Delores: Finnish translation

Those suffixes -sta and -nen are the same for all nouns? I.e. do they serve as prepositions placed after the noun? Kind of like “Look speck-of-dust-at” and “Pick speck-of-dust-up”?

Are you sure? Some nations translate even names of foreign cities: Nowy York (Polish) or Nuova York (although now I see it’s considered dated…?) I remember some Czech hockey player complaining that the Finnish language rarely imports foreign words and that it usually uses its own words. The whole Europe uses a telephone or a telefon but the Finns have “puhelin” so I expect Finns to translate at least “Post”. :wink:

Well, during the fascist period (1922-1943) every foreign name was forbidden, and translated in Italian. Even city names, like “Nuova York”. But it’s a thing of the past, at least in Italy.
France, for instance, is more nationalist.
Still, French people don’t use bytes. They use octets.
There are no computers, but ordinateurs.

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I suggest we all speak in the binary language of moisture evaporators.

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Not at all :sweat_smile:

Look at cat = Katso kissaa
Pick up cat = Ota kissa

Look at telephone = Katso puhelinta
Pick up telephone = Ota puhelin

Look at water = Katso vettä (where vesi is the base form)
Pick up water = Ota vettä

Look at snow = Katso lunta (where lumi is the base form)
Pick up snow = Ota lunta

Look at horse = Katso hevosta (where hevonen is the base form)
Pick up horse = Ota hevonen

Look at shrew = Katso päästäistä (where päästäinen is the base form)
Pick up shrew = Ota päästäinen

Look at pants = Katso housuja (where housut is the base form)
Pick up pants = Ota housut

Look at scissors = Katso saksia (where sakset is the base form)
Pick up scissors = Ota sakset

Look at child = Katso lasta (where lapsi is the base form)
Look spatula = Katso, lasta :sweat_smile:
Pick up child = Ota lapsi

I had pick up = poimi in the game, but I think I’ll change that to take = ota.

We don’t actually (mostly) translate names. New York is New York, Milano is Milano, München is München, people’s names are what they are. But there are some exceptions, e.g. London is Lontoo, Stockholm is Tukholma, Москва is Moskova, 東京 is Tokio, and many country names are translated too (Ranska, Saksa, Iso-Britannia, Yhdysvallat, Venäjä…). Papers’ names are never translated.

For the game translation it’s mostly a matter of deciding where the town is located. If it’s in USA, the names should not be translated. If it would be “translocated” to Finland, the names should be translated. I decided not to move the whole city to another continent :slightly_smiling_face:

+1 for Dutch

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I thought they used a “nokia” :drum:

That’s a town near Tampere.

It doesn’t sound unlike “phone” to me. :wink: Nonsense etymology incoming…

Phone → Puh-hone.
Puh-hone + German diminutive suffix -lin = Puh-ho-lin.

I think it could work in Dutch:

Ik bel je morgen op m’n fonelien.
Ik bel je morgen op m’n fonelientje.

Moreover, they exist in the UK! https://www.fonelineromford.co.uk/ (What do you mean that’s “line” and not “leen”? :wink: )

Foneline was founded in 1982 and we specialise in the supply, installation and maintenance of Telephone systems, Network solutions, CCTV and Access control systems. We also supply telephone equipment nationwide at very competitive prices. Please contact us for a free quotation.

I miss the days when the whole world* just spoke Latin

*well, the world that counted, of course :stuck_out_tongue:

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:grinning:
In Finnish the telephone was actually called ‘telefooni’ until early 1900s, when ‘puhelin’ replaced it.
Etymology of puhelin, according to Wikipedia, is ‘puhella’ (talk with oneself) + ‘in’, but I would say a better explanation is that two words are combined: ‘puhe’ (a speech) + ‘elin’ (an organ).

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As I’m sure you know phone is Greek for speech (and tele- is Greek for distance), so it’s still intriguingly similar even if Finnish is not an Indo-European language. :slight_smile:

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In German mobile phones are typically called Handy. This probably sounds strange to a lot of foreigners (it comes from hand-telephone and has nothing to do with the English word handy).

In Finland the mobile phones have been called kännykkä since 1977, which means exactly the same as in German.

It’s interesting that some kinds of government like to control even words. :smirk:

Well, the Czechs are also a bit guilty of this. The official word is “počítač” (počítat = to count, so it’s very similar to “ordinateur” or “der Rechner”) but there other colloquial words derived from English - mostly “komp” or “pecko” (derived from “PC”). However my favorite is “mogbuk” which comes from a misspelled personal ad that went viral: “Selling mogbuk - like computer.”

Well… in Finnish a computer is tietokone, an information (or knowing) machine :slightly_smiling_face:

I see - so these are basically cases.

Your list made me to look at Wikipedia…


… and its list seems to be more friendly with less exceptions - or just too simplified. :slightly_smiling_face:

A computer is a person who performs calculations. Then there’s the device, also called computer, that made it so that person’s now out of a job. In Dutch those were rekenaars (cf. German Rechner), but in French they were calculateurs. In any case it’s not like it’s a “new” word; we simply happened to borrow the word computer for the new device but it could’ve easily become a rekenaar. The difference is that in Dutch it would’ve happened organically while in French there’s an academy wagging its finger about saying computer’s an English loanword, use ordinateur instead!

Spot on. :grinning:

I find the French case very strange. There were similar trends in Czech language during 18th and 19th centuries because of the pressure of Austrian German so the nationalists were trying to get rid of German words and “clean the language” but it almost stopped before the end of 19th century even though Austrian government continued until 1918. I always felt it’s a psychological complex of small nations but French is one of the biggest languages in the world (#15) and still it feels the urge to fight against other languages (mostly English).