FINNS: An Oral History- About the Finnish Language

Becoming Americans - Interview with Walter Ketola

FINNS: An Oral History of Finnish-Americans in New Hampshire’s Monadnock Region

Excerpted from FINNS: An Oral History... by Patricia Kangas Ktistes, 1997, all rights reserved.

Becoming Americans - Walter Ketola

Walter Ketola 

My grandmother actually lived here in New Hampshire for awhile after my grandfather died.  She married Ed Somero and they lived in New Ipswich, right on Locke Road.  My father’s parents came from Kauhajoki and Jurva, Finland. My mother’s side came from  Härmä. My wife Elvi’s father’s side came from Härmä, too, and we might even be related. We’ve  never gone over there to check it out. And the Härmä people had a reputation for being rough. The  rascals. Two of them are particularly notorious: Rannanjärvi and Ison Talon Antti. There’s a famous  picture in Finland of these guys in shackles; their necks and their arms and everything. I first saw the  picture at my wife Elvi’s folks’ place.  

One of those fellows in shackles, Ison Talon Antti, is my relative. And the saying was that  when you went to a Härmä wedding, you had to be careful. The noise you had to listen for was the  tupenkrapina. Tuppi is a sheath with a puuko—a knife. Krapina: that’s the noise the blade makes when  it comes out of its leather sheath. When you heard the tupenkrapina, boy, you’d better have been alert.  They’d take out the knives because they got drunk. There was hardly a wedding where somebody  didn’t get stabbed. And most notorious of all in this regard were the Härmäläinen people on my  mother’s side.  

Soon after we were married, I found out that my wife Elvi wasn’t all Finn. She was part  Swedish. “Aha! Not 100 percent!” I should have kept my big mouth shut. Because when my parents  went to Finland, my dad found out that my great-great-grandfather had been a Jewish merchant there.  Many Finns say they feel a kinship for the Jews and I do, too. Almost all of our children have Hebrew  names. And now that may explain why I have such an affinity for them. The children were all named  prior to my knowing about my Jewish ancestry. There’s a theory that we [Finns] are the lost tribe of  Israel. I take that with a lot of salt. It may be true. I’m just skeptical.  

Regarding the cultural differences between the Finns and mainstream America, the Finns may  not have integrated so readily because their language is so different. It’s not an Indo-European  language; it’s Finno-Ugric. It is difficult to learn. Yet it’s deceptively simple. I could teach you or my  son Abraham or anyone else how to read Finnish tonight. Because there are only 22 letters in the alphabet and every letter and every combination of letters is always pronounced the same way. There  are no silent letters. Nothing to fake you out. Provided you can say ää, which most English people can,  and yy might present a little bit of trouble, but the French language also has that sound.  

Finnish is not guttural; you don’t have to talk by spitting in your lungs and that sort of thing.  And so far everything’s nice and simple and easy and you’re sailing along. But that’s where the ease  ends. Because you come to the fact that Finnish has 17 case endings, although only 12 are commonly  used. The language is controlled by suffixes. As an example, by using suffixes, you can determine  whether you’re in the store, under the store, on top of the store, about to enter the store, in the far  future about to enter the store, just recently left the store, or if you left the store a long time ago.  

We Finns have sustained that language for so long; it kind of threw those people off who don’t  understand it. It must have felt so ethnic to them: so exclusive. Written language and oral language  have an even greater disparity in Finnish than in English. What I’m saying is that the Finnish  language, like the Hebrew and Greek languages, are able to describe nuances that are almost  impossible to translate into English.  

English is much more cold. However, English readily applies itself to the technical, the  mechanical, the scientific [i.e., ‘nuclear meltdown’ in Finnish is sydämensulamisonnettomuus]. Trying  to explain in Finnish how to repair a car is considerably harder without going “Argh!” because in  Finnish, you’ve got to describe things in multi-multi syllable words.  

Like Greek and Hebrew, the Finnish language serves extraordinarily well in philosophical or  subjective thought. Not that it doesn’t lend itself to objectivity, but it is especially amenable to  describing emotions. And that’s why when in our church the minister speaks in Finnish about Jesus’  suffering and death, you almost wince at some of the words. Just the very thought of God’s  righteousness seems to impart that He is much more righteous in Finnish than in English. Sin seems to  be more sinful.  

My wife Elvi points out “Is He more righteous in Finnish or are we just prejudiced?” But we  can’t help our prejudice. We are what we are. We were raised that way. There are some preachers in  the Laestadian Lutheran movement who speak both Finnish and English. I feel that when they speak in  Finnish, it’s much more powerful. I’ve even told them that. It opens up more meaning to me. 

I’ll offer a natural example. The Finnish word for stubborn is vastahakainen. A vastahakainen person is somebody who resists all the time. And let me tell you how the word evolves. A haka is a  branch. And vasta is contrary: ‘against.’ And so if you were to cut a branch and grab it by the stem end  and pull it, it comes along very nicely. But try pulling it from the other end; it grabs onto every little  thing. See how picturesque it is?  

A lot of Finnish terms are highly visual. They appeal to the senses. And at the same time,  Finnish names are often so appropriate for the personality. It may be that the use of the Finnish  language has helped preserve the Laestadian movement in America. Since its demise, the church  population has decreased. Yet, it is God who determines how His own are preserved. But He uses  outward and inward means, yes, even the unbelieving world, for His own ends.

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