I've just now really started to realize how special language Finnish is and how unusual it is to know how to speak it. Sometime ago I was considering whether it is useful to try to learn Polish or not, since there is only about 40 million people in the world knowing that language. 40 million! That's a bit more than 5 something million Finnish speakers. :P Few weeks back I met a Polish guy who claimed he can speak in Finnish. Of course I thought that he just knows some simple sayings, why would he really know how to speak Finnish?! But there he was asking questions in Finnish and I was answering in English, because I still could not believe he actually understands me. After a while, I was conviced enough and we had pretty long conversation. In Finnish. Incredible.
Here is new awesome music from one of my favourite Finnish bands, Haloo Helsinki! While listening their new CD, I realized how much I do actually miss hearing Finnish. It has some magical power that I can't find from English. Of course I get to speak it here too with some friends and in Skype, but it's not the same as hearing it all the time. This song is not really something I can relate to right now, and I don't like the music video (clips from some new Finnish movie, I guess? Levottomat 8?), but ah, listen the beautiful, unique mother language of mine!
While travelling I've sometimes had my suspicions about the real amount of Finnish people. It seems like everywhere you go, you'll meet some of us. Even in the smallest villages on the other side of the world. You would think that this 5-point-something million people would just vanish like fart in the wind among over 7 billion. (And how much of this 5-point-something million is actually travelling?) Did you ever have the same experience? Maybe we've been cheated, and we are not such a small nation after all..?
No comments:
Post a Comment