# Riisitauti (Finnish for rachitis)



## Maroseika

Finnish word for *rachitis *is _riisitauti _- lit. rice desease. But rice (refined) is a cause of quite another desease - beri-beri (B1 deficit), while rachitis is the result of A- and D-vitamins deficit.

Why such a Finnish word? Shift of meaning? Or _riisi _not from rice? Or some other reason?


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## morzh

(transferred)

Маросейка

Просто пробую высказать теорию, хоть тут и не финский форум.

Мы финскому не бельме имсым , но - 

Часто различные слова, в частности, и относящиеся к болезням, попросту  переходят, как созвучные чему-то, в языки, где слово для них  неоригинально, а является заимствованным.

Хороший пример - слово "авокадо", которое является староиспанским словом  для "адвокат", "авокадо" (сегодня - "авогадо, abogado").  Перешло оно  из Науатля, и звучит там как "ауакатль". Какое отношение имеют адвокаты к  авокадо? Никакого.

Может быть, и здесь так же?

Рахит - происходит от греч. "рахис" (позвоночник), и в англ. - "рикетс".  Вполне созвучно слову "рис" (райс). Я не знаю, откуда слово перешло в  финский, но согласные, и, возможно, гласные - похожи. Могло иметь место  то самое созвучное заимствование.

А рис - так, сбоку стоял. Да и пригодился. 
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Sorry - the initial post was in Russian language forum, so I just copypasted it here.
Here's the abbreviated translation:

Often various novel words, those related to ailments in particular (as well as others), when crossing lines between languages if borrowed, do so by becoming something that sounds like something already familiar, however it is unrelated to the object that the word signifies.

A good example is the word "avocado". It came from Nahuatl language, where it is "ahuacatl" (a testicle), and Spaniards when they borrowed it, used their closely-sounding word "avocado", which is Old Spanish for "lawyer" (today, I believe, it is "abogado"). The two words (though lawyers and bollocks have a lot in common  for some people here in the US)  are not related; still the Nahuatl "testicle" became the Spanish "lawyer", and together they mean the "avocado", the "alligator pear".

I somehow think that "rickets" (from Greek "rahis" - spinal column) sounds somewhat close to "rice" in many languages - all the consonants, and possibly (depending on the language) some vowels, are there, so the name of the disease got borrowed and the existing word "rice" was used to name it.

PS> I don't  know Finnish - my theory is based on your observation.


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## Maroseika

morzh said:


> I somehow think that "rickets" (from Greek "rahis" - spinal column) sounds somewhat close to "rice" in many languages - all the consonants, and possibly (depending on the language) some vowels, are there, so the name of the disease got borrowed and the existing word "rice" was used to name it.
> .


I don't think 'rik' is so alien to the Finnish phonetics as to be substituted with 'riis'. But of course we cannot exclude smth like this.
What's about _riista _- game (meat)? I heard eating game only also may cause a desease due to the deficit of some important elements. Maybe the word was first applied to this desease?


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## elemika

Maroseika said:


> Finnish word for *rachitis *is _riisitauti _- lit. rice desease. But rice (refined) is a cause of quite another desease - beri-beri (B1 deficit), while rachitis is the result of A- and D-vitamins deficit.
> 
> Why such a Finnish word? Shift of meaning? Or _riisi _not from rice? Or some other reason?


  It can be rice.
Look here:if rats are given only oatmeal....or polished rice, they will also develop typical rickets.
It's beacause of the high content of some calcium-binding substances.
That's why nowdays the semolina isn't recommended to the children under two years .

Maybe someone could translate this text from wiki: 
Riisi on tarkoittanut useita erilaisia lapsia ja aikuisiakin riuduttavia tai kolottavia sairauksia. Daniel Jusleniuksen (Suomalaisen Sana-Lugun Koetus, 1745) mukaan riisi on riuduttava suolistosairaus. Viljelyskasvi riisin kanssa _riidellä_ ei ole mitään tekemistä; sairauden vanha nimitys myös taipuu eri tavalla.

I'm very curious what's it about!


