Finnish suomi
Pronunciation:	/ˈsuo. mi/
Spoken in:	Finland  Estonia  Ingria  Karelia  Norway  Sweden  Torne Valley
Region:	Northern Europe
Total speakers:	about 6 million
Language family:	Uralic  Finno-Ugric   Finno-Permic    Finno-Volgaic     Finno-Lappic      Baltic-Finnic       Finnish
Writing system:	Latin alphabet (Finnish variant)
Official status
Official language in:	Finland  European Union recognised as minority language in: parts of Sweden[1] Republic of Karelia[2]
Regulated by:	Language Planning Department of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland
Language codes
ISO 639-1:	fi
ISO 639-2:	fin
ISO 639-3:	fin
Blue: Official language Dark green: Spoken by a minority
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Finland, officially the Republic of Finland ( is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia ( Eesti or Eesti Vabariik) is a Country in Northern Europe in the Baltic region For the Italian municipality see Ingria Italy. For the Brachiopod Genus, see Ingria (brachiopod. The Republic of Karelia (Респу́блика Каре́лия Respublika Kareliya; Karjalan tazavaldu Karjalan tasavalta Karjalan Tazovaldkund is a federal Norway ( Norwegian: Norge ( Bokmål) or Noreg ( Nynorsk) officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Constitutional "Sverige" redirects here For other uses see Sweden (disambiguation and Sverige (disambiguation. The Torne Valley or Torne River Valley ( Finnish: Tornionjokilaakso, Swedish: Tornedalen) lies at the border of Sweden and Northern Europe is a term for the northern part of Europe. The United Nations defines Northern Europe as (Finland List of language familiesA language family is a group of Languages related by descent from a common ancestor called the Proto-language of that family The Uralic languages (jʊˈrælɨk constitute a language family of 39 Languages spoken by approximately 20 million people Finno-Ugric (ˌfɪnoʊˈjuːgɹɪk is a grouping of languages in the Uralic language family comprising Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian and The Finno-Permic languages form one of the main branches of the Finno-Ugric languages that split from it around 2500 - 3000 BC Finno-Volgaic is a subgroup of Finno-Ugric languages that split from Finno-Permic languages about 2000 BC containing nowadays Baltic-Finnic languages, Finno-Ugric (ˌfɪnoʊˈjuːgɹɪk is a grouping of languages in the Uralic language family comprising Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian and The Baltic-Finnic languages, spoken around the Baltic Sea by about 7 million people are a branch of Finnic languages belonging to the Finno-Ugric group A writing system is a type of Symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in Language. The Finnish alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet, and especially its Swedish extension Finland, officially the Republic of Finland ( is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. The European Union ( EU) is a political and economic union of twenty-seven member states, located primarily in "Sverige" redirects here For other uses see Sweden (disambiguation and Sverige (disambiguation. The Republic of Karelia (Респу́блика Каре́лия Respublika Kareliya; Karjalan tazavaldu Karjalan tasavalta Karjalan Tazovaldkund is a federal This is a list of bodies that regulate Standard languages Natural languages Auxiliary languages Interlingua The auxiliary language The Research Institute for the Languages of Finland (Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus Päikkieennâm kielâi tutkâmkuávdáš Ruovttueatnan gielaid dutkanguovddáš Finnosko tšimbengo ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages ISO 639 -3 (ISO 639-32007 is an international standard for Language codes The standard describes three‐letter codes for identifying languages In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's

Finnish (suomi (help·info), or suomen kieli) is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland (92% as of 2006^[3]) and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. Finland, officially the Republic of Finland ( is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. The terms Finns and Finnish people ( Finnish: suomalaiset, Swedish: finländare) are used in English to It is one of the official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. An official language is a Language that is given a special legal status in a particular Country, State, or other territory "Sverige" redirects here For other uses see Sweden (disambiguation and Sverige (disambiguation. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a Finnish dialect, are spoken. Meänkieli (lit "our language" is a Finno-Ugric language spoken in the most northern parts of Sweden around the valley of the Torne River. The Kven language, which is closely related to Finnish, is an official minority language in Norway. The Kven language also known as Kvennish, ( suomi, kveenin kieli or recently proposed kainun kieli) is a Finno-Ugric language

Finnish is a member of the Finno-Ugric language family and is typologically between inflected and agglutinative languages. Finno-Ugric (ˌfɪnoʊˈjuːgɹɪk is a grouping of languages in the Uralic language family comprising Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian and Morphological typology is a way of classifying the languages of the world (see Linguistic typology) that groups languages according to their common morphological structures In Grammar, inflection or inflexion is the way language handles grammatical relations and relational categories such as tense, mood, voice An agglutinative language is a Language that uses Agglutination extensively most Words are formed by joining Morphemes together It modifies and inflects the forms of nouns, adjectives, pronouns, numerals and verbs, depending on their roles in the sentence. In Grammar, inflection or inflexion is the way language handles grammatical relations and relational categories such as tense, mood, voice In Grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntactic role is to modify a Noun or Pronoun, giving more information about the In Linguistics and Grammar, a pronoun is a Pro-form that substitutes for a (including a noun phrase consisting of a single Noun) with or For English usage of verbs see the wiki article English verbs. In Linguistics, a sentence is a grammatical unit of one or more words bearing minimal syntactic relation to the words that precede or follow it often preceded and followed

Classification

Finnish is a member of the Baltic-Finnic subgroup of the Finno-Ugric group of languages which in turn is a member of the Uralic family of languages. The Baltic-Finnic languages, spoken around the Baltic Sea by about 7 million people are a branch of Finnic languages belonging to the Finno-Ugric group Finno-Ugric (ˌfɪnoʊˈjuːgɹɪk is a grouping of languages in the Uralic language family comprising Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian and The Uralic languages (jʊˈrælɨk constitute a language family of 39 Languages spoken by approximately 20 million people The Baltic-Finnic subgroup also includes Estonian and other minority languages spoken around the Baltic Sea. Estonian (; ˈeːsti ˈkeːl is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1 The Baltic Sea is a Brackish inland sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N Latitude and from 20°E to 26°E Longitude.

Finnish demonstrates an affiliation with the Finno-Ugric languages in several respects including:

• Shared morphology:

• case suffixes such as genitive -n, partitive -(t)a / -(t)ä (< Finno-Ugric *-ta), essive -na / -nä
• plural markers -t and -i-
• possessive suffixes such as 1st person singular -ni (< Finno-Ugric *-mi), 2nd person singular -si (< Finno-Ugric *-ti). Finno-Ugric (ˌfɪnoʊˈjuːgɹɪk is a grouping of languages in the Uralic language family comprising Finnish, Estonian, Hungarian and Note partitive case has to be distinguished from partitive meaning which refers to the selection of a part or quantity out of a group or amount see Partitive. The essive or similaris case carries the meaning of a temporary state of being often equivalent to the English "as a
• various derivational suffixes

• Shared basic vocabulary displaying regular sound correspondences with the other Finno-Ugric languages

Several theories exist as to the geographic origin of Finnish and the other Uralic languages, but the most widely held view is that they originated as a Proto-Uralic language somewhere in the boreal forest belt around the Ural Mountains region and/or the bend of the middle Volga. Riphean redirects here For the time period see Riphean stage The Ural Mountains (Ура́льские го́ры Uralskiye The strong case for Proto-Uralic is supported by common vocabulary with regularities in sound correspondances, as well as by the fact that the Uralic languages have many similarities in structure and grammar.

