by to friends & lovers
Happy Friendship Day, or as the Finns say: Hauskaa Ystävänpäivää, dear readers!
Or if you prefer, Happy Valentine’s
And here is a heartwarming and exceptionally well-done video which I hope you will enjoy as much as I have: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore
Added Feb.28th: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore has won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film! Congratulations to Moonbot Studios! (and I didn’t even know it was a nominee)
February 14, 2012 in Culture, Current Events by Marja-Leena
Hyvää ystävänpäivää, Marja-Leena! On hienoa että olemme ystävystyneet näin blogien välityksellä, on kiinnostavaa seurata taidettasi ja blogiasi; Leena
It has been lovely to make friends with you via our blogs! Thanks for the video link, love it!
Yes, what you said in Finnish! 🙂
I googled Valentine and friend to try to cheat with a cyber-composed reply and failed, Google Translate is all very well but the mistakes make it glaringly obvious that one is not really a speaker of the language.
Hyvää ystävänpäivää???
and is ystävä friend? It looks as if it is related to ‘Valentine’, do the two words share the same roots?
Such a lot of ‘ä’
Finnish is a very difficult language for a non-speaker!
But yes, have a lovely day Marja-Leena!
Leena, kiitos, ja olen aivan samaa mieltä tästä mainiosta tavasta saada ja pitää ystävyyttä, ja näyttää töitämme. Minulle on myös hyvä että saan näin harjoittaa vähän suomen kieltäkin.
Thanks Leena, I agree that this is a great way to make new friends and show each other our art, as well as let me practice some of my Finnish!
Mouse, thanks. That translator can be very very odd indeed. Yes, ystävä means friend, and päivä is day. Lots of umlauts in Finnish, but it is an easy language to read because every letter has only the one sound. For example, a regular a makes one sound, and the umlaut ä another sound, without exceptions like in the English language.
I’m hopelessly monolingual. A smattering of polite in Spanish, French and Japanese is all. A friend at work tried to get me to pronounce the volcano in Iceland, never quite made it.
Good friend day, though.
Marja-Leena!
Ystävänpäivä ei ole suomalainen merkkipäivä ollenkaan.
We haven’t had anything like Friendship Day for Finns until for some strange reason it sneaked into our habits.
Just had a talk in some blogs what original festivals we have, and came to conclusion, that seasonal festivals are universal in Europe, maybe even earlier civilizations like Anatolia (8000 B.C), which of course is mostly speculation.
Seasonal feasts are Winter (Christmas in Christian cultures), Spring (Easter in Christian cultures), Summer (Juhannus, Midsummer fires & all) and Fall (Kekri, All Saints Day=Halloween), and they are near of each seasons equinox.
Of course the ways of celebration vary. So same holidays have been for a long time, thousands of years, build again after peoples moved from one place to another.
But WHO is Valentine? I really don’t know!
zhoen, I might have been monolingual too in different circumstances and any languages I’ve learned in school are mostly forgetten.
Ripsa, as I understand it Friendship Day was created as an alternative to the commercialized Valentine’s Day spreading everywhere. I like its inclusiveness.
As for who is Valentine, according to wikipedia there were one or more early Christian martyrs named Valentinus. The first St. Valentine’s Day was in 496 AD, later deleted in 1969 by Pope Paul VI. It became associated with romantic love in the time of Chaucer in England when the tradition of courtly love flourished. By the 15th century, it had evolved into the card giving occasion we know. And then the card, chocolate and flower companies flourished 🙂
one day I will get my tongue around those funny a’s!
it seems that I now speak Italian with a French accent which rather pleases me, especially as I suspect that I do not even speak French with a French accent!
Mouse, you are so good with languages that you would not have trouble with pronouncing Finnish (grammar might be harder). I know you joke, but there’s no tongue twisting with the a’s – the a sound is like ‘aah’, the ä is like in ham.
Have you ever seen this video about the difficulties with the English language?
Lucky me to stop by this particular day. As they say, I heart the heart you’ve shared. And your new banner is perfect; I want to hold it, turn it over, and see what it looks like on the other side. Thanks again!
Naomi, thanks so much, glad you like!
That is a very beautiful heart, as is yours for being the first to tell me about it being Friendship Day. I like that far more than the commercial circus.
I went by to see the video but it’s a bit too long for me to watch this evening. I shall be back.
Susan, I’m pleased you like my strange heart – you know how I like textures. I’ve written about Friendship Day before but I suppose you missed those, or it was before we got to know each other. I only learned about it a few years ago through some Finnish blogs. You will love the video, I’m sure.
On Saint Valentine’s Day, the birds begin to fly back north–or so it is said.
Hope you had a good one!
Marly, I didn’t know that saying about the birds. Thanks, it was good, mixed together with my birthday as it usually is. Hope yours was good too.
Winging my way to the party … a tad late … but Happy Friendship Day, dear Marja-Leena! The heart is indeed filled with texture. Nice! Stay warm and tickled pink by happiness!
Marja-Leena,
thank you for the information about Valentine! So it’s been Vatican in making the day.
I seem to remember long time ago somebody explaining, that actually it’s a question of a fiery, hot love with someone, and not friendship, I mean the Platonic one.
I don’t have anything against celebration, any reason is good enough, as long as the feast doesn’t become a commercial one…
Actually in the middle of the dark winter there is never enough of feasts. I hope you had a cake shaped like a heart!
rouchswalwe, thanks for the cheerful wishes!
Ripsa, it is strange how these holidays start and develop over a long time. Yes to having them at this time of year, but no to the commercialism – we are agreed!