As Cholmondeley and I were rambling round town this afternoon, we came upon this excrescence.
What was the tagger who spat out this little bit of verbal vandalism trying to say? There is no such word as soumi in Finnish.
The name of the language spoken here is suomi. And the name of the country where suomi is spoken is also Suomi. Thus:
Suomessa puhutaan suomea.
“In Finland, Finnish is spoken.”
The only Soumi I could find via a quick search of the internets was the Cameroonian (?) recording artist(s) (?) who released this fabulous single, “Paracétamol,” early this year.
On the strength of this uplifting piece of patois poetry, I don’t think he or she or they deserve the putdown they got in Imatra. After all,
Imatra ei ole Afrikassa vaan Suomessa.
“Imatra is not in Africa, but in Finland.”
Africa is indeed a long ways away in more ways than one.
Living in FIN 