Finnish possesses a you and a thou, which fact, though it cannot lighten the difficulties, does away with the terrible third person invariably in use in Swedish, where people say calmly:
"Has the Herr Professor enjoyed his breakfast?"
"Yes, thanks, and I hope the Mrs. Authoress has done the same."
By the Swedish-speaking Finns it is considered the worst of ill-breeding for a younger person to address an elder as "you," or for strangers to speak to one another except in the manner above indicated.
Finnish is one of the softest of tongues, and of all European languages most closely resembles the Magyar or Hungarian. Both of these come from the Ugrian stock of Agglutinative languages, and therefore they always stick to the roots of the word and make grammatical changes by suffixes. Vowels are employed so incessantly that the words are round and soft, and lend themselves easily to song. There are only twenty-two letters in the Finnish alphabet, and as F is very seldom employed, even that number is decreased. The use of vowels is endless; the dotted ö, equivalent to the French eu, being often followed by an e or i, and thereby rendered doubly soft.
Finns freely employ thou and thee, and add to these forms of endearment numerous suffixes. Human names, all animals, plants, metals, stones, trees—anything, in fact—can be used in the diminutive form.
Finnish is almost as difficult to learn as Chinese. Every noun has sixteen cases, and the suffixes alter so much, one hardly recognises the more complicated as the outcome of the original nominative. It takes, therefore, almost a lifetime to learn Finnish thoroughly, although the structure of their sentences is simple, and, being a nation little given to gush, adverbs and adjectives are seldom used.
As an example of Finnish, we give the following table made out at our request, so that we might learn a few sentences likely to prove useful when travelling in the less-frequented parts of the country—every letter is pronounced as written.
| Finnish. | English. | |
|---|---|---|
| Hyvää huomenta. | Good morning. | |
| Hyvää iltaa. | Good evening. | |
| Hyvää päivää. | Good day. | |
| Hyvää yötä. | Good night. | |
| Hyvästi. | Adieu. | |
| Jumalan haltuun. | God be with you. | |
| Kuinka voitte? | How are you? | |
| Olkaa niin hyvä. | Be so kind. | |
| Pyydän, or olkaa niin hyvä. | Please; yes, please. | |
| Kiitoksia. | Thank you. | |
| Kiitän. | I thank you. | |
| Saisinko minä vuoteen. | I want a bed. | |
| Saisinko minä yösijaa? | Can I stay the night? | |
| Saisinko luvan tietää mitäruokaa teillä on? | May I know what there is to eat? | |
| Saisiko täällä ruokaa? | Can we get anything to eat? | |
| Saisiko täällä juomaa? | Can we get anything to drink? | |
| Paljoko se maksaa? | } | What does it cost? |
| Mitä se maksaa? | ||
| Mitä olen velkaa? | What do I owe you? | |
| Mitä olemme velkaa? | What do we owe you? | |
| Me tahdomme lähteä (or matkustaa) kello yksi. | We would like to leave at one o'clock. | |
| Millä tunnilla saavumme perille? | At what time will we arrive? | |
| Kuinka kaukana se on? | How far is it? | |
| Onko sinne pitkältä? | Is it far from here? | |
| Olkaa hyvä tuokaa vielä lihaa. | Please bring some more meat. | |
| Kuulkaa? | Do you hear? | |
| Heti. | Quick. | |
| Finnish. | English. | Finnish. | English. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Maitoa. | Milk. | Leipää. | Bread. |
| Voita. | Butter. | Kahvia. | Coffee. |
| Sokeria. | Sugar. | Kaloja. | Fish. |
| Munia. | Eggs. | Olutta. | Beer. |