The quarterly of the University of Helsinki

"Who would have thought?" is the reaction of Mika Palo, a Finnish teacher at the University of Porto, to the interest Portuguese students are unexpectedly showing towards learning Finnish.

Tarja Sipola

Back to summer issue 2002

The only Finnish course available in the whole of Portugal is one of the elective courses available at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto, the second largest university in Portugal. Part of the European Union, exotic Finland is fascinating and its language is appreciated here in the opposite edge of the EU.

An archaeology major, Sara Moreira's interest in Finnish was awakened during her visit to Finland. Although she only used English while studying at the University of Helsinki, she kept her ears open to the local language. It sounded pleasing and interesting to her ear. And as the opportunity to study Finnish opened up at her own university, she enrolled in the course in autumn 2001.

Isabel Freitas de Sousa, who studies art conservation, has picked up her knowledge of Finland from books. The languages, culture, and art of the Nordic countries have always interested her. When joining the Finnish course at the university, Isabel already had some idea of what was ahead of her.

The Finnish class is also attended by Ricardo Pereira. He has acquired his experience of the Finnish language and culture over a longer period of time. "For some strange reason" he began reading the Finnish national epic Kalevala in a French translation when he was 15. The events and mythical characters intrigued him and stayed in his mind. Three years ago, when he enrolled at the University of Porto, he jumped at the chance to study Finnish, at first alongside Swedish.

During his time as an exchange student at the University of Helsinki, Ricardo, a student of languages and the multidisciplinary European area studies, also took a closer interest in Finnish politics. He has maintained his Finnish language skills on the side all this time, and last summer had the opportunity to improve them at the Kuopio University summer course. At the Faculty of Arts of his home university, Ricardo has also contacted Finnish exchange students and uses every opportunity to brush up his Finnish.

Language, history, and culture

When the Finnish courses were started in Porto in 1998, the classes were given by Petri Piiroinen, a researcher of Orthodox theology and teacher of Greek. Since October 2001, Mika Palo, researcher, journalist, and the representative of the Finnish Institute in Madrid in Portugal, has been in charge of the course. He says that out of the sixteen who started the course, ten are still actively attending the course now that the term is drawing to its close. The students represent a wide range of disciplines, and only a few are language students. Half the students also attend the basic course in Finnish history and culture, which is arranged to back up the language studies. The course is held in Portuguese.

The history and culture course only began in autumn 2001, initiated thanks to the support from CIMO (the Centre of International Mobility). The elementary course in Finnish is subject to a fee and is also open to students outside the university. So far, the aim of the course can be no more than to impart the very basic practical skills in Finnish, says Palo. But there are plans to arrange an advanced course next year.

The course programme concentrated for the two months in the autumn term on the general characteristics of the Finnish language. In the spring term, the students have learnt verb inflection, case endings, and basic vocabulary. The history and culture course has dealt with Kalevala, Finnish history under Swedish rule, and the students have watched Aki Kaurismäki films on video.

The "Finnish Day" attracted
an audience of a hundred

In November 2001, a Finnish Language and Culture Day was arranged at the University of Porto, the first of its kind in any Portuguese university. A joint effort by CIMO, the Finnish Literature Information Centre, the Finnish Institute in Madrid, the Finnish Embassy in Lisbon, and the University of Porto, the event attracted an audience of a hundred people. The day was opened by an introductory speech by Ambassador Esko Kiuru, followed by a talk from Liisa Salo-Lee, Director of the Finnish Institute in Madrid, on intercultural communication. In her talk, Salo-Lee focused on the various aspects of communicative behaviour from the point of view of language-teaching, and emphasised that the link between a language and culture should be taken into account from the early stages of language studies. She discussed, using examples, the communication between the north and south and made comparisons between Finnish and Portuguese values and customs.

