Can Finnish and Estonian speakers understand each other?

Рет қаралды 305,233

Жыл бұрын

Imagine an Estonian and a Finn trapped in a sauna. Would they be able to communicate to find a way out? 🤭
Mutual intelligibility within the Finno-Ugric language family is generally limited due to the significant linguistic differences between languages. We created this language challenge to give you a chance to see for yourself how well Finnish and Estonian speakers can understand each other based on similarities between those two languages. If you're a speaker of a Finno-Ugric language do volunteer in for the future videos so we can run more experiments like that. 🤓
📝 You can sign up via following volunteer form→ forms.gle/aZeSFSsFexbmxE7UA
The Finno-Ugric language family is a branch of the larger Uralic language family, which includes languages spoken primarily in Finland, Estonia, Hungary, and regions of Russia. This family consists of two main branches: Finno-Permic and Ugric. Some well-known languages in this family include Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian, as well as various minority languages such as Karelian, Udmurt, and Khanty.
🤗 Big thanks to 🇪🇪 Kristofer and 🇫🇮 Antti for participating in the video.
🇫🇮 You can learn Finnish with Antti here: www.italki.com/en/teacher/874...
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Пікірлер: 1 500

@Ecolinguist 9 ай бұрын

The episode 2 is finally out → kzfaq.info/get/bejne/fLh2m7Jpmaqqo40.html 🤓

@sn2a1 9 ай бұрын

Suomalaiset ymmärtävät helposti kirjoitettua virolaisten kieltä. Virolaiset ymmärtävät yleensä suomenkieltä. Ääntäminen on tosi erilaista nykyään.

@dariusdarius008 8 ай бұрын

@@sn2a1..ir ką jūs čia taip parašėt, gerbiamasis (gerbiamoji?)? Manot, kiti negali atsakyti nesuprantama kalba?:))...

@lolsoina 6 ай бұрын

@@sn2a1ma ei saa palju aru

@KibyNykraft 2 ай бұрын

@@sn2a1Seems like estonian has a bit more of scandinavian than the finnish. Like kelder (norwegian "kjeller" / english "cellar / basement"). And "ruum" (norwegian "rom", finnish "huone", english "room")

@kristofersokk1580 Жыл бұрын

I'm the Estonian speaker in this video. I really liked participating, it was fun. Unfortunately, halfway through the challenge, I started thinking about pantry instead of cellar, so I got them mixed up. Cellar is not next to kitchen, but oh well. And äikesetorm is lightning storm not thunder storm, mürin is thunder, but because we never say thunder storm, I got them mixed up also. It seems trivial now later that äikene, another form of äike, and ukkonen are cognates.

@oh2mp Жыл бұрын

I am a Finnish speaker I guessed both your words very easily. It may have been little helpful that I saw the Estonian text while you were speaking.

@maaritlarinen9056 Жыл бұрын

Finnish and Swedish speaker here. I understood quite a lot of what you said, but I do think me speaking Swedish also helped seeing that Estonian apparently has tons of German loanwords that Finnish doesn't have. I do have to ask, do you speak any particular dialect or do you also speak Russian? I thought I picked up a few Russian influences in your pronunciation - mostly some hints of palatalisation - that I haven't heard before. Not that I've heard a lot of Estonian through the years, but still.

@matskustikee Жыл бұрын

@@maaritlarinen9056 in my pointwiew pretty regular Estonian, nothing unusual but yes we have in Estonian language ton's of loans word which makes Finnish And Estonian Language so appart

@TheTooBig Жыл бұрын

Southern Osthrobothnia here. Just wanted to say hello and to tell you have a nice day, kalevipoeg are strong! :)

@mRRandak Жыл бұрын

Guys, ukkonen is related to skygod Ukko, which in Estonian also was the skygod Uku, as it was written in our many stories two centuries ago, our oral heritage. Mythologically indeed the connection is there, but quite obscure.

@mortenoconnell7977 Жыл бұрын

Finnish and Estonian: Visible understanding Hungarian: I think I might sit this one out 😅

@robertkukuczka9469 Жыл бұрын

I speak Hungarian as a Polish man but I do not undestand a word of Finnisg nor Estonian.

@mortenoconnell7977 Жыл бұрын

@@robertkukuczka9469 yeah precisely my point. Although there are 100s of words present in hungarian that are cognates with both finnish and estonian, most are too different to initially realise their commonality. Either way, this doesn't make the languages mutually intelligible

@lissandrafreljord7913 Жыл бұрын

Is the relationship of Hungarian with Finnish/Estonian like comparing German to Spanish/Italian, or even worse, Hindi to Spanish/Italian?

@mortenoconnell7977 Жыл бұрын

@@lissandrafreljord7913 yeah pretty much. Maybe something like polish, Russian or indo-iranian languages to English. They're fairly distant since hungarian split from proto-finno-ugric like 3000 to 4000 years ago

@bobbytables464 Жыл бұрын

Having grown up bilingual in Estonian and Finnish and being of a generation where almost everyone spoke Finnish rather fluently, seeing Kristofer being completely at a loss is a good reminder that our languages are absolutely riddled with false friends (huone/hoone, etc).

@KohaAlbert Жыл бұрын

In Estonian: * Kodu; Koda. (home; a shelter, a workshop). * Kott/koti/kotti (a bag / of bag's / into the bag.) 💰

@pinkbabycrocs5577 Жыл бұрын

Those two words aren't exactly false friends, i think, because the meanings are still related and similar :) You can see how they might have drifted from the shared original meaning of 'to house something', so 'huone' = room, 'hoone' = building. There are a lot of these, actually. 'Talo' = house, 'talu' = farmhouse; 'puhua' = to speak (a language), 'puhuma' = to blow air from the mouth, but Estonians even say 'juttu puhuma' = to have a chat. Hallitus/hallitus is a good example of false friends, though, because the meanings (and origins, as far as I know) are completely different (government/mold).

@omenoid Жыл бұрын

@@pinkbabycrocs5577 Many "false friends" are of course cognates, but the original meanings are sometimes preserved in certain phrases, and in dialectal words, too: e.g. FI "päivänpaiste" = "sunshine", modern FI "aurinko" = "the Sun" = "Päike" EST

@smithno-mates2341 Жыл бұрын

@@pinkbabycrocs5577 There is definitely a connection in the puh-part, there are words like 'puhkua' and 'puhista' which are describing different ways to blow air and still related to speech.

@andrewburbidge Жыл бұрын

@pinkbabycrocs5577 Hallitus/halitus Mould/mold - growing within and fixing sand in two halves of a moulding box so that the sand doesn't fall apart when the two halves are brought together? Government, holding the country together, in a way of thinking? Also, see my comment further up the page, about connections between numbers in Finnish/Estonian and Greek. Also - Olympus - written in Ancient Greek with the symbol for the smooth breathing - so, pronounced with an initial 'h' or very similar. From the ancient halls and 'impos' - imposed authority? In German, Rathaus - no common origin with what some wanted to say about people they didn't like?

@shimokitazawa1217 Жыл бұрын

The cadence of Finnish is really something. Love the way it sounds. Their poetry must be on another level.

@maxkho00 Жыл бұрын

That cadence is exploited to its full extent in the Finnish (pseudo-)folk song Ievan Polka.

@GdzieJestNemo Жыл бұрын

paparapapaaaa :D

@naukumaija7056 Жыл бұрын

I find this so interesting to hear, can you describe what's so special about it to you? I find it so hard to understand how it sounds special since I'm Finnish, hahah

@MikkoRantalainen Жыл бұрын

Finnish words are actually spoken in pretty slow sequence but most foreigners catch syllables instead of whole words and think that Finns speak really fast. When native speakers pronounce words, every syllable has frequency that goes from higher frequency downwards during the syllable and the pitch is again raised higher when new syllable starts. Double vocals (e.g. "aa") are pronounced as diphthongs with lowering pitch, too. Most Finns do not seem notice this and claim that you pronounce short vowel vs long vowel instead because that's how they mentally think about it while speaking but they are actually doing diphthongs.

