Hurray

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Hurri is a more or less derogatory connotation common in Finnish for the Finnish Swedes .

Etymology and word usage

There are many partly contradicting statements about the origin of the term. The word hurri occurs at different times in different Finnish dialects , sometimes with very different meanings that can hardly be reconciled semasiologically; It is difficult to decide whether the corresponding documents refer to one and the same word or rather to homonyms .

According to a widespread, but hardly likely folk etymology , the nickname hurri is explained by the fact that Swedish speakers who ended up in Finnish-speaking areas could barely follow conversations and therefore hur? (Swedish for "how [please]?") said. The assertion made by Yrjö Koskinen in 1857 is related that the Swedes, since the conquest of Finland in the Middle Ages, had attracted attention because they always shouted “ Hurray !” Whenever they had once again killed an innocent Finnish farmer; but such a thing almost certainly only happened in Koskin's fennomaniac feverish dreams.

It is more probable that hurri in the sense of "Finland Swede " goes back to the meaning of "flying trader, shopkeeper, peddler", which has been attested since the 18th century in central Finland and Häme , among other places . This is indicated by the entry on hurri in Christfried Ganander's Nytt Finskt Lexicon (completed in 1787, not printed until 1827). Ganander writes, on the one hand, that in Ilmola in the north of Ostrobothnia all Swedes and all residents of the neighboring Swedish-speaking parishes are called that ( 'in paroecia Ilmoila Ostrob. Omnes Sveci, ex paroeciis Sveticis' ); this is also the oldest evidence for this meaning. On the other hand, Ganander also writes that in Lappfjärd and Närpes , a few hundred kilometers further south, on the other hand, traders from abroad who sold fish here were also called hurri ( 'Lapfjerd l. Nerpis de qvi pisces adferunt denominantur' ). These fishmongers may have been Swedish-speaking, and over time the original meaning of hurri "foreign trader, stranger, newcomer" may have been transferred from the Finnish-speaking inhabitants of the East Bothnian coast to their Swedish-speaking neighbors. In 1982, RE Nirvi put forward the hypothesis that hurri in the sense of "flying trader" was ultimately identical to the identical word hurri , which was previously attested in eastern Finland and actually meant the wolf , but later also referred to other shaggy animals such as dogs and goats has been; as a result, the peddlers were mocked as hurri because of their unkempt appearance, that is, their long hair and long beards . According to Nirvi, this disparaging connotation also resonates with the nickname hurri for Finland-Sweden. Up until the 20th century the term was hardly ever used with malicious intent, however, it did not become a swear word until around 1930. By 1979 at the latest it was used by at least some Finnish speakers not only to insult the Finland-Swedes, but also to abuse the "Swedish Swedes"; this extended meaning is given at least in the Nykyslangin sanakirja published this year .

In the 1970s at the latest, hurri was appropriated as a self-designation by some Finland-Swedes and reinterpreted positively in order to consolidate the Finnish-Swedish identity . In this respect , hurri is a " Geusenwort ". A milestone in Finnish-Swedish literature is the publication of the anthology Hurrarna: En , which was conceived as a polemic stridsskrift om finlandssvenskarnas nutid , in which a dozen authors under the leadership of Gösta Ågren , Ralf Norrman and Birger Thölix warned that the rural Finnish-Swedish culture as a result of the massive emigration to Sweden on the one hand, and the numerical "superiority" of the Finnish-speaking population on the other , was threatened with extinction, and urged to preserve one's own cultural identity. Hurrerna is sometimes referred to as the starting point of a full- blown Finnish-Swedish "movement", the hurrarrörelsen .

See also

References and comments

  1. ↑ Cf. the entries under the Lemma hurri in Suomen murteiden sanakirja (online edition), ed. from Kotimaisten kalten keskus , 2011–2019.
  2. ↑ Asko Vilkuna: Hurri-pesye . In: Virittäjä 56: 1, 1952, pp. 22-30.
  3. ↑ Riitta Eronen: Naapurien nimistä: kuka onkaan hurri? . In: Kielikello , issue 3, 1995.
  4. ^ Pirkko Lilius: The History of Scandinavian Language Studies in Finland 1828-1918 . Societas scientiarum Fennica, Helsinki 2008, p. 14.
  5. ↑ Lemma hurri s. in Vanhan kirjasuomen sanakirja (online edition), ed. from Kotimaisten kalten keskus , 2014–2019.
  6. ↑ Kustaa Vilkuna: Folk festivals work in Finland . Academia scientarum Fennica, Helsinki 1963 (= Folklore Fellows Communications , Volume 191), p. 192f.
  7. ↑ Mikael Reuter: Hurray hurri? In: Helsingin Sanomat of November 23, 1999.
  8. ↑ RE Nirvi: Petojen nimitykset kosinta- hääsanastossa yes . Suomalaisen kirjallisuuden seura, Helsinki 1982, pp. 79ff.
  9. ↑ Article hurri in Uppslagsverket Finland (online edition).
  10. ↑ Riitta Eronen: Naapurien nimistä: kuka onkaan hurri? . In: Kielikello , issue 3, 1995.
  11. ↑ Article Hurrarna in Uppslagsverket Finland (online edition).