It has been posited that speakers of a Finno-Ugric language have been living in the region of current Finland since at least 3000 BC. The Finns are more genetically similar to their Indo-European speaking neighbors than to the speakers of the geographically close Finno-Ugric language, Sami. Sami or Saami is a general name for a group of Finnic languages spoken by the Sami people in parts of northern Finland, Norway Therefore it has been argued that a native Finnic population absorbed northward migrating Indo-Europeans who adopted the Finnic language, giving rise to the modern Finns. ^[4]

Geographic distribution

Areas in Southern Sweden with a Finnish-speaking population (2005)

Finnish is spoken by about six million people that reside mainly in Finland. Finland, officially the Republic of Finland ( is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. There are also notable Finnish-speaking minorities in Sweden, Norway, Russia, Estonia, Canada, and the United States. "Sverige" redirects here For other uses see Sweden (disambiguation and Sverige (disambiguation. Norway ( Norwegian: Norge ( Bokmål) or Noreg ( Nynorsk) officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Constitutional Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia ( Eesti or Eesti Vabariik) is a Country in Northern Europe in the Baltic region Country to "Dominion of Canada" or "Canadian Federation" or anything else please read the Talk Page The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The majority of the population of Finland, 91. 51% as of 2006, speak Finnish as their first language. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. A first language (also mother tongue, native language, arterial language, or L1) is the language a human being learns from birth The remainder speak Swedish (5. Finland Swedish is a general term for the closely related cluster of Dialects of Swedish spoken in Finland by Swedish-speaking Finns as their 5%), Sami (Northern, Inari, Skolt) and other languages. Sami or Saami is a general name for a group of Finnic languages spoken by the Sami people in parts of northern Finland, Norway Northern or North Sami ( Davvisápmi, formerly Davvisámi or Davvisaami; improperly Lappish or Lapp) is the most widely Inari Sámi ( anarâškielâ) is a Finno-Ugric, Sami Language spoken in Finland by some 300-400 people the majority of which

Official status

Finnish is one of two official languages of Finland (the other being Swedish, spoken by 5. An official language is a Language that is given a special legal status in a particular Country, State, or other territory Finland Swedish is a general term for the closely related cluster of Dialects of Swedish spoken in Finland by Swedish-speaking Finns as their 49% of the population as of 2006^[5]) and an official language of the European Union. Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. The European Union ( EU) is a political and economic union of twenty-seven member states, located primarily in It enjoys the status of an official minority language in Sweden. In 1999 the Minority Language Committee of Sweden formally declared five minority languages of Sweden: Finnish, Sami language, Romani It is also one of the working languages of the Nordic Council. The Nordic Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers is an intergovernmental forum for co-operation between the Nordic countries. Under the Nordic Language Convention, citizens of the Nordic countries speaking Finnish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any interpretation or translation costs. The Nordic Language Convention is a convention of Linguistic rights which came into force in March 1, 1987, under the auspices of the Nordic The Nordic countries make up a region in Northern Europe called the Nordic region, consisting of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Translation is the interpreting of the meaning of a text and the subsequent production of an equivalent text likewise called a " translation ^[6][7]

History

Pre-Christian era

It is believed that the Balto-Finnic languages evolved from a proto-Finnic language, from which Sami was separated around 1500-1000 BC. The Baltic-Finnic languages, spoken around the Baltic Sea by about 7 million people are a branch of Finnic languages belonging to the Finno-Ugric group Sami or Saami is a general name for a group of Finnic languages spoken by the Sami people in parts of northern Finland, Norway Current research indicates there were three or more proto-Finnic dialects. ^[8] The Baltic Finnic languages separated around the 1st century, but continued to influence each other. The 1st century was the Century that lasted from 1 to 100 according the Julian calendar. Therefore, the Eastern Finnish dialects are genetically Eastern proto-Finnic, with many Eastern features, and the Southwestern Finnish dialects have many genuine Estonian influences. East Finnish Culture and Dialect are chiefly vested in the Savonians and the Karelians. Estonian (; ˈeːsti ˈkeːl is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1

Medieval period

Since Finland was annexed to Catholic Sweden in the Middle Ages, the status of Finnish was for long that of an oral language. The language of business was Middle Low German, the language of administration Swedish, and religious activities were held in Latin, leaving few possibilities for Finns to use their mother tongue in situations other than daily chores. The Hanseatic League (also known as the Hansa) was an alliance of trading cities and their Guilds that established and maintained trade Middle Low German ( ISO 639 -3 code gml) is a Language that is the descendant of Old Saxon and is the ancestor of modern Low German. Swedish ( is a North Germanic language spoken by more than nine million people predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome.

The first known written example of Finnish comes from this era and was found in a German travel journal dating back to c. 1450: Mynna tachton gernast spuho somen gelen Emyna dayda (Modern Finnish: "Minä tahdon kernaasti puhua suomen kieltä, [mutta] en minä taida"; English: "I willingly want to speak Finnish, [but] I cannot"). ^[9] According to the travel journal, a Finnish bishop, whose name is unknown, was behind the above quotation.

Writing system

Mikael Agricola, a 19th century drawing by Albert Edelfelt

The first comprehensive writing system for Finnish was created by Mikael Agricola, a Finnish bishop, in the 16th century. Mikael Agricola ( (c 1510 &ndash April 9, 1557) was a Finnish clergyman who became de facto founder of written Finnish and Albert Gustaf Aristides Edelfelt ( 21 July 1854 – 18 August 1905) was a Finnish painter. Mikael Agricola ( (c 1510 &ndash April 9, 1557) was a Finnish clergyman who became de facto founder of written Finnish and A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight He based his orthography on Swedish, German, and Latin. The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific Writing system to write the language Swedish ( is a North Germanic language spoken by more than nine million people predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the The German language (de ''Deutsch'') is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages. Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. His ultimate plan was to translate the Bible, but first he had to define rules on which the Finnish standard language still relies, particularly with respect to spelling. Etymology According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word bible is from Latin biblia, traced from the same word through Medieval Latin and Late Latin A standard language (also standard dialect, standardized dialect, or standardised dialect) is a particular variety of a Language that He also invented single-handedly many words such as armo meaning both "mercy" and "grace" (as in "from grace alone, not out of good works. . . ") and vanhurskas "righteous". More than fifty percent of these words are still in use.

Agricola's written language was based on western dialects of Finnish, and his intention was that each phoneme should correspond with one letter. The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU Yet, Agricola was confronted with many problems in this endeavour, failing to achieve uniformness. This is why he might use different signs for the same phonemes depending on the situation. For example he used dh or d to represent the voiced dental fricative /ð/ (English th in this) and tz or z to represent the geminate unvoiced dental fricative /θ/ (the th in thin). The voiced dental non-sibilant fricative is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet Eth ( Ð, ð; also spelled edh or eð) is a letter used in Old English, Icelandic, Faroese (in In Phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken Consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short Consonant. The voiceless dental non-sibilant fricative is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Theta (uppercase Θ, lowercase θ or ϑ; Θήτα is the eighth letter of the Greek alphabet, derived from the Phoenician letter Teth Additionally, Agricola might use gh or g to represent the voiced velar fricative /ɣ/ and either ch, c or h for /h/. The voiced velar fricative is a type of Consonantal sound used in various spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet The letter Ɣ ( minuscule: ɣ) is a letter of the Latin alphabet based on the Greek letter Gamma (γ For example he wrote techtin against modern spelling tehtiin.

Later others revised Agricola's work, striving for a more phonetical system. This article deals with the sound patterns of the Finnish language. In the process, Finnish ended up losing some of its phonemes. The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU The sounds /ð/ and /θ/ disappeared from the standard language, surviving only in a small rural region in Western Finland. ^[10] Elsewhere traces of these phonemes persist as their disappearance gave Finnish dialects their distinct qualities. For example, it has been deduced that the /θ/ sound became ht or tt (e. g. meþþä → mehtä, mettä) in the eastern dialects and in some western dialects. In the standard language, however, the effect of the lost phonemes is thus:

• /ð/ became d
• /θ/ became ts
• /ɣ/ became v but only if the voiced velar fricative appeared originally between high labial vowels, otherwise lost entirely.

