soumi ??

[sammy]

so it'd be something like Lantalaisten maa.

Notta perkele! I'll buy a four winds hat from Stockmanns - and then burn it, jump up and down on it, and then sing comic songs on the remains

[Hank W.]

You really think you can outdo this?

[sammy]

You really think you can outdo this?

I don't think I can - unless I could call in SuperFinn (as played by Pentti Siimes in Parempi Myöhään)... dammit, can't find a picture...

Maybe this then - suomalaiset people

[Pete]

Here are some videos to further your Finnish education!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0qXtqcbKtg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TlWfThsI9c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjkp_DK1fu8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwZ7x5j8O1g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWR24wp94Xk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CtTLVyMg4I

[Mark I.]

Reminds me of one Sami man I met on summer night on road in northern Norway. (I was on a fishing trip with my brother, long time ago.)

Sun was shining at midnight, and we had stopped our car by the road. There was a small man driving his moped, stopped by me. He asked something, and said something about "te metshäsuomalaiset". I had never heard the term before, but right away I realised that it meant Finns living on forested areas - there's not trees at all so north in Norway.

The funny thing about that small Sami man was, that *he was too drunk to walk, zipped some boose from his bottle , which he dropped several times but it didn't brake since it was plastic (genious) - and contined his wabbling driving in sunny midnight tundra*!

Metshäsuomhalaiset

[Hank W.]

Metshäsuomhalaiset

Well, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_Finns

[Rob A.]

Yep, it's Suomi (or suomi, without the capital s if we talk about the langugage - in Finnish, you write tämä teksti on englanniksi - this text is in English)

There's no consensus on what the etymology of the word Suomi is - some say it derives from the word suo (marsh/swamp/bog), others have presented more complicated, loan-word explanations... see http://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suomi#Nimi

Well..the link eventually led me to this:

The name Finland (Suomi in Finnish) has uncertain origins but a strong candidate for a cognate is the proto-Baltic word *zeme meaning "land". According to an earlier theory the name was derived from suomaa (fen land) or suoniemi (fen cape).

Now that is interesting...."zeme"...and the Russian word for land...земля ...zemlya. I have read...a Russian authority...that there are many words in Russian with a Finno-Ugric origin... The phonetics looks too close to be coincidental, though one must always be cautious with linguisitic issues...

And to all those young native English speakers I should say this...hopefully the Finnish isn't too "butchered"...

....Melkoista enemmän on auringon alla kuin englannin kieli....Only a little help from a dictionary...