Finnish Language and Culture

Kertoo suomalaisesta mytolgoiasta ja kalojen toisintonimistä. Sisltää oleellisen kalalajeihin liittyvästä tarinastosta ja siten muodosta apohja suomalaiselle erämytologialle. Aloittaa myttemijaon testauksen ja systematisoinnin sarjan. ideaa on kehitelty myöhemmin kahdessa muussa eämytologian osassa ja sittemmin metodologisemmassa korpusmytologian kolmessa osassa.

Hauki (Esox lucius) /pike has tho most often other names.
Ahven (Perca fluviatilis)/perch is known in many other names also and third with its nicknames is
Lahna ((Abramis brama)/bream, which has also hundreds of names.

This table shows an unusual spectrum of cognates: Indo-European - Sanskrit, Avestan, Persian, Belarusian, Croatian, Polish, Romanian, Greek, Armenian, Albanian, Latin, Irish, Scots-Gaelic, Welsh, Italian, French, English, Etruscan, Hittite, Tocharian, Luwian;; in addition, Hurrian, Urartian, Akkadian, Georgian, Latvian, Baltic-Sudovian, and Finnish-Uralic. Overlaying the Semitic Sumero-Akkadian cognates in this table has produced an unusual Concordance. The Concordance is also part of our Copeland-Akkadian-English.Dictionary which integrates the findings in our Indo-European Table. Part 6 (http://www.maravot.com/Indo-European_Table1B.1.html) is our first integrated Akkadian-Indo-European, Altaic, etc. Table,  Click on it for the most current version.

A work in progress, covering Etruscan Phrases Indo-European Table 1, Parts 1-6. I suppose it would be obvious that the migration of the Indo-Europeans into Europe from what was believed to be the Russian steppes or northern Anatolia and the Caucasus region put them in contact with other groups. Exactly when and where the migration took place and the various groups of people that were affected has been the subject of much controversy. *PIE (Proto-Indo-European) specialists have attempted to explain the interrelationships through speculation on the shifts from one language to another; to the extent that the rules that show shifts that took place in the separation of the proto-Indo-European language(s) tend to be the subject of great debate themselves. This document attempts to circumvent the processes that induce doubtful results by comparing the words of languages that would have been involved in the mix of the early Indo-Europeans and other communities they encountered, as they moved east to west (and in the case of red-haired, Scotch-plaid, kilted Tocharians west to east). One of the languages that stood out in an early stage of our study was the Albanian. Nestled in Eastern Europe between the Croatians and the Serbs, the anomalies seen in their language tend to be a good representative of Indo-European groups mixing with the Slavic, Baltic, Uralic and Kartvelian language groups. Albanian tradition suggests that they are the heirs of the ancient (now extinct) Illyrians, that their language is at least 3,000 years old. Nestled within Yugoslavia, before it collapsed, four of the six constituent republics, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro, shared a common language known as Serbo-Croat. (We use Croatian, together with Belarusian, in this document for comparison of the Slavic with other languages.) The Serbs also claim to have an ancient language. Other languages compared in our table that highlight the mixing of the selected languages include Persian, Avestan, Sanskrit, Hittite, where available Hurrian, and Etruscan. The Etruscan language is important, since it ceased to exist around the 3 rd century B.C. and is believed to have existed in northern Italy (Tuscany) since ~1100 B.C. We thus have in the Etruscan language a language that has been frozen in time, untouched and untampered with, as it were, since it ceased to be spoken, read and understood. We began our Indo-European Table with the purpose of comparing the Etruscan words we isolated in our research (since 1981) with other Indo-European languages. After having established a vocabulary of over 2,500 words, represented in over 600 Etruscan texts, it became apparent in our Indo-European Table that Etruscan is closer to Latin than even the modern " Romance " languages of French and Italian. Having observed over the years of the growing controversy over the relationships of Baltic, Uralic and Kartvelian language families to the Indo-European family, we thought to update our Indo-European Table to include representatives of those languages: Latvian, Finnish and Georgian. The addition of these languages is turning out to be a fascinating exercise, since it tends to explain some of the anomalies we have seen in Albanian. Are the Albanians rooted from ancient Illyria or could they have come into Illyria from the steppes, north of the Black Sea? Ancient Roman maps of the Eastern Roman Empire identify an area north of Armenia in the Caucasus on the Caspian Sea as Albania. Having seen these maps when they first appeared on the internet, courtesy of the University of Texas Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection, we wondered whether the Romans had something

