Lectio praecursoria for public examination of the doctoral dissertation on 16 August 2018, Department of Folkloristics, University of Turku, Finland.

Proverbs are, for the most part, unchanging expressions and most traditional Finnish proverbs and Bible quotations still use agrarian language, although nowadays they are often used in a new non-agrarian context and with a new meaning. Proverbs receive new interpretations over time and, in fact, they ought to receive new ones. It is a fact that our whole environment has changed. Despite many changes in recent decades to Finnish society and lifestyle as well as many changes in life and everyday practices, proverbs still belong to everyday use and communication. In Finnish, written colloquial language has become increasingly similar to spoken language, while the urban lifestyle has created changes in the Finnish proverb tradition as well. In this changed context, proverbs are not always similar to their predecessors, because modern proverbs use modern colloquial language. Even though proverbs may not always appear with the same form and meaning as they did in the past, they continue to be used in a range of contexts.