varmenne

[Jukka Aho]

Is this the 3 digit security code on a credit card?

Usually varmenne is used as the Finnish equivalent of the word “certificate” in the context of electronic transactions or encrypted or cryptographically signed communications – and especially when referring to the components of a public key infrastructure.

I’m not sure if the CVV2 code on the back of your credit/debit card should technically speaking be called varmenne, but it is not unthinkable that some merchant or card issuer would.

[Jukka Aho]

(Duplicate post deleted)

[Jukka Aho]

I think I just managed to order Kielitoimiston sanakirja CD online at http://www.kielikone.fi/default.aspx?intProductID=410 - and the price was lower than the 250 euros mentioned here. ONly 98 euros.

OK, congrats! Let us know how that order went and whether you found your purchase useful.

As far as monolingual Finnish dictionaries go, I think Kielitoimiston sanakirja is pretty much the only game in town these days. (Although some would probably argue the old Nykysuomen sanakirja – which has never been updated since it was originally published between 1951 and 1961 – is better in terms of describing the old vocabulary... that is, both archaic words and the the older layers of Finnish vocabulary in general.)

As has been discussed here before, most Finns are barely aware that monolingual dictionaries exist so Kielitoimiston sanakirja and Nykysuomen sanakirja are generally only used by linguists. I guess there’s just not as much need for a native speaker to look up words in a monolingual Finnish dictionary as much of the vocabulary has been derived from other Finnish words and the spelling is, for the most part, trivial. What ordinary Finns might occasionally use, though, is a special-purpose dictionary called sivistyssanakirja, which only lists “Finnish” words of foreign origin. (See here to get an idea.)

As the term sivistyssanakirja implies, these are regarded as fancy, scholarly words which might not get used too much in ordinary conversations but which “civilized”, educated people might drop here and there in order to impress the hoi polloi...
 
 

[kalmisto]

This on-line dictionary is quite impressive and it has "varmenne" :
http://www.sanakirja.org/search.php?q=v ... l=-1&l2=-1

See what it says about "AWOL", "buccaneer" and "ubiquity" !

The word "bukkaneeri" was new to me.

I heard "AWOL" when I was watching the old "From Here to Eternity" and it was terribly hard for me to hear what exactly was being said. The beauty with DVD´s and Videos is that you can watch the same scene over and over again. Another word in the same movie that I found very difficult to hear was "stockade". So I understand foreigners who find fast-speaking Finns difficult to follow.

The sanakirja.org dictionary has "stockade" also but not the Finnish equivalent for it. What is the Finnish slang word for "military prison" ? I have forgotten it.

[Bavarian]

I heard "AWOL" when I was watching the old "From Here to Eternity" and it was terribly hard for me to hear what exactly was being said. The beauty with DVD´s and Videos is that you can watch the same scene over and over again. Another word in the same movie that I found very difficult to hear was "stockade". So I understand foreigners who find fast-speaking Finns difficult to follow.

Do Finns even have a slur word for Italians? I can't imagine non-Americans recognizing the slur "wop" that the Ernest Borgnine character uses for Frank Sinatra's character.

And I hope they didn't try to come up with the Finnish word for "bliss" in the "Fort Bliss" place name, either.

[Pursuivant]

Do Finns even have a slur word for Italians?

As dull as makarooni or just italiaano.

[Pursuivant]

What is the Finnish slang word for "military prison" ?

Mmmmm.... dunno really.... modern usage it was just päävartio... or "kenneli" or any slang word used for the jail... pose, putka etc.

[kalmisto]

Here´s a scene from "From Here to Eternity " ( Täältä ikuisuuteen ) :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTKkEBMv ... re=related

täältä = from here, ( täällä = here )
ikuisuuteen = to eternity, ( ikuisuus = eternity )

[AldenG]

So what IS the 3-digit code? Tarkastusnumero(t)? Something else?

[Jukka Aho]

So what IS the 3-digit code? Tarkastusnumero(t)? Something else?

From the Luottokunta[1] VISA website:

“Kauppias saattaa lisätarkistuksena kysyä myös korttisi kääntöpuolelta, allekirjoituspanelista löytyvää kortin numeron perässä olevaa kolminumeroista tunnusta, ns. CVV2-tunnus (card verification value).”

