tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post5001821353936910916..comments2024-03-28T16:22:14.888-07:00Comments on Steve Sailer: iSteve: More Mandatory Finnish ContentUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger86125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-81839394920555266822014-04-11T12:29:01.561-07:002014-04-11T12:29:01.561-07:00valium no prescription overnight 10mg valium bluel...<a href="http://psychosomatic-medicine.com/valium.html#y5c52" rel="nofollow">valium no prescription overnight</a> 10mg valium bluelight - 5mg valium compared 2 mg xanaxAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-83355506934992212332011-04-07T02:16:03.719-07:002011-04-07T02:16:03.719-07:00A school building was fenced off with barbed wire ...A school building was fenced off with barbed wire in Espoo, Finland in 1908 (see the picture in the link). Swedes fenced off school buildings with barbed wire, in order to ban children the access to a school. <br /> <br />The Swedish government was responsible for the most iron ore the Nazis received. Kiruna-Gällivare ore fields in Northern Sweden were all important to Nazi Germany.<br /><br />These massive deliveries of iron ore and military facilities from Sweden to Nazi Germany lengthened World War II. Casualties of the war have been estimated at 20 million killed in Europe. How many of them died due to Sweden's material support to Nazi Germany, is not known.<br /><br />http://www.thoughts.com/raimo/case-sweden<br /><br />www.thelocal.se/28470/20100819/<br />"I know about Sweden genocidal tendencies toward Finland. I know about Finnish Winter War and I know about putative neutrality of Sweden (Just to remind Swedes, needs of Nazi military industry brought wealth to Sweden).<br /><br />I think that demands of Swedish minority of Finland are outrageous and arguments and insane. They are just symptoms of inherit Swedish racism toward Finland."<br /><br />We have compulsory Swedish because Finland is not a democracy.<br /><br />The oddest thing for me as an immigrant from a 'Western' country to Finland is how Finland-Swedish speakers keep insisting on the fact that THEIR peculiar and odd dialect of Swedish somehow binds Finland not only to Scandinavia, but ALL of western civilization, as if Finnish by itself in Finland would automatically place Finland within the same group as Azerbaijian, Tajikistan or Uzbekistan. I challenge this ethno-centrist and -extremely- outdated view. The Finnish language is a bridge to other western countries like Estonia and Hungary, and Finnish is a Nordic, Scandinavian language. Finland-Swedes are only a bridge to a bygone era when the coast of modern Finland was colonized by Sweden.<br /><br />Finland-swedes are the most pampered minority on Earth. (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/25/international/europe/25finland.html) Millions of Euros a year in tax revenues go to propping up the archaic Finland-swedish language and culture. People that speak Finnish, whether they were born in Joensuu, Mogadishu, Phuket or Dallas such as myself are denied career advancement in the upper echelons of Finnish industry and government due to the fact that knowledge of Finnish is considered a "disadvantage" due to the fact that we would not be serving the minority and their language.<br /><br />Swedish should be removed as an official language in Finland and made a minority one (which in reality it is) like Saami. It should have the same status in Finland as Finnish does in Sweden. A municipality should be bilingual only when the minority language is spoken by 20 percent of the population (EU recommendations), not the ludicrous 6 percent or minimum 3000 speakers! This leads to ridiculous situations, such as in Vantaa, with nearly 200000 inhabitants, translating all government documentation into Finland-Swedish because of the 3000 (or 1,5 % of the population!) speak Finland-swedish.Raimohttp://www.thoughts.com/raimo/case-swedennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-18011079779704361242010-12-14T12:00:41.700-08:002010-12-14T12:00:41.700-08:00Spanish and Finnish both have highly consistent an...<i>Spanish and Finnish both have highly consistent and easy-to-learn spelling systems, and both use roughly twice as many syllables as English for the same sentence.</i><br /><br />I beg to differ. People's exhibit A: the manual for my Philips HD9120 steam cooker. There are 7 1/2 pages in English, 7 1/4 in Spanish, but only 6 1/4 in Finnish.<br /><br />If I could be arsed to dig up more manuals, I'm sure the results would be similar.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-2674859569364873652010-12-13T23:17:38.829-08:002010-12-13T23:17:38.829-08:00Rex Little asks: Does Spanish actually require mor...Rex Little asks: <i>Does Spanish actually require more syllables than English? Or is it that the Spanish content of bilingual signs is written by people who aren't fluent enough in Spanish to find the most terse version of the concept they're trying to express?