Finnish Independence day

6th of December is the independence day of Finland. On that day, 89 years ago, declaration of independence was adopted by the Parliament. Earlier, Finland was part of Russia, an autonomous Russian Grand Duchy, but now she became a sovereign nation.

“The people of Finland have by this step taken their fate in their own hands; a step both justified and demanded by present conditions. The people of Finland feel deeply that they cannot fulfil their national and international duty without complete sovereignty. The century-old desire for freedom awaits fulfilment now; Finland’s people step forward as a free nation among the other nations in the world.”

Russia, led by Bolsevik-goverment and Lenin, recognised Finland on 3rd of January. In the west, recognition of Sweden, Germany and France followed few days after.

But unfortunately, the process wasn’t that easy. The Russian revolution and civil-war spread over Finland aswell. The royalist and eager tsar-supporting party ‘whites’ was opposed to socialist, bolsevist-oriented ‘reds’. The civil war was short, but very severe and divided the nation for years. The ‘whites’ won after few months.

Finnish literature: Kalevala

The Kalevala is a national epic of Finland, a poetry about the mythic past of Finns. It includes old sagas about heroes and magic.

The Kalevala was written by Elias Lönroth, who compiled it based on Finnish folklore. Those stories and poems had lived on in the oral tradition of the ordinary people maybe hudreds of years. Lönroth started to search for the folklore in 1830’s in Carelia by the White Sea, and the first edition of Kalevala was published in 1835. The new, wider edition was published in 1849, and it is considered as the actual version of Kalevala. Lönroth traveled to Carelia in many summers to listen the old songs and write them down.

Lönroth was inspired by national romantic ideas: he wanted to give Finns their history and literature. Earlier, there was very little Finnish literature, most of the books were didactic or religious.

Kalevala is a national epic, like Nibelungenlied, Odyssey or Gilgames. It consists of old stories and myths. The old myths are universal: same stories are told in several cultures around the world. The origin of the world was in the egg, the acient Egyptians had similar myth. The hero of Kalevala, Väinämöinen, is similar to Merlin in the King Arthur’s legend.

Lönroth assumed, that all the poems are from the common source, and that’s why they form a one, coherent story. That’s why he edited the poems, and make some of his own, tho ‘fit’ them in the main story line. That’s why Kalevala is not complitely based on the folklore, but it’s merely a work of art by Lönroth.

J.R.R.Tolkien, author of the world famous The Lord of the Rings, was enthuiastic about Kalevala and Finnish lore. His books are strongly influenced by Kalevala. In Kalevala, the magical artifact is Sampo, a mill that brings wealth to its owner, alike the the Master Ring in Tolkien’s tale. Tolkien was interested in Finnish language as well, and he used Finnish words when he invented thos fictional Elvish languages. He once said: “It was like discovering a complete wine-cellar filled with bottles of an amazing wine of a kind and flavour never tasted before. It quite intoxicated me”

The how we think about the characters of the Kalevala derived from the paintings by Akseli Kallen-Gallela. He was a romanticist painter in the late 19th century, and many of his works of art are about the stories of Kalevala. In his painting “Defence of Sampo”, Väinämöinen has been portrayed as a old man with long white beard, and those who has seen the Peter Jackson’s version of the Rings (well, who haven’t), might see some likeness with Gandalf.

Here’s an example from Kalevala, from the scene depicted in the painting. It contains many archaic words, and the language of Kalevala is quite difficult to understand.

Vaka vanha Väinämöinen käänti päätä päivän alta,
luopi silmät luotehesen, katsoi taaksensa vähäisen:
jo tulevi Pohjan eukko, lintu kumma liitelevi,
harte’ista kuin havukka, vaakalintu vartalolta!

Yllättävi Väinämöisen. Lenti purjepuun nenähän,
vaatevarpahan rapasi, päähän pielen seisotaikse:
oli pursi päin pu’ota, laiva laioin kallistua.

