Marko Haavisto & Poutahaukat - Paha vaanii

[BoxerDanc]

Dear All,

I decided to start learning Finnish and start by analyzing this amazing song (translate every word, analyze the form it's in, and so on), and I have a few questions (more to come) and hope for answers:)

Link to the lyrics:
http://lirama.net/song/251419

And the questions:
Mua paholainen vaanii joka kulman takana - joka is nominative, kulman is genitive, why?
Sen silmät mua katsoo olutlasin pohjalla - silmät is plural, katsoo is singular (or is it spoken form)
Kaiken aikaa onneni on vaakalaudalla - kaiken is genitive, aikaa is partitive, why?
vaakalaudalla - I know it means "at stake", but what's the etymology?
Jos se ei käy sisälle se oottaa ovella - sisälle is in allative case, which "indicates movement to the neighborhood (or to the surface of) something", and not in illative (sisään), which "indicates movement into (or to close contact with) something"?
oottaa - is it spoken form? written would be odottaa, right?
Pidä mieli kirkkaana ja paita puhtaana - mieli and paita are in accusative case, kirkkaana and puhtaana are in essive, why?

That's it for now, thank you kindly in advance!

[Jukka Aho]

Mua paholainen vaanii joka kulman takana - joka is nominative, kulman is genitive, why?

Here, the word joka is not to be interpreted as the relative pronoun joka but as short for jokainen : jokaisen. It is a fairly common colloquial short form.

Sen silmät mua katsoo olutlasin pohjalla - silmät is plural, katsoo is singular (or is it spoken form)

Yep. Compare to:

Ne menee tuolla kadulla.
Nää sakset on aika terävät.
Koirat haukkuu, karavaani kulkee.

Using singular verbs to describe the actions of plural subjects is common in colloquial/casual speech. It is rather something of a rule than an exception, really!

Kaiken aikaa onneni on vaakalaudalla - kaiken is genitive, aikaa is partitive, why?

Hmm... maybe because aikaa (in the partitive) leaves the concept of “time” more open-ended than ajan, which would suggest it being some known, specific stretch of time.

vaakalaudalla - I know it means "at stake", but what's the etymology?

Not quite sure of the official etymology but I’ve always imagined it referring to a (balanced) seesaw. Things are unstable; the delicate balance of it all could easily be disturbed... the situation could swing either way.

Jos se ei käy sisälle se oottaa ovella - sisälle is in allative case, which "indicates movement to the neighborhood (or to the surface of) something", and not in illative (sisään), which "indicates movement into (or to close contact with) something"?

The outer locative cases (adessive, ablative, allative) are often applied to sisä when referring to hollow spaces you can get into, such as buildings. Sisä + the inner locative cases would rather suggest something being sealed inside or totally encased/engulfed by some substance. There’s some overlap in the usage, though, especially concerning the illative and the allative. Käydä sisälle (taloon, huoneeseen) and käydä sisään (taloon, huoneeseen) are both acceptable.

oottaa - is it spoken form? written would be odottaa, right?

Correct.

Pidä mieli kirkkaana ja paita puhtaana - mieli and paita are in accusative case, kirkkaana and puhtaana are in essive, why?

pitää jokin jonakin = to keep something (as) something; to let it remain (or to preserve/protect it) so that it retains the specified property

[BoxerDanc]

Thanks a lot for this encyclopedia quality answer:)

I'll study it all thoroughly.

Finnish is one cool language.

[Jukka Aho]

vaakalaudalla - I know it means "at stake", but what's the etymology?

Not quite sure of the official etymology but I’ve always imagined it referring to a (balanced) seesaw. Things are unstable; the delicate balance of it all could easily be disturbed... the situation could swing either way.

Another association which probably bears no direct relevance to the origin of the word vaakalauta but might be fun to look into anyway: there’s this old children’s yard game called kymmenen tikkua laudalla, which is basically a more challenging variant of hide-and-seek. The game features a small length of board which is placed on ground – the middle point leaning against a stone – and which is then used to catapult a bunch of sticks in the air as you step on the other end. See here for the rules and here for a video.

Once you’ve got your head around all that, you may want to proceed by deciphering the lyrics for Viimeisellä rannalla; a song by the band Sir Elwoodin hiljaiset värit. The song was originally inspired by Nevil Shute’s dystopian/post-apocalyptic novel On the Beach (aka Viimeisellä rannalla in Finnish)...

[BoxerDanc]

Sweet, thanks a bunch! I'll do it. From this song, I was planning to shift to Agents - Paratiisi, but I guess I'll first try out the song you mentioned. BTW, off topic, but could you recommend some decent Finnish artists (but really decent, no pop, just like ones mentioned here)? I really don't know a thing about Finnish stage.

