1805: Paganism in Finnish Nov 23, 2019

As with many languages, perhaps the most common Finnish swear-word is a religious one, 'Perkele' meaning 'Devil' effectively, but literally being a pagan god of thunder, and also hell by some accounts. Likewise, the Finnish sky god 'Jumala' is now used for the name of the Christian god. Actually, many Baltic and Slavic religions had these same characters in their pantheon—as far south as Bosnia—and may even be related to the Sanskrit 'Parjanya' but during the Christianization of Finland, they took on different meanings. Many more swear worse rely on pagan traditions, and part of the reason for this is that Finnish paganism only went extinct in the 20th century.

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