Eru Ilúvatar : Jumala J.R.R. Tolkienin legendariumissa

The purpose of my research is to inquire into the essence and activity of God in the legendarium of the English philologist and writer J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973). The legendarium, composed of Tolkien’s writings related to Middle-earth, was begun when he created two Elvish languages, Quenya based on Finnish, Sindarin based on Welsh. Tolkien developed his mythology inspired by Germanic myths and The Kalevala. It is a fictional ancient history set in our world. The legendarium is monotheistic: God is called Eru ‘The One’ and Ilúvatar ‘Father of All’. Eru is the same as the Christian God, for Tolkien wanted to keep his tales consistent with his faith. He said his works were Christian by nature, with the religious element absorbed into the story and the symbolism. In The Silmarillion, set in the primeval ages of Middle-earth, the theological aspects are more conspicuous, while in The Lord of the Rings, which brings the stories to an end, they are mostly limited to symbolic references. The legendarium is unified by its realistic outlook on creaturely abilities and hope expressing itself as humbly defiant resistance. ”The possibility of complexity or of distinctions in the nature of Eru” is a part of the legendarium. Eru Ilúvatar is Trinitarian, as per Tolkien’s faith. Without contextual qualifiers, Eru seems to refer to God the Father, like God in the Bible. Being the creator who dwells outside the world is attributed to Him. The Holy Spirit is the only Person of the Trinity bestown with names: the Flame Imperishable and the Secret Fire. When Eru creates the material world with His word, He sends the Flame Imperishable to burn at the heart of the world. The Secret Fire signifies the Creative Power that belongs to God alone, and is a part of Him. The Son, the Word, is not directly mentioned, but according to one writing Eru must step inside the world in order to save it from corruption, yet remain outside it at the same time. The inner structure of the legendarium refers to the need for a future salvation. The creative word of Eru, “Eä! Let these things Be!”, probably has a connection with the Logos in Christianity. Thus we can find three “distinctions” in Eru: a Creator who dwells outside the world, a Sustainer who dwells inside it and a Redeemer who shall step inside it. Some studies of Tolkien have claimed that Eru is distant and remote. This seems to hold water only partially. Ilúvatar, the Father of All, has a special relation with the Eruhíni, His Children, the immortal Elves and the mortal Men. He communicates with them directly only through the Valar, who resemble archangels. Nevertheless, only the Children of Eru can fight against evil, because their tragic fortunes turn evil into good. Even though religious activities are scarce among them, the fundamental faith and ultimate hope of the “Free Peoples” is directed towards Eru. He is present in the drama of history as the “Author of the Story”, who at times also interferes with its course through catastrophes and eucatastrophes, ‘good catastrophes’. Eru brings about a catastrophe when evil would otherwise bring good to an end, and He brings about a eucatasrophe when creaturely strength is not sufficent for victory. Victory over corruption is especially connected with mortal Men, of whom the most (or least) insignificant people are the Hobbits. However, because of the “primeval disaster” (that is, fall) of Mankind, ultimate salvation can only remain open, a hope for the far future.

Toward a widely usable finite-state morphology workbench for less studied languages, 1: Desiderata

Most of the world’s languages lack electronic word form dictionaries. The linguists who gather such dictionaries could be helped with an efficient morphology workbench that adapts to different environments and uses. A widely usable workbench could be characterized, ideally, as generally applicable, extensible, and freely available (GEA). It seems that such a solution could be implemented in the framework of finite-state methods. The current work defines the GEA desiderata and starts a series of articles concerning these desiderata in finite- state morphology. Subsequent parts will review the state of the art and present an action plan toward creating a widely usable finite-state morphology workbench.

PROMIDS: A PROtotype multi-rIng data flow system for functional programming languages

This paper presents a detailed description of the hardware design and implementation of PROMIDS: a PROtotype Multi-rIng Data flow System for functional programming languages. The hardware constraints and the design trade-offs are discussed. The design of the functional units is described in detail. Finally, we report our experience with PROMIDS.

Vanhurskautta, oikeutta vai uskollisuutta? : ṣdq -sanue vuoden 1992 Kirkkoraamatun Psalmien kirjassa

Righteousness, justice or faithfulness? The Hebrew Root ṣdq in the Psalter of the Finnish Church Bible of 1992 This study attempts to answer three questions. Firstly, what do the derivates of the root ṣdq mean in the Hebrew Psalter? Secondly, with which equivalents are these Hebrew words translated in the Psalter of the Finnish Church Bible of 1992 and why? And thirdly, how is the translation of the root ṣdq in the Psalter placed in comparison with the translations of the root ṣdq in certain ancient and modern Bible translations? The root ṣdq has a very wide semantic field in Biblical Hebrew. The basic meaning of the root ṣdq is ‘right’ or ‘to be in the right’. The traditional English equivalent of the root ṣdq is righteousness. In many European languages the equivalent of the root ṣdq has some connection with the word ‘right’, but this is not the case in Finnish. The Finnish word vanhurskaus has been present since the first Finnish Bible translation by Mikael Agricola in 1548. However, this word has nothing to do with the Finnish word for ‘right’. The word vanhurskaus has become a very specific religious and theological word in Finnish, and it can be a word that is not obvious or at all understandable even to a native Finnish speaker. In the Psalter of the earlier Finnish Church Bible of 1938 almost every derivate of the root ṣdq (132/139) was translated as vanhurskaus. In the Psalter of the Finnish Church Bible of 1992 less than half of these derivates (67/139) are translated as that. Translators have used 20 different equivalents of the Hebrew derivates of the root ṣdq. But this type of translation also has its own problems. The most disputed is the fact that in it the Bible reader finds no connections between many Bible verses that have obvious connections with each other in the Hebrew Bible. For example, in verse Ps. 118, 15 one finds a Finnish word for ‘saved’ and in verse Ps. 142, 8 one finds another Finnish word for ‘friends’, while in the Hebrew Bible the same word is used in both verses, ṣaddîqīm. My study will prove that it is very challenging to compare or fit together the semantics of these two quite different languages. The theoretical framework for the study consists of biblical semantic theories and Bible translation theories. Keywords: religious language, Bible translations, Book of Psalms.

Public opinion on useful languages in Europe

This article analyses the results of five Eurobarometer surveys (of 1995, 1997, 1998, 2000 and 2005) designed to measure which languages Europeans consider most useful to know. Most Europeans are of the opinion that English is the most useful, followed by French and German. During the last decade the popularity of French and German as useful languages has been decreasing significantly, while English has remained universally favoured as the most useful language. French and German have lost their popularity especially among those who do not speak them as a foreign language. On the other hand, Spanish, Russian and other languages (often these include languages of neighbouring countries, minority languages or a second official language of the country in question) have kept and even increased their former level of popularity. Opinions about useful languages vary according to a respondent’s knowledge of languages, education and profession. This article analyses these differences and discusses their impact on the study of foreign languages and the future of the practice of foreign languages in Europe.

Uniform chemical terminology for indian languages

A comparison is made between German and Russian terminological derivations in chemistry and the methods used by Germans and Russians to solve problems related to the fornlrrtion of scientific words. A study of this comparison, it is believed, can help us in the development of scientific words in Indian languages.