Modern Finnish punctuation, along with that of Swedish, uses the colon character (:) to separate the stem of the word and its grammatical ending in some cases (such as after abbreviations), where some other alphabetic writing systems would use an apostrophe. Swedish ( is a North Germanic language spoken by more than nine million people predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the Suffixes are required for correct grammar, so this is often applied, e. g. EU:ssa "in the EU".

Modernization

Elias Lönnrot as depicted in a 19th century caricature — Lönnrot made several journeys to Karelia and Eastern Finland to collect folklore, from which he compiled the Kalevala. The Kalevala is a book and epic poem which the Finn Elias Lönnrot compiled from Finnish and Karelian Folklore in the nineteenth

In the 19th century Johan Vilhelm Snellman and others began to stress the need to improve the status of Finnish. Johan Vilhelm Snellman ( May 12, 1806 &ndash July 4, 1881) was an influential Fennoman Philosopher and Ever since the days of Mikael Agricola written Finnish had been used almost exclusively in religious contexts, but now Snellman's Hegelian nationalistic ideas of Finnish as a full-fledged national language gained considerable support. The term nationalism can refer to an Ideology, a sentiment, a form of Culture, or a Social movement that focuses on the Nation Concerted efforts were made to improve the status of the language and to modernize it, and by the end of the century Finnish had become a language of administration, journalism, literature, and science in Finland, along with Swedish.

The most important contributions to improving the status of Finnish were made by Elias Lönnrot. Elias Lönnrot ( ( April 9, 1802 – March 19, 1884) was a Finnish Philologist and collector of traditional Finnish His impact on the development of modern vocabulary in Finnish was particularly crucial. In addition to compiling the Kalevala, he acted as an arbitrator in disputes about the development of standard Finnish between the proponents of western and eastern dialects, ensuring that the western dialects Agricola had preferred preserved their preeminent role, while many originally dialectical words from Eastern Finland were introduced to the standard language enriching it considerably. The Kalevala is a book and epic poem which the Finn Elias Lönnrot compiled from Finnish and Karelian Folklore in the nineteenth ^[11] The first novel written in Finnish (and by a Finnish-speaker) was Seven Brothers, published by Aleksis Kivi in 1870. Seven Brothers ( Seitsemän veljestä in Finnish) is the first and only novel by Aleksis Kivi, the national author of Finland, and Aleksis Kivi ( born Alexis Stenvall, ( October 10, 1834 – December 31, 1872) was a Finnish author who wrote the

Dialects

Map of Finnish dialects

The dialects of Finnish are divided into two distinct groups, the Western dialects and the Eastern dialects. ^[12] The dialects are entirely mutually intelligible and distinguished from each other by only minor changes in vowels, diphthongs and rhythm. For the most part, the dialects operate on the same phonology, grammar and vocabulary. There are only marginal examples of sounds or grammatical constructions specific to some dialect and not found in standard Finnish. Two examples are the voiced dental fricative found in Rauma dialect and the Eastern exessive case. The voiced dental non-sibilant fricative is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet Rauma language ( "rauman giäl") is a Dialect of Finnish spoken in the town of Rauma, western Finland. The exessive case is a Grammatical case that denotes a transition away from a state

The classification of closely related dialects spoken outside of Finland is a politically sensitive issue that has been controversial since Finland's independence in 1917. This concerns specifically the Karelian language in Russia and Meänkieli in Sweden, the speakers of which are often considered oppressed minorities. Karelian is a language closely related to Finnish, with which it is not necessarily Mutually intelligible. Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending Meänkieli (lit "our language" is a Finno-Ugric language spoken in the most northern parts of Sweden around the valley of the Torne River. "Sverige" redirects here For other uses see Sweden (disambiguation and Sverige (disambiguation. Karelian is different enough from standard Finnish to have its own orthography. Meänkieli is a northern dialect entirely intelligible to speakers of any other Finnish dialect, which achieved its status as an official minority language in Sweden for historical and political reasons regardless of the fact that Finnish is an official minority language in Sweden, too.

Western dialects

The South-West dialects (lounaismurteet) are spoken in Finland Proper and Satakunta. Finland Proper or Southwest Finland (Varsinais-Suomi Egentliga Finland is a region in south-western Finland. Satakunta (Satakunda Finnia Septentrionalis or Satagundia is a region ( maakunta / landskap) and a historical province of Finland Their typical feature is abbreviation of word-final vowels, and in many respects they resemble Estonian. Estonian (; ˈeːsti ˈkeːl is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1 The Tavastian dialects (hämäläismurteet) are spoken in Tavastia. They are closest to the standard language, but feature some slight vowel changes, such as the opening of diphthong-final vowels (tie → tiä, miekka → miakka, kuolisi → kualis). The Southern Ostrobothnian dialects (eteläpohjalaiset murteet) are spoken in Southern Ostrobothnia. South Ostrobothnia is one of the 20 regions (fi maakunta / sv landskap) of Finland. Their most notable feature is the pronunciation of 'd' as a tapped or even fully trilled /r/. The Middle and North Ostrobothnia dialects (keski- ja pohjoispohjalaiset murteet) are spoken in Central and Northern Ostrobothnia. Central Ostrobothnia is a region ( maakunta / landskap) in Western Finland. Northern Ostrobothnia is a region ( maakunta / landskap) of Finland. The Far-Northern dialects (peräpohjalaiset murteet) are spoken in Lapland. The Province of Lapland ( Lappi in Finnish and Sami Lappland in Swedish is one of the Provinces of Finland. The dialects spoken in the western parts of Lapland are recognizable by retention of extraneous 'h' sounds in positions where they are not found in other dialects.

One of the Far-Northern dialects, Meänkieli, which is spoken on the Swedish side of the border, is taught in some Swedish schools as a distinct standardized language. Meänkieli (lit "our language" is a Finno-Ugric language spoken in the most northern parts of Sweden around the valley of the Torne River. A standard language (also standard dialect, standardized dialect, or standardised dialect) is a particular variety of a Language that The speakers of Meänkieli became politically separated from the other Finns when Finland was annexed to Russia in 1809. The Finnish War was fought between Sweden and Russia from February 1808 to September 1809 Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending The categorization of Meänkieli as a separate language is controversial among the Finns, who see no linguistic criteria, only political reasons, for treating Meänkieli differently than other dialects of Finnish.

The Kven language is spoken in Finnmark and Troms, in Norway. The Kven language also known as Kvennish, ( suomi, kveenin kieli or recently proposed kainun kieli) is a Finno-Ugric language or Finnmárku ( Sami language) is a county in the extreme northeast of Norway. or Romsa ( Sami language) is a county in North Norway, bordering Finnmark to the northeast and Nordland in the southwest Norway ( Norwegian: Norge ( Bokmål) or Noreg ( Nynorsk) officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Constitutional Its speakers are descendants of Finnish emigrants to the region in the 18th and 19th centuries. The 18th century lasted from 1701 to 1800 in the Gregorian calendar, in accordance with the Anno Domini / Common Era numbering system The 19th century of the Common Era began on January 1, 1801 and ended on December 31, 1900, according to the Gregorian calendar Kven is an official minority language in Norway

Eastern dialects

Main article: East Finnish

The Eastern dialects consist of the widespread Savonian dialects (savolaismurteet) spoken in Savo and nearby areas, and the South-Eastern dialects spoken now only in Finnish South Karelia. The Kven language also known as Kvennish, ( suomi, kveenin kieli or recently proposed kainun kieli) is a Finno-Ugric language Norway ( Norwegian: Norge ( Bokmål) or Noreg ( Nynorsk) officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Constitutional East Finnish Culture and Dialect are chiefly vested in the Savonians and the Karelians. The Region of South Karelia is a region ( maakunta / landskap) of Finland. The South-Eastern dialects (kaakkoismurteet) were previously spoken also on the Karelian Isthmus and in Ingria. See Karelia (disambiguation for other meanings of the name Karelia. For the Italian municipality see Ingria Italy. For the Brachiopod Genus, see Ingria (brachiopod. Karelian Isthmus was evacuated during World War II and refugees were resettled all over Finland. See Karelia (disambiguation for other meanings of the name Karelia. World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including Most of Ingrian Finns were deported to various parts of Russia and Estonia. The Ingrian Finns (inkeriläinen or inkerinsuomalainen were the Finnish rural Peasant population of Ingria (now the central

Palatalization, a common feature of Uralic languages, had been lost in Baltic-Finnic languages, but it has been reacquired by most of these languages, including Eastern Finnish, but not Western Finnish. Palatalization or palatalisation (ˌpælətəlɨˈzeɪʃən generally refers to two phenomena As a process or the result of a process In Finnish orthography, this is denoted with a 'j', e. g. vesj, cf. standard vesi.

