#finnterview

[dedalvs]

hi~ I really love your work in GoT, created languages are just interesting and Dothraki sounds pretty :D I'm not sure if this has been asked (sorry if it is) but in dothraki, when you say him/her or his/her is it gendered like in english or is it gender-neutral like in finnish? How's your finnish learning going? :D

The Dothraki pronouns are all listed on the wiki here. As you can see, there is no gender distinction in the pronouns: me = he/she/it; mori = them.

As for the Finnish, not too bad! I honestly thought I wasn’t making too much progress, but then I came to this dialogue in the next chapter of Complete Finnish, and I understood the whole thing! Maybe not each word, but with the context, I got it!

Marja: Hakkarisella, Marja puhelimessa.Jussi: Hei Marja! Täällä Jussi. Onko Timo kotona?Marja: Ei ole nyt, hän on vielä töissä.Jussi: Milloin hän tulee kotiin?Marja: Tavallisesti noin kello viisi.Jussi: Voitko sanoa, että soitin. Soitan uudelleen noin tunnin kuluttua.Marja: Hyvä on, Jussi. Sanon, että soitit. Hei!Jussi: Hei hei!

Not bad! So the passive phase of my study is coming along. The production phase is where I’m going to need the most work. I still don’t get the rhythm of it, though I’m starting to. I’m used to phonological phenomena looking at the preceding syllable. Finnish seems to look at the following syllable, which is weird to me.

Oh hey, speaking of language, conlangers, check out this distinction that stuck in Finnish. This is a partial paradigm for kysyä “to ask” in Finnish (this is both orthography and IPA below):

kysyn “I ask” ~ kysyin “I asked”

kysyt “you ask” ~ kysyit “you asked”

kysyy “s/he asks” ~ kysyi “s/he asked”

lol Seriously?! I see something like that in a language and it looks to me like it’s just begging to get leveled. How something like that gets preserved I have no idea, but preserved it has been! Isn’t that wild?!

[dedalvs]

omg.. you are coming to Finland ?? like really?? :))

Yes! Summer of 2017 for World Con 75! Be there or be neliö!

[dedalvs]

I think "puolitoista" could be thought as "half of another"? Like.. You have 1 + a half of the next number. For example: if something took " puolitoista tuntia", it took an hour + a half from the next hour. Idk if it makes sense, just my thought.

Ohhhhhh… Actually yes, this does make perfect sense. In effect, something like “puolitoista” or “kaksitoista” is the shortcut for a longer expression. Very cool! Thank you!

[dedalvs]

Hi! About the Finnish numbers, the "toista" is the partitive of the word "toinen", which means second or other. :)

Wait, wait, wait… That still doesn’t explain anything. So you’ve got…

yksi = one

yksitoista = another one (hence 11)

I can see how that arose. But this is what would make sense to me:

puoli = half

puolitoista = five and a half

See what I mean? If yksi is 1.0, then yksitoista is 1 after you increase the decimal place by one, so 1.0 > 10.0 > 11.0. Thus, if puoli = 0.5, then you increase the decimal by 1, which gives you 5.0 then you add the first one, so you get 5.5. Right? Or I am just mathled? (That’s baffled by math.)

[dedalvs]

David, as a father and conlanger, are you going to talk to your daughter in Dadhraki?

No. I’d have to learn it first. O.O

It’s hard to properly convey my relationship with my languages. I know them, but I don’t speak them. I can’t just converse in them. I can’t come up with sentences spontaneously. I can’t use them the way that a fluent speaker can use their language (i.e. off the cuff in all situations). Unless I happen to have the words memorized, I can only do translations on paper with my dictionary open—and that’s on paper. Speech is much quicker. You can’t stop and think: You just have to do it. I’m nowhere close to that with any of my languages.

I could probably learn them and get to that point, but I’ve got other things to do—or, rather, other languages to learn (specifically, Finnish).

Hey, random Finnish fact. Check out how crazy this is:

yksi = one

kaksi = two

Okay…

yksitoista = eleven

kaksitoista = twelve

Sure, no problem…

puoli = one half

puolitoista = one and a half

kaksi ja puoli = two and a half

?!?!?!??!?!?!

That’s the craziest thing ever! Numberniks: Explain this thing!

[dedalvs]

OH MY GOD YOU'RE GOING TO BE INTERVIEWED IN FINNISH AT WORLDCON75?????? That's so cool! I'll definitely come to see it! (Sorry about the capslock, it's just so exciting that somebody I follow online is learning my language and coming to my country to speak it!)

Kiitos. :) Olen Californiasta. Missä asutteko?

I’m making progress, but the topics I can handle are limited at the moment. Heh, heh… ;)

[dedalvs]

filinprinsessa replied to your post:"se" is used very often. in spoken/casual language...

Finnish people use “se” about literally everything. People, animals, inanimate objects, you name it. Only super posh people say “hän”. The rest of us say “se”. Even our president is “se”. Everything is “se”.

Ho, HO! This is news—especially when considered in the light of my last ask. So, same question. Is this a city thing? A young person thing? Where did it come from, all of a sudden? Why is hän so unpopular now? Is it because after the remake hän shoots second?

[dedalvs]

In some parts of Finland the word "se" is used for people as well. But the people whose dialect it's not a part of, often get offended if they're referred to as "it". I can see why, I guess, but it's not meant as impolite, it's just the vernacular.

That is really interesting! Do you happen to know which parts? Is this a city thing or a country thing? And when did this word come into existence, anyway? Is it a modern innovation? I’d be very interested to know more, as most languages that have never had a gender system lack gendered pronouns. Always interesting to see one crop up out of nowhere (in this case, the gender being “inanimate”).