@keegster7167 Жыл бұрын

@@naukumaija7056 I can tell you that I find it to be one of the most beautiful languages on earth, because of its gradual rising and falling pitch, it’s continuous flow (in terms of vocal emphasis), smoothly encroaching creaky voice near the end of syllables, clear syllables, pleasing combinations of vowels, and rhythmic long and short vowels. To me, if English can be considered like a clarinet with sharp but decently smooth turns and with inconsistent, jazzy rhythm, then Finnish sounds like a violin. German may be more like a trumpet since it stops abruptly after each emphatic phrase, for comparison.

@realmahadeo Жыл бұрын

I once learned basics of Estonian, and then when I was cycling outside of Helsinki and needed directions, I asked one old man, and we were able to communicate in a mix of Estonian and Finnish :) that was pretty awesome

@robleyusuf2566 Жыл бұрын

Are Russian?

@realmahadeo Жыл бұрын

@@robleyusuf2566 I'm from Belarus so I speak Russian if that's the question

@robleyusuf2566 Жыл бұрын

@@realmahadeo Yak Spravie? Don't worry that is only Belaruskiy I know. I have been in Belarus before in Minsk, Grodno and Vitebsky. I am from Somalia and people in Belarus often stare at me because of my skin colour, but besides from that they were very kind and generous. If people ask me how would I describe Human, my answer would be "Belarusian"

@realmahadeo Жыл бұрын

@@robleyusuf2566 thanks, spravy dobra :) I agree we have nice people, and hope things go well in our country. People stare at you because we don't have too many immigrants and are not used to diversity.

@robleyusuf2566 Жыл бұрын

@@realmahadeo The problem Belarus has is the political conflict between Russia and the West(EU and USA) and no one is winning. I hope Belarus would not be like Ukraine. There is a dire situation in Ukraine. The world is on the verge of worldwar 3. These powers are also wrestling in Africa by using proxies.

@j.l.5867 Жыл бұрын

As a Finn, I understood the exactly same words as Antti so I think this is quite representative of the intelligibility from Estonian to Finnish. It's a guessing game that relies on hearing some keywords that the languages share.

@corinna007 10 ай бұрын

And even those key words can be tricky sometimes, it seems. Like in this video; "Huone" and "Hoone" sound almost exactly the same, but one means a room and the other means the entire building.

@nenirouvelliv 7 ай бұрын

The basic words are pretty easy to understand, the more specialized the vocabulary gets the more clearly you can see how the languages have evolved in different directions since the middle ages.

@lentavahollantilainen7088 14 күн бұрын

I understood more than Antti. Most of finns can more than Antti. In video you cant like guess

@YksiKaksi3 11 күн бұрын

Mun on vaikee olla ymmärtämättä ton eestiläisen kertomusta

@Iddhi5 Жыл бұрын

I'm Finnish speaking, living in Helsinki. For me, every visit to Tallinn is like an Estonian language course. Every time, even without trying, you learn new Estonian words and start understanding more.

@KohaAlbert Жыл бұрын

Which is why the languages are close enough to be naturally aquireable (rather than truly needing to learn), while mutual intelligiblity out of blue can be challenging - almost at the reach. Actually learning the language is much quicker though.

@Mediaflashmob Жыл бұрын

Is it difficult for you Estonian language? As for me Russian, it seems crazy hard!

@maxkho00 Жыл бұрын

@@Mediaflashmob Of course not. Estonian is for Finns what Polish is for us. Even though Polish is objectively a hard language, for us Russians it's very easy since it's already so close to our native language. The same is almost certainly true for Finns learning Estonian.

@neasulavuori4955 Жыл бұрын

@@maxkho00 indeed that sounds right

@Zestieee Жыл бұрын

@@maxkho00 rather the same experience that I (native speaker of Italian) felt while first approaching Spanish. I wonder if there's a name for this sort of linguistical vicinity (other than "high mutual intelligibility"). Maybe "sister languages" is what I'm thinking.

@kristofevarsson6903 Жыл бұрын

It's great to see Finnish and Estonian being so close as to _almost_ mean the same exact things, but being _just_ far away enough to confuse each other the first time around. It reminds me of that Breaking Bad meme where Walter asks Jessie wtf he's talking about. They're clearly communicating on a level of basic understanding, but the finer details get lost and cause some pretty funny misunderstandings.

@greendude96 11 ай бұрын

One of the prime examples (that we're taught via jokes) of that would be the word "hallitus" which in Estonian means "mould, like on food etc) and in Finnish it means the "government"- which in turn in Estonian would be "valitsus" :D

@kristofevarsson6903 11 ай бұрын

@@greendude96 The government is the worst kind of mould, I have to agree LOL

@holoholopainen1627 10 ай бұрын

There Are same words - but with different meaning - piim IS maito / raiskamine IS kuluttamista / soida IS ajaa autoa / laskemine IS ampumista ! There IS no maito - so drink vesi !

@punkodie Жыл бұрын

Man I wish us Hungarians could somehow participate in this series... But there is not anything remotely close to us. There are only those approximately 100 words which are still similar in Finnish/Estonian and Hungarian, but grammatically, vocabulary-wise and even the logic of the languages evolved so differently as we have all been exposed to very different types of languages since we parted around 4000 yrs ago. It is nice to see that Finns and Estonians still share mutual intelligibility to some extent :)

@littlemy1773 Жыл бұрын

It would still be cool to see you represented though . To compare and contrast the words you share, and also, the ones you don’t

@mortenoconnell7977 Жыл бұрын

@@littlemy1773 there's a great video by bahador alast called "hungarian and estonian similarities" where two participants, kinda similar to this video, try and guess the corresponding cognate in the other person's language. It's super interesting but also highlights just how difficult and unrecognisable so many of these words are from one another

@littlemy1773 Жыл бұрын

@@mortenoconnell7977 I’m subbed to his channel as well, so I’ll go and find that video . Thank you 🙏

@apmoy70 Жыл бұрын

Welcome to the club...

@omenoid Жыл бұрын

Of course we would. The accent when speaking English is very similar but we (Hun-Fin) share only a few conjugate words. However, I had a Hungarian-born piano teacher in Finland, and I loved her, and my niece speaks quite fluent Hungarian. But in the context of Uralic languages, we have to remember that Hungarian is still about as distant to Finnish as Swedish is to Greek. I.E. they belong to the same language family, but they're quite different.

@KristjanBeilmann 11 ай бұрын

Both languages are beautiful. In this video, the Finnish speaker put much more effort into clear articulation.

@bobbytables464 Жыл бұрын

Äike and ukkonen are almost cognate. The root words are "äi" and "ukko", both meaning "old man" (Finnish still has the word "äijä" that also means "old man"). The old Finnic god of thunder was shared by Finns and Estonians and his name was various forms of "old man". Ukko, Äijä or Äijö in Finnish and Uku in Estonian (and clearly he was also called some form of "äi"). So in both languages, the word for thunder is the name of the thunder god (meaning old man) plus a diminutive suffix (äi-ke, ukko-nen).

@MT-eo6tq Жыл бұрын

The most common meaning of the word "äi" in Estonian is father in law.

@vulc1 Жыл бұрын

In Estonian, "ätt" (also dialectal variation "äit") means an old man.