So they don’t appear to have a proper name for it... just descriptive expressions. And since they use ns. (the standard abbreviation for niin sanottu, “so-called”) they don’t really seem to expect ordinary customers to call it a CVV2-tunnus, either.

Now that we’re at it, that text has some problems... The comma after the word kääntöpuolelta is unnecessary, panelista should be spelled paneelista and the expression CVV2-tunnus should be in the partitive. (Or rather, the awkward expression allekirjoituspaneeli should be replaced with something more descriptive and that additional note about the technical acronym “CVV2” and the “expanded” English name for it should probably be made into a separate sentence on its own.)

_____
[1] Luottokunta is the company that for the longest time issued all the Finnish VISA cards, on behalf of the banks. While the largest banks do that by themselves now, Luottokunta still handles the billing and the customer service for them.

[Rob A.]

....though, is a special-purpose dictionary called sivistyssanakirja, which only lists “Finnish” words of foreign origin. (See here to get an idea.)

As the term sivistyssanakirja implies, these are regarded as fancy, scholarly words which might not get used too much in ordinary conversations but which “civilized”, educated people might drop here and there in order to impress the hoi polloi... 

Thanks for the link, Jukka.... I'll have to spend a bit more time exploring Korpela's websites, now that my Finnish is up to a level that I don't have to translate almost every word...

Though people always seem to have a somewhat negative reaction to loanwords....they seem to be the norm in all the more "dynamic" world languages...whether in the form of outright loans or calques or whatever... I've recently read and re-read Mario Pei's old classic..."The Story of Language"....there is much to dispute in there....it was written in a much different era...but it is certainly informative...

At one point in the book he threw in this sentence bearing on the typical native speakers reaction to their precious language being sullied with loan words....

"Avoid Latin derivatives; use brief, terse Anglo-Saxon monosyllables"....the joke here is that the only original Anglo-Saxon word in the sentence is...."Anglo-Saxon"....

Some languages...French, German...go to greater lengths than English to try to "blend in" foreign words.....but I'm not sure it matters all that much....though "protecting" the syntax, grammar, etc. ...that aspect I can understand....and if there are good native words, that too, ...though I think borrowed words, more typically, will cover some subtleties that the native word doesn't.... and the use of calques, I think, is fine...i.e. Fernseher in German....

....and I see, despite the Finnish "shyness" about using articles...you've managed to use two in connection with your use of the Greek loan expression ...."...the hoi polloi" ...which would translate as "the the masses."....in good Anglo-Saxon English...

[Mölkky-Fan]

But English is mostly made up of Latin roots (formal) and Germanic roots (informal)... eg 'buy' and 'tell' from Germanic and 'purchase' and 'inform' are from Latin, and he is writing a book so it would be mostly formal English he would be using... I guess he is talking about conversational English, which should be mostly Germanic where possible. By the way I was trying to think of the informal synonym for 'avoid'... what is it.

By the way I am guessing that Anglo Saxon comes from Latin originally as well... OK I just googled and 'rex Anglorum Saxonum' is what Alfred the Great called himself, which sounds quite Latin to me But the term 'Angli Saxones' was used long before to differentiate between Saxons in England and Saxons in continental Europe, I guess that is Germanic... so maybe it is Germanic?! Who knows...

[Pursuivant]

But the term 'Angli Saxones'

Is still latin

[Jukka Aho]

....though, is a special-purpose dictionary called sivistyssanakirja, which only lists “Finnish” words of foreign origin. (See here to get an idea.)

As the term sivistyssanakirja implies, these are regarded as fancy, scholarly words which might not get used too much in ordinary conversations but which “civilized”, educated people might drop here and there in order to impress the hoi polloi... 

Thanks for the link, Jukka.... I'll have to spend a bit more time exploring Korpela's websites, now that my Finnish is up to a level that I don't have to translate almost every word... :D

So what level is your Finnish now? Can you manage something like this? :)

Though people always seem to have a somewhat negative reaction to loanwords....they seem to be the norm in all the more "dynamic" world languages...whether in the form of outright loans or calques or whatever...

