Randomness
Nothing spectacularly interesting has been going on for the last week or two here in Espoo, Finland. I go to school for three lessons a week, and the rest of the time I'm either working at the flowershop or sitting at home, practicing for my piano exam. It's next Thursday, and I still have some major refining and memorising to do. In addition to that I had a concert today, have one tomorrow, and then another on Wednesday. And then a fourth one in three weeks. And auditions for music schools (I'm changing to another school, I've been in my current one for so long) in about a month.
But anyway, instead of going on about everyday life, I thought I'd tell a random story about how utterly unimaginative my parents are. You see, a lot of people seem to think that my name is weird (which it is for most foreigners, even for some Finns), so they sometimes ask how I got it. So I tell them: For the first couple of weeks after I was born, my parents just called me 'tyttö', which is Finnish for 'girl'. When they finally were forced to chose an actual name for me, they wanted something that would be as easy to remember as possible. So they thought 'Hey! If we just change the last letter in 'tyttö', it changes into a proper name!'. And so they changed the last letter in the word to an 'i', and hence I got my name, Tytti. So thank you, dear parents, for giving me a name that Finns always confuse with 'tyttö' (leading to some quite embarrassing confusions and long explanations), and foreigners can almost never pronounce correctly. Among the most interesting variations of my name I've heard are 'Titti', 'Titi' (pronounced tighty) and 'Tudey'. Not to mention the obvious nick names, such as Tutti Frutti and Tootsie Roll.
Well, to be totally honest, I'm not really that bothered about the mispronunciations anymore. I find them more funny than anything. But still. It would be nice if there would be some more romantic or interesting story behind my name. I mean, some people are named after a member of their family or some especially famous and/or significant person, or because their parents are religious and have some favourite character in the Bible, or stuff like that. Those stories have a thought, some sort of meaning behind them. But no, I had to be born to practical, down to earth, atheist parents, who gave me a name in probably the most unimaginative way possible.
Having said that, I love and adore my parents and wouldn't change them for anything in the world. One of the things I like about them most is that they are so down to earth and practical. It's just in this one instance that I wouldn't have minded them using a little more creativity. Though even in that case, my name would probably still be unpronounceable to at least foreigners, since most Finnish names are.
This reminds me of how the Finnish language really is quite ridiculous. I mean, in what other language could the following conversation actually make sense:
- Kokoo kokoon koko kokko, Kokko.
- Koko kokkoko?
- Koko kokko.
Kokko kokosi koko kokon.
Translation:
- Assemble the bonfire, Kokko.
- The whole bonfire?
- The whole bonfire.
Kokko assembled the whole bonfire.
A lot of other languages also don't have 15 cases for nouns, often formed differently for singular and plural versions of the word. Finnish words can also be morphed almost endlessly and beyond comprehension, since most pronouns can be (and are) replaced by suffixes. Hence words such as 'kissoissammekinko?' (also in our cats, in question form). Bear in mind that the basic form would be 'kissa', so with suffixes alone, you have managed to add a commendable 12 letters to the word. And don't even get me started on verbs.
Oh, and just one last random fact: in Finnish it is grammatically correct to string together as many nouns as you want. Basically what this means is that you could put all the nouns in the language together to form one huge compound word and, in a grammatical sense, it would be correct. It just wouldn't mean anything.
Now I must go see if there are any cookies left from the three dozen I baked today. I don't know how, but somehow me and my parents always manage to hoover up anything fatty and sugar-filled between the three of us about twice as fast as most families do.
But anyway, instead of going on about everyday life, I thought I'd tell a random story about how utterly unimaginative my parents are. You see, a lot of people seem to think that my name is weird (which it is for most foreigners, even for some Finns), so they sometimes ask how I got it. So I tell them: For the first couple of weeks after I was born, my parents just called me 'tyttö', which is Finnish for 'girl'. When they finally were forced to chose an actual name for me, they wanted something that would be as easy to remember as possible. So they thought 'Hey! If we just change the last letter in 'tyttö', it changes into a proper name!'. And so they changed the last letter in the word to an 'i', and hence I got my name, Tytti. So thank you, dear parents, for giving me a name that Finns always confuse with 'tyttö' (leading to some quite embarrassing confusions and long explanations), and foreigners can almost never pronounce correctly. Among the most interesting variations of my name I've heard are 'Titti', 'Titi' (pronounced tighty) and 'Tudey'. Not to mention the obvious nick names, such as Tutti Frutti and Tootsie Roll.
Well, to be totally honest, I'm not really that bothered about the mispronunciations anymore. I find them more funny than anything. But still. It would be nice if there would be some more romantic or interesting story behind my name. I mean, some people are named after a member of their family or some especially famous and/or significant person, or because their parents are religious and have some favourite character in the Bible, or stuff like that. Those stories have a thought, some sort of meaning behind them. But no, I had to be born to practical, down to earth, atheist parents, who gave me a name in probably the most unimaginative way possible.
Having said that, I love and adore my parents and wouldn't change them for anything in the world. One of the things I like about them most is that they are so down to earth and practical. It's just in this one instance that I wouldn't have minded them using a little more creativity. Though even in that case, my name would probably still be unpronounceable to at least foreigners, since most Finnish names are.
This reminds me of how the Finnish language really is quite ridiculous. I mean, in what other language could the following conversation actually make sense:
- Kokoo kokoon koko kokko, Kokko.
- Koko kokkoko?
- Koko kokko.
Kokko kokosi koko kokon.
Translation:
- Assemble the bonfire, Kokko.
- The whole bonfire?
- The whole bonfire.
Kokko assembled the whole bonfire.
A lot of other languages also don't have 15 cases for nouns, often formed differently for singular and plural versions of the word. Finnish words can also be morphed almost endlessly and beyond comprehension, since most pronouns can be (and are) replaced by suffixes. Hence words such as 'kissoissammekinko?' (also in our cats, in question form). Bear in mind that the basic form would be 'kissa', so with suffixes alone, you have managed to add a commendable 12 letters to the word. And don't even get me started on verbs.
Oh, and just one last random fact: in Finnish it is grammatically correct to string together as many nouns as you want. Basically what this means is that you could put all the nouns in the language together to form one huge compound word and, in a grammatical sense, it would be correct. It just wouldn't mean anything.
Now I must go see if there are any cookies left from the three dozen I baked today. I don't know how, but somehow me and my parents always manage to hoover up anything fatty and sugar-filled between the three of us about twice as fast as most families do.