Una lingua per le lunghe distanze

Finnish was developed in the wild of our plains and forests, where your next-door neighbor was a day trip away, and where fierce bears and bloodthirsty wolves roamed free.

Those hissing and lilting Indo-European languages work fine for chit-chatting and trading goods, but Finnish, this tongue of hard contrasts, is made for long-distance communication, like telling your neighbor, who lives across the lake, where he can stick his fucking reindeer. Or telling the ice-hockey umpire to get himself new glasses.

(Roman Schatz,Finland. What a Country! )