This paper deals with Finnish lexical loans in modern English relating them to external history and cultural history of Finland. Chronologically the study starts all the way back in the (prehistoric) Old English period and moves on from Beowulf in Finna land to King Alfred’s Cwenas, from Æthelred II’s coins in Finland to the first baroque descriptions of Finland by merchants and travellers, from the Diet of Porvoo to the publication of the Kalevala, from Porthan, Lönnrot and Castrén to Schauman and Bobrikov, Mannerheim and Molotov, with language history documenting this procession in its own peculiar ways. The data for the study come from the Oxford English Dictionary and other lexicographical sources as well as historical and present-day corpora.

Timofeeva, Olga (2013) "The Wor(l)ds of Kalevala: Finnish Lexical Loans in Modern English," in Ex Philologia Lux: Essays in Honour of Leena Kahlas-Tarkka, ed. by Jukka Tyrkkö, Olga Timofeeva, and Maria Salenius, 159-185. Mémoires de la Société Néophilologique XC. Helsinki: Société Néophilologique.

This Indo-European Table was updated to include Akkadian, Hurrian, Urartian.  This table shows interesting, perhaps extraordinary to some scholars, relationships among Indo-European and other languages listed in the Indo-European Table, The table was created to compare Etruscan and Latin words with other languages and because of the interesting correspondences in comparing the languages, the table was expanded to include Akkadian. For the correspondence  in word relationships among the languages in the Indo-European Table, see the Copeland-English-Akkadian Dictionary on academia.edu. The latest update of this table can be accessed at the  link below.

(from a work published in 1981) This table has Indo-European, Hurrian, Georgian (Kartlevian), Latvian (Baltic), Finnish (Uralic), Hittite, Akkadian and Altaic selections. We have colored words that may be related among the various languages/families. The coloring provides an unusual view of the spectrum of the cited languages. A Concordance of the cited languages is available in our Copeland-English-Akkadian Dictionary, our English-Hittite Dictionary Dictionary, an English alphabetized index to the Indo-European Table and our work, "Indo-European-Eurasian Words Linking Ancient Pastoralists." (350 pp.)

Notre premier travail de recherche s'interroge sur la détermination de la référence de la personne zéro et des éléments subjectifs dans les constructions à personne zéro en finnois, d'un point de vue syntaxique, sémantique et discursif. Une réflexion didactique est par ailleurs esquissée.

My first study focuses on the determination of the reference of the zero person and subjective elements in the zero person constructions in Finnish, from a syntactic, semantic and discursive point of view. A didactic reflexion is also sketched.

Ensimmäinen tutkimukseni kyselee nollapersoonan referenssia ja subjektivisia elementteja nollapersoonakonstruktioissa suomen kielessä syntaktisen, semanttisen sekä diskursiivisen näkökulmasta. Didaktinen pohdiskelu on myös hahmotettu.

This paper introduces the god/hero Lemminkäinen as developed in Elias Lönnrot's Kalevala in comparison with the oral traditions on which Kalevala is based, their variation and the history behind them. The historical perspectives are largely summarized from my dissertation Baldr and Lemminkäinen. Lönnrot's creation of the story surrounding Lemminkäinen in Kalevala is looked at as one more in a long history of transformations of this traditional narrative material that made it interesting and meaningful for a contemporary culture in which it was used.

Review of the 2007 Midnight Sun Film Festival (Finland) which featured retrospectives on Iran’s leading filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, directors Claude Goretta from Switzerland, Vittorio De Seta from Italy, Elia Suleiman from Palestine, and Amos Gitai from Israel, all of whom attended the festival and gave public interviews.