The language spoken in the parts of Karelia that have not historically been under Swedish or Finnish rule is usually called the Karelian language, and it is considered to be more distant from standard Finnish than the Eastern dialects. Karelian is a language closely related to Finnish, with which it is not necessarily Mutually intelligible. Whether this language of Russian Karelia is a dialect of Finnish or a separate language is a matter of interpretation. East Karelia, in Finnish Itä-Karjala also Eastern Karelia or Russian Karelia, is a name for the part of Karelia that since the Treaty However, the term Karelian dialects is often used colloqually to the Finnish South-Eastern dialects.

Linguistic varieties

Main article: Spoken Finnish

There are two main varieties of Finnish used throughout the country. Spoken Finnish ( suomen puhekieli) is the colloquial variant of the Finnish language often used in spoken language One is the "standard language" (yleiskieli), and the other is the "spoken language" (puhekieli). Spoken Finnish ( suomen puhekieli) is the colloquial variant of the Finnish language often used in spoken language The standard language is used in formal situations like political speeches and newscasts. Its written form, the "book language" (kirjakieli), is used in nearly all written texts, not always excluding even the dialogue of common people in popular prose. The spoken language, on the other hand, is the main variety of Finnish used in popular TV and radio shows and at workplaces, and may be preferred to a dialect in personal communication.

Standardization

Standard Finnish is prescribed by the Language Office of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland and is the language used in official communication. The Research Institute for the Languages of Finland (Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus Päikkieennâm kielâi tutkâmkuávdáš Ruovttueatnan gielaid dutkanguovddáš Finnosko tšimbengo The Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish (Nykysuomen sanakirja 1951–61), with 201,000 entries, was a prescriptive dictionary that defined official language. In Linguistics, prescription can refer both to the codification and the enforcement of rules governing how a language is to be used An additional volume for words of foreign origin (Nykysuomen sivistyssanakirja, 30,000 entries) was published in 1991. An updated dictionary, the Language Office Dictionary (Kielitoimiston sanakirja) was published in an electronic form in 2004 and in print in 2006. A descriptive grammar (Iso suomen kielioppi^[13], 1,600 pages) was published in 2004. Descriptive linguistics is the work of analyzing and describing how Language is spoken (or how it was spoken in the past by a group of people in a speech community There is also an etymological dictionary, Suomen sanojen alkuperä, published in 1992–2000, and a handbook of contemporary language (Nykysuomen käsikirja), and a periodic publication, Kielikello. Standard Finnish is used in official texts and is the form of language taught in schools. Its spoken form is used in political speech, newscasts, in courts, and in other formal situations. Nearly all publishing and printed works are in standard Finnish.

Spoken Finnish

The spoken language has mostly developed naturally from earlier forms of Finnish, and spread from main cultural and political centres. The standard language, however, has always been a consciously constructed medium for literature. It preserves grammatical patterns that have mostly vanished from the colloquial varieties and, as its main application is writing, it features complex syntactic patterns that are not easy to handle when used in speech. The spoken language develops significantly faster, and the grammatical and phonological simplifications include also the most common pronouns and suffixes, which sum up to frequent but modest differences. Some sound changes have been left out of the formal language, such as the irregularization of some common verbs by assimilation, e. g. tule- → tuu- (although tule can be used in spoken language as well).

Written language certainly still exerts a considerable influence upon the spoken word, due to the fact that illiteracy is nonexistent and many Finns are avid readers. In fact, it is still not entirely uncommon to meet people who "talk like a book" (puhuvat kirjakieltä), although this is seen as pedantic. More common is the intrusion of typically book-like constructions into a colloquial discourse, as a kind of quote from written Finnish. It should also be noted that it is quite common to hear book-like and polished speech on radio or TV, and the constant exposure to such language tends to lead to the adoption of such constructions even in everyday language.

A prominent example of the effect of the standard language is the development of the consonant gradation form /ts : ts/ as in metsä : metsän, as this pattern was originally (1940) found natively only in the dialects of southern Karelian isthmus and Ingria. For the Italian municipality see Ingria Italy. For the Brachiopod Genus, see Ingria (brachiopod. In fact, it has arisen from the spelling 'ts' for the dental fricative [θː], which has disappeared. In spoken language, a fusion of Western /tt : tt/ (mettä : mettän) and Eastern /ht : t/ (mehtä : metän) has been created: /tt : t/ (mettä : metän). ^[14] It is notable that neither of these are forms are identifiable as or originate from a specific dialect.

The orthography of the informal language follows that of the formal language. However, sometimes sandhi may be transcribed, especially the internal ones, e. Sandhi ( Sanskrit saṃdhi sa संधि "joining" is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at Morpheme g. menenpä → menempä. This never takes place in formal language.

Examples

formal language — colloquial language

he menevät — ne menee "they go" (loss of distinction of animacy and the difference between the plural and the singular)

onko(s) teillä — onks teil(lä) "do you have?" (vowel deletion)

me emme sano — me ei sanota "we don't say" or "we won't say" (notice: fusion of me ei transcribed, also the first person plural is replaced with the indefinite voice)

(minun) kirjani — mun kirja "my book" (notice: sandhi n+k → ŋk transcribed)

kuusikymmentäviisi — kuuskytviis "sixty-five"

tulen — tuun "I'm coming" (irregular verb)

punainen — punane(n) "red" (unstressed diphthong becomes a very short vowel)

korjannee — kai korjaa "probably will fix"

Note that there are noticeable differences between dialects. Animacy is a grammatical and/or Semantic category of Nouns based on how Sentient or alive the Referent of the noun is This article deals with the Grammar of the Finnish language. It is probably best to read the main article first These examples are mostly from the language as spoken in the Capital area (Helsinki dialect or even Stadin slangi). Helsinki slang or slangi is a local variation of the Finnish language mainly used in the capital Helsinki.

Phonology

Main article: Finnish phonology

Characteristic features of Finnish (common to other Finno-Ugric languages) are vowel harmony and an agglutinative morphology; due to the extensive use of the latter, words can be quite long. This article deals with the sound patterns of the Finnish language. Vowel harmony is a type of long-distance ( see below) assimilatory phonological process involving Vowels in some languages

The main stress is always on the first syllable, and it is articulated by adding approximately 100 ms more length to the stressed vowel. Stress does not cause any measurable modifications in vowel quality (very much unlike English). However, stress is not strong and words appear evenly stressed. In some cases, stress is so weak that the highest points of volume, pitch and other indicators of "articulation intensity" are not on the first syllable, although native speakers recognize the first syllable as a stressed syllable.

There are eight vowels, whose lexical and grammatical role is highly important, and which are unusually strictly controlled, so that there is almost no allophony. In Phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds ( Phones that belong to the same Phoneme. Vowels shown in the table below, followed by the IPA symbol when not identical. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA is a system of phonetic notation based on the Latin alphabet, devised by the International Phonetic These are always different phonemes in the initial syllable; for noninitial syllable, see morphophonology below.

