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Vvks, or Virtual Studies in Old Literary Finnish, is an online resource of Old Finnish, a text bank with commentary and grammar for schools, universities and other educational institutions in Finland and abroad. It is also suitable for the self-study of Old Finnish or just for browsing. By clicking the menu item TEKSTIT (Texts), you'll find dozens of interesting 16th, 17th and 18th century texts or text fragments. The text samples come with linked commentary that you can access by clicking a superscript number after each word or phrase. The explanations will help you to not only understand the text in question, but also the language and culture of that time. Those interested in the structure of Old Literary Finnish can read the comprehensive grammar section, which is divided into three parts: ÄÄNNE- JA MUOTO-OPPI (Phonology and Morphology), LAUSEOPPI (Syntax) and articles on the development of 18th century Finnish. In the HARJOITUKSET (Exercises) section you can test your knowledge of Old Finnish orthography, vocabulary and grammar with some seventy different tasks.
Several texts are linked to the scanned or digitized versions of the original works or pages. The site also has a large number of photos of old books and pages. To learn more about the history of the site, click on the History menu on the left. The section Abbreviations and Orthography explains the abbreviations used in the grammar and text commentary as well as the phonemes that are missing in contemporary Finnish. In addition, the site contains an overview of Old Finnish literature, a comprehensive bibliography and useful links to other websites on Old Finnish.
Content on the site has been provided by Pirkko Forsman Svensson, PhD. From her Old Finnish study materials, Johanna Eerikäinen (Koskela) prepared an online version, which was tested in various courses at the Department of Finnish, University of Helsinki in 2007 and 2008. In winter 2008 Timo Ovaska (University of Industrial Arts) joined the project to improve the graphic design and usability of the site. He photographed a wide selection of books and text samples from the archives of the National Library and the old Fennica of Kotus. In spring 2008 the programmer Petri Leinonen joined the team. His duty was to combine the new design provided by Timo Ovaska with the old material and to improve and simplify the site navigation. Students of Finnish contributed to transcribing the texts (Francesco Villani) and recordings (Markus Hamunen and Aapo Takala). Aspects such as navigation and user-friendliness were discussed in meetings with interested students and teachers. Since June 2011 the website has been updated by Sakari Vaelma and Sini Alm, occasionally by Terhi Kapali.
In the academic year 2006-2007 the Department of Finnish, University of Helsinki,funded the Vvks project by employing Johanna Eerikäinen (Koskela) on an hourly basis. The project has since been sponsored by the Kone Foundation (2007, 2009 and 2013), the Alfred Kordelin Foundation (2007), and the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation (2009).