaid (FI: hampaita); kinnas -> kindaid (FI: kintaita); and also for example põõsas -> põõsaid

That's because none of these words had A and I in the same syllable. You see, they all end with a S: the plural partitive used to be hampas+i+ta > hampasita > hampahita > hampaita (> hambaid). Compare with the South Ostrobothnian dialect which has hampahia, lampahia, kintahia, pensahia... When the /h/ disappeared, the A+I = OI rule had already went out of style.
Yeah, I figured there was something going on. I was just emphasizing that despite being different from the others, they are still the same in both languages.

But thank you for the explanation and the examples!

Funnily, I think some children actually say "hambasid".
They must have some insight on how the language has evolved. :lol:

Naava wrote:
ainurakne wrote:In Estonian: hommikusöök (morning food), lõunasöök (midday food) and õhtusöök (evening food).
How are these used? Can you say that you had X for lõunasöök or that you're having lõunasöök with someone?
I think they are mostly used for the food itself.

You can, of course, say "Söön hommikusöögiks putru, lõunasöögiks suppi ja õhtusöögiks kartuleid."
(I eat porridge for breakfast, soup for lunch and potatoes for dinner)

But I think better (and maybe even more natural) would be "Söön hommikuks/hommikul putru, lõunaks/lõuna ajal suppi ja õhtuks/õhtul kartuleid.".


When just stating the fact that you eat or have eaten breakfast, lunch or dinner, then you would use the partitive of hommik, lõuna or õhtu, or partitive of the -ne adjective of each (hommikune, lõunane, õhtune). Although, for hommik and õhtu, the -ne adjective is preferred, and for lõuna simple partitive is preferred (maybe because lõuna is also lunch by itself):

"Söön hommikust(/hommikut), lõunat/lõunast, õhtust(/õhtut)."
(I eat breakfast, lunch, dinner)

"Olen juba hommikust(/hommikut), lõunat/lõunast, õhtust(/õhtut) söönud."
(I have already eaten breakfast, lunch, dinner)


There are many ways for saying 'to have breakfast, lunch, dinner with someone':
"Söön temaga hommikust(/hommikut), lõunat/lõunast, õhtust(/õhtut)."
"Lähen temaga hommikust(/hommikut), lõunat/lõunast, õhtust(/õhtut) sööma."
"Olen/käin temaga hommikust(/hommikut), lõunat/lõunast, õhtust(/õhtut) söömas."

With lõuna, you can also use outer locative cases:
"Lähen temaga lõunale."
"Olen/käin temaga lõunal."

But I would use hommikusöök, lõunasöök and õhtusöök only if I would like to emphasize that I'm eating the food (of breakfast, lunch or dinner) together with someone:
"Söön hommikusööki, lõunasööki, õhtusööki koos temaga."
(although you can also use hommikust, lõunat and õhtust here)
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