I'm a Finn and not language person, so I have always wondered why some linguists and philologists (like Tolkien) love Finnish language despite it being so weird and hard to learn. Here is interesting opinion from one foreigner:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Nordiccountries/comments/2bm3e4/dane...

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Ok this might get long.

First to give some weight to my opinion, I should mention that I've studied most of the major language families in the world to some depth. I've studied indo-european languages quite extensively (including all scandinavian languages), I have a degree in Icelandic, teach it for a living, and have studied Finnish for many years.

In comparaison to other languages, Finnish is very regular. It is extremely efficient - you can create new words very easily and all the parts 'click' together perfectly. One of the reason for the great practicality and efficiency of the Finnish language is that for one thing, it uses many small ways to integrate endings seemlessly into the words - vowel harmony means only certain vowels can be added onto certain nouns (a o u can only have a o u in the word, whereas ä ö y can only be around other ä ö y, and i e are neutral). Every way in which a word can end in Finnish also has a second 'open' form that is used when the seal of the word is broken (nominative) to add more stuff onto it. The word kuningas 'king' can be 'broken open' to kunkinkaa- and then you add endings (kuninkaalle, kuninkaana, etc.).

So it's kind of like a really slick puzzle where each part fits specifically with a word and various rules make it all seem like one big beautiful well integrated whole.

Another beautiful thing about Finnish is the purity of its sounds. It's extremely clear. You can chose to speak Finnish in such a way that every single vowel is completely distinct from the other, no sound is ambiguous, everything is just the way it should be.

Finnish also has a LOT of words. LOADS of words describing sounds in nature. LOADS of words for various types of movement (jump, jump once, jump around, jump casually, etc.). It is the PERFET language to talk about the forest, mushrooms, types of soil, types of bark, birds, water, weather. I can think of SO many words related to trees, bark, where the tree lies, how big it is, is it dead on its side, dead lying on another tree, dead with the middle rotten away, the bark rotten away, etc.

Finnish is also what is called a linguistic icebox. When you put a new word into Finnish, it remains unchanged for many thousands of years. The word kuningas 'king' is nearly identical to the proto-germanic form (*kuningaZ).

So in other words, Finnish is incredibly clear, very 'integrated' (words seamlessly melt into one another with high specificity), really rich in derivations (you can create hundreds of words based on one root), really rich in words for sound, movement, nature, trees, plants, etc., and it has changed very little for a very very long time.

Sure, it's spoken with a rather low voice and your culture might label Finnish as ugly, but it's just really different from the germanic languages, and in my opinion, infinitely more beautiful!

Upea suomenkieli, kaikkein kaunein kieli!

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