Sauna

[Rosamunda]

From Johnson in the Economist:

http://www.economist.com/node/21534838

...why it should be pronounced the Finnish way

[AldenG]

From Johnson in the Economist:

http://www.economist.com/node/21534838

...why it should be pronounced the Finnish way

That link went to an article on workers in China not getting paid.

But this one should go to the page you had in mind: Johnson on pronunciation.

[Rosamunda]

That's the one, thanks! I was doing too many things at the same time.

[tuulen]

Johnson makes a good point. The Estonians have theirs and the Russians have theirs, but sa-u-na is a Finnish word!

[Rosamunda]

Yes, his point was that sauna is the ONLY Finnish word that has been transferred to English, so - respect - we should all make the effort to pronounce it as the Finns do!

Nice point, but I wonder if it really is the ONLY Finnish word that is in common usage in English.

[Pursuivant]

Don't know, but its by far more pleasant than the Swedish word ( ombudsman) or the Norwegian word ( quisling)

[Karhunkoski]

Don't know, but its by far more pleasant than the Swedish word ( ombudsman) or the Norwegian word ( quisling)

They also gave fjord, so at least two contributions to English.

[Karhunkoski]

I was just about to chuck in gravlax, and then I found this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_En ... ish_origin

Moped

[Karhunkoski]

Nice point, but I wonder if it really is the ONLY Finnish word that is in common usage in English.

The search is over:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_En ... ish_origin


Now everyone get outside and enjoy the sunny weather!

[Rosamunda]

-13C in my back yard this morning But yes, a lovely day. Time to take the dogs out...

[Rob A.]

I was just about to chuck in gravlax, and then I found this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_En ... ish_origin

Moped

Yeah ...looks more like a Latin-Greek type combo word. But I notice Swedish contributed the word, "tungsten" ...the chemical element, which I guess most of you here will know is Swedish for, "heavy stone"...though Swedish, like Finnish, German, etc., uses the German derived word, "volfram". But there are a whole bunch of other chemical elements that derive their names from Swedish....in fact, four of them come from one Swedish place name, "Ytterby"...."yttrium..."ytterbium", "terbium" and "erbium"..... there's "scandium"...probably from Swedish... and back in those days, in scientific circles, educated Finns were kind of viewed as Swedish.... so there is the name of the Finnish chemist, Gadolin, whose name was given to the element, "gadolinium".... so is that another Finnish word contributed to the English language?....

They are all basically gray metals..

"Yttrium"...an alloy of this one is very critical in certain kinds of laser technology.....allowing an amazing alignment of light waves....I don't really know but I guess it has to do with its crystal structure....
"Ytterbium"....also used in laser technology
"Terbium"....this one plays a role in acoustic amplification
"Erbium"....this one, a role in laser pulse amplification......
"Scandium"...used with aluminum for a stronger, lighter alloy...I have a "scandium-aluminum" bicycle frame...
"Gadolinium"....used in MRI scans....

[Upphew]

and back in those days, in scientific circles, educated Finns were kind of viewed as Swedish.... so there is the name of the Finnish chemist, Gadolin, whose name was given to the element, "gadolinium".... so is that another Finnish word contributed to the English language?....

As his father was born in Sweden proper, I'd say the name is not Finnish. And those days it was common to change ones name to fancier one if you got to better circles, like Purtanen -> Porthan ( http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrik_Gabriel_Porthan ).

[Jukka Aho]

From Johnson in the Economist:

http://www.economist.com/node/21534838

...why it should be pronounced the Finnish way

[...] this one should go to the page you had in mind: Johnson on pronunciation.

He writes:

In Finnish, where every syllable is pronounced separately, the word should correctly be said as three syllables, sa-oo-na, although even dedicated adherents to the Finnish pronunciation tend to shorten this to sow-na. Sadly, when I use this version back in England I’m most usually greeted with a wry smile and corrected with polite condescension. And sauna is a word which crops up a lot more frequently than Fittipaldi.

I’m afraid he is a bit misinformed there: the word sau-na actually only has two syllables in Finnish. But it is true, of course, the native pronunciation is much closer to sow-na than saw-na.

I think it is only natural the pronunciation of loan words — especially those that have been accepted as part of everyday language and aren’t considered “foreign” any longer — tends to normalize towards the phonetic conventions of the receiving language.

