Finnish: The superior language
Hannah Krusty
Staff Writer
A SATIRE PIECE
Here’s why Finnish is the superior language.
First of all, you can create cool ambiguous words like aamupalaverihuone. Depending on how you split that up, it can mean morning meeting room or breakfast blood room. Pretty cool, right?
Or how about their equivalent idiom of “it fits like a glove,” a pretty popular one in other languages too. “It fits like a ring on the finger” in Spanish, “it fits like a painted on shoe” in Italian, etc. Boring, right? Try Finnish!
“It fits like a fist in the eye.”
Finnish also has the word kalsarikännit, which describes getting drunk alone in your underwear at home. So far, we’ve gotten some pretty metal and punk stuff on the table.
If you’d like something cuter, hyppytyynytyydytys means “bouncy cushion satisfaction.” I’m sorry, but you’ll have to seek me or a Finnish speaker out on campus if you’d like to hear it pronounced. There’s just no good way to describe how it’s supposed to sound.
There’s vihdoin vihdoin vihdoin, which means “I finally whipped myself with a birch branch.” Now, that’s an actual thing Finns do in saunas, so go ahead and throw that one out next time you enter that wooden hell called a sauna (pronounced s-OW-nah).
Hääyöaieuutinen has a whopping nine vowels in a row and means “wedding night intention news.” Get your mind out of the gutter. Somebody please get ahold of me if there’s a word (with Latin characters) that has more consecutive vowels!
Here’s a cool tongue twister that makes me want Cocoa Puffs: Kokoo kokoon koko kokko! Koko kokkoko? Koko kokko. Need a translation? “Gather up a full bonfire! A full bonfire? A full bonfire.”
Kuusi palaa can mean nine different things. I don’t want to get into it too much, but this is because of suffixes, the nature of changing the meaning of sentences in Finnish. As follows, you’ve got: the spruce is on fire, your moon is on fire, the number six is on fire, six (of them) are on fire, six (of them) return, the number six returns, the spruce returns, your moon returns, and six pieces.
You’ve got Juoksentelisinkohan, which translates to “I wonder if I should run around aimlessly?”
Now for the one you’ve been waiting for. Lentokonesuihkuturbiinimoottoriapumekaanikkoaliupseerioppilas. It’s sixty-one glorious letters of headache. It means “aeroplane jet turbine motor assistant mechanic, non-commissioned officer, in training,” and yes, I know it doesn’t make sense in English either.
Finnish is indeed a linguistic masterpiece. Why do you think Tolkien liked it so much?
So next time you’re in asauna, try to kalsarikännit(if you legally can, of course!)while yelling “Vihdoin vihdoin vihdoin!” and whipping yourself with birch. You will be indulging in true Finnish culture, which is pretty much maximum relaxation.