Perhaps it should be stated here that the copper, so often mentioned in The Kalevala, when taken literally, was probably bronze, or “hardened copper,” the amount and quality of the alloy used being not now known.  The prehistoric races of Europe were acquainted with bronze implements.

It may be interesting to note in this connection that Canon Isaac Taylor, and Professor Sayce have but very recently awakened great interest in this question, in Europe especially, by the reading of papers before the British Philological Association, in which they argue in favor of the Finnic origin of the Aryans.  For this new theory these scholars present exceedingly strong evidence, and they conclude that the time of the separation of the Aryan from the Finnic stock must have been more than five thousand years ago.

The Finnish nation has one of the most sonorous and flexible of languages.  Of the cultivated tongues of Europe, the Magyar, or Hungarian, bears the most positive signs of a deep-rooted similarity to the Finnish.  Both belong to the Ugrian stock of agglutinative languages, i.e., those which preserve the root most carefully, and effect all changes of grammar by suffixes attached to the original stein.  Grimin has shown that both Gothic and Icelandic present traces of Finnish influence.

The musical element of a language, the vowels, are well developed in Finnish, and their due sequence is subject to strict rules of euphony.  The dotted o; (equivalent to the French eu) of the first syllable must be followed by an e or an i.  The Finnish, like all Ugrian tongues, admits rhyme, but with reluctance, and prefers alliteration.  Their alphabet consists of but nineteen letters, and of these, b, c, d, f, g, are found only in a few foreign words, and many others are never found initial.

One of the characteristic features of this language, and one that is likewise characteristic of the Magyar, Turkish, Mordvin, and other kindred tongues, consists in the frequent use of endearing diminutives.  By a series of suffixes to the names of human beings, birds, fishes, trees, plants, stones, metals, and even actions, events, and feelings, diminutives are obtained, which by their form, present the names so made in different colors; they become more naive, more childlike, eventually more roguish, or humorous, or pungent.  These traits can scarcely be rendered in English; for, as Robert Ferguson remarks:  “The English language is not strong in diminutives, and therefore it lacks some of the most effective means for the expression of affectionate, tender, and familiar relations.”  In this respect all translations from the Finnish into English necessarily must fall short of the original.  The same might be said of the many emotional interjections in which the Finnish, in common with all Ugrian dialects, abounds.  With the exception of these two characteristics of the Ugrian languages, the chief beauties of the Finnish verse admit of an apt rendering into English.  The structure of the sentences is very simple indeed, and adverbs and adjectives are used sparingly.