Hey all,
I like etymology. When I see a word I don’t know - or even one I know but I can’t quite guess where it might come from - I look it up.
And so I do too with Finnish words. And there’s something that has been puzzling me for quite some time: a surprising number of very common, everyday Finnish words, seem to have been coined very recently, in the 19th and early 20th century.
I’m not talking about words that describe new things, like automobiles or electric devices. It would make sense that words describing those things came about when those things first appeared. And I’m not talking about words borrowed from other languages. I’m talking much more generic words entirely made up in Finnish. For instance:
- Lihas: liha + -s. Coined by Finnish teacher and linguist Gustaf Erik Eurén in 1860.
- Osake: osa + -ke. Coined by Finnish author and journalist Pietari Hannikainen in 1847.
- Kahvila: kahvi + -la. Coined by Finnish politician, historian and professor Yrjö Sakari Yrjö-Koskinen in 1861.
Now here’s the mystery: I’m pretty sure muscles, company shares and coffee houses existed in Finland before the mid-19th century. So what were those things called before? Why did some people decide to coin new words for them? Why did so many new Finnish words seem to appear in that time period?
I’ve asked my Finnish friends but they don’t know. They don’t even seem to be aware that a lot of their language is actually quite recent.
Any linguist out there who would know?
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If I had to guess people used the Swedish equivalence of these words before someone came up with a Finnish translations. Many of the words in Finnish language have Swedish origins.
Not a full answer, but maybe a factor. Early 1900s Finland was quite agrarian and common people lived a simple lifes. Upper class and educated used Swedish even though national romantic movement had been influencing things since late 1800s. Finland properly industrialized after second world war and a slurry of new words were needed.
Why did so many new Finnish words seem to appear in that time period?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fennoman_movement
Many concepts simply didn’t have Finnish words, a lot of it was all Swedish back then.
Not a linguist, but this should be fairly common knowledge.
Ah yes, I forgot about the fennoman movement. That would certainly explain the flurry of new words at that time.
Still, what you’re saying is that native Finnish speakers before that time didn’t have words for universal concepts like “muscle” and used the Swedish “muskel” - or some variation thereof. I have a hard time wrapping my head around that.
All languages typically have native words for such fundamental concepts. I understand that speakers onboard loadwords from other languages when they need to start talking about new concepts. But surely a muscle has been known and talked about since time immemorial.
The Finnish language is centuries old and originally came from hungary - to grossly oversimplify things. I’m sure ancient people in Hungary spoke of muscles without using the Swedish word, and whatever word they used must have found its way to Finland and got mixed up / adapted / shifted over time like all words, but essentially stayed more or less the same. Why would ancient Finns ditch their native word and use “muskel” instead?
The only times I’ve head this sort of thing happening in any language is when the powers-that-be decide to outlaw the use of a language and mandate the use of another by force, like Quechua in South America. But to my knowledge, Sweden never forcibly forbade the Finns from speaking their language. Or did they?
That’s the mystery to me. Also, in case it wasn’t obvious, I’m not a Finn. So I’m sorry if all this is obvious to you guys, or if I’m ignoring some well-known historical facts, or if I’m being a time waster 🙂
