Rauma dialect

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rauma language (rauman giäl) is a dialect of Finnish spoken in the town of Rauma, western Finland. The dialect is often considered as its own language although it is not. One of the reasons for this erroneous classification is that the dialect inherits a significant amount of vocabulary from Swedish, English and German, due to the Rauma's seafaring past.

The written form of the dialect was preserved by the writer and doctor Hj. Nortamo, and is currently practiced mainly as a hobby. Some of the most distinctive characteristics of the dialect (as written) are the use of letters 'g' and 'b', which are not common in Finnish language. Pronunciation of these letters is, however, closer to the more common 'k' and 'p' of mainstream Finnish.

Rauma dialect is practically extinct from real-life use. People in Rauma do speak in a way that carries a resemblance to this dialect - as an example, the tempo of speech is faster than average Finnish, with a lot of shortened words.

There are several subcategories of Rauma dialect, which have subtle differences and have their roots in neighbouring communities.

[edit] Examples with Finnish and English translations:

"San snä mnuu snuuks, snuuks mnääki snuu sano."
- Finnish: Sano sinä minua sinuksi, sinuksi minäkin sinua sanon.
- Spoken Finnish: Sano säki mua suks, suks mäki sua sanon.
- English: You should call me you, as I will call you a you too. (Used when dropping titles and starting to use first names.)
"Ol niingon gotonas"
- Finnish: Ole kuin kotonasi.
- Spoken Finnish: Oo niinku kotonas.
- English: Feel yourself at home.
"Luanikast reissu"
- Finnish: Hyvää matkaa.
- Spoken Finnish: Hyvää matkaa.
- English: Have a nice journey.