Kalevala has found its way to popular culture as well. Uncle Scrooge comic book “The Quest for Kalevala” by famous cartoonist Don Rosa was published in 1999. There Scrooge McDuck sets out on a quest to find the legendary Sampo.

In 2003, a Finnish magazine Colossus gathered progressive rock bands around the Europe to make an album about Kalevala.  The idea was similar to Bo Hansson’s famous album “Lord of the Rings” or Rick Wakeman’s “The Journey to the Center of the Earth”, except now there was 30 different groups, each of them represented with one song.

Where the words come from

Finnish is spoken by 5 million quiet Finns in the cold, far away land called Finland. It has been said, that Finnish is one of the most difficult languages of the world: maybe that’s why Finns are so quiet. It takes at least half an hour to figure out, what case to use.

Here’s some facts about Finnish vocabulary.

Finnish has only ‘one brother and one cousin’ in Europe. This is to say, that only Estonian and Hungarian are related to Finnish, other European languages are not. There are also some minorities in Russia, such as Sami, Mari, Udmurt and Komi. They are also in the same language family with Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian, but they have no nation of their own.

The language relationship means, that there are lots of words with a common root.

Many of the Finnish words are loan from other European languages. Some of them are quite obvious, such as: historia, pankki, hotelli, tekniikka, tennis, and so on. (I think they need no translation.) These are international words, and almost the same in any modern language.

Some of the ‘international words’ are a bit different in Finnish. While the whole world is using a common word, we invented our own.

• sähkö (electricity)
• puhelin (telephone)
• tiede (science)
• kirjallisuus (literature)

Finnish has loaned lots of words from our western neighbor. If you know some Swedish, you might know these words:

• väri > färg (color)
• tori > torg (marketplace)
• rouva > fru (lady)
• synti > synd (sin)
• tunti > stund (hour)

There are fewer loans from east, from Russian. These are for example:

• leipä > ‘hleb’ (bread)
• ikkuna > ‘okno’ (window)

A bit more older loans from European languages:

• sata > *satem (hundred, Latin centum)
• porsas > *porsos (pig, Latin porcus)
• pelto > *felto (field, old German. )
• kaunis > *skauniz (beautiful, old German )
• kuningas > *kuningaz (king, old German)

Derivation is very typical to Finnish. When other languages has numerous words, in Finnish they are formed by adding affixes to root. For example:

• kirja (book)
• kirjailija (author/writer)
• kirjallisuus (literature)
• kirjasto (library)
• kirjallinen (literary/written)

Here’s some more interesting derivations:

• puu > puukko (wood -> knife)
• voima > voittaa (power -> to win)
• viedä > vietellä (to take -> to seduce)
• uskoa > uskaltaa (to trust -> to dare)
• tappaa > tapella (to kill -> to fight)
• ilma > ilman (air -> without)

The abstract things are often derived from concrete ones.

• käsittää (understand): ‘to put hands around.’
• tietää (know) : ‘to know the way or path.’
• keksiä (invent, make up) :’to reach with a boat hook.’
• tutkia (inspect,examine)’ to heard the cattle. ‘
• harkita (contemplate, ponder) ‘to catch fish with a trap.’

Wordpress is here

Venla -blog started to use Wordpress -blogging tool. Wordpress works much better than my own made script, and gives other possibilities, such as better commenting, polls and spam-protection.
There might be some technical difficulties today and tomorrow, and some links might be broken.

Off topic

For those, who would like to study Persian, the language of Iran, I can recommend Easy Persian. This site contains lots of information on Iran and Persian(not less than 136 lessons!).

It’s important to remember, that Iran is more than the widespread impression of Axis of Evil with the Ayatollahs and fundamentalists.

Virtual Classes, anyone?

Virtual Classes, anyone?

We started a new project, LearnFinnish.org. The aim is to self-study courses and virtual classes to anyone who is interested in Finnish language. The registration fee is 5 euros.

If we get enough students, we are going to start the virtual classes in this next month. We will use Elluminate e-learning software to give the lessons.

