SENSE OF HUMOR HELPS THE FINNS

[Jone]

This is a copy of an article written by Howard Reid in the Chronicle
Journal. Year unknown.

If you can't laugh at yourself you had just as well stop the world & get off. Nils Inkila has a good sense of humor. He spotted a column by Bill Farmer in the News-Tribune, a Knight-Ridder newspaper poking fun at his native tongue. Called When Finns Speak Everybody Listens (its just that nobody understands). Hear it is for your pleasure.

Finnish is easy. All you do is tape record English & then play it
backwards.

The language is like the Finns themselves-it has nothing to do with Russia or Sweden, despite their proximity. Finnish, I think was invented by an ancient king who commanded the people of his domain to speak like him upon the penalty of death. The monarch's name I shall give as King Toivo 1, or Toivo the Stutter. It was Toivo's lingual philosophy that why
use one letter when two or three will do.

Take the word cigarette lighter. It is savukkeensytytin which is why Finns carry matches.

When the Finns start a word they see how many foreigners they can weed out on the first syllable. Take the Finnish word for "93". The first three letters are "yhd" That eliminates a lot of competition right there.For the full Finnish word for "93" I would advise that you fasten your seat belts & put on your crash helmut. Here it goes. "yhdeksankymmentakolme" According to Berlitz that is pronounced simply
"EWHdayksaenKEWMmayntaeKOALmay"Finns have died of old age trying to count to 100.

Part of the problem with the Finnish language is that the Finns don't mess around with any bitsy words at all. If they are going to use the word "the" or "a" or"or"by" they just stick it unto nearby word as an ending.

And don't think you are going to get away with not pronouncing every letter either. Nothing is wasted in Finnish. Sometimes, when they use a couple or three vowels in a row, they'll put two little dots over the tops of some of them just to break the monotony. Those little dots mean something. In the word for "pencil sharpener" which is spelled "kynanterooittimen" they put two little dots over the "a" and that means
it is pronounced like an "a" and an "e" slopped together.It also means you are going to find a lot of dull pencils in Finland. It is the only language I know of where the phonetic spelling is more complicated than the regular spelling. To say "pencil sharpener" for example

you should start with a bottle of good finnish beer.Take a deep breath, roll back your eyes and say: KEWnae (run that "a" and "e" together now, remember?)nTAYR(stop here & have a sip of beer)roa(than comes a very, very small "I" that fools a lot of people, but without it the word means "spinach" or something entirely different from "pencil sharpener")ttimm(more beer please)mayn."

Okay,all together now. KEWnaenTAYroaittimmayn!

There now wasn't that easy? Where's the bottle opener.

During a recent visit to Finland I never saw a crossword puzzle. The papers weren't large enough to cover both horizontal & vertical, I guess.

The word for "No"is "aye" which means yes in English, & the word "hyvva" ( with two little dots side by side over both 'a's' or 'ae-ae') means hello or goodbye depending onwhat direction you're going.

Now the word for 'yes' is simple. It is 'kylla'. The trouble is nobody
uses it. They all say 'joo' or 'yoa' or 'yo' which naturally is not
Finnish at all but is Swedish. To say 'yes,yes' they say 'yo-yo'. I can't imagine what the Finnishword is for 'yo-yo' is but it must be a dandy-dandy.

Finnish is related to Hungarian by a previous marriage. That's why the second language of Finland is of coarse Swedish. Everyone speaks English,
however, so don't worry if you ever go there.

For an emergency, I tried to learn the Finnish expresssion for "Get me to the doctor, quick"

[cosmichd]

ok. time to explain the bean up the nose reference, if only to gets you monkeys off my back.
when my mother was young she was sitting at the kitchen table helping my grandmother prepare little black beans for dinner. my grandmother, for no good reason, warns my mother not to put beans up her nose. they continue working. in a little while my mother gets up and leaves the room. she returns a bit later, her nose and eyes red, crying. it seems she snuck some beans in her pocket, went into the other room, and immediately stuck them up her nose. she couldn't get the last one out. years later she tells me this story as we're shelling peas in the kitchen. and now, the punchline: seems when my *grandmother* was young.....she was playing a game with her brother. they were using little black beans for markers. her brother told her: don't put the beans up your nose. she stuck the beans up her nose; when she tried to remove the last two she couldn't, and they had to take her to the doctor to have them removed.

no one in the family knows whether or not my great-grandmother ever stuck beans up her nose. Did I, myself, stick beans up my nose at some point? I think you know the answer to that question.

[Tero]

The claims by Jone are largely true. Except the phonetic spelling. In that department, I think the English-only speakers should just shut up.;)

[FINSKI]

Good story from Jone. I forwarded it to my co-workers here and they had fun reading it :)
But for a new Finnish immigrant (which I was ones long time ago) the local accent in Texas and some of the idioms are not easy understand either.

So, I'm fixing to go now.....

FINSKI

".....Just An Other Finn Far Away From Home....."