[Jukka Aho]

Sweet, thanks a bunch! I'll do it. From this song, I was planning to shift to Agents - Paratiisi, but I guess I'll first try out the song you mentioned. BTW, off topic, but could you recommend some decent Finnish artists (but really decent, no pop, just like ones mentioned here)? I really don't know a thing about Finnish stage.

I have previously compiled this Spotify playlist of Finnish pop/rock hits. The list features some songs from other genres as well. Alas, Spotify is not officially available in Lithuania but you could copy-paste the song titles from that page into YouTube search box and find most of them for listening that way.

The list does not differentiate pop from rock (or other genres) but I guess you can just listen to a bit of each song and skip the ones you don’t like.

[Rob A.]

...Mua paholainen vaanii joka kulman takana - joka is nominative, kulman is genitive, why?
Sen silmät mua katsoo olutlasin pohjalla - silmät is plural, katsoo is singular (or is it spoken form)
Kaiken aikaa onneni on vaakalaudalla - kaiken is genitive, aikaa is partitive, why?
vaakalaudalla - I know it means "at stake", but what's the etymology?
Jos se ei käy sisälle se oottaa ovella - sisälle is in allative case, which "indicates movement to the neighborhood (or to the surface of) something", and not in illative (sisään), which "indicates movement into (or to close contact with) something"?
oottaa - is it spoken form? written would be odottaa, right?
Pidä mieli kirkkaana ja paita puhtaana - mieli and paita are in accusative case, kirkkaana and puhtaana are in essive, why?...

Hey, ....ja taas toinen synkeä suomalainen laulu....

But, I thought I would throw in my "two cent's worth"....Unscramble it into standard Finnish....no promises that I'm able to do that, though.... ... then an English translation and an explanation.

1. Mua paholainen vaanii joka kulman takana
a. Paholainen vaanii minua jokaisen kulman takana.
b. "The devil stalks me behind every corner."

--jokainen ja kulma....are in the genitive because the postposition, takana requires this. However you could analyze it this way in terms of English grammar.... jokaisen kulman takana= " every corner's behind." The "noun" is takana ....in an essive form. This kind of analysis, of course, is difficult to do as takana is one of those words that has an "impoverished case paradigm", as the grammarians say...

Generally Finns learning their language as native speakers, and foreigners learning Finnish as an additional language, will be taught that takana is a postposition and that it should be learned as a fixed form. The taka- prefix has a few other forms as well....for example, taakse, which carries the sense of moving behind....

2. Sen silmät mua katsoo olutlasin pohjalla
a. Sen silmät katsoo minua olutlasin pohjalla.
b. "Its/His eyes look at me from the bottom of the beer glass."

--- Two instances of the genitive here...the first, sen is straightforward...equivalent to "his",hers", "its" in English ...You could also just use hänen....if you want to think of the devil in human terms....

In the second instance, the analysis is similar to the takana analysis...and a bit more convincing....pohja is the indirect object and a noun and olutlasi is a noun modifying pohja ....the meaning, literally, is "at/on beerglass's bottom"....

3. Kaiken aikaa onneni on vaakalaudalla
...this one is a little more difficult for me....
a. Kaiken aikaa onneni on vaakalaudalla.
b. "My happiness all of the time is on a teeter-totter."

--I'm not sure about aikaa, I think it might actually be another postposition...aikana ...if so, then the analysis is similar to the above instances ....kaiken aikaa...is equivalent, in English, to "all's time"... And the etymology of vaakalaudalla is simply "on a balance board"....

[Edit: OK, I've been advised that "Kaiken aikaa..." is fine the way it is...and that it's a partitive form.... changing the word order a bit might clarify things. The subject is onneni="my happiness" and kaiken aikaa, I think an adverbial phrase modifying the verb on.... I think this word order would, at any rate, make it clearer to us English speakers:
Onneni on kaiken aikaa vaakalaudalla....kaiken being in the genitive because it is modifies aikaa..."all's time"..."the time of all"...and aikaa is in the partitive because it has an ongoing sense to it.....]

4. Jos se ei käy sisälle se oottaa ovella
a. Jos hän ei käy sisälle hän odottaa ovella.
b. "If it/he doesn't go inside ["to inside], he waits at the door."

--Nothing too complicated here....

