#hosuli

“Miten sinä Hosuli-parka pystyt nukkumaan tuon rojun seassa?”

Like Joxter, the Muddler is a childhood friend of Moominpappa, and as such only appears in The Exploits of Moominpappa (1968). He is a disorganised little animal whose parents disappeared in a spring-cleaning. The original name Rådd-djuret stems from the Finland-Swedish vernacular verb rådda, equivalent of Standard Swedish stöka, ‘to make a mess’. The name is a combination of the verb rådda and the noun djur, ‘animal’, with the definite suffix –et. Although the name is classed as expressive, due to the meaning being obvious to Finland-Swedish readers, any readers speaking Standard Swedish would not be likely to understand the meaning of rådda.

Based on the definition of the verb rådda, the character’s English name stems from the noun ‘muddle’. The Oxford English Dictionary entry for MUDDLE n. defines the meaning as “a state of disorder or (physical or mental) confusion.” Even though the translator, Thomas Warburton, has chosen to omit the equivalent of djur (‘animal’) in the English variant, the semantic meaning of Rådd-djuret and the Muddler remain largely the same. Therefore, the mode of translation has been used to transfer the name Rådd-djuret into English.

The Finnish variant Hosuli is also a reasonably accurate translation of the Swedish original name. The verb hosua means ‘to hurry or rush, often making a mess in the progress’. As in the name Hemuli, the –li suffix in Hosuli functions as an indicator of two things. Firstly, it makes a noun and by extension a name out of the verb hosua, indicating that the creature with this name is a rushing, messy character. Secondly, as the suffix –li is also used to create diminutives, it indicates small size. While the noun djur in the Swedish name has not been directly translated, the –li suffix creates a similar connotation of a small, messy animal.