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## Mårran

Hello, I have also thought that _riisitauti_ comes from rice but according to the Wikipedia article, _riisi_ is an old word for some disease.

Here's the translation:
"_Riisi_ has referred to several diseases afflicting children and adults as well. According to Daniel Juslenius, _riisi_ is an enervating intestinal disease. The word has nothing to do with the plant "rice"; the name of the disease is also declined in a different way."


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## Maroseika

Can it be _riisi _= _tyrä _(hernia) as proposed at another forum? This Finnish word is said to origin from Russian грыжа (hernia). Though appearance is quite different for hernia and rickets (local swelling vs swelling lof the whole belly) meaning could shift somehow.


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## Maroseika

elemika said:


> It can be rice.


Even apart from the linguistic aspects and taking into account that no other language correlates rickets with rice, how could it happen that rickets was called 'rice desease' exactly in Finland, where rice has never been a nutritional  monoculture? I guess this is just impossible.


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## Lars H

There is a dialectal expression in Nortern Norway and Sweden, "under riset" and the same or similar expression can probably be found in Finnish as well.

We all know what rice is, but "ris" also bears another meaning in Scandinavia.
 Small bushes, or a bundle of birch twigs for the sauna, are called "ris" and "björkris". 
I am certain that Russians, Finns and Swedes, all alike, knows exactly how to use birch twigs in the sauna 

So "riisi" in this context may have nothing to do with the crop. 

But what is then the connection with rakitis? 
According to old folklore, the disease could be cured by being flogged by bundles of twigs.
"Under riset" means literally "under the twigs".

And "riisitauti" could mean "the disease that is cured by being flogged with twigs".

Source Elof Hellquist, 1922'


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## Gavril

Lars H said:


> There is a dialectal expression in Nortern Norway and Sweden, "under riset" and the same or similar expression can probably be found in Finnish as well.



What does _under riset _mean? I'm not an expert on Finnish idioms, but I've never heard any expression equivalent to _under riset _in Finnish. I Googled the phrases _virpujen alla _("under (the) twigs") and_ vihtojen alla _("under (the) sauna branches"), and neither brings up any results. The phrase _oksien alla _"under (the) twigs/branches" has many results on Google, but, in the results that I've looked at so far, the meaning seems to simply be "underneath the branches of a tree".

Just to be sure, I also Googled _riisin alla _"under (the) rice", and there were only three results, all of them referring to rice as used in cooking.

EDIT: My apologies -- "under (the) twigs" is actually _varpujen alla_, and this does bring up several Google results. As far as I can tell, though, in every one of these results, _varpujen alla_ literally means "under (the) twigs" (in the forest, etc.).


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## Lars H

Swedish use *under* in the same way as English, such as "under pressure", "under the influence" and so on. I don't speak Finnish but perhaps they don't do the same.

So perhaps one should not look too much arter the "under" part.

What my point is that there is a connection "ris" & "rachitis" in Swedish, culturally very close to Finnish. 

What I would like to know is if Finnish *riisi* has two meanings, both *rice* and *bushes/twigs* just as Swedish *ris* has.


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## Gavril

Lars H said:


> Swedish use *under* in the same way as English, such as "under pressure", "under the influence" and so on. I don't speak Finnish but perhaps they don't do the same.



OK, but what does _under riset_ mean -- "suffering from rachitis"?



> What I would like to know is if Finnish *riisi* has two meanings, both *rice* and *bushes/twigs* just as Swedish *ris* has.



Not that I know of -- native speakers may have more information. However, as you pointed out, Swedish _ris _"twig/branch" has a different etymology from _ris _meaning "rice", so there isn't any strong reason to suspect that an unrelated language (Finnish) would have the same homonymic pair.

Finnish has at least three different words pronounced _riisi_: 1) _riisi _meaning "rice", 2) _riisi_ meaning "ream (of paper)"_, _3) _riisi _(genitive _riiden_) appearing in the compound _riisitauti_.


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## Lars H

*Under riset* is a metaphore, used in dialect, would mean something like "the disease that is cured by being flogged by a bundle of twigs". Hopefully this is a very old expression...