@MT-eo6tq Жыл бұрын

@@vulc1 But eit means an old woman :D

@mihkel86 Жыл бұрын

Rspct ❤

@Microphunktv-jb3kj Жыл бұрын

väike äike päike :D äi doesnt mean old man ... why are you lieing lol :D "vana ätt" or just "ätt" would be what finnish use ukko... äi is like relational title

@dddenes Жыл бұрын

Hello from the other branch of the Finno-Ugric tree (I am Hungarian). I just want to add here, that however I do not understand a single word what you say here, I stopped it for several times and checked the English captions too, to understand and possibly find anything to cognate, but no success (but even you guys have a hard time, whose languages are much closer, I don't know, what did I expect :D ). However I find these languages somehow close to mine, the way you guys say the words, the tune... It's like I have a grasp on it, but somehow it always slips away. It was a super interesting video for me, thank you for uploading it!

@juuliawarrior1188 Жыл бұрын

I’m from Finland and I surprised that I actually was able to guess both of those Estonian words right, I understood pretty much and it was really cool!

@deithlan Жыл бұрын

An Aurora fan! Jee!

@juuliawarrior1188 Жыл бұрын

@@deithlan Weee!

@mousetung6107 Жыл бұрын

As an Estonian my first guess for the korrusmaja/kerrostalo was also a shopping centre. I was thrown off by it being a building that's only in cities/towns. Estonian countryside is full of blocks of flats from the soviet era.

@niemandkeiner8057 Жыл бұрын

Two of the most beautiful languages in the world.

@paulheydarian1281 Жыл бұрын

🤔 It makes me think of Norsemen discussing something about hunting.

@xolang Жыл бұрын

kiitos! would be interesting to see how much mutual intelligibility there is with a Karelian speaker too. 😁

@roman_pokora Жыл бұрын

And also with a Hungarian speaker

@elporrovegano Жыл бұрын

@@roman_pokora That is 0. There is unfortunately no intelligibility.

@punkodie Жыл бұрын

@@roman_pokora like 100 words are still similar, and that's pretty much it.. unless we throw in casual loanwords from Germanic languages and Latin

@pcongre Жыл бұрын

+Sámi, would be awesome! < 3 (...maybe Võro & Meänkieli too?)

@burnedburger9869 Жыл бұрын

As a Finn I can say that Karelian is fairly easy to understand, at least after getting used to it for a while. I can understand ~70-90% of words in spoken language and 85-95% in written, so basically you can just guess the rest based on the context. There's also some variety to how strong the accent is when talking, so whenever the speaker has a strong russian accent, the spoken language can be harder to understand. Hungarian, on the other hand, is practically impossible to understand. Some words share the same origin, yes, but the main similarities are, as far as I know, in the grammar, which doesn't really help as naturally vocabulary is way more important when understanding a language.

@joeljezequel Жыл бұрын

I started to learn finnish 2 years ago, and this summer I will go to Helsinki and Tallinn (at last, my trip was initialy screduled in... 2020). I was very curious to see the differences between finnish and estonian, and this video was very fun to watch. And I was able to understand 70% of the finnish, which is a great win for me as I only have 80 hours of lessons for adults per year (and the help of Yle Kielikoulu).

@Rafaelinux Жыл бұрын

Heyy! Glad you made it! I purchased the tickets to go back in 2019, but then 2020 happened. Neither my Finnish lessons nor my trip survived that, unfortunately

@kr0pp Жыл бұрын

I speak both Estonian and Finnish, so watching Kristofer with no knowledge of Finnish still be able to pick up some meaning from what Antti was saying is quite impressive. Good job both of you, I honestly expected there to be less common understanding.

@Pippis78 Жыл бұрын

Finn here. I tended to understand everything around the key words pretty well 😀 Like "it has a ??? and when you go into it, you'll see ??? it has ????" Probably pretty indicative of which thing in a language change faster and which slower. Especially with the "tent" I got a pretty good picture about how you can take with you while travelling etc. but got on the wrong track for a while because at the start I though he said it's made out of glass. Actually he said "thing"=asi, which is asia in Finnish but I misheard it as Lasi which is glass. But really perhaps even more than 50% of the words in that were pretty much the same words or very similar in Finnish. Forest, travel, set up, make/do, be, can. Whole sentences really that were totally understandable especially on my second round also seeing the words written. Lightweight and fits into a backpack happened to be a sentence with almost totally dissimilar words. Edit: Actually not really "ja see mahub" is "ja se mahtuu" for instance. I wanted a proper challenge and only listened, seeing the words written makes understanding A LOT easier. Such conversations between estonian and finnish can be hilariously confusing because the meanings of similar/same words have changed into _slightly_ different directions, but not completely. It can be more confusing than if they meant totally different things. Like hoone/huone is house/room, estonian "maja" means house while in finnish "maja" is a small cabin or something kids build from sticks outside or from blankets inside. Linna I think means city/town in estonian? But in finnish it's castle. Mis/missä is "what"(?) in estonian but "where" in finnish. These sort of minute differences can be super confusing.

@KohaAlbert Жыл бұрын

Est: kodu(home), koda (dwelling; workshop; ...) Similar appearing/sounding: kott, koti, kotti - bag 🛍️💰

@mRRandak Жыл бұрын

Castle in Estonian is loss, coming from German schloss. But a fortress is called linnus, and I guess linn originally came from the fortress.

@warnerbf Жыл бұрын

I lived in Finland for a year in 93-94, learned the language there and still love it. I visited Estonia in 2017 and was amazed at how similar yet not mutually intelligible Estonian sounds in relation to Finnish. Still, when you delve deeper into both and pay closer attention to structures, some things are quite similar. Both are fascinating languages.

@DG_427 9 ай бұрын

Opit suomea vuodessa?

@Ounouh Жыл бұрын

I'm a Finn who doesn't speak Estonian and I understood about 80% of the Estonian introduction. So many words are close enough to form understanding of what is being said as the word is in a sentence.

@naapsuvaimne740 Жыл бұрын

1 st time in finland i didnt understand anything, im from south estoniait was 2000 y or so when i visited finland 1 st time

@kehakaaluga7772 Жыл бұрын

This, I "totally" understood what was being said, with some words missing. Or could phonetically guesstimate when I clamp together the words. I don´t know how Antti didn't get cellar. Like "maja all, külm jah pime" mikähän voisi olla

@TheAlex29494 Жыл бұрын

nah to me it sounds like asfdsfuhsdfdsfhjdsf WORD asidjasoidjasoisd WORD asfihdaopifjwpejwgp WORD

@jattikuukunen Жыл бұрын

Were you reading the subtitles? That felt like cheating. If I just tried to listen, I couldn't understand almost anything.

@kuura345 11 ай бұрын

80% sounds very optimistic. I didn't understand that much.

@ronshlomi582 Жыл бұрын

This is great! I love that you are starting to feature more non-Indo-European languages on the channel.

@LexMadafaka Жыл бұрын

Finnish, Hungarian and Estonian are the original Old-European langauges and nations.

@user-qv9lj8jn2b Жыл бұрын

There is not a language like Indo-European. It's all false idea. Read Sri Aurobindo. All Indian words came to European languages through Greeks along with their religion. Greeks were good familar wih Vegas and Upanishads. Only 300 or 400 years ago Europeans were leading wildlife knowing not what is a soap or savon, sabyn from Turkish.

