Re: [tied] Re: Indo-European for Indo-European

----- Original Message -----

From: Juha Savolainen

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Friday, August 29, 2003 7:22 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] Re: Indo-European for Indo-European

 Piotr,

I must confess that I sort of anticipated that you would, when the moment of truth would arise, sublimate this very potent issue into something less tangible…:)

But let us start with Tacitus:

According to the A. J. Church and W. J. Brodribb translation of The Agricola and Germania (London: Macmillan, 1877) Tacitus describes the Fennians as follows:

 

    In wonderful savageness live the nation of the Fennians, and in beastly poverty, destitute of arms, of horses, and of homes; their food, the common herbs; their apparel, skins; their bed, the earth; their only hope in their arrows, which for want of iron they point with bones.

    Their common support they have from the chase, women as well as men; for with these the former wander up and down, and crave a portion of the prey. Nor other shelter have they even for their babes, against the violence of tempests and ravening beasts, than to cover them with the branches of trees twisted together; this a reception for the old men, and hither resort the young.

    Such a condition they judge more happy than the painful occupation of cultivating the ground, than the labour of rearing houses, than the agitations of hope and fear attending the defence of their own property or the seizing that of others. Secure against the designs of men, secure against the malignity of the Gods, they have accomplished a thing of infinite difficulty; that to them nothing remains even to be wished.

http://www.helsinki-hs.net/news.asp?id=20020102IE16

Well, the Finns have not been too eager to claim these “Fennians” as of their own kin, perhaps because the description comes perilously close to what Madame de Staël says about the Finns in her “Dix années d´exil 1812”

"They try to cultivate the mind a little there, but bears and wolves come so close in winter that all thought is of necessity concentrated on how to attain a tolerable physical existence."

and what Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin testifies in his “Life´s Little Things”

"The Finns also have a bent for drink, even though there is no wine here whatsoever, except for illicit tavern keeping, which is harshly suppressed. But, all the way to St. Petersburg, the Finn will drink himself into forgetfulness, lose his money, horse, bridle, and return home poorer than a church rat."

http://newsroom.finland.fi/finfo/english/finnseng.html

Instead, we have often politely enough given the honour of living in this happy state of nature (with a not-so-little help from potent intoxicants) to our Sámi neighbours who, while speaking a related language, have looked - for properly patriotic Finns – the perfect candidate for the job. But your ingenious derivation of the *Fenno:z could have changed everything…There is no doubt that more and more Finns, mainly males, would have had second thoughts on the matter…after all, even some Finnish scholars have accepted the identification of the Tacitian Fennians with the Finns of later day...and more to the point, the obvious marks of generously endowed *fenna are surely still there…

Hence I must reject, on behalf of the whole self-respecting nation of Finns, your consolation prize: no, mere magic will not do the trick. Instead, we will revert to our traditional hospitability towards the Sámi people. Let us grant them the privilege of being the direct descendants of those powerful witches that so vexed the mind of King James…

http://www.chronicon.com/noita/index.en.html

Cheers, Juha

Piotr Gasiorowski <piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Juha Savolainen <juhavs@...> wrote:

> This case of ancient and evident *fenna-envy is so hilarious and
intriguing that I have to ask when did it arise in your opinion?

The name was evidently in use in the first century, so it must have
arisen by then, perhaps during the initial contact between Finnic and
Germanic peoples. Opinions differ as to who was included among the
original *Fenno:z. OE Finnas and ON Finnar certainly included the
Saami. My comment about envy was of course a joke; the intended
meaning of the term was probably something like 'virile, potent' not
necessarily in the sexual sense (perhaps connected with the
non-Germanic Scandinavians' reputation as formidable wizards and
magicians); the Finns can take it as a compliment anyway ;-)

Piotr

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