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I played the game Noita where the enemies have inscrutable names like "Haulikkohiisi." I was amused to learn that is just the Finnish for "Shotgun Goblin", and

I played the game Noita where the enemies have inscrutable names like "Haulikkohiisi." I was amused to learn that is just the Finnish for "Shotgun Goblin", and that was the general pattern of names

duskwuff 1y ago
What's especially funny about the names in Noita is that a lot of them are Finnish colloquialisms or jokes, e.g. - Hämis (little spider) is "spidey", like a childish nickname - Ukko (lightning mage) is "old man" - Stendari (fire mage) is "cigarette lighter" (slang) - Stevari (holy temple guardian) is "mall cop" (slang)
- miohtama 1y ago
  Ukko is also the god of thunder in Finnish mytology https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukko https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukko
  - duskwuff 1y ago
    Oh, ha. Totally missed that reference - ignore me :)
- buovjaga 1y ago
  > - Stendari (fire mage) is "cigarette lighter" (slang) From Swedish "tändare". - Stevari (holy temple guardian) is "mall cop" (slang) From STV (Suomen Teollisuuden Vartiointi) security firm.
kqr 1y ago
This is something I love about Finnish as an outsider: instead of loaning words they create beautifully poetic compounds. I have lost my list but remember comet being "tail-star", capital being "head-city", and world being "ground-air".
- jltsiren 1y ago
  "Head city" is just the literal meaning of "capital city". "Maailma", on the other hand, is an old word, and its original meaning was more like "earth and sky". "Ilma" used to mean things like sky, heaven, air, and weather, but Finnic languages eventually started using the Indo-European loan "taivas" for the first two.
- yencabulator 1y ago
  That can go wrong too. They (the guardians of language, prim and proper) tried to make "swap file" be "heittovaihtotiedosto", literally "thrown replacement record collection". Thrown as in the things being swapped are in the air while being exchanged, not placed somewhere temporarily. In the real world, lots of computer-related terminology ended up being just transliterated from English directly, along the lines of procedure -> proseduuri, server -> serveri, icon -> ikoni.

I played the game Noita where the enemies have inscrutable names like "Haulikkohiisi." I was amused to learn that is just the Finnish for "Shotgun Goblin", and that was the general pattern of names

duskwuff 1y ago

What's especially funny about the names in Noita is that a lot of them are Finnish colloquialisms or jokes, e.g. - Hämis (little spider) is "spidey", like a childish nickname - Ukko (lightning mage) is "old man" - Stendari (fire mage) is "cigarette lighter" (slang) - Stevari (holy temple guardian) is "mall cop" (slang)

miohtama 1y ago
Ukko is also the god of thunder in Finnish mytology https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukko https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukko
- duskwuff 1y ago
  Oh, ha. Totally missed that reference - ignore me :)
buovjaga 1y ago
> - Stendari (fire mage) is "cigarette lighter" (slang) From Swedish "tändare". - Stevari (holy temple guardian) is "mall cop" (slang) From STV (Suomen Teollisuuden Vartiointi) security firm.

kqr 1y ago

This is something I love about Finnish as an outsider: instead of loaning words they create beautifully poetic compounds. I have lost my list but remember comet being "tail-star", capital being "head-city", and world being "ground-air".

jltsiren 1y ago
"Head city" is just the literal meaning of "capital city". "Maailma", on the other hand, is an old word, and its original meaning was more like "earth and sky". "Ilma" used to mean things like sky, heaven, air, and weather, but Finnic languages eventually started using the Indo-European loan "taivas" for the first two.
yencabulator 1y ago
That can go wrong too. They (the guardians of language, prim and proper) tried to make "swap file" be "heittovaihtotiedosto", literally "thrown replacement record collection". Thrown as in the things being swapped are in the air while being exchanged, not placed somewhere temporarily. In the real world, lots of computer-related terminology ended up being just transliterated from English directly, along the lines of procedure -> proseduuri, server -> serveri, icon -> ikoni.