Two comments about "Emme ole vielä panneet täytäntöön Ranskan vallankumouksen ihanteetta, vapautta, tasa-arvoa ja veljeyttä."
1. ihanteetta is the abessive form of ihanne (ideal) meaning "without ideal", whereas the partitive form required here is ihannetta.
2. Although liberté, égalité, fraternité in the original French phrase, the established Finnish equivalent is vapaus, veljeys, tasa-arvo.
Juha Rämö 2018/7/12 - 14:00
Thank you for your invaluable remarks. These are my very first steps in the active use of (written) Finnish, after 35 years or so...one day or another, I hope to manage sufficiently well the variations of the Finnish noun and verb stems (vaikenen, vaieta, rupean, ruvennut, ruveta...ach so !!!)
You're welcome. I love my language, but I also feel for all those who try to learn it as a foreign one. With its 15 cases, complicated consonant gradation and homonyms one can only understand by understanding the context it must be one hell of a difficult language to learn. Some people say that Finnish is not difficult, because even small Finnish children are able to learn it. I doubt that, or what you say about the first word small children usually learn: in Finnish it's äiti while in most other languages it's something in the lines of mamma, mama, mom, mum.
I bought my first Finnish course ("Teach Yourself Finnish" by Arthur H. Whitney) when I was 17, 18 or so; I think it's one of my most worn-out language books! I also got a couple of Finnish courses written in Italian (by Finns, of course: Eeva Uotila Arcelli and Paula Loikala), and they are equally worn-out, and "On tie...", a Finnish course written in French by Anna Kokko-Zalcman with wit and humour; but, in my opinion, nothing compares to Maija Hellikki-Aaltio's "Finnish for Foreigners" in 2 volumes, and "A Grammar Book of Finnish" by Leila White, which I found, rather curiously, abandoned on a book exchange shelf in the lounge of a so-called "Casa del Popolo" in Settignano, a village near Florence. I humbly asked the barman if I could take the book for myself...he answered that he didn't even know that there's a language in the world called "Finnish"! I still wonder who left that treasure... (Continues)
I know exactly who had abandoned the Finnish Grammar. It must have been someone thinking "Enough is enough. Not in a million years will I learn this one!"
The Finnish palindrome factory is called Alivaltiosihteeri (Undersecretary of State), a comedy group that used to announce their "palindrome of the week" in their popular radio show titled "Alivaltiosihteeri - the official radio program of Finland" and aired from 1990 to 2017.
Here are a couple of titbits:
No, Turo, kenelle ne korut on?
Iske siat lekalla keltaiseksi.
Ikkunoita pesee se pation ukki.
Uupuva haapa vapisi: oisipa vapaa havupuu!
I think you're right; but, anyway, the person who abandoned the book wasn't angry with the Finnish language. The book (published in 2006) was brandy new, almost untouched! Thanks for the Finnish palindromes, they are really as nice as In girum imus nocte ecce et consumimur igni or the well known ΝΙΨΟΝ ΑΝΟΜΗΜΑΤΑ ΜΗ ΜΟΝΑΝ ΟΨΙΝ "Wash your sins, not only your face!" carved on holy water stoups in Greek churches!
One of the Finnish words foreigners try to pronounce in the above video clip is jäätelötötterö, a cone of ice cream (jäätelö = ice cream, tötterö = cone). I recently read an interesting book written by Dieter Hermann Schmitz, a German-born guy who has been living in Finland for ages and works as a German lecturer at the University of Tampere. The book was about a project where a team of linguists were in search of the most essential Finnish words. Among those words was also jäätelötötterö, a cone of ice cream. Here's how the author describes the word:
»Someone not knowing Finnish might easily think that the word jäätelötötterö is something imitating the neigh of a horse or the war cry shouted by Finnish soldiers when charging the enemy in the Thirty Years' War.«
Ciao, un piccolo appunto per la precisione: rail significa sì ferrovia o rotaia, ma non avrebbe senso appoggiarsi alla ferrovia sul porto. In questo contesto la traduzione migliore è a mio avviso “parapetto”, per intenderci come in guard rail.
Il termine svedese per “obiettore di coscienza”, värnpliktsvägrare (dichiaro di offrire una frugale cena a chi sarà in grado, in mia presenza, di pronunciarlo correttamente), è assai più diretto dell'edulcorato e ambiguo termine italiano (tant'è vero che è stato assunto anche dai medici “antiabortisti”): significa senzi mezze parole “chi rifiuta [vägrare] il servizio militare [värnplikt]”. Ciononostante, sono stato costretto a utilizzare il termine italiano corrente; non me ne venivano proprio altri.
Chanson autrichienne – Die Wahrheit ist, man hat mir nichts getan – Theodor Kramer – 1938
Interprétation : Topsy Küppers – 1973
Poème de Theodor Kramer (1897-1958), un des plus importants poètes autrichiens du siècle dernier.
De son recueil « Wien 1938. Die Grünen Kader Gedichte », publié en 1946, est tiré le morceau interprété par Topsy Küppers (1931-), chanteuse, actrice et militante antifasciste autrichienne, dans son album « Immer Wieder Widerstand » (1973)
Theodor Kramer fut soldat pendant la première guerre mondiale, dont il sortit vivant, mais gravement invalide. Après l’Anschluss, sa famille fut persécutée parce que juive (sa mère mourut en 1943, internée à Theresienstadt). En 1939, Theodor Kramer réussit à fuir en Angleterre, où pendant deux ans, il vécut dans un camp en tant qu’« étranger de nationalité ennemie ». Après la guerre, qui obtint la citoyenneté britannique et vécut... (Continues)
Caro Bernard, invece la poesia che hai scelto mi ricorda Tristan Corbière, d'altra parte erano bretoni entrambi: Tristan morì l'anno prima che nascesse Max che era decisamente più "positivo": "Uno stormo di piccioni sopra un melo, uno stormo di cacciatori, niente piccioni, uno stormo di ladri, niente mele, non rimane che un cappello di ubriaco appeso al ramo più basso. Bel mestiere il mercante di cappelli, mercante di cappelli di ubriachi. Se ne trovano un po’ ovunque dentro i fossi, sui prati, sopra gli alberi. Ce ne son sempre di nuovi da Kermarec mercante di cappelli a Lannion. Il vento lavora per lui..."
1. ihanteetta is the abessive form of ihanne (ideal) meaning "without ideal", whereas the partitive form required here is ihannetta.
2. Although liberté, égalité, fraternité in the original French phrase, the established Finnish equivalent is vapaus, veljeys, tasa-arvo.