I checked on Finnish place names and found this: *Riisitunturi*, *Riisikkala* and *Riispyy*.
In Norway and Sweden there are several mountains called *Risberget*, which could be corresponding to *Riisitunturi*. *-kkala* is a rather common Finnish ending in place names and *Riispyy* is no doubt a direct translation of Swedish *Risby*.

 Most probably, these place names do not reflect rice, paper or disease, so *riisi* do exist in Finnish in some other aspect than those three.

Although Finnish and Swedish are completely unrelated, 600 years of common history has made some impact on both languages, so the possibility of loans should not be ruled out.


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## Gavril

Lars H said:


> *Under riset* is a metaphore, used in dialect, would mean something like "the disease that is cured by being flogged by a bundle of twigs". Hopefully this is a very old expression...



Sorry I still don't quite understand -- if I said, _Jag är under riset_, would that mean "I am suffering from the disease that is cured by being flogged by a bundle of twigs"?



> I checked on Finnish place names and found this: *Riisitunturi*, *Riisikkala* and *Riispyy*.
> In Norway and Sweden there are several mountains called *Risberget*, which could be corresponding to *Riisitunturi*. *-kkala* is a rather common Finnish ending in place names and *Riispyy* is no doubt a direct translation of Swedish *Risby*.
> 
> Most probably, these place names do not reflect rice, paper or disease, so *riisi* do exist in Finnish in some other aspect than those three.


Two of those place names -- _Riisitunturi _and _Riispyy_ -- are probably based on the equivalent Swedish name, so they don't indicate any root word _riisi_ in Finnish. _Riisikkala_ may be different_, _but I'm not sure -- what is the Swedish equivalent of _Riisikkala_, if there is one?


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## Lars H

Gavril,
Question 1, yes, pretty much so. Another expression, *under kniven*, means to be treated by a surgeon, or rather by the surgeons knife.

Question 2, *Riisikkala*? Don't think there is a Swedish name for this place. This thread seriously needs more Finnish input!

God Jul to all!


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## Mårran

There's a Finnish word _risu_ which means the same as Swedish _ris_ (=twig) but I can't think of any expression that corresponds to "under riset". 

An article by Arno Forsius (2002) says that _riisi_ is related to the Russian word _gryz_ (I don't know the Cyrillic spelling) and the Ludic word _griiza_ and those two words also have similar meanings as _riisi_ (in the rachitis sense).


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## Lars H

Kiitos Mårran

My ideas seems to be a dead end..

Since *under riset* was dialectal in northern Scandinavia, the expression has maybe been borrowed from Finnish, meaning that Maroseikis question remains unsolved.


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## Gavril

Lars H said:


> Kiitos Mårran
> 
> My ideas seems to be a dead end..
> 
> Since *under riset* was dialectal in northern Scandinavia, the expression has maybe been borrowed from Finnish, meaning that Maroseikis question remains unsolved.



I think Maroseika's question has been answered: the word _riisi- _found in _riisitauti _is almost certainly unconnected to the word _riisi_ meaning rice; rather, it is from an old word _riisi _referring to various digestive diseases. _riisi _"digestive disease" has the root form _riite- _(as seen in the illative form_ riiteen_), whereas _riisi _"rice" has the root _riisi- _(cf. illative _riisiin_).

It might look like this question wasn't answered because the answer got lost in the discussion of secondary questions.


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## Lars H

Maroseika's question might have been answered, but I am not entirely convinced. Yet.

The source of the idea of Russian *gryz* and Lydian *griis*, Daniel Juslenius, was a writer and clergyman that ended his days as bishop in Skara, Sweden.

He did write a groundbreaking Finnish/Latin/Swedish dictionary, dated in 1745, but he is also known to have "proven" that his home town of Turku was founded by the grandson of Noah, Magog, soon after the flood, and that Finnish and Hebrew are related to each other. Bishop Juslenius' thoughts on etymology need to be checked before approval...



So perhaps some Russian speaker could say something about *gryz*.
And still there is *Riisikkala*.


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