Thursday, July 24, 2008

Favourite Finnish Words

The Finnish language is a beautiful language which is very different from most European languages. When I lived in Finland from 2003-2004, I had the opportunity to study this fascinating language. Though it is classified in the same language family as Hungarian (Uralic language family), the similarities between them are not as great as one might expect.

I decided to make a list of my ten favourite Finnish words. These are words that I consider among the most beautiful in the language. Because my knowledge of Finnish is rather limited, though, this list is far from perfect. Nevertheless, here it is. I provide the English translation next to the Finnish word.

1) vesi (water)

2) sininen (blue)

3) taivas (sky)

4) lumi (snow)

5) valkoinen (white)

6) lintu (bird)

7) aurinko (sun)

8) maailma (world)

9) kiitos (thank you)

10) rakkaus (love)

The word "maailma" consists of the word maa (land) and the word ilma (air). The combination of the two words creates the word "world". Though Finnish is a very challenging language to learn, I'm very grateful that I had the chance to study this beautiful language in the city of Jyväskylä, Finland.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Those indeed are beautiful words. I like the word "mustikkapiirakka", which means blueberry pie.

Les Zsoldos said...

I agree that it's a beautiful word.

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