FINNISH - A WORLD LANGUAGE by Richard D. Lewis Has the time arrived for Finnish to take its place as a world language? It is quite obvious that it is difficult to answer such o question with any degree of certainty. At the moment there seem to be several factors hindering such a development. Firstly, it is spoken by only 0,06 % of the worlds population; secondly, it cannot be learned in ten easy lessons; thirdly, there are still some Finns who can’t understand it. Furthermore, support for its use in. International affairs is rather difficult to : procure outside Finland ‘s borders, since the only related languages are Hungarian, Estonian and a few obscure dialects spoken in the middle of Siberia. Hungarians and Finns understand each other just about as well as do Eskimos and Zulus, and.-Estonia never did wield great linguistic influence, while nobody has heard about the little brothers in Siberia for a long, long time. If its progress has been a little slow, however, Finns point out quite rightly that as a world language Finnish has the following advantages: 1. It is essentially a logical language. The rules are absolutely rigid and apart from exceptions, hold fast on all occasions. 2. It is a euphonious language, in other words, it pleases the ear. This is by virtue of its abundance of vowels, which eliminates ugly, consonantal conglomerations. It was recently proposed to export a few vowels to Czechoslovakia, where they are getting rather short of them, and import a few Czech consonants in their place, but negotiations broke down at an early stage. The Finns decided they wanted .nothing to do with a language which called ice-cream zmrzlinc vhile the Chechs were equally distrustful of a language which called it jäätelöä. 3. It is a concise language. One Finnish v/ord may express several words in English; why waste time and energy saying the secretarial department of the committee dealing with the negotiations for the cessation of hostilities when you can use a simple little word like aseleponeuvottelutoimikunnan sihteeristö (ed. note: we know it says this is just one word, but we couldn’t get Oscar, the linotype operator, to do it that way . He insisted that it really is two words, no matter what the author says). . . 4. Learning Finnish inspires confidence in your own abilities. If you can learn Finnish, you can learn ANYTHING. . It has bigger and better swear-words than any other language. It is a rich language, in so far as one sentence may possess unlimited shades of meaning. In other words, you may say one thing and mean another. You may even mean the opposite. This device is especially useful for politicians, Lawyers, witnesses, rnothers-in-Iaw, doctors, fortunetellers, commercial travelers, taxi-drivers and philosophers. In the light of these facts, it will be readily agreed that the establishment of Finnish as a universal tongue would be nothing short of a blessing for humanity In general. The problem with which we are confronted, then, is that of inducing the remaining 99,94 % of the world’s population to learn Finnish. This can be done only by drastically simplifying Finnish grammar as it appears in present-day grammar books, and presenting to the student some system of far less fearsome aspect. This should be a combination of broad rules giving a concise but penetrating survey of the language and general hints showing cll the short cuts to early success. In this respect we have resolved to give the world the benefits of our own experience with the language, and after months of intensive (at times even desperate) research have evolved the following method of attack upon what has hitherto proved to be one of the worlds most formidable linguistic hurdles: THE EASYWAY TO FINNISH or FINNISH IN 90 YEARS WITHOUT A TEACHER NOUNS AND THEIR CASES: This is a fascinating subject. While Latin and German experiment with paltry five or six cases, the Finns show how cute they are by nonchalantly reeling off fifteen of them. Of course, for a born Finn this is not as difficult as it sounds. Let us suppose that a new-born child speaks only in the nominative till the age of one, then in the nominative and accusative till he is two, bringing in the genitive in the third year, and so on. By the time he is fifteen he knows all the cases. A foreigner, beginning to learn Finnish, at say 25 and using the same system has a good chance to being fairly proficient in case-usage at the age of 40, although we must remember that he still has it all to do in the plural. He should have managed this, however( by the time he is 55, and if he does hot take more than six years over the pronouns, a man in good health might live to master at least twelve adjectives. REMEMBER: Confidence is the key to success. Never hesitate. When about to use a noun, you should reflect rapidly along the following lines: l . What is the noun in Finnish? .• 2. Singular or plural? - Which gender? (N. B. this can be quickly answered, as there is no gender in Finnish.) Which case? - Nominative, accusative, genitive, essive, partitive, translative, Inessive, elative, illative, adessive, ablative, allative, abessive, comitative, or instructive. Is it possible to ovoid using it? Having dealt with these considerations In the proverbial fraction of a second, you then inhale deeply and articulate the first half of the noun in stentorian tones which gradually diminish to a hoarse whisper as the case-ending is pronounced. This method of demonstrating your capabilities in case-usage can be recommended as quite safe, since, although you cannot prove that you were right, no Finn or anybody else can prove that you were wrong. Above all, look confident. NUMBERS: Basically the Finnish and English systems offer few indícations of similarity at first. For example: Yksi - One Kuusi - Six Kaksi - Two Seitsemän - Seven Kolme - Three Kahdeksan - Eight Nelja - Four Yhdeksän - Nine Viisi - Five Kymmenen - Ten Closer examination, however, reveals the following facts which might be of considerable help to the learner: a . Kolme and Three each have five letters b. Viisi and Five are both constructed around the letter v c. Seitsemän and Seven obviously are derived from a common origin (apparently a word beginning with s) *% FURTHER HINTS ON LEARNING NUMBERS; Forget the English numbers entirely. Then you will have to learn the Finnish ones in order to tell the time. If such a step causes difficulties when you later try to speck English, you can easily emply a Finnish- English dictionary, or, in case of numbers up to twenty, your fingers and toes. Do not waste your time learning numbers over twenty million. You are not likely to have that much money, even in Finnmarks. MONTHS AND DAYS: Say “first day, second day, third day, next to last month, etc. This solves you two years learning the names and makes the person you are talking to do all the work. THE DIRECT CSJECT: Most Finnish grammars are particularly lucid about this. They read something like this: In Finnish the Direct Object, (Universally known as the accusative) may be In the nominative, genetive or partitive. For purposes of clarity the nominative and genetive will be called accusative. There also exists a genuine accusative which is not called anything at all. Considerable care is thus required when interpreting grammatical terms. If you see the word accusative it may mean nominative or genitive but never accusative; the term nominative might mean accusative or possibly the real nominative; “genitive might mean accusative or just proto genitive, while the partitive is always called the partitive although it may really be the accusative. Obviously, the two salient points arising from this analysis are: l . you may call anything accusative if you think it is something else. If you see a real accusative, keep your mouth shut. 2. It Is dangerous to accuse anybody of anything. VERBS: The best advice is: Dont use verbs at all. Occasionally you may find it rather difficult to converse at any length without using verbs, but assiduous practice in this art will make you adept. (N. B. We reduced our errors by 20 % when we hit upon the notion of leaving out verbs. You may cut out another 15 % by omitting all adjectives, adverbs and pronouns, although conversation tends to fall rather flat unless you are clever with your hands.) PRONUNCIATION; A few difficult sounds: aa as e in expatiatory but longer and more vehement. Mouth open as much as possible and ears well back. ay half palatal, half alveolar, half dental. Scornful expression, yo .be very careful with this. yi never as in Hi-yi-yippi-yippi-yi. h clear your throat lustily. That’s it. u as in the Arabic. r rolled strongly. False teeth cn advantage here. b, c,f, g, q, w, z, x do not exist in Finnish. Pronounce very quietly. Taken From: FINLANDIA PICTORIA L; November 1953, No. 11, Vol. VII
Posted on: Sat, 13 Sep 2014 03:41:53 +0000