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[Rob A.]

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[Hank W.]

Hmmm... theres too much food topics on this board

"Karhunlihaa"= Bear's meat
"Karhupataa"= Bear stew
"Poronkäristys"= Reindeer's fry

The logic with the liha and pata I think you might be somewhere on the track. I think the case with foods there is a lot of "it just is"...

lindströminpihvi
merimiespihvi

wieninleike
oopperaleike

obvius ? not exactly...

Oh, and the cooks ain't grammarians always so you can get all kinds of funny stuff. Not delving into ethnic restaurant menus here. (Why can't the guys take some patron and offer him a free lunch for proofreading *before* making themselves look like idiots?)

[Rosamunda]

Possession in English is typically recognized by the use of the word "of", or by the implied use of "of"... Case endings appear with possessive pronouns and this is how most of us English speakers learn about the possessive case... i.e. "his, or her, house"... You could say, "he ,or she house"...and after a perplexed look, you would probably be understood...

There is actually a suffix in English that denotes possession:

's

the cat's dinner
Mothers' Day
St. James's Park

etc

[Rob A.]

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[enk]

Does it get this subtle??, Or am I missing something obvious???... Maybe it's just a matter of convention, and young Finns learn this over time. Because case endings are not encountered with English nouns, English speakers never need to be aware of these subtleties...

If you figure out some kind of paradigm for this, do write a paper for
Virittäjä or some other journal as this has plagued linguists for a
heck of a long time. The general consensus has been that there is
no rhyme or reason to why it is that way. I find that sometimes it has
to do with if it's a word that's been translated wholesale from Swedish
and the Swedish has an -s in between the parts of the compound word,
but that's just my crackpot theory for some of them.

-enk

[priki]

Not delving into ethnic restaurant menus here. (Why can't the guys take some patron and offer him a free lunch for proofreading *before* making themselves look like idiots?)

Yeah. One of the funniest so far was one Chinese restaurant in Oulu. They advertised 'friteerattua banaalia'.

[EP]

"Karhunliha" and "karhupata"... I have never thought about it. You seem to be a VERY analytical person. But now that I think about it: That meat certainly belonged to the bear, and probably I should not be eating it. And "karhupata": If somebody would say karhu[/b]npata, I would think about some fairytale where mommy bear is cooking porridge in her big "pata".

[EP]

Never mind, I meant "n" to be bold.

[Rob A.]

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[Rob A.]

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[EP]

2. "Pääruokia juhlaan"= Main Courses ??banquet??"

3. "Jälkruokia juhlaan" = Dessert ??banquet??

Banquet is maybe a too grand word for "juhla". Juhla is just a festive occation, big or small. "Pikkupurtavaa" is not really appetizers, appetizers is "alkupaloja" (stem alkupala/t), "pikkupurtavaa" is literally "small things to bite", meaning snacks or something little when you are not ravenously hungry.

I checked all the "poro" and "poron" foods, and there are no mistakes. "Poronlihapata" and "poropata" are synonyms, and it doesn´t matter if the meat is ground or not.

I'm beginnning to think the word, "poronkäristys" may not be grammatically correct...

It is correct. It is the best known food from Lapland, and the meat for it is in every supermarket´s freezer. You know already that "poron" mens "of rendeer". I suppose "käristys" comes from a verb "käristää"with means "to fry". It is the frizzling sound that comes when you fry something. For example if your skin burns in the sun it "kärisee".

You sound like the next J.R. Tolkien

[priki]

There's also other käristys than poronkäristys. I think those do not use gentive form. Riistakäristys, saksanhirvikäristys are without, but strutsikäristys and strutsinkäristys I found both from Google. There was also some hits for porokäristys. Weird.
Also porojauheliha vs. naudanjauheliha (but sika-nautajauheliha ). This is my mother tongue, but I've never thought about why things are the way they are.

[blaugrau]

It's funny that the same issue and discussions exist also for German, where in some words the first part of compound words takes the genetive, and in others it doesn't. But often you have the same word used sometimes with and sometimes without genetive after the first element (e.g. there is "Schafkäse" but also "Schafskäse").

For the case of German, Wikipedia says that this ending which looks like a genetive is added not really for grammatical or logical reasons, but rather for reasons of pronounciation. Don't know if this is a widely shared opinion among linguists, but maybe to some degree it could be similiar in Finnish?

[Rob A.]

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[Jukka Aho]

Now, "käristys"... an example of onomatopoeia. This will be another interesting issue once I get into working my way through animal sounds, and other words like "creak", "crackle", "bang", etc... :)

“Käristyminen” or “käristäminen” conjures up images of meat sizzling on a frying pan, contracting and getting a different texture and color (or otherwise twitching or moving about because the fat and moisture boils and vaporizes, and the proteins coagulate), or even burning up and changing its color to black, perhaps emitting smoke or vapor in the process, etc. – and the sound of all that happening.

Imagine a hypothetical sci-fi flick or James Bond movie in Finnish where the bad guy shouts orders to his henchmen who are using some taser type weapon which generates a painful electric arc. “Käristä se pirulainen!” (“Fry that b*stard!”)

Oh, and the difference between those two words:

• käristyminen – the (passive) act of sizzling/frying when it happens to something/someone and when were not specifically pointing out who (if anyone) is responsible for it happening (or when it just happens spontaneously for some reason, without anyone in particular causing it)
• käristäminen – the (active) act of sizzling/frying when it is either us or someone else who is causing it to happen

(No, I’m not trying to make the point that Finnish is a difficult language, or discourage you, or anything! I just realized that there are those two words – and that subtle difference between them – while I was writing this message. :)

One last point...the words for beef..."härkä", "nauta", "pihvi", "lehmä"... When and how would you use these words???

• härkä – an ox / a bull. (A male bovine animal, if you will. Restaurants often list everything of bovine origin as “härkä” because it somehow sounds better – more extravagant and grandiose.)
• nauta – a bovine animal of an unspecified gender
• lehmä – a cow
• pihvi – a steak, a beef, a patty. (This term is used for everything that remotely resembles those things. For example, the Finnish cuisine knows of such delicacies as maksapihvi, kasvispihvi and pinaattipihvi – even punajuuripihvi or porkkanapihvi! – none of which have any meat (muscle tissue) in them.)

Edit: Various Finnish sausages (of the “lenkkimakkara” or “grillimakkara” type) and hot dogs (“nakki”, plural “nakit”) – which traditionally have had a quite low meat content – are often called with the generic name “käriste” (or “käristeet” in plural) because the expectation is that they’re best prepared for eating by barbecuing them, or roasting them over a fire.