Die Hard Three

I think I figured out what’s wrong with the Finnish written language. It’s pretty obvious to anyone that spends more than five minutes in Finland that there is something afoul with the writing. I can’t say for sure but this is probably what happened.

Contrary to what you were told in school “writing” is not magic, it’s actually a technology like agriculture or space travel is. What I mean is that it had to be invented. But after its invention a given technology itself actually behaves more like a virus in that it gets transmitted from society to society. If the society likes the idea it usually keeps it. If it does not like it – it gets thrown on the ground.

Writing was pretty late arriving in Finland relative to the rest of Europe. The country is kind of isolated, hiding all the way up in the north with none of the other countries paying much attention to her. This mostly had to do with the volleyball-sized mosquitoes in the summer and the non-stop freezing-cold ice-rain snow-blizzards in the winters. To make matters worse, the Finnish language is not even closely related to any of the world’s non-Estonian languages.

So when the concept of using physical markings to represent voice sounds arrived in Finland the locals embraced it with an unusual ferocity. These Finns are clever people. They know a good idea when they see one. But they seem to have rushed into it. It’s important to remember that when you’re building the written form of a language for the first time, your work is going to be around for a long time so you better get it right.

In a nutshell here is what happened. They dropped the high-value Scrabble letters

X W G B C

and absolutely loaded up on the umlauts and the double vowels. Just look at this:

Two umlauted letters in a row? What is this madness?

The consequences of this should be obvious to everyone: it is impossible for anyone but the most gifted linguists to learn how to read Finnish. But I’ve been told several times by several different people that I have to learn it. Well as I’ve demonstrated here I think my skills are better used elsewhere – specifically to build a jigsaw puzzle-piece-sorting robot. That is my calling. Some might argue that I can do both. To those people I say: note the use of the singular in the expression “my calling”. There can be only one.

The motorists here drive awfully fast for a country where fuel is seven dollars a litre. And if you have not been able to figure out where I am – even with that most recent clue (and it was huge) – I will tell you now that I am in Finland – aka Land of the Finns, aka Nokiastan, aka Umlautia.

I can see now in my mind the various peoples of my readership staring at their computers monitors and mobile telephones.  Their faces displaying looks that are a mixture of annoyance and discomfort (which a passer-by might mistake for simple gas).

Aw, come on Jason. You were just there like three months ago. Can’t you visit some place *else*? We already heard about Finland.

As we were driving to our destination on Friday I was asking myself this exact same question (albeit with much less whining) when our tour guide actually said the following words.

And right here you have a very famous gas station.

I was speechless. Is this what the once-mighty nation of Finland has been reduced to? A famous gas station? A country that once hosted the good Olympics (summer) and the Nordic eX-treme Games all in the same century.

Well the answer to both (and actually all*) your questions is a resounding “no”. Sorry to disappoint. As you will read over the next few days, Finland still has many things that are guaranteed to amaze and surprise** you.

So for those of you that are right now piloting motor vehicles and various sorts of heavy machinery, buckle up.  And the rest of you (whom I assume are reading this on the bus where there are no buckles) get ready for the literary ride of your life!

Kerpla!

Must be down by 18:00. Was not.

* Santa Clause? Easter Bunny? Wiarton Willie? Free will? God? Decreasing expanding universe? Meaning?

** Amazement and surprisement not guaranteed. Not valid in Quebec or California.