Fun (and funny) Finland!

First, the Finnish language…

Many people think that the Finnish language is similar to Scandinavian tongues (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian and Icelandic). However, Finnish is part of the language family Uralic and the Scandinavian languages (as well as English) are of Indo-European descent.

The Uralic languages form a language family of 38 languages spoken by approximately 25 million people, predominantly in Europe, and in northern Asia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian.

The name “Uralic” derives from the family’s purported “original homeland” (Urheimat) hypothesized to have been somewhere in the vicinity of the Ural Mountains.

Finland has two official languages: Finnish and Swedish.

The Finnish language is one of the ten most challenging languages in the world to learn and translate. It’s no wonder, when a noun can have over 200 forms or when one of the longest words is “epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydellänsäkään”!

Some fun Finnish words…

Suomi = Finland

Suomalainen = Finnish

Kiitos = Thank you

Hissi = Elevator

Taksi = Taxi

Kippi = Cheers

Olut = Beer

Vinni = Wine

Kalsarikannit = ‘Staying in drinking beer in your underwear with no intention of going out’

Krapula = Hangover

And some fun Finnish facts…

Finland is not considered to be a Scandinavian country. Instead, it’s a very proud Nordic nation.

The Finns drink more coffee per person than any other country in the whole world.

Finland has the most heavy metal bands per capita in the world. Finns love heavy metal so much, there is even a Dinosaur heavy metal band for children, helping them learn the lessons of staying in school, drinking milk and, of course, eating cookies.

Finland was listed as the happiest country in the world in the World Happiness Report by the UN in 2020. Finland is consistently at the top portion of the list.

Finland has more than 187,000 lakes and over 70% of the land is forested. Finland has the highest water to landmass ratio of all the countries in the world.

Helsinki, the capital of Finland, is one of the top ten cities in the world with the cleanest air.

Finland continues to increase in surface area each year as it is still recovering from the ice age glaciers whose weight sunk the land into the sea. It rises 3-9 millimeters per year.

October 13th in Finland is, “National Day of Failure” when Finns celebrate setbacks. Finnish people celebrate their mistakes and learn from them. Failure is nothing but redirection to celebrate as a natural path toward success.

Finland has some of the best education in the world. Even at the university level, Finland offers free education to residents and Non-EU nationals. Besides that, children don’t go to school till they are 7, and no one receives grades until grade eight..

There are over 2 million saunas in Finland – approximately one per household. And the word, “sauna” (pronounced saow-uun-ah) is the only Finnish word to be adopted into English. (I personally feel we should adopt ‘krapula’!!)