Why a Booktrail?
1943: Don’t be put off by the title! This is far from a textbook read! An injured soldier lost in Trieste struggles to survive and rediscover his identity and his past in Finland.
New Finnish Grammar
What you need to know before your trail
Trieste 1943
A seriously wounded soldier is found on the quay. He is cared for by the doctor of a German hospital ship but no one knows the solider’s identity for he carries no papers and no clues. When he does come around he has no memory of who he is and even what language he speaks.
The doctor from the ship, Pietri Friari is a Finnish man and thinks that the solider might be too. He takes it upon himself to teach the man Finnish and to help him rebuild who he is and what he has lost.
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The true setting here is not so much Helsinki but its folklore, mythology and language.
Sampo is a man with no memory and learns about himself through one of the most difficult languages of all. And the linguistic journey is equally fascinating.
Petri finds a book where this unknown solider has written a long account about his experiences and his life, in broken and ungrammatical Finnish with bits of grammar, prose and poetry included The doctor says he has been witness to much of this and s goes on to examine the events in the book.
The book is the key to the mystery of the soldiers fate and an overlook of the time and place Finland found itself in at the time.
The Finish language is as much the setting as anything and the Kalevala, a famous and epic Finnish work of poetry explains, evokes and showcases the Finnish culture, language, linguistic heritage and more – What does he like about the language?
“the abessive . . . a declension for things we haven’t got: koskenkorvsatta, toivatta, no koskenkorva, no hope, both are declined in the abessive. It’s beautiful, it’s like poetry! And also very useful, because there are more things we haven’t got than that we have.”
This shapes the views of the soldier and how he sees life and shows his view of Finland and the war. The folklore and mysticism in words helps him to find out who and what he is.
Written by a senior linguist for the EU, this is a linguistic treasure.
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