Fun Finnish Facts #2 (maybe)
Because I done did a good cock-up with the months in my previous reblog again, I thought I might share some language things. It’s July still, but I keep calling it June. Oops.
In Finland, though we use the same calendar as rest of Europe, the names of the months are our own, not the classic set of Roman-inherited names. The first written mentions of our month names are from Mikael Agricola’s prayer book, 1544, and he invented the base for written Finnish language, so… You couldn’t really have earlier mentions anyway.
Estonia used to have a similar set, though I’m rather sure it’s fallen out of use.
Every month name is a compound word, with a defining word first and “kuu” at the end. “Kuu” means moon, and also features in the Finnish (also compound) word for a month, “kuukausi”, directly translated moon-season. The names of the months are also written without capitalisation in Finnish.
For some reason, though I know the English/Swedish/Russian/European names well, I still always mess up June & July and March & April.
Names of the months in Finnish
1 - January - tammikuu (Tammi used to mean “core” or “heart”, though nowadays the meaning only survives in use as tammi, “oak tree”, for its hard wood. Traditionally the coldest “core” month of winter and the starting year.)
2 - February - helmikuu (Helmi means “pearl”, and the cold, ice-covered piles of February snow often look pearly.)
3 - March - maaliskuu (Maalis is a word that has turned hazy and difficult to define. It’s possible that it’s linked to either mahla, “tree sap” or maa, “earth”, as both are relevant during early spring. Tree sap is still collected from birch trees in Finland for drinking.)
4 - April - huhtikuu (Huhta means a slash-and-burn forest field, so the month of huhtas would be the month of felling trees to be burned.)
5 - May - toukokuu (Touko used to be Finnish for “spring sowing” or “growing sprouts” so toukokuu is the month for just that. Get your seeds in the earth and wait for the first sprouts.)
6 - June - kesäkuu (Kesä can either mean “summer” in Western Finland and modern usage, or lushly growing green grasses and cereal plants in dialectal Eastern Finnish. In old Swedish listings this used to be the “midsummer month” so the West-Finnish roots of the meaning are likely similar.)
7 - July - heinäkuu (Heinä is finnish for “hay”, so heinäkuu is the month of cutting your final crops of hay to store for autumn and winter.)
8 - August - elokuu (Elo can mean “harvest”, “cattle” or “life”, but as a month elokuu stands for harvest month, cognate to old Swedish skördemånad or “harvest month”.)
9 - September - syyskuu (Finnish syksy is “autumn/fall” in English. When made into a compound word, it smoothens out into syys. I don’t know why but it just does and syksykuu sounds horrible, believe me.)
10 - October - lokakuu (As is in Finnish lokasuoja, “mud guard” for your bicycle, loka means “dirt”, mud and sleet. October in Finland is usually just as it says on the lid.)
11 - November - marraskuu (Another old and archaic word no longer in use much elsewhere, marras is Finnish for “death” or “the dead”. It used to be the month for death of nature, for darkness, and for the spirits of the dead.)
12 - December - joulukuu (Yule month, Christmas month. Those two words both translate as joulu in Finnish.)
