Nuts and Bolts: The Magic of Father Christmas.

We all know that Father Christmas is very clever indeed, but have you ever considered just how many languages he has to be able to understand, to be able to find the addresses of all the children of the world?

(I expect he has Satnav, nowadays, but even so...)

Take the small district of Northern Finland called Inari. Now, Father Christmas lives at the North Pole, as we all know, but some of the elves will obviously commute from further afield (and the reindeer must obviously spend most of their time on solid, lichen-bearing ground). This makes it very likely that some of them come from Inari. It's therefore almost certain that Father Christmas will need a good working knowledge of the language of the area.


There are sign posts in Inari that are written in four languages: Finnish, Northern Saami, Inari Saami, and Skolt Saami. 

All these languages are official ones for the district, and all can be used in government documents.

Inari Saami has about four hundred speakers (up from about three hundred after a push to teach the language to small children: hurray!).

The idea of any place having four official languages makes my head spin (and Inari Saami, entertainingly but mind-bogglingly, has an abessive case, for denoting the absence of something) but Father Christmas must manage to understand them all, somehow - and all the other languages of the world, all the thousands of them.

I really think that may be even more magical than his making all those presents.

Thanks, Father Christmas - and  hyvää joulea, too.

Word To Use Today: The only word in Inari Saami I know is the one on that sign - mattaattaskuavdas (I can't make out all the accents properly, so I won't try put them in). As I said before, it means Education Centre. 

Hyvää joulea is Finnish and means Happy Christmas!