Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 07.djvu/685

* FINLEY. 627 FINNISH LANGUAGE. of that place, an organization unr nized by t.lit- Church, he was seized as having violated law forbidding itinerants to preach in anj parish without the consent of the settled pa tor, and was ejected from the colony as a vagrant. From ITU to 1701 he was pastor at Nottingham, Md., where he also conducted an academy which joyed a considerable reputation. In 1 7 1 '> 1 lie be- came president of Princeton. He was the first Presbyterian clergyman in An the degree of D.D. from the University of Gla (176:1). Mis publications consisted entirely of sermons, among them Christ Triumphing Satan Raging (1741), .1 Charitable I'l- Speechless ( 17471, and On the Death » President Dot ies (1701). FIN'NEY, Chari.es Grandison (1792-1875). An American clergyman and educator, born at Warren (Litchfield County), Conn. After a com mon-school education he began the study of law in 1818, in 1821 abandoned the law for theol was licensed to preach by the Presbyterian Church in 1824, and was active as an itinerant evangelist from that time until 1835 and at sub- sequent intervals. In 1834 he became pastor of the Congregational Church known as the Broad way Tabernacle. He was called to the chair of theology in Oberlin College (Oberlin, Ohio, then known as the Oberlin Collegiate Institute) in 1835. was appointed pastor of the Congregational Church at Oberlin in 1837, and from 1851 to 1800 was president of the college. In 1849 and 1858 he visited England as a revivalist, lie established the Oberlin Evangelist in 183!). and was its editor until 1803. Among his publica- tions arc Lectures on Revivals (1835; enlarged ed. 1868), Sermons on Important Subjects ( 183!)) , and Lectures on Systematic Theology ( 1847, new cd. 187S). Consult his Memoirs (New York, 1870). FINNISH LANGUAGE AND LITERA- TURE. The Finnish language belongs to the Finno-Ugric branch of the Uralo-Altaic family of languages. The tongues of the Finno-Ugric group are spoken in Finland, Lapland, and part of the Baltic provinces by a number of Finnic tribes scattered over a vast area in Northern and East- ern Russia and Western Siberia, and by the Mag- yars of Hungary. The richest and most highly cultivated languages of the group are the Suomi, the language of Finland, and the Magyar (Hun- garian). The dialects are all distinctly agglu- tinative forms of speech, with decided tendencies toward inflection, so much so that in many grammatical endings the essential difference be- tween agglutination and inflection becomes obscured. As in other Uralo-Altaic tongues, progressive vowel-harmony forms a character- istic feature of the Finnish group. It is maintained by some that the Finnish languages represent the oldest forms among the Uralo-Altaic groups. There is strong evidence that the Finns, or a closely allied race, must have at one time, probably prehistoric, been spread over a con- siderable area of central, if not of western Eu- rope. The Finnish language is spoken by over 2,000.000 people, and in several different dialects, of which the most important are the East Fin- nish or Karelian, the South Finnish, and the West Finnish. The first of these is the oldest and least developed; the second is the main vehicle of Finnish literature. It is emphatically lie. l! ha I i in damental vowels — a. «, >>d ( auplos - two diphthon i i ween i In Nouns are used without an gender, and an- declined, in in h in the Im!" ' only indii preposit ii have but two I and past . i In- fui ure i en • being cxpi a circumlocut ion ; but i • intricate, 'I he lang i he nice i shade of mi anini Ci in alt Idiot, Finnish Oramm The Finnish literal I he A alt i ala, a soi poem, « hich until I he I isted only in thi and on the lips of the peasantry. A collection of some of th . was pub- lished in 1822 by Zacharias Topelius; hut I. lias l.onnrot, thirti later, publish more complete collection, at the same time giv- ing to it the name by which it is now kno l.onnrot, wandered from place to pla peasantry, living with them and taking down from (heir lips all that they knew of their popular songs. iiter unwearied he was successful in collecting 12,078 lines, which he arranged into 32 rune, or cantos, and pub- lished them exactly as he heard them sung or chanted. Continuing hi rches, he pub- lished in 1849 a new editi f 22,793 verses, in 50 runes. The importance of this long-hid epic was at once recognized in Europe, and tr: lations of it were made in several lai Some specimens of it were translated into I lish by Professor Porter, of Yale, and publishi 1 in New York in 1868. The entire poem was translated by J. M. Crawford (1888). It. has hern several times translated into Swedish, the first, time by Castren, and there are versions in German by Anton Schiefner (18S2), in Fret by L. do Due (1868), in Hungarian bj Ferdinand Barna (1871). The poem is written in <i syllabled trochaic verse, and an idea of it- style may be obtained from Longfellow's Hiawatha, which approaches a true imitation of the Finnish epic. The Kalevala is concerned entirely with tin mythology or folk-lore of the people. In the story there is a certain unity of plot, though the various parts arc noi perfectly homogeneous, ami appear to he the product of different minds at different periods, the various songs haying evidently received additions in course of time. They probably originated before the Finns were converted to Christianity, and when they were not scattered as they are now. When l.onn- rot collected the Kalevala songs he also gathered a considerable quantity of lyric poetry, which he published under the name of /, from the name of the national instrument to which they are sung — a species of harp with five strings. Of recent Finnish poets the most popular seems , ivo Korrhoinen, a peasant, a very sar- castic writer. Other modern poets are Marteska, . linen, Oksaselta. Finnish pnots that have used Swedish are treated under Swed- ish Language and Literati rk. The Finns de- light in proverbs. LSnnrot having publish^ collection of upward of 7000, with about 200 charades, while considerable collections of leg and tales have been published. The first printed