If you are interested, you can contact me jmkark@learnfinnish.org

Genuine Finnish kebab

I had pasta with cheese and tomatosauce for lunch. Actually, I eat pasta quite much, almost everyday.

Once I was asked, what is the typical Finnish food, I couldn’t answer. The pasta with cheese and tomato didn’t sound the right answer, even if it was the truth. Because, there’s no real Finnish food, or they are very few. We like to mix different traditions around the world.

In Finland, there’s a fast food chain, which has an advertisement saying “genuine Finnish kebab” (which is the title of this post aswell). But I think no one denies, that kebab is a part of Finnish cuisine. It’s extremely popular, and there’s a kebab kiosk on every corner.

They say sausages are traditional Finnish food. Or at least the advertisers say. Which is quite paradoxal, because Finnish sausages doesn’t taste that good. They include too much flour, and too little meat. Compared to German, Polish, or Hungarian sausages, Finnish products are quite modest. Well, maybe the traditional “black” sausage they make in Tampere, is worth to mention.

The old Finns used to eat lot’s of meat. That’s simply because vegetables doesn’t really grow in our climate. We say jokingly, that sausage is the Finnish vegetable (well, as I said, it contains so little meat, it’s almost vegetarian). But today, quite many of Finns are vegetarians.

Finnish food is quite mild, we don’t use that much spices. Unless, we want to prove that we “have the stomach” to eat spicy food, as the other nations, we put too much chili on our food. Otherwise, our food doesn’t really contain any other spice but salt.

Best thing about Finnish food is the bread. In many other countries, the bread doesn’t really taste anything (well, in Austria they had good bread). Finnish bread is made of coarse rye, and it has a real taste, unlike those “biscuits” they have in Middle-Europe.

If you ever visit Finland (as a foreigner), they will serve you some Finnish specialties, like mämmi. That’s a bit artificial, because we don’t eat those specialties ourself. (Some of us find them a bit unattractive, just like you will.)

But, until they will develop the genuine Finnish cuisine, I will stay in pasta. Besides, It’s easy and fast to cook. Even a culinary disaster like me is able to prepare it properly. (And did you know, that it was the Chinese, who invented the pasta?)

Finnish literature - Intro

Quite often people ask me to recommend a good book (partly maybe because I study Finnish literature). But it’s difficult, my mind just don’t work that way. You see, I’ve read a great deal of Finnish literature, but I haven’t really thought if they were “good” or not. Some books are classics, some books have their value as a historical document, some books are an essential part of our Finnish identity, some books are interesting in some other way. It’s difficult to recommend to somebody just a “good book”. I don’t even know, which are my favorite books. Or favorite bands, albums, films, actors, actresses, tv-series, plays, cousine, beer, or what so ever. I haven’t made a list. And of course, one’s favorite-everything should be at least a little “classy”. Mozart and Shakespeare is always a better combination than Ac/dc and Penthouse.

Well, now I’m going to make a list. Here comes the list of Finnish books I’d recommend (maybe list of bands and films and such will follow). If you want to get acquainted with Finnish culture, these books are essential. I’m going to introduce a Finnish book once a week. (Hopefully I find the time to write every week.) I’ll give the priority to ‘classics’, and books that have been translated to other languages.

You can find some of the books from the Venla’s bookstore.

Aleksis Kivi: Seven Brothers

Jukolan talo, eteläisessä Hämeessä, seisoo erään mäen pohjoisella rinteellä, liki Toukolan kylää. Sen läheisin ym­päristö on kivinen tanner, mutta alempana alkaa pellot, joissa, ennenkuin talo oli häviöön mennyt, aaltoili teräi­nen vilja. Peltojen alla on niittu, apilaäyräinen, halki-leik­kaama monipolvisen ojan; ja runsaasti antoi se heiniä, en­nenkuin joutui laitumeksi kylän karjalle. Muutoin on ta­lolla avaria metsiä, soita ja erämaita, jotka, tämän tilustan ensimmäisen perustajan oivallisen toiminnan kautta, oli­vat langenneet sille osaksi jo ison jaon käydessä entisinä aikoina. Silloinpa Jukolan isäntä, pitäen enemmän huolta jälkeentulevainsa edusta kuin omasta parhaastansa, otti vastaan osaksensa kulon polttaman metsän ja sai sillä kei­nolla seitsemän vertaa enemmän kuin toiset naapurinsa. Mutta kaikki kulovalkean jäljet olivat jo kadonneet hänen piiristänsä ja tuuhea metsä kasvanut sijaan. - Ja tämä on niiden seitsemän veljen koto, joiden elämänvaiheita tässä nyt käyn kertoilemaan.