</i><br /><br />Nope - Spanish does require more syllables than English, in general. Bilingual signs in Spain are almost always wordier (or more syllabic) in Spanish than in English. The one exception I remember was on the Metro in Barcelona, where the English was longer, because they used the word "ambit" in Spanish and Catalan, which took about four or five words to express in English.Anthonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12389602137217799305noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-37269842184234933852010-12-13T21:31:15.726-08:002010-12-13T21:31:15.726-08:00However, when I speak English I only say "I&#...<i>However, when I speak English I only say "I'll take it" when there is no ambiguity. Otherwise I will say "I'll take the book" or "I'll take the newspaper."</i><br /><br />Well, of course. But there will be fewer cases of ambiguity in German, so you can use pronouns where English needs nouns. But pronouns are convenient, when they work.<br /><br />The same is true of non-arbitrary, sex-based gender. If I say "She gave him the apple", it's fairly likely you will know who "she" and "he" refer to. A sentence like "It gave it the apple" (assuming English didn't make the animate/male/female distinction) would quite likely be ambiguous.<br /><br />CennbeorcAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-53502299488588291922010-12-13T20:06:30.527-08:002010-12-13T20:06:30.527-08:00I'm surprised nobody has yet mentioned one pec...I'm surprised nobody has yet mentioned one peculiar feature of the chinese language family (of which Mandarin is one) - the exact same sound with the same tonal inflection may have up to twenty different character representations, and interpreting a whole word phrase may require more brain activity.<br /><br />Of course, this does not mean that people who learn the language become smarter. However, there is an eugenic effect - those who can master the language are probably smarter and can communicate more effectively, are generally more successful, and thus are more likely to procreate.<br /><br />The hypothesis - all languages have an eugenic effect - the more difficult the language, the stronger the effect?<br /><br />Maybe we can carry out a study on programming languages and see whether that applies, lol.The Wobbly Guyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09301556031735052090noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-58411324513210041752010-12-13T19:55:55.846-08:002010-12-13T19:55:55.846-08:00Cennbeorc said:
In German, for instance, if someo...Cennbeorc said:<br /><i><br />In German, for instance, if someone asks you to choose a book or newspaper, you can say "Das nehm' ich" or "Die nehm' ich" and it will be clear which one you mean, because it's das Buch and die Zeitung. English "I'll take it" would be ambiguous. <br /></i><br /><br />Well, if you go around saying "I'll take it" of course it's ambiguous.<br /><br />However, when I speak English I only say "I'll take it" when there is no ambiguity. Otherwise I will say "I'll take the book" or "I'll take the newspaper."<br /><br />In Chinese, you can omit the noun but you would have to use the measure word, which will often serve to disambiguate the reference.<br /><br />It's all about context.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-90788029197715528482010-12-13T18:13:23.362-08:002010-12-13T18:13:23.362-08:00Spanish and Finnish both have highly consistent an...<i>Spanish and Finnish both have highly consistent and easy-to-learn spelling systems, and both use roughly twice as many syllables as English for the same sentence. So any difference in reading ability between these two languages must be caused by something besides the structure of the language.</i><br /><br />Exactly. If a Spanish-speaking society did well in some relevant measure, it would be easy to find characteristics of the Spanish language (which is really lovely AND easy to spell) that might help explain Spanish excellence.<br /><br />Very few people in the world (me not included) know enough languages to even compare them intelligently.keypusherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07176947522040838625noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-41669224992333850942010-12-13T16:32:38.128-08:002010-12-13T16:32:38.128-08:00i used to be almost fluent in german, and the reas...<i>i used to be almost fluent in german, and the reason i stopped learning and practicing is due to genders for noun articles. they occupied FAR too much space in my head for my taste. learning the "gender" of every object on earth, just to speak and write correctly? with ZERO extra, additional information conveyed by the gender article?</i><br /><br />Genders are a problem for language-learners, but not native speakers. In terms of informatics, a three-gender language like German adds about 1.5 bits of memorization per noun. If the average noun represents 40-50 bits (5 or 6 bytes), that's nothing.<br /><br />Having nouns of different genders makes it easier for speakers to juggle several nouns without getting confused about which pronoun refers to which noun. <br /><br />In German, for instance, if someone asks you to choose a book or newspaper, you can say "Das nehm' ich" or "Die nehm' ich" and it will be clear which one you mean, because it's <i>das Buch</i> and <i>die Zeitung</i>. English "I'll take it" would be ambiguous. <br /><br />Also, what Mike Ferris said. One reason German is sometimes thought to be a cumbersome, inelegant language is that it encourages long, complex sentences that are indeed cumbersome and inelegant, <i>when translated over-literally into English.