Finnish Literature - Pre-Nineteenth Century

Pre-Nineteenth Century

Since Finnish is a relatively new written language there is almost no literature from the Middle Ages or earlier. Important books such as The Bible and Code of Laws were only available in Latin, Swedish or a few other European languages such as French or German.

See Finland's language strife.

Written Finnish was essentially established by the Bishop and Finnish Lutheran reformer Mikael Agricola (1510—1557) who mainly based it on western dialects. His main works were a translation of the New Testament into Finnish, a task completed in 1548, and a primer in Finnish.