@jasminekaram880 Жыл бұрын

@@user-qv9lj8jn2b (updated) No that is conspiracy fringe theories that have no support in linguistic science. Read actual texts in comparative linguistics and archeological works by the likes of David Anthony like Horse, wheel and language. Indo-European is proven by regular sound law correspondence and and grammatical correspondence. What you say here makes no sense as Sanskrit and Germanic rooks very different routes from the common Proto-Indo-European language and it cannot be taken from Sanskrit as Sanskrit merged PIE e and o to a, while this did not happen in Greek, Germanic or Romance languages etc. Sanskrit is a satem language that merged PIE labio velars(k-like sounds) with plain velars but palatalized the palato-velars to sillibant sounds. Greek and Celtic did the reverse of that they merged the front or palatal velars with the plain and initially kept the labio velars so called centum languages. IE languages also shares patterns of inflection, vowel alteration etc. So no there is an indo-European language family. It is the same type of fools who deny that Hungarian for nationalist reason is related to Finnish. Also Indian words? No direct cognates of basic vocabulary and affixes. Not all languages in India is indo-European like the Dravidian languages. So please stop spreading conspiracy bullshit. Sri Aurobindo was a nationalist ideologue and not an linguist and many radical nationalists do deny comparative linguistics when it does not work with their beliefs. Other Indian nationalists do accept indo-European languages but they refuse to accept the current evidence that the language family did not originate in India and spread into India and that family most likely originated in the Eurasian steppes between Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

@jasminekaram880 Жыл бұрын

@@LexMadafaka No, Uralic aka Finno-Ugric languages do not have deeper history in Europe than Indo-European and both replaced paleo-European languages aka pre-IE and pre-Uralic languages of the Neolithic. The languages of Caucasus and Basque are survivors of these. IE developed in the Eurasian steppes of modern Ukraine.

@user-qv9lj8jn2b Жыл бұрын

@Jasmine Karam we can't contradict to Sri Aurobindo who is a fully self-awakened, God- realized person, an avatar, whose third Eye can see the past, present and the future all at once. I personally had this experience in opening the third eye for a very short time. Asians have passed by several evolution loops, whereas Europeans still remain barbaric by nature. Indians and Europeans don't have and can't have common link because of this evolutionary difference. To be sure read Sri Aurobindo

@ur-inannak9565 Жыл бұрын

What stood out to me most is that while the grammar and vocab is obviously very similar, the pronunciation is very different despite them being right beside each other. The way Estonian is pronounced it just has a general European sound, but Finnish sounds basically magic like every sentence is going to summon some ancient elves.

@JuhanaSiren Жыл бұрын

You have no idea what a nuisance the ancient elves ("haltija", sometimes written "haltia") are over here. If you ever visit Finland, check out how many signs specifically require you to obtain permission from the ancient elves ("...haltijan luvalla"). . . . : (just kidding)

@ThatBonsaipanda Жыл бұрын

Finnish would actually sound very close to estonian today but we had a language reform that imported a lot of rules from latin. Sometimes I actually prefer the og pronounciations of some really old words. :D

@tuijasaari1463 Жыл бұрын

The oldest piece of written Finnish was on a birch bark, found nearby where nowadays lies the border between Finland and Russia. And that written piece was a spell. 😅

@Sipu97 Жыл бұрын

Thank you for our kind words about Finnish :) I feel the same way about my mother tongue

@kyyyni 11 ай бұрын

I think the main reasons that make Finnish sould "different"to Estonian are boundary gemination (affecting the rhythm) and vowel harmony. Apart from the standard language, Soutwestern Finnish dialects in general sound closer to Estonian (some of them not featuring boundary gemination for instance.) This makes sense because I think those areas historically had more connections to the southern side of the Gulf.

@julleri783 Жыл бұрын

I wish you guys would have talked more about the similarities and how you perceive the other language in the end. At least for me, as a Finnish person, it is usually quite natural and easy to grasp the grammatical components of Estonian sentences. I mean to recognize the verbs, nouns, particles and word endings, which usually are similar. Even if you don't understand the words, you can kinda get along😂 it's a funny feeling when you feel like you're supposed to understand. Fun video anyways! Been waiting for a Finnish and Estonian one!

@Zestieee Жыл бұрын

Yeah it felt to me like the grammatical components as you said are the same, but probably most nouns or verbs aren't. Like you can easily spot prepositions or noun cases or verb conjugations but you can't really understand what is being said because of the different etymology of the nouns and verbs. Is that correct?

@julleri783 Жыл бұрын

@@Zestieee yeah exactly! Usually I can't fully understand spoken Estonian at all, but it does help however when I can read text, because then I can more easily spot similar words that I might have missed hearing. Most nouns and verbs are completely different but there are also a lot that come from the same root or clearly are similar or the same. And then, just like in the video, every now and then you can spot a familiar word or two, and it suddenly gives you a lot of information about the context so you can make some guesses😂 It's just very fascinating to me! A d I'm so happy we have this sibling language in the big sea of Indo-European languages, so we can have some fun by ourselves in our own special little club 😁🇫🇮❤🇪🇪

@LuigiElettrico Жыл бұрын

Two beautiful sounding languages I must say.

@frankrault3190 Жыл бұрын

Surprised Dutchman here!!! There are a number of words in Estonian that were intelligible to me (like kelder (cellar) , room (ruimte), hyttesystem (hittesysteem/verwarmingsketel), torm/storm and many more! I would like to know if this is because of the Hanseatic trade.... Unfortunately I couldn't pick up Finnish words other than music, guitar and piano ;)

@Makapaa Жыл бұрын

I'm 99% sure that I recently read something about how Estonian has very strong but somewhat obscure influences from dutch/germanic dialects due to, you guessed it right! The Hanseatic League and that trade influence in old trade towns like Reval(tallinn), Pärnu and other such centers along the Gulf of Riga!

@evahallik Жыл бұрын

There are lots of loan words from Low German (similar to Dutch)

@EggertPlays Жыл бұрын

The heaviest external contribution, nearly one third of the vocabulary, comes from Germanic languages, mainly from Low Saxon (Middle Low German) during the period of German rule, and High German (including standard German). The percentage of Low Saxon and High German loanwords can be estimated at 22-25 percent, with Low Saxon making up about 15 percent. Oh and Swedish as well. And what fascinates me even more is that there are Proto Indo-European words in as well. For example the word for sky in Estonian is "taevas" which is thought to have come from the Indo-European word "deiwos" ("deus" in Latin) which means the god of the sky. Its thought it came from the time when Finno-Ugric people and Indo-European lived close to one another near the Eurasian Steppes. It actually even sounds very similar!

@HK-su3ud Жыл бұрын

As a Dutchman you should clearly understand Estonian word "kuningriik". Do you?

@frankrault3190 Жыл бұрын

@@HK-su3ud Yes, sure, it's almost similar to (dutch) "koninkrijk", kingdom in English...

@maurocosti5600 Жыл бұрын

As an italian mothertongue I just adore these languages especially finnish: so distant yet with a familiar pronunciation and our double consonants

@dididonna92 Жыл бұрын

La prosodia del finlandese mi ricorda troppo il sardo, non so perché 😂 è una lingua che adoro e abituata allo studio dell'inglese, ma anche del francese mi fa così strano che esistano altre lingue in cui si legge come si scrive 😅

@v.i.4268 Жыл бұрын

Yes, I agree as a Finn, somehow it would be much easier to learn to speak Italian (compared to how different and difficult it is to speak e.g. English)

@Lena-cz6re 11 ай бұрын

Wow, this is so interesting to hear. Apparently there is a thing called raddoppiamento sintattico which is a phonetic feature shared by Finnish and Italian

@jeevemasuda4690 11 ай бұрын

Probably due to the Finnish language’s writing system being adopted directly from Latin around 500 years ago. Should share a lot of similarities in pronunciation with Italian having being the ‘successor’ of Latin.

@Qwerty-ly8qk 10 ай бұрын

For Finns Latin would be much easier to learn than English, if it wasn't all over the media. Or at least the pronunciation

@mait1995 Жыл бұрын

For an estonian, living in Finland for 2 years, this feels just absurd how it's possible not to understand those sentences. Funny thing about learning finnish is that, once it "clicks" , it's permanent and the language is basically unlocked. But some years ago I was exactly as clueless as the estonian guy in the video.