¹ Although conventionally and conveniently written with the close-mid symbols [e], [ø] and [o], they are more acurately described as mid vowels ([e̞], [ø̞] and [o̞]). A close-mid vowel is a type of Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds A mid vowel is a Vowel sound used in some spoken Languages The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an

The usual analysis is that Finnish has long and short vowels and consonants as distinct phonemes. However, long vowels may be analyzed as a vowel followed by a chroneme, or also, that sequences of identical vowels are pronounced as "diphthongs". In linguistics a chroneme is a basic theoretical unit of sound that can distinguish words by duration only of a vowel or consonant The quality of long vowels mostly overlaps with the quality of short vowels, with the exception of u, which is centralized with respect to uu; long vowels do not morph into diphthongs. In Phonetics, a diphthong (also gliding vowel) (from Greek grc δίφθογγος "diphthongos" literally "with two sounds" or "with There are eighteen phonemic diphthongs; like vowels, diphthongs do not have allophony.

Finnish has a consonant inventory of small to moderate size, where voicing is not distinctive, and there are only glottal and unvoiced alveolar fricatives. Finnish has very few non-alveolar coronal consonants. Coronal consonants are articulated with the flexible front part of the Tongue. Consonants are as follows, where consonants in parenthesis are found only in a few recent loans.

1. /d/ is the equivalent of /t/ under weakening consonant gradation, and thus occurs only medially, or in non-native words; it is actually more of an alveolar tap rather than a true voiced stop, and the dialectal realization varies wildly; see main article. In Phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a Consonant articulated with both Lips The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet In Phonetics, labiodentals are Consonants articulated with the lower Lip and the upper Teeth. In Linguistics, a dental consonant or dental is a Consonant that is articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth such as /t/ /d/ /n/ and Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior Alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets Postalveolar consonants are Consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the Alveolar ridge, placing them a bit further back in the Palatal consonants are Consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the Hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth Glottal consonants are Consonants articulated with the Glottis. A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a Consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the Vocal tract. A nasal consonant (also called nasal stop or nasal continuant) is produced with a lowered velum in the mouth allowing air to escape freely through the In Phonetics, a trill is a Consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the Place of articulation. Fricatives are Consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together Laterals are "L"-like Consonants pronounced with an occlusion made somewhere along the axis of the tongue while air from the lungs escapes at one side or both Approximants are speech sounds ( Phonemes) that could be regarded as intermediate between Vowels and typical Consonants In the articulation of approximants Consonant gradation is a type of Consonant mutation, in which consonants alternate between various "grades" The alveolar tap or flap is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that In Phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of Consonantal sound which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator (such as the
2. The glottal stop can only appear at word boundaries as a result of certain sandhi phenomena, and it is not indicated in spelling: e. This article is about the sound in spoken language For the letter see Glottal stop (letter. g. /annaʔolla/ 'let it be', orthographically anna olla. Moreover, this sound is not used in all dialects.
3. The short velar nasal is an allophone of /n/ in /nk/, and the long velar nasal /ŋŋ/, written ng, is the equivalent of /nk/ under weakening consonant gradation (type of lenition) and thus occurs only medially. The velar nasal is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents Consonant gradation is a type of Consonant mutation, in which consonants alternate between various "grades" Lenition is a kind of Consonant mutation that appears in many Languages Along with assimilation, it is one of the primary sources of historical change

Almost all consonant have phonemic geminated forms. In Phonetics, gemination happens when a spoken Consonant is pronounced for an audibly longer period of time than a short Consonant. These are independent, but occur only medially when phonemic.

Independent consonant clusters are not allowed in native words, except for a small set of two-consonant syllable codas, e. In Phonology, a syllable coda comprises the Consonant sounds of a Syllable that follow the nucleus, which is usually a Vowel g. 'rs' in karsta. However, due to a number of recently adopted loanwords using them, e. g. strutsi "ostrich", Finnish speakers can pronounce them, even if it is somewhat awkward.

As a Finno-Ugric language, it is somewhat special in two respects: loss of fricatives and loss of palatalization. Palatalization or palatalisation (ˌpælətəlɨˈzeɪʃən generally refers to two phenomena As a process or the result of a process

An interesting feature of Fennic phonology is the development of labial vowels in non-initial syllables. Proto-Uralic had only 'a' and 'i' and their vowel harmonic allophones in non-initial syllables; modern Finnish allows other vowels in non-initial syllables (they are uncommon, however, compared to 'a', 'ä' and 'i'). Proto-Uralic is the hypothetical language ancestral to the Uralic Language family, which includes Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic.

Palatalization is characteristic of Finno-Ugric languages, but Finnish has lost it. Palatalization or palatalisation (ˌpælətəlɨˈzeɪʃən generally refers to two phenomena As a process or the result of a process However, the Eastern dialects and the Karelian language have redeveloped a system of palatalization. Karelian is a language closely related to Finnish, with which it is not necessarily Mutually intelligible. For example, the Karelian word d'uuri [dʲu:ri], with a palatalized /dʲ/, is reflected by juuri in Finnish and Savo dialect vesj [vesʲ] is vesi in standard Finnish. Karelian is a language closely related to Finnish, with which it is not necessarily Mutually intelligible. The Savonian dialects are forms of Finnish language spoken in Savonia and other parts of Eastern Finland.

Finnish has only two fricatives, namely /s/ and /h/. All other fricatives are recognized as foreign, of which Finnish speakers can usually reliably distinguish /f/ and /ʃ/.

Morphophonology

A Venn diagram of the Finnish vowel harmony system. Venn diagrams or set diagrams are Diagrams that show all hypothetically possible Logical relations between a finite collection of sets (groups The front vowels are in blue, neutral in green and back in yellow.

Finnish has a thick layer of morphophonology between grammar ("logic") and phonology ("sounds"). The most important processes are vowel harmony and consonant gradation. Vowel harmony is a type of long-distance ( see below) assimilatory phonological process involving Vowels in some languages Consonant gradation is a type of Consonant mutation, in which consonants alternate between various "grades"

Vowel harmony is a redundancy feature, which means that the feature [±back] is uniform within a word, and so it is necessary to interpret it only once for a given word. It is meaning-distinguishing in the initial syllable, and suffixes follow; so, if the listener hears [±back] in any part of the word, they can derive [±back] for the initial syllable. For example, tuote ("product") agglutinates to tuotteeseensa ("into his product"), where the final vowel becomes the back vowel 'a' (rather than the front vowel 'ä') because the initial syllable contains the back vowels 'uo'. This is especially notable because vowels 'a' and 'ä' are different, meaning-distinguishing phonemes, not interchangeable or allophonic. The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU In Phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds ( Phones that belong to the same Phoneme. Finnish front vowels are not umlauts. In Linguistics, umlaut (from German um - "around"/"the other way" + Laut "sound" is a process whereby a

Consonant gradation is a lenition process for P, T and K, with the oblique stem "weakened" from the nominative stem, or vice versa. Lenition is a kind of Consonant mutation that appears in many Languages Along with assimilation, it is one of the primary sources of historical change For example, tarkka "precise" has the oblique root tarka-, as in tarkan "of the precise". There is also another gradation pattern, which is older, and causes simple elision of T and K. However, it is very common since it is found in the partitive case marker: if V is a single vowel, V+ta → Va, e. g. *vanha+ta → vanhaa. Another instance is the imperative, which changes into a glottal stop in the singular but is shown as an overt 'ka' in plural, e. g. mene vs. menkää.