I’m going to start right from the beginning, from the first novel in Finnish. Finnish literature is very young compared to literature of other nations: for example in Spanish, Don Quijote de la Mancha by Cervantes was published in 1605. The first Finnish novel Aleksis Kivi’s Seven Brothers (Seitsemän Veljestä) came out in 1870. Don Quijote and The Seven Brothers has lots of in common. Kivi has same kind of tragi-comical sense of humor, and he was strongly influenced by Cervantes’ style. The dialogue is also an essential part of the novel, and it has lots of common to Shakespeare’s plays.

The novel is about seven brothers, as you might guess. In the beginning of the story their parents have died, and the farm they are living in, is in ruins. The brothers are already young men, at the ages of 18-25, but they haven’t still finished their school. At that time, the popular education was taking its first steps in Finnish countryside. By the law, everybody should learn to read and write, if wanted to get married. But the brothers are too lazy and stupid to study, so they rather live in the forest, than study. They run away, and set up a cottage in Impivaara, where they live away from the civilisation.

The seven brothers are all different personalities, and this is the driving force, that creates dynamics in the story.

• Juhani is the oldest brother, also the most stubborn of them. Juhani is most of the time in conflict with Eero or Tuomas.
• Aapo is calm and peaceful, he is always telling stories.
• Tuomas is strongest brother with warm heart and high moral.
• Simeoni is little bit insane, religious and has problems with alcohol.
• Timo – twin-brother of Lauri, simple and earnest.
• Lauri is artistic an a friend of nature.
• Eero – the youngest but also cleverest of the brothers.

They are all in love with Venla, Maid of Männistö. But of course, she doesn’t want to marry any of them.

The main motive of the novel is the conflict between nature and civilisation, the story itself is an allegory of the enlightenment project in the Finnish countryside in 19th century. The uneducated brothers live outside the society, and even have problems with the law.

August Ahlqvist was a professor of Finnish language, a brilliant linguist who established the modern fenno-ugristics and made several expeditions to study Vatja, Vepsä, Hanti, Mansi and Mordva. Today, the main thing he is remembered, is how he crucified Kivi in his writings. Nobody really knows, that Ahlqvist was a writer and poet himself. Ahlqvist was an enthusiastic fennophile, and didn’t like the story of stupid and lazy brothers. As a national romanticist, he thought Finnish people need ideal heroes instead instead.

Aleksis Kivi died young, he was only 38 when he passed away after a period of alcoholism and mental problems. In addition to novel Seven Brothers, he wrote 12 plays and poetry. Today, he is known as the national author of Finland, and his birthday, 10th October, is the Day of Finnish literature.

Seven brothers: A novel

I’ve seen this guy before….