@john2335 11 ай бұрын

This Kristofer fella was obviously not the fastest puzzle solver. First he aknowledges it usually occurs in spring and summer. Then proceeds with "is it snow?" 🤣

@watermelooneboi8465 11 ай бұрын

@@john2335 i don't think he understood that it's in spring or summer, since the words for those in estonian and finnish are quite different. i think he just understood that it happens in estonia and finland

@john2335 11 ай бұрын

@@watermelooneboi8465 iirc the guy literally said something like " ok so it appears at spring and/or summer right?" Followed with " is it snow? ". I should rewatch but really not in the mood so got to rely on a month old memory 😔

@kane3825 11 ай бұрын

@@john2335 it can get snowy here in springs too, not often but possible

@john2335 11 ай бұрын

@@kane3825 are you related to the Kristofer by any chance? If you were trying to get to snow, would the first questions on your mind be "is it at spring AND summer?" 🤣

@heh9392 Жыл бұрын

As a Finn I could understand the Estonian man very well when reading off the Estonian subtitles even.

@jattikuukunen Жыл бұрын

Reading the subtitles was much easier than listening. It felt like cheating.

@keigezellig Жыл бұрын

In my native Dutch we have exactly the same word for cellar as in Estonian. I learned that Estonian has a lot of (low)German influences due to trade through the Hanseatic League.

@corinna007 10 ай бұрын

@@paganismfe Finnish also has the word Reissu.

@svency8896 3 күн бұрын

The main Estonian dialect has a lot of influence from the German/Swedish language. For example köök (kitchen) comes from Köket which is from Sweden. Härra (mister) comes from Herr, which comes from German.

@Antti-ox1ho Жыл бұрын

I'm a Finn who learns the Estonian language as one of my minor subjects at the university I have a little bit Estonian blood in myself also and I love the Estonian language and Estonia!♥️ Ma armastan Eestit ja eesti keelt!♥️

@obonb4293 Жыл бұрын

Hey! This video is amazing! As a Latvian speaker, for me it would be really intersting if Lithuanian speaker could understand our language. I know that Latvian is really influenced by Finnic Livonian so that's why for us it's so hard to understand Lithuanian speach.

@hybirr Жыл бұрын

Great video! Just wanted to let you know that there's still an audience that loves these videos. Would love to see more of these, including language combinations that already happened.

@mull529 Жыл бұрын

That was very interesting. My mother tongue is English and a struggle with Finnish. I asked my husband if he could understand Estonian, he is Finnish, he said he heard familiar words but to our surprise they sometime mean some other thing. I was sort of smiling to myself when the Estonian speaker heard Ukkonen, going back to the thundergod. Very ancient.

@Javlafan Жыл бұрын

That's mostly due to semantic drift or words which just happen to be similar but aren't actually related, like hallitus (government in FI and mould in EE). In Finnish it derives from the verb hallita, which is haldama in Estonian. But by the power of happen stance the word for mould in Estonian is written exactly the same as the Finnish word for government. The Estonian word for mould derives from hall (grey) which became the verb hallitama (to grey up/ to mould) which became hallitus.

@-RXB- Жыл бұрын

It's the same with Swedish and Norwegian. That the same word sometimes means something else. For example, in Swedish "roligt" means fun, but in Norwegian it means calm. If you come up with synonyms for the words, like enjoyable in stead of fun, and peaceful or pleasant instead of calm, then they start coming closer together in meaning. But this difference in how words are used in everyday speech could still be enough to cause misunderstandings.

@notuxnobux 7 ай бұрын

One another interesting thing. The word for hammer in finnish is "vasara", which comes from ukon vasara, which is the weapon of the thundergod ukko, which is similar to thor's hammer. The word comes from sanskrit vajra and avestan vazra. In sankrit the word vajra means thunderbolt and it's the weapon of the thundergod indra in hinduism.

@markohakkola5180 7 ай бұрын

@@notuxnobuxalso related is the word viagra

@jarek6934 Жыл бұрын

We need more videos of finno-ugric languages or Uralic languages!

@sam_k Жыл бұрын

Been waiting for this one! Would love another one of these with Finno-Ugric languages

@ehmzed Жыл бұрын

Whenever I hear these two languages they sound practically the same to me (even in this video, spoken one after the other, really), so it was very interesting to see how intelligible they actually are. They seemed to understand each other fairly well, enough to have a conversation and ask to rephrase something when they didn't get it the first time.

@catholicdad Жыл бұрын

As an English-speaking observer, it seems the Finnish is a bit more formal & Estonian a bit more understated, but it could be the individual speakers.

@Akuvision2011 Жыл бұрын

@@catholicdad the Finn is using a very proper articulation and deliberate announciation, the Est is a bit more relaxed. A bit like reading aloud a childrens book, I think in everyday speech they are more similar.

@MrRubikraft Жыл бұрын

I just looked up the etymology for kelder and kellari, and it's crazy how much this word travelled! I wouldn't have guessed it for such an everyday word. It comes from latin! For finnish: 1) latin: cellārium 2) middle low german: keller 3) swedish: källare 4) finish: kellari Wikipedia doesn't know from which language precisely estonian borrowed the word "kelder". Maybe from dutch? 1) latin: cellārium 2') middle dutch: kelre, kellere 3') dutch: kelder

@Hardwarebeer Жыл бұрын

My guess is Danish - kælder.

@KohaAlbert Жыл бұрын

By memory, should be attributed to middle low German. In dialects "kelder" is "keller" - something I even still often tend to do...

@LexMadafaka Жыл бұрын

Or vice-versa! Latin was an universal language created to understand each other in Europe. It is a blunt, simple language, but not so original.

@kaz_augustus 11 ай бұрын

Dutch people never came to Estonia

@OlaFosheimGrstad 10 ай бұрын

"Kellari" and " kjallari" is old norse, before that from Latin. However, in some Norwegian dialects that are closer to Norse it is often pronounced as various variations of "kjeldar".

@sejszin Жыл бұрын

I like that you, Norbert, trying different language families, it's very interesting to observe all different languages of the world. I don't speak any Uralic language, but subtitles helps. It was very interesting!

@dreddykrugernew Жыл бұрын

The Finnish guy has a really good voice for learning Finnish, very clear and expressive in the words, as a northern English speaker it sounds more palatable than Estonian, really enjoyed the video...

@jattikuukunen Жыл бұрын

He was mostly speaking Standard Finnish and articulating extra clearly.

@namelessghoul615 Жыл бұрын

He was purposefully articulating the words very clearly and speaking pretty slowly, so yeah.

@vulc1 11 ай бұрын

Interesting that you appreciate the clarity of the Finnish speaker's voice, but at the same time it doesn't occur to you that this mumbling Estonian speaker is a very bad general representative of the language. And you proceed to making conclusions which language is more palatable...

@michaelstephanustranquillus Жыл бұрын

Macte virtute! (that's Latin for 'Good job!) Hyvää työtä! Since Antti pretty obviously has never studied Estonian, it turned out to be rather difficult for him to get the very few key words that would have improved his understanding drastically. I think it would be interesting to redo the whole thing with two people who have already had more exposure to the cognate language. Now, Antti understood maybe about 30-40% of what Kristofer was saying. Someone else with some knowledge of the key differences between Finnish and Estonian would be able to understand at least 60-70%. :)

@mathiasma9869 Жыл бұрын

After 6 months of doing Finnish Duolingo lessons I could understand a lot more. I am Estonian so that makes it easier. I got all the Finnish ones, because I understood enough words to fill the caps.

@Sernik_z_rodzynkamii Жыл бұрын

I've been waiting for this comparison for quite some time. Thank you!