Grammar

Main article: Finnish grammar

The morphosyntactic alignment is nominative-accusative; but there are two object cases: accusative and partitive. This article deals with the Grammar of the Finnish language. It is probably best to read the main article first In Linguistics, morphosyntactic alignment is the system used to distinguish between the arguments of Transitive verbs and those of Intransitive The contrast between the two is telicity, where accusative denotes actions completed as intended (Ammuin hirven "I shot (killed) the elk"), and partitive denotes incomplete actions (Ammuin hirveä "I shot (at) the elk"). In Linguistics, telicity is the property of a Verb or Verb phrase that presents an action or event as being complete in some sense Often this is confused with perfectivity, but the only element of perfectivity that exists in Finnish is that there are some perfective verbs. In Grammar, the perfective aspect is an aspect that exists in many languages Transitivity is distinguished by different verbs for transitive and intransitive, e. g. ratkaista "to solve something" vs. ratketa "to solve by itself". There are several frequentative and momentane verb categories. In Grammar, a frequentative form of a word is one which indicates repeated action In Finnish grammar, the momentane is a Verb aspect indicating that an occurrence is sudden and short-lived

Verbs gain personal suffixes for each person; these suffixes are grammatically more important than pronouns, which are often not used at all in standard Finnish. The infinitive is not the uninflected form but has a suffix -ta or -da; the closest one to an uninflected form is the third person singular indicative. There are four persons, first ("I, we"), second ("you, you"), third ("s/he, they") and indefinite (often called impersonal or "passive", similar to e. g. English "people say/do/…"). There are four tenses, namely present, past, perfect and pluperfect; the system mirrors the Germanic system. The future tense is not needed due to context and the telic contrast. For example, luen kirjan "I read a book (completely)" indicates a future, when luen kirjaa "I read a book (not yet complete)" indicates present.

Nouns may be suffixed with the markers for the aforementioned accusative case and partitive case, the genitive case, eight different locatives, and a few other cases. The accusative case ( abbreviated ACC) of a Noun is the Grammatical case used to mark the Direct object of a Transitive Note partitive case has to be distinguished from partitive meaning which refers to the selection of a part or quantity out of a group or amount see Partitive. In Grammar, the genitive case or possessive case (also called the second case) is the case that marks a Noun as modifying another The Finnish language has eight locative cases and some Eastern dialects symmetrify the system with the Excessive case. The case marker must be added not only to the main noun, but also to its modifiers; e. g. suure+ssa talo+ssa, literally "big-in house-in". Possession is marked with a possessive suffix; separate possessive pronouns are unknown. In Linguistics, a possessive suffix is a suffix attached to a noun to indicate its possessor, much in the manner of Possessive adjectives Possessive A possessive pronoun is a Part of speech that attributes ownership to someone or something Pronouns gain suffixes just as nouns do.

Lexicon

Suomalaisen Sana-Lugun Coetus (1745) by Daniel Juslenius was the first comprehensive dictionary of the Finnish language with 16,000 entries. Daniel Juslenius ( 10 June 1676 – 17 July 1752) was a Finnish Writer and Fennoman.

See the lists of Finnish words and words of Finnish origin at Wiktionary, the free dictionary and Wikipedia's sibling project. Wiktionary (a Portmanteau of Wiki and Dictionary) is a multilingual, Web -based project to create a Free

Finnish extensively employs regular agglutination. It has a smaller core vocabulary than, for example, English, and uses derivative suffixes to a greater extent. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States As an example, take the word kirja "a book", from which one can form derivatives kirjain "a letter" (of the alphabet), kirje "a piece of correspondence, a letter", kirjasto "a library", kirjailija "an author", kirjallisuus "literature", kirjoittaa "to write", kirjoittaja "a writer", kirjuri "a scribe, a clerk", kirjallinen "something in written form", kirjata "to write down, register, record", kirjasin "a font", and others. An alphabet is a standardized set of letters basic written symbols each of which roughly represents a Phoneme, a Spoken language, either

Here are some of the more common such suffixes. Which of each pair is used depends on the word being suffixed in accordance with the rules of vowel harmony. Vowel harmony is a type of long-distance ( see below) assimilatory phonological process involving Vowels in some languages

• -ja/jä : agent (one who does) (e. g. lukea "to read" → lukija "reader")
• -lainen/läinen: inhabitant of (either noun or adjective). Englanti "England" → englantilainen "English person or thing"; Venäjä → venäläinen "person from Russia". Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending
• -sto/stö: collection of. For example: kirja "a book" → kirjasto "a library"; laiva "a ship" → laivasto "navy, fleet".
• -in: instrument or tool. For example: kirjata "to book, to file" → kirjain "a letter" (of the alphabet); vatkata "to whisk" → vatkain "a whisk, mixer".
• -uri/yri: an agent or instrument (kaivaa "to dig" → kaivuri "a digging machine"; laiva "a ship" → laivuri "shipper, shipmaster").
• -os/ös: result of some action (tulla "to come" → tulos "result, outcome"; tehdä "to do" → teos "a piece of work").
• -ton/tön: lack of something, "un-", "-less" (onni "happiness" → onneton "unhappy"; koti "home" → koditon "homeless").
• -llinen: having (the quality of) something (lapsi "a child" → lapsellinen "childish"; kauppa "a shop, commerce" → kaupallinen "commercial").
• -kas/käs: similar to -llinen (itse "self" → itsekäs "selfish"; neuvo "advice" → neuvokas "resourceful").
• -va/vä: doing or having something (taitaa "to be able" → taitava "skillful"; johtaa "to lead" → johtava "leading").
• -la/lä: a place related to the main word (kana "a hen" → kanala "a henhouse"; pappi "a priest" → pappila "a parsonage").

Verbal suffixes are extremely diverse; several frequentatives and momentanes differentiating causative, volitional-unpredictable and anticausative are found, often combined with each other, often denoting indirection. In Grammar, a frequentative form of a word is one which indicates repeated action In Finnish grammar, the momentane is a Verb aspect indicating that an occurrence is sudden and short-lived A causative form in Linguistics, is an expression of an agent causing or forcing a patient to perform an action (or to be in a certain condition An anticausative verb is an Intransitive verb that shows an event affecting its subject while giving no semantic or syntactic indication of the cause of the event In Computer programming, indirection is the ability to reference something using a name reference or container instead of the value itself For example, hypätä "to jump", hyppiä "to be jumping", hypeksiä "to be jumping wantonly", hypäyttää "to make someone jump once", hyppyyttää "to make someone jump repeatedly" (or "to boss someone around"), hyppyytyttää "to make someone to cause a third person to jump repeatedly", hyppyytellä "to, without aim, make someone jump repeatedly", hypähtää "to jump suddenly" (in anticausative meaning), hypellä "to jump around repeatedly", hypiskellä "to be jumping repeatedly and wantonly", hyppimättä "without jumping", hyppelemättä "without jumping around". An anticausative verb is an Intransitive verb that shows an event affecting its subject while giving no semantic or syntactic indication of the cause of the event Often the diversity and compactness of this agglutination is illustrated with juoksentelisinkohan "I wonder if I should run around aimlessly".

Borrowing

Over the course of many centuries, the Finnish language has borrowed a great many words from a wide variety of languages, most from neighboring Indo-European languages. Indeed, some estimates put the core Finno-Ugric vocabulary surviving in Finnish at only around 300 word roots. Due to the different grammatical, phonological and phonotactic structure of the Finnish language, loanwords from Indo-European have been assimilated.