I think sivistyssanat, in their most typical form, are not just any old loanwords... they are loanwords for which there often already is a good word in Finnish (so there’s no real need to use the fancy foreign word), or loanwords which have not really assimilated into Finnish yet; having not lost their “foreign letters” or “foreign” consonant clusters, for example. They also often have something to do with culture or science (you would only use them in an “educated” context, and not when discussing mundane things like... milking the cows, or shopping, or repairing an outhouse!) and they originate from Latin, Greek, or French instead of languages like, say, English, German, Russian, or Spanish (which are probably deemed somehow “less prestigious” and hence, inferior as a source of these kind of words...)

I was just recently reading a copy of this magazine where the editor-in-chief did this “showing off” thing by replacing even the simplest concepts with very fancy sivistyssanat... you don’t see that often, but when you do... well, I just had to laugh. On top of making the text harder to read and more difficult to understand for no gain at all, it just makes the writer look like a pretentious ass.

Granted, sometimes a sivistyssana can have a more refined meaning than the available “native” words and then it might be in order to use one. But over the years, I’ve come to pay some attention to my own writing style in Finnish, trying (among other things) to weed out every unnecessary instance of non-assimilated loanwords – if those try to creep in in the first place for some reason – and actively replace them with the equivalent Finnish words, where possible.

Some languages...French, German...go to greater lengths than English to try to "blend in" foreign words.....but I'm not sure it matters all that much....though "protecting" the syntax, grammar, etc. ...that aspect I can understand....and if there are good native words, that too, ...though I think borrowed words, more typically, will cover some subtleties that the native word doesn't....

It has been discussed before, but (literary) Finnish is, to some degree, a “managed” and “prescribed” language. There’s often an active push to try and get rid of some foreign loanword that has recently entered the language and replace it with a newly invented or derived Finnish word – or a “Finnishized” version of itself.

....and I see, despite the Finnish "shyness" about using articles...you've managed to use two in connection with your use of the Greek loan expression ...."...the hoi polloi" ...which would translate as "the the masses."....in good Anglo-Saxon English... :wink:

I know about that debate, and using the definite article was a conscious choice. (As you can see from the above, I subscribe to the school of thought which thinks loans should be assimilated into the language and requiring ordinary language users to know about the grammatical intricacies of the original language where the word comes from is mostly an unworkable idea. :) When writing in English, I choose the English plural over the Latin plural, too, where applicable: “viruses” instead of “virii”, and “cactus” or “cactuses” rather than “cacti”, for example.

By the way, did you know that when English words get borrowed into Finnish – especially as a part of colloquial speech – and the borrowed word happens to be borrowed in the plural form for some reason, it often gets another plural ending from Finnish:

No se kaveri sai jotain kicksejä siitä!

Muffinsit ovat valmiita!

[Rob A.]

So what level is your Finnish now? Can you manage something like this?

Well...not to put to fine a point on it...my Finnish still sucks... But it isn't quite so painful now, to struggle through the text.... I can understand a lot of the word stems, though syntax and word combinations can still slow me down.... But it's much easier.... Two years ago when I first encountered Korpela's websites, it was "hopeless" for me to stray into the Finnish dialogue...

Though people always seem to have a somewhat negative reaction to loanwords....they seem to be the norm in all the more "dynamic" world languages...whether in the form of outright loans or calques or whatever...

I think sivistyssanat, in their most typical form, are not just any old loanwords... they are loanwords for which there often already is a good word in Finnish (so there’s no real need to use the fancy foreign word), or loanwords which have not really assimilated into Finnish yet; having not lost their “foreign letters” or “foreign” consonant clusters, for example. They also often have something to do with culture or science (you would only use them in an “educated” context, and not when discussing mundane things like... milking the cows, or shopping, or repairing an outhouse!) and they originate from Latin, Greek, or French instead of languages like, say, English, German, Russian, or Spanish (which are probably deemed somehow “less prestigious” and hence, inferior as a source of these kind of words...)

I was just recently reading a copy of this magazine where the editor-in-chief did this “showing off” thing by replacing even the simplest concepts with very fancy sivistyssanat... you don’t see that often, but when you do... well, I just had to laugh. On top of making the text harder to read and more difficult to understand for no gain at all, it just makes the writer look like a pretentious ass.