</i><br /><br />CennbeorcAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-83297712859555802902010-12-13T16:05:31.798-08:002010-12-13T16:05:31.798-08:00Spanish and Finnish both have highly consistent an...<i>Spanish and Finnish both have highly consistent and easy-to-learn spelling systems, and both use roughly twice as many syllables as English for the same sentence. So any difference in reading ability between these two languages must be caused by something besides the structure of the language.</i><br /><br />Exactly. If a Spanish-speaking society did well in some relevant measure, it would be easy to find characteristics of the Spanish language (which is really lovely AND easy to spell) that might help explain Spanish excellence.<br /><br />Very few people in the world (me not included) know enough languages to even compare them intelligently.keypusherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07176947522040838625noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-29887344594513562912010-12-13T09:44:30.109-08:002010-12-13T09:44:30.109-08:00Thank you for another Finnish entry!
Renee Zellwe...Thank you for another Finnish entry!<br /><br />Renee Zellweger is also part Sami. Maybe that explains her interesting look.srschirmnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-61161999320164647982010-12-13T00:00:33.867-08:002010-12-13T00:00:33.867-08:00"i used to be almost fluent in german, and th..."i used to be almost fluent in german, and the reason i stopped learning and practicing is due to genders for noun articles. they occupied FAR too much space in my head for my taste. learning the "gender" of every object on earth, just to speak and write correctly? with ZERO extra, additional information"<br /><br />Agreement categories like gender can be a pain when learning simple sentences where they don't seem to do very much. But they earn their keep by keeping complex sentences more transparent. <br />One of the reasons writing classes in English stress short simple sentences is that the mechanisms for joining sentences in english are either complicated or lend themselves to structural ambiguity (or both).<br /><br />Short simple sentences in English are very easy to learn (by non-native speaekrs) but longer more complex sentences are actually more difficult in English than in many other European languges. I've read sentences that take up half the page in Polish but which are completely clear. That's almost impossible with English.<br /><br />There's no real basis for saying that any natural language (looked at in its totality) is any easier or more complicated than another. Different parts of different languages may be easier or more complex than each other.<br /><br />Noun structure is more complex in Polish (no articles, but with 3 genders and 6 cases) but subordination is much easier in Polish.michael farrishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10232229721381140090noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-55083959987179419092010-12-12T23:40:21.222-08:002010-12-12T23:40:21.222-08:00"You do see some Eurasian looks in some of th..."You do see some Eurasian looks in some of the Finnish descendants, kind of like the Russians, but I think some of it is probably the Sami influence."<br /><br />More likely it's just the native Finno-Ugric element. There are still a bunch of F-U languages spoken in Russia, around the Volga area (Udmurt, Komi, Mordvin and so forth). These peoples show the Eurasian appearance more strongly.<br /><br />Modern-day Finns and Estonians are heavily mixed with Germans, Swedes and Russians, which is probably why they look like typical northern Europeans.Heliogabalusnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-47799615401443829902010-12-12T19:27:11.314-08:002010-12-12T19:27:11.314-08:00“Or do white New Zealanders refer to each other as...“Or do white New Zealanders refer to each other as Pākehā”<br /><br />Yes we do. Pakeha is the common everyday word for white person in New Zealand. Some whites don’t like the term, mostly because they lend credence to erroneous folk etymologies in which it derives from words meaning ‘white pigs’ or some such.<br /><br />As an aside, here are some lyrics from a famous song from the 60s: <br /><br />“You take a little umu and you get it very hot,<br />You catch a little Pakeha and put him in a pot,<br />Cook him all up in your old home brew,<br />And what have you got? Kiwi Stew.”<br /><br />An umu is an earth oven.Haroldnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-22991193583559372762010-12-12T19:24:41.921-08:002010-12-12T19:24:41.921-08:00most of the psychology work i am familiar with sug...most of the psychology work i am familiar with suggested that the sapir-whorf hypothesis was not true. at best, it had a small effect in highly specific situations, but no general effect on all thinking. i last checked this over 10 years ago but i doubt much new evidence has come around to support sapir-whorf since then. this is an important topic in robotics, and psychology has mountains of excellent, highly useful data contributing directly to the question.