#finnic

In Finnish, we don’t “I’ll go out even if it rained cats and dogs”, we rarely use the old saying “Menen ulos vaikka sataisi ämmiä äkeet selässä” which literally means “I’ll go out even if it rained bitches/hags with harrows on their backs”. 

Just another Finnish linguistic badassery.

Submitted by @decaffeinated, with the help of @neeleys,@bling-a-ling,@artniila,@holayshiteand@rragnaroks

[resources:Wiktionary,Urbaani Sanakirja (in Finnish)andSynonyymit.fi (in Finnish)]

In Finnish we don’t say “dragon” we say “lohikäärme” which roughly translates to “salmon snake” and I think that’s beautiful.

Submitted by @noasadventures, ​with the help of @rragnaroksand@neeleys

[resources:Wiktionary,Wikipedia (in Finnish),Sanakirja.fiandWikisanakirja (in Finnish)]

Was looking for examples of Proto-Germanic *nw and I ran into *linwaz ‘soft, mild, gentle’ … Could this be the origin of Proto-Finnic *lempedä 'lovely, mild’, *lempi 'love’? There was no PF **-nv- so the most probable substitute of *-nw- would be indeed *-mp- (and we have also other examples of *-w- → *-p-). The noun would likely have to be a back-derivation from the adjective though, which might moreover itself be a later remodelling of an initially loaned *lembäs (unattested as such).

Wiktionary claims an etymology from PIE *leyh₂-, which would be some trouble for explaining *e in PF (maybe not impossible, could date from an A-umlauted form like in much of West Germanic); but even WT still links also *linþaz 'soft’ as a related term, which is however instead normally (including by WT) traced to PIE *léntos (cf. Latin lentus 'pliable, slow, etc.’). Kroonen in his PG dictionary does not have *linwaz, but segments *lentos as *len-to-, not as simple thematic *lent-o-. If this is right, it seems to me that also *linwaz could be then *lén-wos, and the Finnic root simply loaned before the raising *eN > *iN (as also in various other cases).