Well...yes, I can agree...if people are doing this simply to impress...it gets a bit tiresome...but it is, sometimes, funny.... I used to regularly watch the "Yes, Minister/Yes, Prime Minister series".... the pomposity of the language was breathtaking... For me this "Sir Humphrey Applebyism" is memorable:

Sir Humphrey: "Minister, I think there is something you perhaps ought to know."

Jim Hacker: "Yes Humphrey?"

Sir Humphrey: "The identity of the Official whose alleged responsibility for this hypothetical oversight which has been the subject of recent discussion, is NOT shrouded in quite such impenetrable obscurity as certain previous disclosures may have led you to assume, but not to put too fine a point on it, the individual in question is, it may surprise you to learn, one whom youe present interlocutor is in the habit of defining by means of the perpendicular pronoun."

Jim Hacker: "I beg your pardon?"

Sir Humphrey: "It was...I."

...the whole of the bolded dialogue can be condensed into three little words...


....and, of course, there is a pompous Greek word for this ...logorrhoea.... ....and I guess if that isn't pompous enough we can spell it this way..."λογορροια"... Latin...too, offers up a few choice words ...prolixity...verbosity....the best English seems to offer is the rather bland and anemic ...oops another Greek word.... ....choice of "wordiness"...

Interesting that it's always these three languages that are viewed as "prestige languages"... The Germanic languages...even one that has become as important in the world as English ...are still viewed as the languages of ...as the Italians say...il forestieri ...the "people from the forest."...

Yet Old French...before they decided it was no longer Latin...was called la lingua rustica romana...

Granted, sometimes a sivistyssana can have a more refined meaning than the available “native” words and then it might be in order to use one. But over the years, I’ve come to pay some attention to my own writing style in Finnish, trying (among other things) to weed out every unnecessary instance of non-assimilated loanwords – if those try to creep in in the first place for some reason – and actively replace them with the equivalent Finnish words, where possible.

....Yes....if I'm just fooling around such as here, I'll use all sorts of words....but in my business writing I try to keep the language quite functional...trying to impress with words can easily "backfire" on a person...

Some languages...French, German...go to greater lengths than English to try to "blend in" foreign words.....but I'm not sure it matters all that much....though "protecting" the syntax, grammar, etc. ...that aspect I can understand....and if there are good native words, that too, ...though I think borrowed words, more typically, will cover some subtleties that the native word doesn't....

It has been discussed before, but (literary) Finnish is, to some degree, a “managed” and “prescribed” language. There’s often an active push to try and get rid of some foreign loanword that has recently entered the language and replace it with a newly invented or derived Finnish word – or a “Finnishized” version of itself.

Interesting...and I have read that elswhere too...that great attempts were made in the 19th century, and I guess earlier, improve the functionality of Finnish.... it is one thing to use a language for mundane, day-to-day activities, and another to use the language for the expression of subtle concepts, legal purposes, diplomacy, literature....

...Once the milking and outhouse fixing are done, precise language can be important in averting wars... ...I remember reading that despite the similarities between English and French...care must be taken... Apparently the French in some diplomatic exchange with the Americans said, Nous demandons... with consequences you might expect from an American....this makes a good story, but I suspect it's probably an urban myth...

....and I see, despite the Finnish "shyness" about using articles...you've managed to use two in connection with your use of the Greek loan expression ...."...the hoi polloi" ...which would translate as "the the masses."....in good Anglo-Saxon English...

I know about that debate, and using the definite article was a conscious choice. (As you can see from the above, I subscribe to the school of thought which thinks loans should be assimilated into the language and requiring ordinary language users to know about the grammatical intricacies of the original language where the word comes from is mostly an unworkable idea. When writing in English, I choose the English plural over the Latin plural, too, where applicable: “viruses” instead of “virii”, and “cactus” or “cactuses” rather than “cacti”, for example.

....I was quite sure you would know this... ....and I agree It's generally better to "smooth" these words into the language rather than pedantically insist on the original forms...

By the way, did you know that when English words get borrowed into Finnish – especially as a part of colloquial speech – and the borrowed word happens to be borrowed in the plural form for some reason, it often gets another plural ending from Finnish:

No se kaveri sai jotain kicksejä siitä!

Muffinsit ovat valmiita!

Thanks...I was sort of aware of this...I've encountered at least ...muffinssi...though I'm not sure I got that straightened out in my thinking yet....also I've encountered shortsit...