Studia Phaenomenologica

Volume 5, 2005

Translating Heidegger's Sein und Zeit

Probing for Indo-European connections
Heidegger translations in Finnish

The Finnish Heidegger translations point to a problem created by the history of the language: words having to do with technology, metaphysics and so on are mostly direct loans from Indo-European languages with little connection to the rest of the vocabulary. This presents the translators with a dilemma: if one wants to retain Heidegger’s poetic and etymologising style, the Finnish tends to miss the essential contact to Greek-German-Western origins.