97% Of University Of Vienna Students Say They Are Studying Finnish Because Of Heavy Metal Music
August 7, 2013International fans of Nordic heavy metal are taking that devotion a step further: They're learning tricky languages like Norwegian and Finnish to better appreciate their favorite bands.
When students at the University Of Vienna were asked why they chose to study Finnish, "for 97 percent of them, the primary target of interest was heavy metal music," Marjut Vehkanen, Secretary General of the Helsinki-based Centre for International Mobility (CIMO),tells YLE.fi. "This somewhat surprised us."
According to Vehkanen, learning Finnish is challenging because Finnish is different from nearly all other languages.
"There's a lot to memorize at first," she says. "But if you study hard in the beginning, then you'll find it's a very logical language."
"It's quite a well-known phenomenon that students in Italy study Norwegian because they're interested in metal," a Norwegian professor in Italy named Siri Nergaard told The Wall Street Journal back in June.
"Every time someone tells us that our music has inspired them to learn, for example, Nordic languages, it gives me another reason to keep doing music," bassist Sami Hinkka of Finnish folk metallers ENSIFERUM said. "But it's quite far from studying an internationally rather useless language… Studying is always good for your brain and it broadens your mental horizon, so if someone has a passion for something, even if it might seem really trivial to others, I say go for it. Follow your heart."
The Wall Street Journal's video report from June can be seen below.
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