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.Features
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 original text, a Latin collection by Erasmus of Rotterdam, a German translation by Martin Luther, as well as the Swedish bibles by Olaus Petri.
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 that Agricola tried to institutionalize in Finnish but never caught on in most Finnish dialects. Contemporary Finnish lacks proper grammatical articles, as do most other Uralic languages.
