Se Wsi Testamenti


Se Wsi Testamenti is the first translation of the New Testament in Finnish; it was published in 1548. It was translated by Mikael Agricola, then rector of the Turku Cathedral School and later Bishop of Turku.
Generally regarded as Agricola's most prominent work, the manuscript was completed in 1543, but it underwent correction for five more years. The whole work took eleven years. The New Testament, printed in Stockholm in 1548, was still based mainly on the dialect of Turku.

Text

Se Wsi Testamenti contains 718 pages and many illustrations. It has two prefaces, practical and theological. In the practical preface Agricola gives reasons for using the Turku dialect and tells how Christianity came into Finland. In the theological preface Agricola tells that his translation was based on the Greek text by Erasmus, a Latin collection by Erasmus of Rotterdam, a German translation by Martin Luther, as well as the Swedish bibles by Olaus Petri.

Features

Agricola also explains how he had to create many new words and hoped they would be liked and put into use. "Se" in the title is a definite grammatical article ; modern Finnish has no articles.

Orthography

The spelling characteristics of this book are:
  • "v" was often written as "w" wanha 'old' or as "u" hyue 'good'
  • "d" was often written as "dh" and is the sound /ð/ sydhen 'heart'
  • "ii" was written as "ij" sijs 'so'
  • "uo" was written as "o" or "oo" noori 'young'
  • "ts" was written as "tz", and is pronounced as /θ/
  • "ks" was written as "x"
  • "k" was written as "c" before back vowels or as "q" before "u" quin 'as if'
  • "ä" was often written as "e" ise 'father'
  • "uu" was written as "w" wsi 'new', as in the title