Esko Timi Petteri Felin and Dr. Laura Catherine Smith, Germanic and Slavic Languages
The research for this project was initially conducted under the assumption that Finnish lexical borrowings from Swedish would considerably differ from its Russian counterparts. However, as more data was collected from various semantic fields, it became evident that the borrowings presented general borrowing patterns across the board not only in Swedish and Russian but also in other Germanic and Slavic languages. In the course of data pooling and analysis the conclusion for this research paper was the following: there are only a few if no differences in the manner, in which Finnish borrows words since the predominant patterns suggest that Finnish borrowing is similar in the case of both Russian and Swedish.
The research began with the overall inspection of the historical, political factors between Finland and the target countries, which then generated results that shed more light to the specific factors that causes borrowing i.e. language contact intensity and phonological characteristics. In addition to using contemporary Finnish linguistic sources, two etymological dictionaries were used in order to randomly disseminate words into their semantic categories in respect of time and various aspects of everyday life. This categorical data that was pooled showed a clear phonological pattern in Finnish borrowings.
As these categories were worked on, the assistance that Professor Smith rendered was priceless. Her expertise enabled me to present the data in a clear and logical manner as she helped me with organization, logistics and consistency. I learned a great deal about academic professionalism, credibility and work through her guidance in this specific field of historical linguistics. She did not only encourage me beyond my measure, but also literally couched me in the right direction throughout this entire research project.
Since the research included not only borrowings from Russian and Swedish but also other older related languages such as Germanic and some Slavic languages, the premises of this study were broad enough to show evidence of overall patterns in borrowings. The semantic fields provided sufficient material for the study of phonological and semantic changes that occurred in the process of words being borrowed into the Finnish language. These categories were chosen by the frequency of the specific words and then put into its respective categories. These semantic fields included such categories as agriculture, clothing, education, emotion and thought, health, household, living and building, nature, people, tools, transportation, work related, food and domestics, society and religion.
Incorporating the words phonologically into Finnish proved to be a topic that required the most time. However, as the words were put in order and in their respective categories belonging to each specific language, after finding a routine, the patterns became evident and it was fairly effortless to establish language specific patterns in the phonological changes that occurred in all the languages during the borrowing process. Professor Smith’s assistance also added greatly to this process. In order to mention one of these phonological patterns, the data showed clear patterns where Finnish in the borrowing process simplified all forms of consonant clusters from all languages. Furthermore, the phonological changes enforced the idea of Finnish using specific borrowing patterns due to its phonological characteristics that were also then explained in detail.
In conclusion it deserves to be said that Finnish’s history of borrowings shows evidence of clear-cut methods of incorporating foreign words that have enriched it and yet kept it unique among all other surrounding languages. The Germanic word kuninga-z ‘king’ that has preserved its nearly original form in the Finnish kuningas ‘king’ demonstrates, among others, how conservative and consistent Finnish has always been with its methods of borrowing and how this enables it to preserve many of its borrowed words in nearly early forms. This consistency has made Finnish survive among the turbulences of language change and made it into what it is today – a language that continues to develop and change while still remaining true to its own form.
All in all, each finding was significant and helped me appreciate the manner, in which research is done. During the proposal viewing of this project, I was told that this project is at the level of a Masters thesis or even PhD and it made me realize that I really had a great challenge ahead of me. However, after it was all done, Professor Smith assured me that due to excellent research, I would be able to use it in my M.A. studies in the future as well. It made me proud of the hard work I had put forth. This was research that had never been done before in this linguistic field of Finnish and has encouraged me to reach new heights and aspire to higher academic goals not only in my professional but my personal life as well as I continue to research and learn more.