5. Pidä mieli kirkkaana ja paita puhtaana.
....and I'm having some trouble again.... I think it might be as follows:
a. Pidetään kirkaana mielini ja puhtaana paitani. Hmmm...I'm not sure..???
b.If I've got the standard Finnish close, in English we would get: "Keep my mind bright and my shirt clean.".....but I'm not sure....
[Edit: This also is, apparently, not correct...Pidä... is in the imperative...second person singular.... so it means:
"Keep your mind bright and your shirt clean."

A "pedantic" Finnish version might be:
Pidä mielesi kirkkaana ja paitsi puhtaana..... I should have got that one... ]

--The use of the essive, in any event, would simply reflect a state of being...

[BoxerDanc]

Thanks for your insight, Rob. It's always nice to have an additional angle to view things from.

And Jukka, thanks kindly for the song list. That's exactly what I needed. I've listened to just a few Rajaton songs, and I'm already delighted.

[BoxerDanc]

Next Q:
itsemurhalentäjää ei ruusuin palkita - ruusuin is plural instructive, is instructive the case to use with the verb palkita (that is, to reward someone (that someone is in partitive, in this case, pilot, lentäjä) with something (this is the case that interests me))? And maybe someone could recommend a place to check the cases that are required by verbs? It'd be a huge help. I only know wiktionary so far. It's good, but incomplete.

[Jukka Aho]

And Jukka, thanks kindly for the song list. That's exactly what I needed. I've listened to just a few Rajaton songs, and I'm already delighted.

Glad to be of help. The playlist begins with a few a cappella and classical pieces (Rajaton is in this part)... Next up is pop and rock sung in Finnish, then pop and rock sung in English by Finnish artists.

Next Q:
itsemurhalentäjää ei ruusuin palkita - ruusuin is plural instructive, is instructive the case to use with the verb palkita (that is, to reward someone (that someone is in partitive, in this case, pilot, lentäjä) with something (this is the case that interests me))?

You have a couple of different choices here:

target (in the partitive case) | ei palkita (“is not rewarded” / “will not be rewarded”) | (“with”) reward (in the instructive case)

Itsemurhalentäjää ei palkita ruusuin.

or

target (in the partitive case) | ei palkita (“is not rewarded” / “will not be rewarded”) | (“with”) reward (in the adessive case)

Itsemurhalentäjää ei palkita ruusuilla.

The adessive case would be a more common choice these days. Using the instructive case – as well as changing the word order from the usual as was done here – makes it feel a bit more “flowing” and “fateful” in a poetic way.

[BoxerDanc]

Thanks a lot, Jukka!

If only I could find a dictionary with listed cases required by the verbs... I can't rely at all on my language intuition, because it isn't similar to any language I know:( I see it as a major obstacle in studying Finnish. I can't "glue" sentences without this knowledge...

[Jukka Aho]

Hey, ....ja taas toinen synkeä suomalainen laulu.... :wink:

“Yet another X!” = Taas yksi X! (yksi carrying the sense “(another) one of this kind”)

Onneni on kaiken aikaa vaakalaudalla....kaiken being in the genitive because it is modifies aikaa..."all's time"..."the time of all"...and aikaa is in the partitive because it has an ongoing sense to it.....:D]

If you’re merely doing a translation it’s enough to “mechanically” map the Finnish expression kaiken aikaa to the English expression “all the time”. They’re both kind of fixed expressions, no real need to analyze them too much... ;)

5. Pidä mieli kirkkaana ja paita puhtaana.

[...]

A "pedantic" Finnish version might be:
Pidä mielesi kirkkaana ja paitsi puhtaana..... I should have got that one...:( ]

(Note: paitasi, not paitsi.) Even “pedantic” Finnish does not necessarily call for those possessive suffixes if they weren’t there in the original. You can just as well say:

Pidä mieli kirkkaana ja paita puhtaana.

OK, this does not make it too explicit whose mind and shirt we’re talking about... but if you have no reason to believe otherwise the most obvious “standard” interpretation is they’re referring to the mind and the shirt of the “target” of this imperative piece of advice.

(So what’s this “keeping your shirt clean” business all about? Darned if I know. Maybe the lyricist just thought it sounds nice or he doesn’t have a particular fondness for untidy appearances.)

[Jukka Aho]

If only I could find a dictionary with listed cases required by the verbs...

See Kimberli Mäkäräinen’s Finnish Grammar website, especially the bottom part of this page.

[BoxerDanc]

Thanks, Jukka. I knew the page, but I prefer searching by verb, not by case, and moreover, info there is very incomplete. I suppose the only way is the hard way, by analyzing heaploads of texts and tormenting native Finns like you in case of dead end:) OK, off to work.

[Upphew]

You could try this first: http://www.verbix.com/languages/finnish.shtml