You could even argue whether ‘sauna’ in English and sauna in Finnish are the “same” word any longer. The word ‘sauna’ seems to have taken on a more general meaning in English; being also associated with erotic massage services and other kinds of “hot rooms” which a Finn would never classify a sauna proper. (Or indeed a sauna at all.)

Proper names are a bit more challenging thing. For example, those who speak a tonal language (such as the various dialects of Chinese) might have a name which should be pronounced using the correct tone so as not to mean something entirely different... then again, agglutinative languages, such as Finnish, need to tack various case endings and clitics onto all nouns, including proper names of foreign origin, which might sometimes present slight problems.

Given enough instruction and willingness to practice a bit, everyone should be able to learn to pronounce at least the names of their personal friends or acquaintances correctly, out of general courtesy, no matter where in the world they come from... but people are often lazy or unwilling to go through even that little trouble. Or the foreigners with difficult-to-pronounce names never give them a chance in the first place. (Take for example all the Chinese students who generally want Westerners to refer to them by a Western first name they have adopted for themselves for convenience reasons instead of teaching them to pronounce their actual name.)

But back in the old days, even the foreign rulers got local “convenience names”... (such as Carl Gustav → Kaarle Kustaa, King George → Kuningas Yrjö, etc. in Finnish) and many languages still use exonyms for important and well-known foreign place names... such as the English ‘Cologne’ for the city that the locals know as Köln, or the Finnish ‘Tukholma’ for the place that the locals call Stockholm.

[AldenG]

Given enough instruction and willingness to practice a bit, everyone should be able to learn to pronounce at least the names of their personal friends or acquaintances correctly, out of general courtesy, no matter where in the world they come from... but people are often lazy or unwilling to go through even that little trouble.

This interpretation overlooks those who think they are pronouncing your name just fine, but that you yourself have this thing akin to a speech impediment known as a Finnish accent which makes you stumble over the kk -- and that surely you will learn to pronounce your name better if they only have the patience to model it for you in English a sufficient number of times.

-- an attitude, by the way, that amuses me only slightly less than the notion (recently recounted in another discussion hereabouts) that blacks in Finland should properly be called African-Americans in order to avoid giving offense.

Still, when I say the word Paris in English, I pronounce it as English-speakers pronounce it. In fact, most anybody I encounter daily would think I was being pretentious and ridiculous to do otherwise. So I can understand that some people feel it is only proper to pronounce a name according to the language they're speaking at the moment. And it's only a small step farther for them to assume that when speaking English, you'd say your name in English if only you could. I've known more than one university instructor in Finland to act that way.

(And honestly now, is it possible to believe that Achilles was killed by someone who talked and dressed like Maurice Chevalier? So what IS the correct pronunciation of the name?)

My wife's name is almost precisely as uncomplicated as your own. But some Americans are stopped dead in their tracks trying to imitate her pronunciation of it -- they hear there is something quite out of the ordinary (a double consonant in each name) but as though she were clicking in Xhosa they are unable to grasp what they just heard or to even try to imitate it. They literally stop in the middle of saying the name. So many, in fact, that she registered a professional name that she uses with clients in order to avoid confusion and tangential, distracting discussions.

(Take for example all the Chinese students who generally want Westerners to refer to them by a Western first name they have adopted for themselves for convenience reasons instead of teaching them to pronounce their actual name.)

I couldn't resist the absurdity of a Pizza Hut in Hong Kong, so I went in. The memory of Lefty and Dusty and Susy and Willa, all in their red gingham shirts, remains with me to this day.

[Rob A.]

....But back in the old days, even the foreign rulers got local “convenience names”... (such as Carl Gustav → Kaarle Kustaa, King George → Kuningas Yrjö, etc. in Finnish) and many languages still use exonyms for important and well-known foreign place names... such as the English ‘Cologne’ for the city that the locals know as Köln, or the Finnish ‘Tukholma’ for the place that the locals call Stockholm.

Of course....the German name, Köln, is an exonym for the original name of this Roman-founded city....Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium.....named after the Emperor Claudius and his wife, Agrippina..... It seems the English version, which, as usual, was borrowed from French, is closer to the original name of the city than is the modern German name ....