<br /><br />i used to be almost fluent in german, and the reason i stopped learning and practicing is due to genders for noun articles. they occupied FAR too much space in my head for my taste. learning the "gender" of every object on earth, just to speak and write correctly? with ZERO extra, additional information conveyed by the gender article? the simple articles in english, a an the, convey EXACTLY the same information as the german 3 gender system, with NO additional memorization or conjugation required. germans invent lots of new stuff, and now are stuck with this clumsy system where they gotta decide, out of thin air, what the "gender" of some newly developed inanimate technology object is, and then every german speaker has to agree on it, too. in fact, this was the primary way germans distinguished class among other, by seeing how many genders the other guy got wrong when talking. "Oh, that guy has no idea what the gender of a transmission is, LOL, what a trashy low class cretin."<br /><br />spanish only has 2 genders, even that is archaic and stupid. a an the, period. as simple as it gets.<br /><br />of course the flip side is german has few irregular verbs, and almost no irregular spelling. in fact, the government in germany literally controls the language, and every 10 years or so, proclaims official changes which everybody is required to obey. certain words will change spellings to be easier or more correct, certain punctuation will be altered or added or removed, new words will enter the lexicon in an official form, and so forth. english has none of that.jodynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-61336444470354309202010-12-12T17:12:15.566-08:002010-12-12T17:12:15.566-08:00Anyway, that Saami family only look Native America...Anyway, that Saami family only look Native American (to me) because of their tents. Their faces are European, if a bit odd looking. I've heard Joni Mitchell has some Saami blood; I suppose there's a resemblance.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-54331291136999445512010-12-12T16:39:29.452-08:002010-12-12T16:39:29.452-08:00Damn, why didn't anybody in the U.S. ever thin...<i>Damn, why didn't anybody in the U.S. ever think of having substitute teachers?</i><br /><br />Come on Steve, let's be fair. In most cases substitute teachers in the US are just babysitters.<br /><br /><i>Anonymous: "spelling bees", which would be completely non-sensical in Finland</i><br /><br />The same is said for Italian.Michael Huntnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-29074545991663221692010-12-12T14:23:37.557-08:002010-12-12T14:23:37.557-08:00"For some reason English never went through s..."For some reason English never went through such a purity movement"<br /><br />There have been attempts:<br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_linguistic_purism<br /><br />http://anglish.wikia.com/wiki/Technical_WordsJames Kabalahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02335302113772004687noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-18472964864654122732010-12-12T09:51:12.317-08:002010-12-12T09:51:12.317-08:00"they will stop buying our worthless governme...<i>"they will stop buying our worthless government bonds, backed up by the good faith and credit of day laborers, drug mules, Mariachi singers, and unwed teen mothers.</i><br /><br />FTW!<br /><br />All this talk about English spelling and pronunciation reminds me of the scene in Eddie Izzard's <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hJQsvoY6VU" rel="nofollow">"Dress to Kill."</a>Captain Jack Aubreynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-73849347831381509802010-12-12T08:35:05.972-08:002010-12-12T08:35:05.972-08:00Hungarian sounds a good deal like Finnish, and Est...Hungarian sounds a good deal like Finnish, and Estonian is very close to it, both in sound and form (i.e., linguistically they are similar). If it was the case that language was a key to this then Hungarians and Estonians would display similar results, ceteris paribus. The populations' relative homogeneity (i.e., lack of diversity) and educational system are likely to provide some of the answer to Steve's puzzle.<br />Regarding the education system, and possibly ironically, Finland some years ago adopted East Germany's kindergarten and related basic education system while Estonia and Hungary adopted more of the Russian/pure Soviet method (although now I'm not sure either uses it since the breakup of the Soviet Union). In short, it tends to be beneficial toward laying a decent foundation for the children of working parents that might not be able to (or willing to) help little Jukko or Aino. This I also suspect is at least part of the reason why the Finns have slightly overtaken the Swedish Finns as well. In short, Swedish Finns tended to be more economically well off than Finnish Finns and the school system has largely neutralized whatever learning environment advantage they had. Of course, the Swedish Finns have subsidized this, but such is ‘spreading the wealth around’.Bonus Giftnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-15501452055496224442010-12-12T08:20:33.236-08:002010-12-12T08:20:33.236-08:00My grandfather's family was Finnish and I coul...My grandfather's family was Finnish and I could never twist my tongue around the few words he tried to teach me. I have a first cousin who spent a year in Finland as an exchange student and now speaks it fluently enough to trick natives and also speaks Estonian. I don't know if it's any easier or harder to learn than any other foreign language.