Mika Palo and Anna-Maija Raanamo, Secretary General to the CIMO Council for Finnish Studies at Universities abroad, gave an overview of the opportunities of studying Finnish abroad. CIMO's Director, Ulla Ekberg, in turn gave a marketing speech on student exchange in Finland. Professor Jyrki Kalliokoski from the University of Helsinki gave an introductory lecture on the special characteristics and history of the Finnish language, while Iris Schwanck, Director of the Finnish Literature Information Centre, gave a talk on the co-operation between Portugal and Finland in the field of literature. The event was also attended by Olli Heikkonen, a poet, whose poems were read in Finnish and in Portuguese.

During the day, the audience also had the chance to hear from a student panel regarding their experiences studying a rare language. A Portuguese-language leaflet had been produced especially for the event, containing information on the characteristics of the Finnish language, as well as relating the experiences of people in various professions concerning Finnish and its usefulness.

Finland from the Portuguese point of view

When asked about the Kaurismäki films they had seen, Sara Moreira, Isabel Freitas de Sousa, and Ricardo Pereira said they were unique in an indeterminable kind of way, and in terms of action content, "very calm". All three find Finland very different from the rest of Europe as they know it. They cannot have helped noticing how everything is run systematically and efficiently. Sara also thinks Finns are helpful and more diligent than the Portuguese.

Ricardo, who has also travelled in other provinces outside Helsinki, says that side by side the highly developed and cosmopolitan Finland there exists a conservative and closed-in Finland that is not ne-cessarily always so friendly towards an outsider.

All three agree that it is useful to know rarer languages, too, although it may be of little direct help in one's profession. Ricardo thinks that Finnish might be of value within the EU, for example, when thinking of Finland's vantage point with regard to the Baltic States. ß

A RELAÇÃO ENTRE PORTUGALE FINLÂNDIA NO TOCANTE A LITERATURA

Iris Schwanck

É muito interessante fazer uma comparação, em relação aos livros publicados e as suas origens e a literatura traduzida em relação á literatura nacional. Por exemplo, na Alemanha a quota da literatura anglo-saxónica é de cerca de 70 %, sendo a da literatura portuguesa de cerca de 0,5 - 0,7 %. A quota da literatura finlandesa é ainda menor. Na Grã-Bretanha a quota de obras clássicas traduzidas, em relação a toda a literatura publicada é de menos de 3 %. Na Finlândia o valor equivalente era no ano de 2000 de quase 71 %.

Portugal e Finlândia são dos países pequenos inseridos na Comunidade Europeia. O intercâmbio de traduções entre Portugal e a Finlândia tem sido desequilibrado nos últimos dez anos. As obras de Paulo Coelho, Fernando Pessoa, José Saramago e António Tabucchi, foram traduzidas de português para finlandês após 1990, no total foram traduzidas sete obras destes escritores, por cinco tradutores, sendo editadas por quatro editoras diferentes, e mais estão a caminho, por isso existem perspectivas futuras bastante animadoras.

Para português foi traduzida a obra da escritora Tove Jansson " O Cometa na Terra dos Mumins", sendo esta traduzida da versão inglesa e a obra da escritora Rosa Liksom "Os Paraísos do Caminho Vazio", ambas em 1994. A obra do escritor Mika Waltari.

"João o Peregrino" foi publicada no Rio de Janeiro em 1990 e "Cabelos de Ouro" também do mesmo autor em 2001, em Lisboa, cuja tradução para português foi baseada na versão francesa.

Tem sido possível estudar a língua portuguesa, na Universidade de Helsínquia, desde a década 80. A maior parte dos tradutores de português têm ali iniciado os seus estudos. O estudo da língua finlandesa, através de cursos básicos e avançados em Portugal, é possível somente desde há alguns anos, na Universidade do Porto. O escasso ensino universitário, reflecte directamente a situação a nível de traduções de obras literárias, entre os dois países. O português, é a única língua da Comunidade Europeia, onde não existe tradução da obra Kalevala, epopeia finlandesa. Agora foi iniciado um projecto, para dar inicio á sua tradução, que servirá como base de estudo na Universidade do Algarve. O livro Os Lusíadas, epopeia portuguesa, não tem tão-pouco uma tradução para finlandês, por conseguinte o objectivo é o de realizar ao mesmo tempo uma tradução destas duas obras.