h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Titania

I might be a bit late but.. well, here I am anyway. I'm a bit curious about the part saying Jukkasjärvi means a meeting place. I did a bit of looking around and found a lot of websites saying the same thing. First let me say that I know nothing about how words originate in Finnish. It does seem, however, that the name Jukkasjärvi originates from Finnish. You might know all this already, but I hope you don't mind. Here goes..

Jukka is a very common first name around here. In Finnish we have this ending of a word "nen", which is mostly found in surnames, but has also the meaning "little", so Jukkanen would be little Jukka (although it does sound a bit silly). In compound words "nen" changes usually into "s". Järvi means lake. So Jukkasjärvi would get the meaning "lake of little Jukka" (although that would be grammatically incorrect in Finnish).

On the other hand, the "s" might come from the Swedish genitive, so it would be just "Jukka's lake".

I was just curious, do you have any information on how that "meeting place" meaning originates from a Lapp word?

I just hope my question survives the new moderation rule..

Hi Rupert! If you check my user page, you'll see that I speak Finnish...

*off to search for the Lapp word, I knew I read it somewhere*

Yes, I did remember you speak Finnish, I just didn't know how well. I'm sorry for being a bit prejudiced, it's just that I've never met a Swede who speaks Finnish.. Or a Finn that speaks fluent Swedish for that matter (apart from the finlandssvenska).

Well, I was born and grew up in Sweden, with Swedish friends, Swedish school and so on - but both parents Finnish, and we always talked Finnish at home, although I've never studied Finnish (I made an attempt once, but gave up because of the grammar)

Ok, then I trust you speak like a native. Although, I have a friend who's from a finlandssvensk (I wonder what's the correct term in English, I don't want to be a criminal ) family and she doesn't speak Swedish. I don't know if it's because she can't or maybe if she just doesn't feel confident enough of her skills. What's wrong with our grammar? It's much simpler than Swedish (unless you want to learn the terms too and not just to use the language correctly ) I'm not that good at Swedish but whenever I'm in Stockholm I try not to switch to English if I just can. I understand it a bit better than speak it.. And I didn't get the grammar.

Well, there is actually very little grammar in Swedish, but lots of exceptions...

...but what confused me was all the cases (is that the English word?)- most of them you don't even notice in Swedish, and I've learnt a few in German - but there are so many in Finnish!

About Jukkasjärvi - can't remember where I read about it, but I found a site - with text only in Swedish, so I would obviously break the House Rules if I posted it here - even if it concerns an entry about to be edited!

Anyway, the site says that the word 'Jukkasjärvi' is probably a Finnish refraction of the words 'Thohkeras Jaure' meaning 'Lake of gathering/meeting' or something like that...

...although I'm not sure how you could twist Thohkeras into Jukkas...

Now, if this posting gets moderated, then I can understand it, even though I don't approve, and it would probably set off my anti-Moderation mood again - but if it isn't moderated, then the House Rules are inconsistent - and how is one then ever to know how/what to post?

I guess the meaning but not the original worthing of Jukkasjärvi survived through the times... maybe because the Lapp language suffered some serious discrimination and was actually forbidden in schools among other things...

I guess case is the right word, at least there was one grammatical definition in my dictionary for it.. We have 15 of them, which is quite a lot but then again, we don't have any prepositions and our words don't have gender (the German der/die/das) or family (if that's the right word, the Swedish en/ett thingie). I've always found them confusing and I always quite happily mixed and matched.

I'd like to check out that site, if you wouldn't mind sending the URL to my email perhaps ([email protected]) (I can't remember if I'm allowed to put my email on conversations but in case tt vanishes my email is on my user space).

I vaguely remember there being some talk about Lappland in school but I never quite managed to stay awake on history class..

Try a google search for 'Thohkeras' - it's the only one there!
[to Moderator: no, it's not a plug, but if he uses this specific search he'll only come up with one hit, thus facilitating the search]

Hmm.. actually Thohkeras sounds a bit like the word "together". If you leave the ras-part out, it also does sound a bit like Jukka so it would make somekind of sense.

Regarding the name Jukkasjärvi, it's regarded as to be an finnish translation of the sami name for the place called "Thohkeras Jaure" which means "The gatheringlake".

Uh - excuse me, researcher 197352 - but I think we have already mentioned that?