<br /><br />The Finnish-Americans I grew up with were no better or worse at school than anyone else. Most went to college, state universities mainly, and a few became professors or lawyers, while most became farmers or business leaders. A couple were drunks, one ended up in the state pen. Most were completely average.<br /><br />One interesting thing is that the Finnish immigrants at the beginning of the 20th century had a reputation for fighting, sometimes with knives, and for hard drinking. I think a lot of that was overblown and other groups could get pretty rowdy as well, but my grandmother's family tried to warn her off my Finnish grandfather because of the reputation of the community. There was also some discrimination against Finns in the early years because some people thought they were Mongolian and not quite white. You do see some Eurasian looks in some of the Finnish descendants, kind of like the Russians, but I think some of it is probably the Sami influence.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-24266416274065663142010-12-12T07:15:49.688-08:002010-12-12T07:15:49.688-08:00Note the small SD in Finland (80 vs 90 or 100 for ...<i>Note the small SD in Finland (80 vs 90 or 100 for most countries). You can increase your average by bringing up the bottom of the distribution -- i.e., having special tutors for kids who fall behind. At the high end Finland (pct. at Level 6 PISA) is nothing special</i>.<br /><br />Bringing up the bottom of the distribution is undoubtedly one of the reasons for the higher mean scores of Finland and other nations/regions (Shanghai, S Korea, and Hongkong had smaller SDs than Finland). However, it is not true that Finland was "nothing special" at the highest levels of performance. In the reading test, the highest Level 6 was reached by one percent of all students participating, while in Finland it was two percent. Most top-performing countries had one or two percent at Level 6 (Singapore and New Zealand had three percent), while most countries in the study had zero or one percent (these are of course rounded numbers). Moreover, the second highest Level 5 was the 87th percentile in Finland, while it was the 93rd percentile for all countries combined.THnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-32414822493227562302010-12-12T07:06:51.385-08:002010-12-12T07:06:51.385-08:00People who live in Finland have to be smart enough...People who live in Finland have to be smart enough to <br />A) produce and store enough food to last through the winter.<br />B) build shelters that will retain heat and not collapse in a blizzard.<br /><br />These tasks were daunting enough that Finnish women figured out that it might be to their (and their offspring's advantage) to have a man around the house.<br /><br />All of this led to a culture that valued geek males and "fatherhood", leading to higher IQ's and academic achievement for many generations.<br /><br />Oh, and the Finns also had the wisdom to settle in a country that didn't share a land border with Mexico.spacehabitatshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01540280499274649411noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-80737845481405045472010-12-12T06:01:07.145-08:002010-12-12T06:01:07.145-08:00If Spanish is harder to think in because it has mo...If Spanish is harder to think in because it has more syllables, then Russian and Japanese would be worse. But we don't see chronic problems with people from these countries.Stopped Clockhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18155709284859187212noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-73145192452487406442010-12-12T05:19:25.049-08:002010-12-12T05:19:25.049-08:00Most of these posts confuse several issues:
1. Is ...Most of these posts confuse several issues:<br />1. Is the language easy for school children to learn?<br />2. Is the language easy for foreigners to learn?<br /><br />#2 is irrelevant.<br /><br />1. Does the language have regular orthography?<br />2. Does the language have transparent morphology?<br /><br />Finnish has both and #2 is important for children learning science and other subjects<br /><br />Again, using Japanese, "catalyst" which is opaque to an American child is 触媒 shokubai (touch-mediate) to a Japanese. Diabetes is 糖尿病 (sugar-urine-disease). Like Finnish, these have to be easier to learn. It doesn't mean it's easier to think in these languages, but it does suggest that children have lower hurdles to jump in acquiring technical knowledge.<br /><br />As for the guy who heard English metaphors are hard to express in Japanese; rest assured Japanese is chock-a-block full of metaphors, although they may not align perfectly with English.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com