Finnish birthday traditions are pretty similar to any other western culture: cards, presents, cake, blowing the candles, singing Finnish version of Happy Birthday Song... It's actually quite surprising that the popular Swedish Birthday Song hasn't been translated to Finnish, and hence it's not so popular in Finland (or at least I'm not aware of it). Well, my favorite birthday song is anyway coming from the other neighbor, Russia: Crocodile Gena's Birthday Song, and the excellent Finnish version of the song.
The impact of Anglo-Saxon culture is clearly present on the birthday wishes. Still in the 80's people were using more of the traditional Finnish birthday wish onneksi olkoon - let there be luck. Nowadays people are often taking the direct translation from English: hyvää syntymäpäivää - Happy Birthday.
Hi Katri!
ReplyDeleteSo I found your blog. I was actually thinking of some smart sayings, trying to be literate, artistic and thoughtful when I was googling. A thought flashed in my head and I was like "Let there be luck!" Like most arrogant humans in the world I did a google search trying to prove my originality and creativity, which ended up, like most arrogant humans in the world, in vain - I found this post occupying the top spot on google. Good for you. I didn't know it's some old Finnish saying though. Finns must be lucky :)
onneksi olkoon!
Best Regards from Hong Kong
Hi gameboy-andy!
DeleteThanks for your comment, it's interesting to know how and why people pop in here! Onneksi olkoon is so common saying in Finnish (it's used in all occasions where you may congratulate others) that many of native finns don't even think about the literal meaning of the saying.
Hopefully you can visit Finland some day and prove yourself if there's luck in here :)
BR,
Katri