@joshualieberman1059 Жыл бұрын

As a Russian I am so much in love with Finland and Estonia very cool and originally sounding language and awesome people honest and practical at the same time very good experience. Though those ethnic Russians that living in Estonia are kinda weird sometimes LOL.

@Yaroslav_VII_VII_VII Жыл бұрын

Ээ! Что сразу странные то?))

@johnrusin4952 Жыл бұрын

Been waiting a long time for this video. It's really startling how different Finnish and Estonian are. You assume because of geographic proximity and the fact that basically all Finns and Estonians have are each other there would be a much higher level of mutual intelligibility. But yeah they really struggled. Hoping soon for Baltic and Celtic language comparisons 😀

@jukkahelisjoki5820 10 ай бұрын

And putting the language aside Estonia and Finland are totally different and it's quite vice verse with Sweden though Swedish still spoken in Finland.

@Iwoodlikethat Жыл бұрын

Everyone did well but I'd like to point Antti's English accent! He really nailed dropping the syncopation and the rolling R and nailed our boring R and more monotone pattern! Hyve.

@gorgioarmanioso151 Жыл бұрын

this video was so expected in so many places in youtube As a colombian immigrant raised up in sweden , i grew up with friends with finish background this very interesting..

@fbkintanar Жыл бұрын

The two languages seem farther apart than I expected. I come from the Philippines, where there are somewhere between 150 and 180 indigenous languages. I speak Filipino/Tagalog, which doesn't have any very close relatives, and I also speak Cebuano, one of 25 Bisayan languages spoken in the Central and Southern islands. I got the impression that Finnish and Estonian are farther apart than any of the Bisayan languages, and probably farther apart than Bisayan and Tagalog, both of which are part of the larger Greater Central Philippines grouping of about 60 languages in the Philippines (more in Indonesia). Perhaps it is like the distance between Tagalog or Cebuano and one of the languages of the Northern Philippines, like Ilocano (the language of maternal grandparents, which I can sometimes recognize) or Pangalatok.

@kukkaistyttoiik Жыл бұрын

Finn here, I'm pretty sure that Estonian guy used non-formal version on Estonian language or at least he doesn't try to emphasis every word. Finnish guy used pretty much "standard Finnish" (not 100%) which is not really spoken in real life. It's a language for the president and news anchors.

@kukkaistyttoiik Жыл бұрын

For expamle: two (2) is kaksi in Finnish and kaks in Estonian. But in every day life, we Finns also use "kaks". Estonian: üks kaks kolm neli viis kuus seitse kaheksa non-formal Finnish (depends where you live, this is one example) yks kaksi kolome nelijä viis kuus seittemän kaheksan Even more non-formal Finnish yy kaa koo nee vii kuu sei kasi ysi Standard Finnish yksi kaksi kolme neljä viisi kuusi seitsemän kahdeksan

@hosannayeshua4446 Жыл бұрын

@@kukkaistyttoiik to those wondering what is ysi in formal finnish, it is yhdeksän (9), in non-formal sometimes also called yheksän or ysi

@sumbo8452 Жыл бұрын

This is just a fun and interactive Finnish-Estonian mind game

@65fhd4d6h5 Жыл бұрын

I expected way more intelligibility to be honest, not only because they are the same family of languages, but also both countries are so close to each other one thinks they would've been more in contact and have exchanged a lot of vocabulary. Interesting!

@TheAlex29494 Жыл бұрын

They diverged thousands of years ago. I'm having a hard time understanding even 1500's Finnish so imagine how hard Estonian is

@65fhd4d6h5 Жыл бұрын

@@TheAlex29494 Spanish and Italian also started diverging a couple of thousands years ago, give or take, and they are mostly mutually intelligible.

@hapetE Жыл бұрын

@@TheAlex29494 1500's Finnish isn't actually hard at all once you get used to Agricola's goofy orthography and archaic vocabulary. Grammatically there's no difference whatsoever.

@Hamm3rJack 10 ай бұрын

I've been waiting for videos like this! Thank you for making this.

@stpftw1 Жыл бұрын

this was so great! really interesting video. cheers from Finland!

@Mustavariz Жыл бұрын

One of the funniest false friends I have heard of as a Finn is the word "hallitus", which means "government" in Finnish but "mold" in Estonian

@kyberorg 9 ай бұрын

Ruum/Ruumi is also good. Ruum (EST) means flat, Rummi (FIN) - dead body.

@Mustavariz 9 ай бұрын

@@kyberorg I have never heard the word rummi. Ruumis is the common word for dead body in Finnish

@kyberorg 9 ай бұрын

@@Mustavariz yes, I got typo. Ruumis means same as laip/surnukeha in Estonian.

@incremental_failure 7 ай бұрын

@@kyberorg Ruum means room, not flat. Flat would be korter.

@corinna007 10 ай бұрын

Finally a video about Finnish! I've been learning Finnish for about eight years now, so this was really fun to see how much I could understand. 😊 The language is so fascinating. And Antti is even from Tampere! I love it there. 💙🤍 Rakkaus Kanadasta, Suomi. 🇫🇮🇨🇦

@Alistajaupseeri Жыл бұрын

This was very fun to watch. Please make more videos like this! Studying languages is fascinating and brings me joy. Estonian language have special place in my heart. Eesti, Eesti, sinne tahan vaid...

@kwj_nekko_6320 Жыл бұрын

I feel like, the misguessing of the question number 1 has something with 'Nordic way of thinking', rather than actual linguistic difference between Estonian and Finnish.

@dmitriystoyanov933 Жыл бұрын

I'm from Ukraine and i don't understand what guys said, but i want to say to estonian and finnish people - thank u for support!

@pinkbabycrocs5577 Жыл бұрын

💙💙💛💛

@Jumpulaaa Жыл бұрын

Hey, all the support we can afford. Take care dude!

@rr-ho6oo Жыл бұрын

💛💙🤍

@misva2rkon Жыл бұрын

No one is supporting Ukraine!!😂😂 Only people who make money in this war support.

@00-Mr_Altsu Жыл бұрын

@@misva2rkon what is your problem where are you from why you hate ukrain

@arsiarskila 11 ай бұрын

Thank you for this video. It has been quite a while since I last watched a video in its entirety and truly enjoyed it from start to finish, but this one was remarkably captivating! As a Finn, I found this video exceptionally fascinating.

@suoppi 7 ай бұрын

This was a fun watch! 🙂

@solared 11 ай бұрын

please make more of these! id love to see these guys again

@vitbenesovskymuzika Жыл бұрын

So nice 🥰 Thanks, Norbert, Kristofer and Antti 👍

@Vizivirag Жыл бұрын

My Hungarian brain throughout this challenge: why this sounds like something I should understand and why I'm not understanding O.O

@jarskil8862 Жыл бұрын

Because Hungarian evolved in constant contact with neighbouring countries and kingdoms. Hungarians are same Finno-Ugric tribe, but the language in general is just totally different these days. Finns were isolated in forests with no contacts to speedily evolve the ancient language There are still some old words that are same

@joonasnaski9513 Жыл бұрын

Please make more of these

@tyynaestonia5220 Жыл бұрын

Kristofer said high-rise building(KÕRGHOONE), which is not wrong. We can also finish "Kerrostalo" translate a house with floors (KORRUSMAJA), but it is not used in spoken Estonian, but it is an understandable direct translation. We say fot that apartment building(KORTERMAJA.)

@aziatix1168 Жыл бұрын

We stan the Ugrofinnic nations!❤️‍🔥🇫🇮🇪🇪🇭🇺😇

@foobar1500 Жыл бұрын

As a Finn I'm a bit surprised how little they understood each other. Then again my starting point for the assumption is that large portion of capital area Finns, and probably also Estonians in Tallinn are aware of a bit of vocabulary on the other country. For the purpose of this task that, of course would be a bit of a cheat, but with that maybe 50-200 word vocabulary (including some of those famous false friends) that at least many Tallinn-going Finns have absorbed it becomes dramatically easier to understand Estonian, and same goes the other way around too...

