ORATIO OBLIQUA.
A sentence in oratio obliqua can be rendered by the participial constructions above described, or by a sentence beginning with että, that. In this latter case the sentence is constructed exactly as in English.
Hän sanoi ettei se ole varma, mutta että koettaisi tiedustaa tarkemmin, he said it was not certain, but that he would endeavour to obtain more accurate information. Minä kysyin häneltä oliko hän kuullut että ystäväni oli kuollut ja pyysin että hän kirjoittaisi, I asked him if he had heard that my friend was dead, and begged him to write.
The word muka is often used to denote that a statement rests not on the authority of the speaker but of some one else.
Hän ei tahtonut viipyä: oli muka kovin väsyksissä, he did not want to wait, saying he was very tired. Luulevat hänen veljensä tulevan: hän oli muka kirjoittanut jollekulle, people think his brother is coming: it is said he has written to some one. Hän eroitti palvelijansa se kun oli muka varas, he dismissed his servant because he was a thief (according to his master’s statement).
ON THE DIALECT OF THE KALEVALA.
There are two main dialects of Finnish, the Western, which has produced the modern literary language, and the Eastern, in which the Kalevala is written. There are also many others of which perhaps the most important is that called the Savolaks dialect, which is hardly a literary language, though in the ‘Lönrötin Albumi,’ p. 286, there is a story called ‘Keisarin tuttu’ written in it. It appears to be characterized by a great fondness for the sound of i, which is added to other vowels; e.g. tiällä for täällä, hiän for hän. On the other hand i is often apparently shortened to a semivowel, merely modifying the previous consonant; e.g. olj for oli. The letter d does not occur, but is represented by j or v, meijänni for meidänkin, käyvä for käydä. The dialect would seem to be generally characterized by a soft and rather thick utterance. Olen becomes oun and olette, outta. V is frequently doubled; e.g. hyvvee päivee, and o is often used for a; e.g. mokomoo for mokomaa. So also we have forms like soatanoo for saatanee, pankoo for pankaa. The root of verbs has the letter k added in the negative and imperative forms: en annak, annak.
On the Eastern frontier of Finland and in the adjoining parts of the Russian Government of Olonetz is spoken a dialect called Karelian, which in its present form is much corrupted by the influence of Russia. The Kalevala, however, which was mostly collected in this part of the world, is written in a pure Finnish dialect, which has come to be accepted as the ordinary language of poetical composition.
The chief peculiarities of the dialect of the Kalevala are as follows[18]:—