Legend of Kalevala... - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

bombur · 10-13-2002, 03:24 AM

Westerly wizard is of course right in emphasising that Kalevala was inspiration to Tolkien and not something to plagiate. In the work however the sources of inspiration are to a degree visible, not only Kalevala, but also the sagas and eddas and celtic and anglosaxon myths.

I thought Tolkien was able to master finnish to a greater degree then your message told, interresting indeed. Also have to say that translation of Kalevala may indeed have been very poor. It is poetic work and the translation between finnish and english is always extremely difficult... hapless is not word I'd associalte with Kullervo... poor or unlucky... turambar, maybe.

Janne Harju

Ps. HerenIstarion... You mentioned earlier something of the own sets of charachters used in languages like georgian and finnish... I just understood that the example word I gave of bad sounding finnish rääkkääkkään propably does not show in your screen. Every k is supposed to be k, every sign that does not show properly is supposed to be a with umlauts... hence it as an example of terrible sounding finnish [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img] . Perhaps the pronounciation in english would be something like Raeaek-kaeaek-kaeaen or something [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] .

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10-13-2002, 03:24 AM	#17
bombur Wight Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: finland Posts: 126	Westerly wizard is of course right in emphasising that Kalevala was inspiration to Tolkien and not something to plagiate. In the work however the sources of inspiration are to a degree visible, not only Kalevala, but also the sagas and eddas and celtic and anglosaxon myths. I thought Tolkien was able to master finnish to a greater degree then your message told, interresting indeed. Also have to say that translation of Kalevala may indeed have been very poor. It is poetic work and the translation between finnish and english is always extremely difficult... hapless is not word I'd associalte with Kullervo... poor or unlucky... turambar, maybe. Janne Harju Ps. HerenIstarion... You mentioned earlier something of the own sets of charachters used in languages like georgian and finnish... I just understood that the example word I gave of bad sounding finnish rääkkääkkään propably does not show in your screen. Every k is supposed to be k, every sign that does not show properly is supposed to be a with umlauts... hence it as an example of terrible sounding finnish [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img] . Perhaps the pronounciation in english would be something like Raeaek-kaeaek-kaeaen or something [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] .