Deconstructing Finnish

Now and then, as I continue trying to improve my Finnish language kyky (ability), I decide it’s high time that I actually understand the words of some of my favorite Finnish songs. For years, I’ve enjoyed some popular Finnish bands without necessarily having much of a clue what they’re singing about.  It's not a strange as it might sound.

Once when I was taking regular Finnish lessons I suggested to the teacher that we study the lyrics of Eppu Normaali sometime. Maybe she wasn’t a fan (hard to imagine), but in any case it never happened.

Another Finnish band I really like is Scandinavian Music Group, whose song “Joisin viskin ja nousisin” I can actually even sing, well, maybe at least the first few lines.

“Jos voisin joskus olla niin kuin hän, jota rakastan
 Jos voisin ajaa Norjan läpi ilman korttia.”

”If I could sometimes be like the one I love 
If I could drive through Norway without a driver’s license.”

Anyway, since I listen to this particular tune frequently, I figured it would help my Finnish comprehension to learn the rest of the song.
 
I recently downloaded the lyrics, and I’ve got to say, the wording – the construction of the language – though perfectly normal Finnish, provides some good examples of what makes Finnish such a complicated language for English speakers to learn.

To illustrate this (and show my pedantic side in all its glory), I’ve decided to “deconstruct” a couple of lines from the song, namely

”Joisin viskin ja nousisin portaissa käsilleni.
 Teille ylpeilisin mustelmillani.”

Nine words. In English, this very roughly translates to

“I would drink the whisky and raise in the stairs to my hands. 
 I would brag to you about my bruises.”

It’s not so hard to understand these lines, more or less. The passive comprehension of these nine words isn’t necessary beyond me. But, if I had to actively express the same thing, to put these words into their final form off the top of my head, from scratch so to speak, boy, that would require some mental jujitsu. Or mental sisu. Or mental something.

Here’s the breakdown of how you would form these words from their original (dictionary) forms, if you were forced to think about it and do it "by the book". (And I’m sure to get called out by sharp-eyed folks who know the subject much better than I do.)

To get joisin (I would drink), the steps are:
 

juoda ⇩	Infinitive (to drink), verb type 2
juo- ⇩	Infinitive stem – Formed by dropping -da (because it is verb type 2)
juovat ⇩	3rd person plural present-tense – Formed by adding the 3rd person plural suffix -vat
jo- ⇩	3rd person plural stem – Formed by removing –vat and then, because what’s left ends in a diphthong (-uo-), removing the first vowel “u”
joisi- ⇩	Conditional stem – Formed by adding the conditional marker -isi-
Joisin	1st personal conditional singular – Formed by adding the personal ending -n

Voila, you get joisin, “I would drink”, and after much more of this, you certainly would. In English, we would just add “I would” in front of “drink”, and be done with it.

Getting to viskin is a bit easier because viski (whiskey), since it is a foreign loan word (thank you Scotland!) it doesn’t normally get twisted all out of recognition the way many Finnish words do. Also, it helps that all of the whiskey is being drunk, apparently. 

viski ⇩

Nominative (whiskey)

viskin

Because not just some whiskey is being consumed, but every single bit of it, the accusative case is in order here. In Finnish, this is usually identical to the genitive case, which means you simply add the genitive ending -n to the nominative stem viski-. If it were only some of the whiskey being drunk, then you would instead add an –ä to form the dreaded partitive case – in which case, why not just go ahead and drink it all?

ja	This word means “and” and there’s nothing more to say about that. It never changes, thank god.

Forming nousisin (I would raise) is a lot like joisin.

nousta ⇩	Infinitive (to raise), verb type 3
nous- ⇩	Infinitive stem – Formed by dropping -ta, as one does with verb type 3
nousevat ⇩	3rd person plural present tense – Formed by adding an -e- (again, typical of verb type 3) before you tack on the -vat.
nouse- ⇩	3rd person plural stem – Formed by removing the -vat (and this just after you added it).
nousisi-	Conditional stem – Formed by removing the “e” from the 3rd person plural stem before adding the conditional marker -isi-. Of course, going to the trouble of forming the 3rd person plural stem might seem totally, and perversely, useless since it’s identical to the infinitive stem we started with. But, this isn’t the case for all type 3 verbs, thanks to consonant gradation (or degradation, as I sometimes think of it). For example, in the case of ajatella (to think), the two stems in question are ajatel- and ajattel-. Spot the difference? One letter only, but in Finnish that can make a big difference.

portaissa (in the stairs) Now it gets interesting. Really.

porras ⇩	Nominative (a step)
portaat ⇩	Nominative plural (stairs) – Formed by replacing the “s” with -at (because that’s how you form nominative plural with words ending in “-as”). We’ll regret this in the next step. Also, consonant gradation comes into play, which forces the “weak” -rr- to change into the strong -rt-. Insidious, isn’t it?
portai- ⇩	Plural stem – This is weirdly formed by removing the –at that indicates plural in the nominative and instead adding the plural marker -i- used in every other case.
portaissa ⇩	Inessiivi case (in the stairs) – Add the inessiivi ending -ssa to clarify that we’re not talking about from the stairs (portailta) or on the stairs (portailla) or to the stairs (portaille). Simple.

käsilleni  (to my hands)

käsi ⇩	Nominative (hand)
käsille ⇩	Allatiivi case (to the hands) – Because käsi is an “uusi-type” word, you form the allatiivi case in plural by simply adding the -lle suffix to the basic nominative form. Normally, it’s much more complicated. For example, in the case of “foot”, the singular form, jalka is changed first to jalalle (to the foot), before finally being transformed to the plural jaloille (to the feet). To me, this is mind-boggling.
käsilleni	Possessive (to my hands) – All that’s needed is the simple act of adding the first-person singular possessive ending -ni (my).

  teille (to you)

te ⇩	Personal pronoun (you)
tei- ⇩	2nd person plural pronoun stem
teille	Allatiivi case – Again, add the allatiivi ending, -lle.

ylpeilisin (I would brag)

ylpeillä ⇩	Infinitive (to brag), verb type 3
ylpeilevät   ⇩	3rd person plural (they brag) – Formed by removing the -lä, then (as with nousta above) adding an -e- and the 3rd person plural ending -vat.
ylpeile- ⇩	Conditional stem – Again, formed by removing the 3rd person plural ending -vat.
ylpeilisin	1st person singular conditional (I would brag) – Formed by replacing -e- with –isi, and adding the 1st person singular ending -n.

mustelmillani (with my bruises)

mustelma ⇩	Nominative (bruise)
mustelmalla ⇩	Adessiivi case (by the bruise, or with the bruise) – Formed by adding the adessiivi ending –lla.
mustelmallani ⇩	Possessive (by my bruise) – Formed by adding the 1st person singular possessive ending -ni.
mustelmillani	Plural (by my bruises) – “Bruise” is changed to “bruises” by replacing the -a- in the stem with the plural marker -i-. The meaning in this context is more like “using my bruises to brag”. In English we would say “to brag about my bruises”.

 
Of course, probably no one in their right mind would go through such torturous steps when boasting about their inclination to drink whiskey and get bruised.

Luckily, native Finnish-speakers don’t have to think about it this much. If you ask most Finns why you remove the “u” from juoda when talking conditionally, they surely would have no clue. They just learn the final forms by heart. Maybe some foreigners do the same. 

I only wish I could do it that way, too (“Vain toivon, että voisin tehdä samalla tavalla”) – like the one I love.