Gandalf the White, Wizard	Väinämöinen, Semi-god

Read more…

The 500 most common words in Finnish

ja on ei että hän mutta oli se minä niin kuin kun sen ole hänen herra he jos joka ovat kaikki mitä jotka sitten sinä tai nyt sanoi olen sitä ne en minun sinun herran heidän te voi myös vain näin silloin olisi tämä siitä sillä eivät vaan olivat teidän tulee tämän vastaan vielä eikä jonka jo koko olla mitään saa olet tuli siis hänet ollut koska vaikka kanssa itse kuningas hänelle pois minua miten kyllä häntä me minulle sanoo siellä maan miksi poika aina paljon siihen mukaan mikä sekä heidät enää heille niitä joku eli tuo mies minut tässä sinua taas teille meidän nämä ettei sinulle siinä kukaan luo niiden kuninkaan kuitenkin kuinka päivänä et heitä kaiken onko kirjoitti juuri antaa aivan edes pitää jälkeen aika ihan hyvin vai ennen ihmiset maahan tehdä kuka teitä vastasi antoi siksi sinut kansa jossa tehnyt hyvä kuten olette oikein herralle enemmän sinne tätä viestissä missä miehet jota toinen voisi muuten herraa kaksi jotta ihminen kansan tähden tästä lähti pitäisi tullut yksi antanut jotain teki kaikkien ainakin pojan tähän ihmisen anna ehkä kerran ette olemme sanoivat vuotta muut ihmisten tekee jokainen teidät meni maa eri takaisin olevan esim suuri yhtä annan joita oman tee edessä ilman joten meille minusta täällä suomen samoin mistä saakka vuoksi lisäksi koskaan elää saanut jumalaa ottaa miehen tuon meitä minkä sai kaupungin otti miestä lkää asia vähän kai tänne nuo muuta ihmisiä tiedä varten noin sana sanoa esimerkiksi maassa jolla aikaan ajan samalla sille asti temppelin toisen totta eteen hyvää käy osa lähetti maailman kautta niistä kysyi yli saada mielestäni eikö tosin vuoden tule todella sieltä tietää kristuksen eivätkä saavat tavoin suomessa tällä teen nainen seitsemän iki usko silti pojat minulla yhdessä älä henki kaikkia meidät isä mieltä lähtivät kansat heti kansojen tulivat olleet kuitenkaan sama pappi aikaa jopa josta muita luokseen kaikkea enkä ota päivä pidä päällä taivaan aikana olemassa kovin täysin kaikille kuuluu poikansa jumalanne oma isänsä käyttää sano maata emme voidaan asukkaat varmaan yleensä parempi heistä tulla kauan nähdä mene oleva näitä jälleen kolme maasta pahaa jää tarvitse tavalla yhä samaa näki takia tulevat heimon tuota yhden jne sellaista sanonut edelleen ketään sinulla näet varmasti joskus päälle anteeksi mm muiden hänellä tietoa monet kiinni joiden mihin ainakaan elämän toki olkoon kohti lisää joilla lain sanon päästä kanssaan mikään muista vei mennä päivää jolloin liian sijaan omaa kyse ulos perusteella mukana kuninkaaksi nousi kansalle keskustelu mukaisesti kyynärää kohtaan saat sellainen haluaa saatte nähnyt helsinki eihän tehneet päivän puhui itsensä kymmenen ainoa asiasta löytyy asiaa alla vasta valtion menee alkaa kertaa tapauksessa niille olisivat onkin puolesta jotakin suuren miehiä meillä hänestä valtaan profeetta hengen osaa usein vettä sanat kaupunkiin tahansa kuninkaalle vaikkapa kansaa kansani teistä älkää takaa muu jonkun jonkin syödä katso itselleen halua esiin tiedän tänään kätensä tulisi toisaalta yhtään voit sanan onhan ilmeisesti vie puhua rahaa kaupunki ainoastaan uskoa olin näiden naiset tuossa hieman alkoi varsin toi suurin alas sinusta alttarin tekivät papit

(source)There are many of those words I expected: conjucations (ja, eli, tai, vai), pronouns (sinä, minä, se, hän), typical verbs(tulla, olla, mennä, antaa) and numerals (yksi, kaksi, kolme, kymmenen).

The real surprise was the amount of words connected with religion, such as:

• herra:lord (and also herran:lord’s and herralle:to a lord)
• kuningas:king (we don’t have any king in Finland)
• Jumala:God
• Kristus:Christ
• temppeli:temple
• profeetta:prophet
• isä:father
• poika:son
• henki:spirit
• alttari:altar
• pappi:priest
• uskoa:to believe

I didn’t know, that the religion is still so popular topic in Finland.