Paavo Heininen is the leading Finnish modernist of the generation that educated composers like Kaija Saariaho and Magnus Lindberg. He carried on the tradition of Aarre Merikanto who was a Max Reger student himself. In the opera Silkkirumpu (Damasc Drum) an old Noh-play is transformed into avantgarde music theater. Particularly the impact of the choir is amazing.

In belief narratives and ritual texts collected in early modern Finland, social otherness is paralleled with the dead, nature spirits and beasts. Different ways of being outside or in opposition to the human social order are linked with each other in the paradigm of otherness. In my paper, I analyze Finnish polysemous words such as männingäiset (pl.) and kööpelit (pl.), which were known in belief tradition as supernormal beings. They both had specific meanings as particular beings, but could also refer in a more abstract level to supernatural beings in general; it was not necessarily relevant to specify further than that. In addition to supernatural beings, these words had other meanings, too. Männingäiset meant vermin, especially bark beetles (Scolytidae), or any insects not specified. In addition, in some areas the word also meant bear. Last century, scholars like Kaarle Krohn searched for the semantic connection by interpreting the animals as the souls of the dead. I disagree and argue that the semantic connection is rather based on a paradigm of agents that oppose the society’s interests. These real and supernatural creatures (ghosts, vermin, bear) represent rivals, with whom the human society had to divide their resources. Other meanings of such polysemous words referred to the lack of support to the human society’s normative ideals or reproduction inside the society. In addition to ghosts, kööpeli has meant ugly, grumpy and old people, especially the unmarried.

Among the petroglyph figures of faceless men within Horseshoe Canyon in Utah, the Holy Ghost stands seven feet high and dominates the others. It is the only figure that is a rebus, whose details comprise syllabic letters from Old European, a Finnish script. The figures date from 9000 to 7100 BC, when Folsom tribes populated the region. The inscription is an epitaph that says, “From his circle in the ground, eternal peace. Eheys and the fine spark of wizards disposed together in a hole.”

Käsittelen artikkelissani vuorovaikutusta osana suomen kielen kääntämisen opetusta unkarilaisten yliopisto-opiskelijoiden tutkinto-opetuksessa. Kokemukseni perustuvat kääntämisen opettamiseen Debrecenin yliopistossa, jossa työskentelin suomen kielen lehtorina vuosina 2011–2016.  Käännöksistä kielitaidon kehittämisen välineenä on pitkälti luovuttu aikana, jona opetuksen halutaan olevan funktionaalista, vuorovaikutteista ja oppijalähtöistä. Mainituista suuntauksista huolimatta luova käännöstyö ja sen haasteisiin tarttuminen kehittää opiskelijan kielitaitoa monella tasolla, kuten tekstinymmärryksen, fraseologian ja idiomien hallinnan sekä eri nyanssien ymmärtämisen saralla. Tarkastelen artikkelissani opetuksen tavoitteita, metodiikkaa, tuloksia ja kipukohtia. Tarkemmassa tarkastelussa on syyslukukauden 2015 käännöskurssi yksityiskohtineen
sekä se, miten vuorovaikutuksen eri tasot edistivät oppimista. Lehtorina työskennellessäni käytin käännösopetuksessa itse kehittämääni prosessimuotoista tekniikkaa, jonka alkuperäinen tarkoitus oli integroida unkaria puhumaton suomalainen harjoittelija mukaan opetustyöhön.

ROOMAN KUNINGAS Hukattu mahdollisuus! Suomennos ei juuri alkuperäistekstiä kunnioita. Käännös on polveilevan epätarkkaa ja asioiden merkitys tuntuu muuttuvan paikoin jopa kokonaan. Ilmeisesti suomentaja itse ei ole jalkapalloihmisiä. Suurin synti on, että käännös ei tavoita alkuperäisteoksen travertiininkovaa, yltiöpäisen fanaattista ja poliittisesti tuuliajoille jääneen kaoottisen metropolin arkielämän tuskasta polttoaineensa saavaa intohimoa, sitä jotain, joka tekee Tottista Rooman keisarin. Käännöksessä Totti-ilmiön ironinen sekä sosiologinen puoli jäävät lopulta lapsen kenkiin. Myös rikas italialainen jalkapallo-ja kannatustermistö on harmillisen hutiloiden suomennettu. Siinä suomentajan olisi ehkä kannattanut käyttää asiantuntija-apua.