In general, the first loan words into Finno-Ugric languages seem to come from very early Indo-European languages, and later mainly from Iranian, Turkic, Baltic, Germanic, and Slavic languages. The Iranian languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family and its subfamily Indo-Iranian. The Turkic languages constitute a Language family of some thirty languages spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the The Baltic languages are a group of related languages belonging to the Indo-European language family and spoken mainly in areas extending east and southeast of the Baltic The Germanic languages are a group of related languages that constitute a branch of the Indo-European (IE Language family. The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages) a group of closely related Languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages Furthermore, a certain group of very basic and neutral words exists in Finnish and other Finnic languages that are absent from other Finno-Ugric languages, but without a recognizable etymology from any known language. These words are usually regarded as the last remnant of the Nordic language spoken in Fennoscandia before the arrival of the proto-Finnic language. Words included in this group are e. g. jänis (hare), musta (black), mäki (hill), saari (island), suo (swamp) and niemi (cape). Also some place names, like Päijänne and Imatra, are probably before the proto-Finnic era. Lake Päijänne ( is the second largest Lake in Finland ( The lake drains into the Gulf of Finland via the Kymi River. Imatrankoski kuohuujpg|300px|thumb|right|The Dam of Imatra]] Imatra is a town and municipality in eastern Finland, founded in 1948 around three industrial ^[15]

Often quoted loan examples are kuningas "king" and ruhtinas "prince, high ranking nobleman" from Germanic *kuningaz and *druhtinaz, but another example is äiti "mother", from Gothic eiþai, which is interesting because borrowing of close-kinship vocabulary is a rare phenomenon. Gothic is an extinct Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. The original Finnish emo has become a cranberry morpheme. In linguistic morphology, a cranberry morpheme (or fossilized term) is a type of Bound morpheme that cannot be assigned a meaning or a grammatical function There are other close-kinship words that are loaned from Baltic and Germanic languages (morsian "bride", armas "dear"). Examples of the ancient Iranian loans are vasara "hammer" from Avestan vadžra, vajra and orja "slave" from arya, airya "man" (the latter probably via similar circumstances as slave from Slav in many European languages). Avestan is an Eastern Old Iranian language that was used to compose the sacred hymns and canon of the Zoroastrian Avesta. Aryan is an English word derived from the Sanskrit " Ārya " meaning "noble" or "honorable"

More recently, Swedish has been a prolific source of borrowings, and also, the Swedish language acted as a proxy for European words, especially those relating to government. Present-day Finland belonged to the kingdom of Sweden from the 12th century and was ceded to Russia in 1809, becoming an autonomous Grand Duchy. Year 1809 ( MDCCCIX) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year Swedish was retained as the official language and language of the upper class even after this. When Finnish was accepted as an official language, it gained only legal "equal status" with Swedish, which persists even today. It is still the case today, though only about 5. 5% of Finnish nationals, the Swedish-speaking Finns, have Swedish as their mother tongue. Swedish -speaking Finns (often called Finland-Swedes, Finnish Swedes, Fennoswedes or Swedish Finns, see below ( Swedish Swedish ( is a North Germanic language spoken by more than nine million people predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the A first language (also mother tongue, native language, arterial language, or L1) is the language a human being learns from birth During the period of autonomy, Russian did not gain much ground as a language of the people or the government. Nevertheless, quite a few words were subsequently acquired from Russian (especially in older Helsinki slang) but not to the same extent as with Swedish. Russian ( transliteration:,) is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages Helsinki slang or slangi is a local variation of the Finnish language mainly used in the capital Helsinki. In all these cases, borrowing has been partly a result of geographical proximity.

Especially words dealing with administrative or modern culture came to Finnish from Swedish, sometimes reflecting the oldest Swedish form of the word (lag - laki, 'law'; län - lääni, 'county'; bisp - piispa, 'bishop'; jordpäron - peruna, 'potato'), and many more survive as informal synonyms in spoken or dialectal Finnish (e. g. likka, from Swedish flicka, 'girl', usually tyttö in Finnish).

Typical Russian loanwords are old or very old, thus hard to recognize as such, and concern everyday concepts, e. g. papu "bean", sini "(n.) blue" and pappi "priest". Notably, a few religious words such as Raamattu ("Bible") are loaned from Russian, which indicates language contact preceding the Swedish era. This is mainly believed to be result of trade with Novgorod 9th century and so on and the Orthodox converting in 13th century.

Most recently, and with increasing impact, English has been the source of new loanwords in Finnish. A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one Language from another with little or no translation Unlike previous "geographical" borrowing, the influence of English is largely "cultural" and reaches Finland by many routes including: international business; music; film and TV (except for the very young, foreign films and programmes are shown subtitled); literature; and, of course, the Web — this is now probably the most important source of all non-face-to-face exposure to English. The World Wide Web (commonly shortened to the Web) is a system of interlinked Hypertext documents accessed via the Internet.

The importance of English as the language of global commerce has led many non-English companies, including Finland's Nokia, to adopt English as their official operating language. Nokia Corporation (pronunciation /'nɔkiɑ/),,) is a Finnish multinational Communications Corporation, headquartered Recently, it has been observed that English borrowings are also ousting previous borrowings, for example the switch from treffailla "to date" (from Swedish, träffa) to deittailla from English "to go for a date". Calques from English are also found, e. In Linguistics, a calque (kælk or loan translation is a Word or Phrase borrowed from another Language by Literal, word-for-word g kovalevy (hard disk). Grammatical calques are also found, for example, the replacement of the impersonal (passiivi) with the English-style generic you, e. In English grammar, generic you or indefinite you is the use of the Pronoun You to refer to an unspecified g. sä et voi "you cannot", instead of ei voi "one cannot".

However, this does not mean that Finnish is threatened by English. Borrowing is normal language evolution, and neologisms are coined actively not only by the government, but also by the media. Moreover, Finnish and English have a considerably different grammar, phonology and phonotactics, discouraging direct borrowing. This article deals with the Grammar of the Finnish language. It is probably best to read the main article first This article deals with the sound patterns of the Finnish language. The Phonotactics of the Finnish language natively permit syllables of form CVCC and CVVC at maximum e English loan words in Finnish slang include for example pleikkari "PlayStation", hodari "hot dog", and hedari "headache". Often these loanwords are distinctly identified as slang or jargon, rarely being used in a negative mood or in formal language. Slang is the use of highly informal Words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's Dialect or Language. For Wikipedia jargon see WikipediaGlossary. For hacker slang see Jargon File. Since English and Finnish grammar, pronunciation and phonetics differ considerably, most loan words are inevitably sooner or later calqued — translated into native Finnish — retaining the semantic meaning. In Linguistics, a calque (kælk or loan translation is a Word or Phrase borrowed from another Language by Literal, word-for-word

Neologisms

Some modern terms have been synthesised rather than borrowed, for example:

puhelin "telephone" (literally: "chatter" + instrument suffix "-in" to make "an instrument for chattering")

tietokone "computer" (literally: "knowledge machine")

levyke "diskette" (from levy "disc" + a diminutive -ke)

sähköposti "email" (literally: "electrical mail")

linja-auto "bus" (literally: route-car)

Neologisms are actively generated by the Language Planning Office and the media. They are widely adopted. One would actually give an old-fashioned or rustic impression using forms such as telefooni or kompuutteri when the neologism is widely adopted.

Loans to other languages

Main article: List of English words of Finnish origin

Orthography

Main article: Finnish alphabet

The first page of Abckiria (1543), the first book written in the Finnish language. Few words of Finnish origin have entered other languages On the contrary the language is a rather a net importer of words The Finnish alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet, and especially its Swedish extension Abckiria (also sometimes spelled ABC-kiria, and spelled "ABC-kirja" in modern Finnish in English "The ABC book" is the first book published The spelling of Finnish in the book had many inconsistencies: for example, the k sound could be represented by either c, k or even g; the long u and the long i were represented by w and ij respectively, and ä was represented by e.

