tuhatyhdekhsänsataakahdeksankymmentäkolme

tuhatyhdekhsänsataakahdeksankymmentäkolme!!

This is a word in Finnish that I have just learned how to write. Yes indeed it is one word. It means one thousand nine hundred and eighty three and is also how you say the year 1983 in Finnish. 1983 is the year I went to visit Finland with my mother. My mother was Finnish. She moved to Africa, to the then Republic of Rhodesia, in 1968 to marry my father and to serve as a Baha'i pioneer--perhaps the first Baha'i pioneer from Finland to the African continent. I wonder if there have been others since.


Tomorrow, twenty five summers after my last visit, I am making a journey to Finland again. I will visit my aunt and hopefully be able to meet some of my other relatives. My mission is to learn a little more about my mother and to discover a little bit of my Finnish cultural heritage that has really been invisible to me but surely is there given that I was raised by a Finnish mother. I hear that in contemporary Finland most of the young people speak fluent English. My aunt speaks very little and somehow I love this idea and I am eager to learn a little Finnish though I do realize that two weeks is a rather short stay to make much progress in this difficult language.


I gave myself my first language lesson just now using the book Beginner's Finnish. I had so much fun with it!! I realize that I do have some foundation in the language. A familiarity with the sounds and rhythms. My mother taught me just a very little as a child. She had a set of Finnish flashcards for me and I learned words like ice-cream and sun and peanut. I realize I LOVE the Finnish language. It has such a soft and light hearted feel to it. Makes me think of humming while skipping.

Here is a sampling of what I learned today (it is taking some energy to type the umlauts (ä):

Hei! Hauska tutustua. Minä olen Tanja. Asun Amerikassa. Olen työssä yliopistossa. Minä puhun vain vähän suomea. Kiitos kaikesta.

(Hi! Its nice to meet you. I am Tanja. I live in America. I work at the university. I speak only a little Finnish. Thank you for everything.)

I also learned my numbers as you can see above. Not bad for the first lesson. The book is as good as the recommendations on Amazon suggested.