@vvv5892 Жыл бұрын

the finn spoke in a very book finnish, he would haw propably understood better if he spoke more in a spoken language pecos estonia has that kind of finnish more than the book finnish

@Sipu97 Жыл бұрын

Did you read the text while trying to guess the words? It's much easier that way, I'm sure that they only had to rely on their hearing.

@jerkkub Жыл бұрын

Loved it! Was surprised how much i understood Estonian as a Finnish.

@d.v.t Жыл бұрын

Been waiting for this!! 😊

@nikke2404 Жыл бұрын

As a finn I have been waiting for this episode. Thanks for you of making it! 🙂👍

@lenarteler4453 Жыл бұрын

Imagine if Norbert actually got a Mansi/Khanty speaker on this show to compare it to Hungarian. Would probably be the toughest one to pull off so far

@dinblasjalv1643 10 ай бұрын

Yes! Yes! Yes! I've been waiting for this video for years! Dziękuję, Norbert

@Anskulainen Жыл бұрын

Ihan sairaan siisti video 🤓 Oon ite Virosta kotoisin alunperin ja oli mielenkiintoista kuunnella, josko vielä ymmärtäisin viroa 😁. Kyl mä aika paljon lopulta ymmärsin. Aivan mahtava idea videolle!! 👏

@john2335 11 ай бұрын

Alunperin you're more likely from chelyaba.

@StanleyMilgramm Жыл бұрын

As a Finnish person who hasn't studied any languages other than the mandatory, all of these were pretty easy for me to get. A lot of the Estonian words are so similar to Finnish.

@NantokaNejako Жыл бұрын

May I ask: Which languages are mandatory in Finland?

@jerkkub Жыл бұрын

@@NantokaNejako Finnish, Swedish and English.

@kukkaistyttoiik Жыл бұрын

@@jerkkub While this is true for 99,99% of Finns, English isn't really mandatory. It can be replaced with any language but it's de facto mandatory.

@paavoilves5416 Жыл бұрын

@@kukkaistyttoiik What? In what level of schooling can you just say "no, I won't be attending the English class"?

@ThatBonsaipanda Жыл бұрын

For me (also finnish) it was easier to understand when I read it - but when I hear it, it's near impossible to make out what is being said.

@robthetraveler1099 Жыл бұрын

Did not realize that Finnish and Estonian were that different!

@mikahamari6420 Жыл бұрын

This was great to watch, thank you. It went really well and showed how two speakers can find the words they both know and build more common ground on that basis. There are many false friends between Estonian and Finnish, but their falseness is rarely total, but more often relative. Most of the time these similar words with different meanings still belong to same semantic field, and once you learn them, they are very easy to remember. Words meaning houses of different size or parts of house are one example with examples like talu/talo, maja/maja and hoone/huone. Estonian word means bigger house than equivalent Finnish word (and huone means room). As could be seen on this test, recognizing the word opens you a correct semantic field "something connected to houses" and thus helps you to understand the whole sentence and the subject, what is talked about. Same with word magama/maata: literally in Finnish it means to lie down, but association to sleeping as with Estonian word is always there, because we normally lie down when we sleep. So, most false friends are not on the realm of homonymy but polysemy, having series of interconnected meanings that have a common root and have developed during time through metaphor and other processes of semantic change.

@antyjohn8162 Жыл бұрын

Finish sounds so melodic and smooth. It’s like a mixture of Swedish and Japanese. Estonian has a pretty unique sound, I had never heard it before. I barely understood anything that they were saying, but it was downright fascinating to watch!

@mikrokupu Жыл бұрын

Funny how many words in Finnish and Japanese sounds alike, few examples: - Tori (a bird in Japanese/a marketplace in Finnish) - Ase (a sweat/a weapon) - Koe (a sound/a test) - Haka (a cemetery/a hook)

@sursdropman Жыл бұрын

@@mikrokupu Kaido ? ( a name for Guy in eesti/car tuning stile in japanese slang )

@thefakedanex Жыл бұрын

@@mikrokupu koe means "voice", not "sound" in Japanese

@siimtulev1759 Жыл бұрын

@@mikrokupu Also Estonian and Japanese similar! :D One of the funniest thing I have found is that "no/ei/iie" and "yes/jah/haj". Opposite :D

@mikrokupu Жыл бұрын

@@thefakedanex Thanks for the correction!

@EdMcF1 Жыл бұрын

Over a thousand years of separation across the Baltic Sea, bridged here very well.

@randomdriver Жыл бұрын

As a Finnish to me it was so easy to understand Kristofer. I have never learned Estonian, but I do visit there many times in a year

@cayenigma Жыл бұрын

More of these!! Finnish vs Estonian!! This is intriguing! (I am Finnish)

@eliasnjetski1146 Жыл бұрын

This was one of the most interesting videos actually. Well, in conclusion the languages are not as similar as the Scandinavian languages are to each other. However, Finnish and Estonian are more or less like Swedish and German or something. 🙂 Which is kind of similar and English is also in some way similar to English, but not as close as Dutch and German is to Swedish. Sami and Finnish would be quite interesting.

@andreykroker7813 Жыл бұрын

Финский и эстонский такие кайфовые языки

@Raiaramis24 Жыл бұрын

For me it is so strange, that estonian dont understand finnish. But i am soviet time kid form Tallinn, who watched finnish tv a lot. But still...it is so similar.

@Telfia Жыл бұрын

This video was really interesting to watch! I’ve spoken both of those two since I was a child and didn’t really know how much the citizens of Estonia understood Finnish. Thanks for sharing the experiment!

@Juos10kustu 11 ай бұрын

wow this is very well made video!!! Tilattu ! :)

@laszlofekete9245 Жыл бұрын

Watching this as a Hungarian is really fascinating. Speaking the 3rd big uralic language as native, I really paid attention if I understand something. I have to say I understood some words and phrases! Küttesüstem - Hűtőrendszer (rendszer meaning system). Matalia - Magas. Öö on sa taga magada - Öld meg magadat. Problem is the first pair means heating system - cooling system, second: short - tall, and third: Night is over, go sleep - Kill yourself. Beautiful 😂

@KohaAlbert Жыл бұрын

As Estonian, I wish that I could see similar with Hungarian and Mansi/Khanty (all being Ugric languages). There's similar video about similarities between Estonian and Hungarian (word comparsion rather than mutual intelligibility) Volgaic languages would be so interesting - we hardly get to hear anything about those. Wonder how Finnish and Estonian would compare against Vepsan ("Sanskrit” of Balto-Finnic) like this. And those with Sàmic

@inspireit Жыл бұрын

@@KohaAlbert I`m a Finn and Vepsä is much closer to Finnish language than Estonia or Saami

@Vizivirag Жыл бұрын

Öö and yö are cognate with our éj, but they don't sound alike at first glance. At second, they are one-syllable light-harmony words with the same meaning. A lot of our cognates work this way: you need to listen to harmonies and know the voice shifts. It's so fascinating to me that our harmonies rarely change.

@csaba9285 11 ай бұрын

Hungarian is in fact the largest Uralic language, not the 3rd largest

@laszlofekete9245 11 ай бұрын

@@csaba9285 3 nagy uráli nyelv van, a magyar, a finn és az észt. A videó a finnről és az észtről szól, így én a harmadikat beszélem. Nem azt írtam hogy 3rd biggest.

