Boréales

Banana pancakes and a cup of green tea - le petit déj à la Laponne.

 

Many people have been amazed to find out that you can actually study Nordic languages in Normandy. I don't blame them. It does sound like a rather brave idea in today's world to start studying a relatively small and rare (and as such, for some people at least, a rather useless language). The Finns in particular are oftentimes more than surprised to hear that anyone would want to learn such a tiny and infamously difficult (!) language.

Fortunately for me, quite a few do. And as I tell all my students, there are no difficult languages, just different ones...

Why Normandy then? The answer lies in the history, of course. The region of Normandy has since medieval times been strongly connected to the Northern parts of Europe (more or less willingly - the "men of the North" weren't always as welcome in France as they are today!). However, the Northern traditions continue to thrive in Normandy. This year the famous French festival on Northern oddities, les Boréales, celebrates its 23rd anniversary. Every year the festival focuses on a different country and its culture, with a multitude of concerts, films, plays, literary meetings and all kind of activities ranging from Nordic pole walking to knitting clubs. This year the spotlight shines on Norway and Lithuania, but there will also be quite a few Finnish artists and groups performing at the festival. Here's one of them I'm particularly looking forward to seeing to - hopefully there are still some tickets left!