Finnish is written with the Swedish variant of the Latin alphabet that includes the distinct characters Ä and Ö, and also several characters not used in Finnish (including for example C, Q, Å). The Finnish orthography built upon the phonetic principle: each phoneme (distinct sound) of the language is represented by exactly one grapheme (independent letter), and each grapheme represents exactly one phoneme. Phonetics (from the Greek φωνή ( phonê) "sound" or "voice" is the study of the physical sounds of human speech This makes the language easy for its speakers to spell, and facilitates learning to read and write. The rule of thumb for Finnish orthography is: write as you read, read as you write. However, morphemes retain their spelling despite sandhi. Sandhi ( Sanskrit saṃdhi sa संधि "joining" is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at Morpheme

Some orthographical notes:

• Long vowels and consonants are represented by double occurrences of the relevant graphemes. This causes no confusion, and permits these sounds to be written without having to nearly double the size of the alphabet to accommodate separate graphemes for long sounds.
• The n in nk is a velar nasal, as in English. The velar nasal is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents As an exception to the phonetic principle, there is no g in ng, which is a long velar nasal as in English singalong.
• The grapheme h occurring before a consonant sounds slightly harder (initially breathy voiced, then voiceless) than when occurring before a vowel. Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, soughing, or susurration) is a Phonation in which the Vocal cords vibrate as they do in
• Sandhi is not transcribed; the spelling of morphemes is immutable, e. Sandhi ( Sanskrit saṃdhi sa संधि "joining" is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at Morpheme g. tulen+pa /tuleɱpa/.
• Some consonants (v, j, d) and all consonants occurring in (always medial) clusters do not have distinctive length, and consequently, their allophonic variation is not indicated in spelling, e. g. rajaan /rajaan/ (I limit) vs. raijaan /raijjaan/ (I haul).
• Pre-1900's texts and personal names use w for v. Both correspond to the same phoneme, the labiodental approximant /ʋ/, a v without the fricative ("hissing") quality of the English v. The labiodental approximant is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that

The letters ä [æ] and ö [ø], although written as umlauted a and o, do not represent phonological umlauts, and they are considered independent graphemes; the letter shapes have been copied from Swedish. " Ä " or " ä " is a character which represents either a letter from several extended Latin alphabets or the letter A with O-Umlaut The glyph O with Umlaut appears in the German alphabet. Diaeresis or trema See also Diaeresis History Historically the diaeresis mark or trema is far older than the umlaut mark I-mutation (also known as umlaut, front mutation, i-umlaut, i/j-mutation or i/j-umlaut) is an important type of Sound change An appropriate parallel from the Latin alphabet are the characters C and G (uppercase), which historically have a closer kinship than many other characters (G is a derivation of C) but are considered distinct letters, and changing one for the other will change meanings.

If the graphemes ä and ö are not accessible due to technical limitations, they must be replaced with a and o, respectively. As they are not umlauts, it is wrong to write them as umlaut digraphs ae, oe, as in German. A digraph, bigraph, or digram is a pair of characters used to write one Phoneme (distinct sound or a sequence of phonemes that does not correspond Sequences ae and oe are distinct phonemes from ä and ö, e. g. haen "I seek" vs. hän "he"/"she".

The sounds š and ž are not a part of Finnish language itself and have been introduced somewhat artificially by a government regulation. Although they occur in some rare loanwords, their principal use is in the transcription of foreign names. For technical reasons or convenience, the graphemes sh and zh are often used in quickly or less carefully written texts instead of š and ž. This is a deviation from the phonetic principle, and as such is liable to cause confusion, but the damage is minimal as the transcribed words are foreign in any case. Finnish does not use the sounds z, š or ž, but for the sake of exactitude, they can be included in spelling. (The recommendation cites the Russian play Hovanshtshina as an example. For the 1960 Soviet film based on this opera see Khovanshchina (film. ) Many speakers pronounce all of them s, or distinguish only between s and š, because Finnish has no voiced sibilants. ^[16]

The language may be identified by its distinctive lack of the letters b, c, f, q, w, x, z and å.

Language example

— Väinö Linna: The Unknown Soldier; these words were also inscribed in the 20 mk note. Väinö Linna ( ( December 20, 1920 – April 21, 1992) was one of the most influential Finnish authors of the 20th century The Unknown Soldier ( Tuntematon sotilas) is author Väinö Linna 's first major Novel and his other major work besides Under the North Star The markka ( Finnish) or mark ( Swedish) was the Currency of Finland from 1860 until February 28, 2002, when

(Translation: "The benevolent sun watched them. By no means was it angry at them. Perhaps it even felt a kind of compassion towards them. Jolly good brothers. ")

Basic greetings

• (Hyvää) huomenta – Good morning

• (Hyvää) päivää – Good afternoon (literally "Good day")

• (Hyvää) iltapäivää – Good afternoon

• (Hyvää) iltaa – Good evening

• Hyvää yötä / Öitä – Good night / Good night

• Terve! / Moro! – Hello!

• Hei! / Moi! – Hi!

• Heippa! / Moikka! / Hei hei! / Moi moi! – Bye!

• Nähdään – See you later (literally "will be seen")

• Näkemiin / Hyvästi – Goodbye

• Hauska tutustua! – Nice to meet you
• Kiitos – Thank you

• Kiitos, samoin – Likewise

• Mitä kuuluu? – How are you / How you doing? (Not used among strangers. ) (literally "what is heard?")

• Kiitos hyvää – I'm fine, thank you

• Tervetuloa! – Welcome!

Important words and phrases

Tietosanakirja, 11 volumes, 1909-1922, Finnish encyclopedia.

• kyllä – yes
• joo - yeah (informal)
• ei – no, not
• minä, sinä, hän – I, you, he/she
• me, te, he – we, you, they
• minä olen – I am
• sinä olet - you are
• yksi, kaksi, kolme – one, two, three
• neljä, viisi, kuusi – four, five, six
• seitsemän, kahdeksan – seven, eight
• yhdeksän, kymmenen – nine, ten
• sata, tuhat, miljoona – hundred, thousand, million
• minä rakastan sinua – I love you
• anteeksi – forgive me, excuse me
• olen pahoillani – I'm sorry (apology)
• otan osaa – I'm sorry (sympathy)
• totta kai – of course
• pieni hetki, pikku hetki, hetkinen – one moment please!
• Suomi – Finland
• suomi – Finnish language
• suomalainen – (noun) Finn; (adjective) Finnish
• Mitä kuuluu? – How are you? (note: not used among strangers)
• En ymmärrä – I don't understand
• Ymmärrän – I understand
• ¹Ymmärrät(te)kö suomea? – Do you understand Finnish?
• ¹Puhut(te)ko englantia? – Do you speak English?
• Olen englantilainen / amerikkalainen / kanadalainen / australialainen / uusiseelantilainen / irlantilainen / skotlantilainen – I am English / American / Canadian / Australian / New Zealander / Irish / Scottish
• ¹Olet(te)ko englantilainen? – Are you English?
• Missä (sinä) asut/¹Missä (te) asutte? – Where do you live?

¹ -te is added to make the sentence formal. Otherwise, without the added "-te", it is informal. It is also added when talking to more than one person. The transition from second-person singular to second-person plural (teitittely) is a politeness pattern, advised by many "good manners guides". Elderly people, especially, expect it from strangers, whereas the younger might feel it to be too formal to the point of coldness. However, a learner of the language should not be excessively concerned about it. Omitting it is never offensive, but one should keep in mind that on formal occasions this custom may make a good impression.

Finnish and popular culture

The linguist and author J.R.R. Tolkien considered Finnish to be a particularly beautiful language, and described his youthful discovery of Finnish as inspiring him to pursue a linguistic career ("Finding a Finnish grammar book was like entering a complete wine-cellar, filled with bottles of an amazing wine of a kind and flavour never tasted before"^[17]). Several of Tolkien's invented languages, notably Quenya, are stylistically related to Finnish. Quenya 'kwɛɲa is one of the fictional languages spoken by the Elves (the Quendi, "those who speak with voices" because when

References

See also

• Finnish alphabet
• Finnish grammar
• Spoken Finnish
• Finland's language strife
• Karelian language
• Estonian language
• Finnish name

External links

• Finnish language on Ethnologue
• The Finnish language --- a great list of resources
• Early Indo-European Loanwords in Finnish

Dictionaries

• English-Finnish-English Dictionary
• Collection of Finnish bilingual dictionaries
• Finnish Etymological Dictionary by Andras Rajki
• English-Finnish and Russian-Finnish Dictionary

Tutorials

• English-Finnish vocabulary quizzes
• The 2 253 possible forms of the Finnish noun kauppa 'shop'