@SaraSpruce 11 ай бұрын

This was very interesting to watch. I’m bilingual Swedish-Finnish, and I understood what words Kristofer was describing almost immediately. Estonian has quite a bit more influence from Germanic languages in terms of vocabulary than Finnish does, so some words are closer to Swedish than Finnish. I also find that Finnish dialects/slang are often closer to Estonian than the more formal/standard Finnish Antti is speaking.

@dimitrifilonov9707 7 ай бұрын

Thank you, really interesting!

@xurify 11 ай бұрын

Glad you finally did Estonian! Great video :D

@claudioristagno6460 Жыл бұрын

Very interesting. I don't speak either of these 2 languages but I have watched some videos about them. I have the feeling that the mutual intellegibility between them is about 40-50%.

@slowpudda Жыл бұрын

About something like that. For me if Estonian speak to each other I can catch bits and quite usually understand what is going on, but don't understand that I or we can have actual conversation with each other. So that 40-50% sounds quite right

@slowpudda Жыл бұрын

Oh and I'm Finnish

@claudioristagno6460 Жыл бұрын

Thank you

@Morhgoz Жыл бұрын

I did guess first one right! I'm Finnish btw. Well Savonian, aka Eastern Finn so in our dialect might be bit closer someway etc. There is also theory that Western and Eastern Finns where originally two different Finno-Ugric peoples which then mixed up in Finland and Savonians are mix of Tavastians (western finns), Karelians (eastern finns) and Sami....

@christianheikkonen Жыл бұрын

Most likely Western Finns came through sea from Western Estonia meanwhile in Eastern Finns have come through land.

@Morhgoz Жыл бұрын

@@christianheikkonen That might be legit....

@ammak9372 Жыл бұрын

There once was a challenge like this in the finnish version of Taskmaster, I'm pretty sure in the brittish (?) original the task was to communicate with a swede instead! Estonian sounds to me (I'm finn) like colloquial finnish that you feel like you are supposed to understand but just don't most of the time. Estonian words mite sound like the shortened forms in spoken finnish that can differ greatly from formal spoken or literal finnish. Some of the vocabulary reminds me of certain finnish dialects, for example "kyökki" is one colloquial word for kitchen (keittiö), an old sounding word that is mostly used locally or on the other hand can in some cases refer to a certain kind of kitchen. Then again some words are close enough in cathegory, say, a food item, but are only homonyms or at leas very closely formed words with different meaning. "Piim" is milk in estonian, in finnish milk is "maito". "Piimä" in finnish would be a whole separate sour dairy drink that resemples very thin yogurt in consistensy. "Mahl" is juice in estonian, which is "mehu" in finnish. "Mahla" is the finnish word for tree sap, specifically the watery sap of birch trees, which is sometimes consumed like juice and is therefore un understandable association. "Puuviljamahl", fruit juice, is particularly funny estonian word for me (and something you quite often run into on producs that have ingredients listed in finnish, swedish and estonian for example) because directly translated the word "puuvilja" in finnish would be "the grain/corn of a tree" (although the nominative would technically be puuvilju, I think). It's a funny image and very different from the finnish word "hedelmä" for fruit. It sounds so delightfully obvious and simple: Now what would a fruit be if not the grain of a tree? That sort of association chain just doesn't happen to appear in finnish in this case. Comical sounding cases of estonian words and phrases like this aren't uncommon to come accross as a finnish speaker. I don't actually speak any estonian myself but my knowledge about particular words in particular contexts like this is somewhat wide purely due to circumstances and it's nothing I would have intentionally searched out. I feel like it would be relatively easy to learn estonian like that if I were to spend time among estonian people, picking up familiar sounding words and structures and learning the actual meaning from context clues.

@SuperMrMuster Жыл бұрын

It's really amusing how the Kristofer the Estonian asks "Mis" where he means "what", but in colloquial Finnish "mis" means "where". It is short for "missä". If it was me, I would have leaned into these "false friends" for humor. The Finnish guy speaks very close to Standard Finnish, which is not untypical of Tampere. I would have liked to speak in a dialect and see how an Estonian is able to take that in.

@tommytowner792 Жыл бұрын

Colloquial Finnish doesn't exist. It's really arrogant to say that your dialect is the default spoken language.

@SuperMrMuster Жыл бұрын

@@tommytowner792 The part about saying "mis" when meaning "missä" is very common across Finland, though there's probably some dialects that don't do it. Of all the dialects of Finnish, the way people speak in Tampere is actually very close to Standard Finnish and there's a fascinating history as to why that is. The distinction between standard Finnish and forms of colloquial Finnish is apt, because standard Finnish uses certain forms of words that are barely used in the vernaculars of any region. "Minä" and "sinä" , meaning "I" and "you", being the prime examples. Most dialects use either "mää", "mä", or "mie" instead of "minä", for example.

@mattiaikas1634 Жыл бұрын

This was very interesting to see! I`m Finnish and I have a very dear friend who`s from Estonia but living in Finland, BUT we live four hours apart so we`re in different dialect regions so there`s one more curveball to take into consideration there. Whatsapp messages are usually sent in English though when we get to see each other sth like once or twice a year we usually speak Finnish (when we`re not speaking English LOL) I have tried to learn Estonian but I got so much going on that has been set to the back burner for now...

@romka_ind Жыл бұрын

Finnish and Estoninan so similar but yet so different 😊 hard to compare but it seem like it is Dutch and English or Dutch and German.

@mikrokupu Жыл бұрын

Yeah comparing to Dutch/German sounds right

@raffe7889 Жыл бұрын

This was amazing!

@tysonl.taylor-gerstner1558 Жыл бұрын

FINALLY! I was wanting you to do this one. I don't know if you saw my suggestion about it.

@marttivuorinen8475 Жыл бұрын

This was fun to watch. I got them sooner but i think it was because i did not have The pressure of challenge 👍 Greetings from Finland

@oscebe2691 Жыл бұрын

Estonian= French; Finnish= Italian. That was my impression knowing neither language at all but having heard varying reports of their intelligibility. This is how I came to that conclusion: They are obviously very closely related but: Estonian has much shorter words generally, and far more monosyllables. But it is phonologically more complex. It loses a lot of final vowels and syllables present in Finnish, and what final vowels remain are often reduced to a schwa-type sound, which rarely seems to happen in Finnish. It also changes many other vowel sounds, in particular the Finnish "uo" versus Estonian "oo" or "õõ" is strongly reminiscent of French/Italian pairs like "coeur" and "cuore". These combine to give Finnish a much "clearer" sound compared to "muffled" Estonian, again like Italian and French. So you get a pair of languages that clearly spring from the same comparatively recent source, but one seems to have undergone far more changes that prevent them being intelligible to a high degree. However they can still decipher each other to some degree with effort and will have a big advantage learning the other language.

@Ylyan_VL Жыл бұрын

I think it's more like Spanish and Portuguese. Finnish is like Spanish and Estonian is like Portuguese, Finnish and Spanish are more conservative while Estonian and Portuguese have become more detached from their source language. While Spanish has very clear sounds Portuguese doesn't, for example in the word "information": Spanish: información Portuguese: informação

@Vizivirag Жыл бұрын

Absolutely! In Hungarian sources, you can follow how the words lost their final vowels: early Medieval writings still have them.

@Jen-iq7ec Жыл бұрын

That was so interesting to read! (I'm estonian).

@Ylyan_VL 6 ай бұрын

@@Myke_Oxlong199 I, as a native speaker of Spanish and Catalan, cannot understand Portugal's Portuguese at all. It doesn't go both ways.

@Anniz 11 ай бұрын

i rarely find language type of videos super interesting but this was a great video since it allowed me as the viewer to follow the conversation without subtitles to try and see how much I could personally understand as well. I guessed Kellari as my first guess as well which was very fun!