Sunday, June 15, 2008



voidead

7 comments:

troylloyd said...

veadoid

Karri Kokko said...

Hey, thanks for your insightful comments. And beautiful stuff in your blogs. I'll be visiting them from now on.

troylloyd said...

quick question :
my first blogpost was a grouping of "word within word" in many languages,

could you verify that "sana sisäpuolella sana" is correct for SF ?

..................
this is a fun blog you have here, you're quite adept at pwoermds.

i also enjoy your Toisin Sanoen
(......says?)cut-up blog, the Duchamp fountain piece is excellent!

"fountain is hooded by made with a water bucket"

& tax forms sanoi... left a crazy big links comment!


i can also enjoy the visuality of pieces like "kalju mykkä" ,
even more when i find a proper trans. device online - i haven't started looking as yet, but before i do,

do you know of a reliable online translator for Finnish which can be trusted to be somewhat accurate & useable by English readers?

PS

which is correct?

Suomi or Finnish ?

either?

troylloyd said...

hey Karri !

(sorry, i forgot to say hello in my comment, i didn't want to seem rude)

: )

Karri Kokko said...

Troy,

You got it almost right. There are at least three ways to say it:

1) sanan sisäpuolella sana
2) sanan sisällä sana
3) sana sanassa

In the first, the word "sisäpuolella" means being physically inside something, making the point that it is NOT outside. Say, the difference between sitting inside and sitting inside the house.

In the second, the word "sisällä" means pretty much the same, but it's less physical. The difference between 1) and 2) would be that there really can't be anything on the inside of a word, but you can find letters (or another word) in it.

The third breaks the pattern but actually fits the idea best, since it is the most abstrcat.

So, I advice you to choose either 2) or 3). Unless you want to go with "sana sanan sisällä" or "sanassa sana..."

"Toisin sanoen" menas "In other words."

And no, I haven't found any devices that translate Finnish into English. Maybe there are, but they cost money.

And finally, Suomi is correct when referring to the country. When you talk about the language you write "suomi" (liksom finska på svenska).

Where did you learn to use Swedish or Danish, anyway?

troylloyd said...

hei hei Karri !

Thank you for the indepth clarification and määritellä !!!!

i will take your advice & go with "
3) sana sanassa"

i appreciate you taking the time to clarify all the variation & possibilities.

talar du svenska?

i sarted picking up svenska because of my love for old Saab 900 cars --- i do all the mechanical work myself & when i was younger i was very interested in "hot rod" modifications, the Swedes knew all the tricks & tips, so i started learning to read Swedish to gain information.

i cannot speak Swedish very well & have difficulty understanding when spoken to in Swedish & i also have difficulty with proper grammatik when attempting to write.

there is a phenomenon in Sweden known as "särskrivning" ("apart-writing") because so much English text is everywhere --- so something like "Vår kassapersonal" ("our cashier staff") becomes "vår kassa personal" ("our good-for-nothing staff")
: )

is this happening in Finland as well?

i love the compounding of words & how a complicated concept that may take several different words can be expressed with one precise word if one compounds correctly.

which brings me to attempt & become sanarunokääntäjä myself, let me know if this works or not :

yhdysyhdyssana
___________________________________

Karri Kokko said...

That's amazing, Troy, learning a language thru manuals. And you are pretty good at it, too, I might say.

Yes, I speak and write Swedish; most of do because it's our second official language, and everybody learns it at school. Most people hate it and think it's a waste of time, but I sure am glad I learned it.

As you might know, this is due to the fact that there are some 300 000 Swedish-speaking Finns--one of which I was married to. So, my youngest daughter, Josefin, belongs to the minority as well. When we were still together, we always spoke two languages to her: my wife in Swedish and I in Finnish. Believe it or not, it works out fine, and the result is that she's completely bi-lingual.

This reminds me of a dinner we had a couple of summers back. Those at the table spoke in four different Swedishes: Josefin her finlandsvenska; my eldest daughter, Janna, who studies in Stockholm, her adapted svenska (backed up by her skolsvenska); Martin, her boyfriend, his native svenska; and I, my skolsvenska. Some company!

As it happens, I'm into compound words, too. In fact, last fall I published a book made up of 1024 new compound words in Finnish. The idea being, to bring together two real things, or concepts, that put together create something totally new, something that might be possible but quite isn't. The name of the book, Open dove, floor heroin gives you a faint idea, but since compound words don't work the same way in English, the idea doesn't come thru quite the same.

My point creating them was simple enough: to produce words that start computing in the mind, but you don't get any hits. It's the opposite of naming things: instead of creating a word for a new thing or concept, you make up a word first and let your mind find the image.

Oh, and you are right. Compound words in Finnish are tricky. Words written either together or separately can cause misconceptions.

Your effort, yhdysyhdyssana, is perfect Finnish (at least grammatically, if not something that anybody would come up with, or use, unless he's a crazy poet) and an amazing feat, at that. You really are special.