Learn Finnish History in Finnish

Turku University together with Center for International Mobility (CIMO) will provide a summer course on Finnish history to foreign students from 13 July to 1 August 2015. Teaching will be delivered in Finnish. It is possible to apply for a scholarship (including travel grants) from CIMO for participation in this course (10 ECTS points). Requirements include a student status in some university, completed intensive studies of the Finnish language for two years, proficiency of the basic Finnish and ability to follow academic teaching in this language. In contrast, no previous studies of history is required.

Lecturers in this course are researchers and university teachers of Finnish history.

Deadline of online application: March 2, 2015.

The course will be held in Turku University campus, Turku, Finland.

Further information: Programme expert Leena Kärnä, Finnish Language and Culture, CIMO
Tel. +358 295 338 507, leena.karna@cimo.fi

as well as CIMO’s website:
http://cimo.fi/frontpage
http://www.cimo.fi/

Instructions in English:
http://www.cimo.fi/programmes/finnish_language_and_culture/support_to_students_outside_finland/summer_courses_in_finland (includes the online application form)

http://www.cimo.fi/programmes/finnish_language_and_culture/support_to_students_outside_finland/summer_courses_in_finland/summer_courses_2015

In Finnish:
http://www.cimo.fi/ohjelmat/suomen_kieli_ja_kulttuuri/ulkomaisille_opiskelijoille/kesakurssit_suomessa  (includes the online application form)

http://www.cimo.fi/ohjelmat/suomen_kieli_ja_kulttuuri/ulkomaisille_opiskelijoille/kesakurssit_suomessa/kesakurssit_2015

In addition, teachers of the Finnish language and culture in universities round the world can tell more about CIMO summer courses.


Ystävällisin terveisin / Friendly wishes
Timo Myllyntaus
Director of Organising Team

The history of music education in Finland was shaped in Helsinki and Viipuri, the latter being an old town (shaped by the Hansa Union) in today's Russia (Southern Karelia, a few miles away of Petersburg). The music institute, founded by Boris Sirpo (1893–1967; later active in Portland, Oregon), moved to Lahti in Mid-South Finland due to the WWII and the Sovjet occupation of Viipuri. Felix Krohn (1898–1963), relative of Ilmari Krohn, Julius Krohn, Kaarle Krohn et al., was its legendary director. This essay includes many rare pictures from the archives in Lahti, including famous former students like the "progidy" and US-violinist Heimo Haitto (1925–1999) and Jukka-Pekka Saraste (b. 1956) in action. Also rare pictures from Viipuri in the 1920s as well as various ensembles. The role of Naum Levin, Aarre Hemming, Juhana Kurki-Suonio and Boris Starckjohann (among others) is analyzed. Among many curiousities if the story of Reija Silvonen, Finland's first pianist in the final round of the Chopin competition (1960) and a student of one of the members in the jury, Bruno Seidelhofer from Vienna. The essay haqs an atobiographical touch, as the author himself also studied in the music institute of Lahti, as a child, from 1972 to 1982. the family of his mother comes from the Viipuri area in Karelia.

Artikkeli teoksessa Grönstrand, Heidi, Kauranen, Ralf, Löytty, Olli, Melkas, Kukku, Nissilä, Hanna-Leena, Pollari, Mikko (toim.) 2016: Kansallisen katveesta: Suomen kirjallisuuden ylirajaisuudesta. Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura.

The article discusses the following compositions by the Finnish contemporary composer Kaija Saariaho: Asteroid 4179: Toutatis for orchestra (2005), Notes on Light  for cello and orchestra (2006), clarinet concerto D'OM LE VRAI SENS (2010), Leino Songs for soprano and orchestra (2007), and Laterna Magica for ochestra (2008). The focus is on the musical semantics, especially on the musical imagery of mystery.