Finnish (endonym: suomi or suomen kieli [ˈsuo̯meŋ ˈkie̯li]) is a Uralic language of the Finnic branch spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. [6] Phonetically the doubled vowels are single continuous sounds ([æː eː iː øː yː ɑː oː uː]) where the extra duration of the hold phase of the vowel signals that they count as two successive vowel phonemes rather than one. [1] Standard Finnish is used by professional speakers, such as reporters and news presenters on television. In standard Finnish, these words are pronounced as they are spelled, but many speakers apply vowel harmony – olumpialaiset, and sekundaarinen or sekyndäärinen. light-heavy CV.CVV becomes heavy-heavy CVCCVV, e.g. They are grouped into three groups; front, neutral and back vowels. if a news reporter or a high official consistently and publicly realises Belgia ('Belgium') as Pelkia. also the examples under the "Length" section). Thus, there are four distinct phonetic lengths. Fourthly, in many descriptions of Finnish available in … Although by definition a singular word, it was originally a compound word that transitioned over time to a more compact and easier form: tämänlajinen (from tämän, 'of this' and lajinen, 'kind') → tänlainen → tällainen, and further to tällä(i)nen for some non-standard speech. For example, chat is heard as tsät and consequently the frequentatitive verb "to chat" is tsättäillä (also spelled chattäillä, chattailla, chättäillä, etc.). For example, Savo Finnish has the phonemic contrast of /ɑ/ vs. /uɑ̯/ vs. /ɑɑ/ instead of standard language contrast of /ɑ/ vs. /ɑɑ/ vs. /ɑu̯/. Secondary stress falls on the first syllable of non-initial parts of compounds, for example the compound puunaama, meaning "wooden face" (from puu, 'tree' and naama, 'face'), is pronounced [ˈpuːˌnɑː.mɑ] but puunaama, meaning "which was cleaned" (preceded by an agent in the genitive, "by someone"), is pronounced [ˈpuː.nɑː.mɑ]. Other s… In speech (i.e. The following is a general list of strong–weak correspondences. The chart itself is not currently available. In the case of compound words, the choice between back and front suffix alternants is determined by the immediately-preceding element of the compound; e.g. Here we get the modern Finnish form [ʋenekːulkeː] (orthographically vene kulkee), even though the independent form [ʋene] has no sign of the old final consonant /h/. Nowadays the overwhelming majority of Finns have adopted initial consonant clusters in their speech. Like the i to e mutation, when you put a suffix after a word, some consonants change when you agglutinate. This is because there is an i → e mutation. "Consonant gradation" is the term used for a set of alternations which pervade the language, between a "strong grade" and a "weak grade". However, these borrowings being relatively common, they are nowadays considered part of the educated norm. A Venn diagram of the Finnish vowel harmony system. Compare, for example, the following pair of abstract nouns: hallitus 'government' (from hallita, 'to reign') versus terveys 'health' (from terve, healthy). In Finnish, there are eight vowels, a, e, i, o, u, y, ä and ö. Here are all the sounds and letters in Finnish. [citation needed] Minimal pairs do exist: /bussi/ 'a bus' vs. /pussi/ 'a bag', /ɡorillɑ/ 'a gorilla' vs. /korillɑ/ 'on a basket'. For another, compound words do not have vowel harmony across the compound boundary;[10] e.g. The doubled mid vowels are more common in unstressed syllables.[7]. For example, in rapid speech the word yläosa ('upper part', from ylä-, 'upper' + osa, 'part') can be pronounced [ˈylæo̯sɑ] (with the diphthong /æo̯/). The opening diphthongs come from earlier doubled mid vowels: /*oo/ > [uo̯], /*ee/ > [ie̯], /*øø/ > [yø̯]. For example, azeri and džonkki may be pronounced [ɑseri] and [tsoŋkki] without fear of confusion. For audio, click here. Other foreign fricatives are not. pimeys 'darkness' from pimeä 'dark' + /-(U)US/ '-ness' and siistiytyä 'to tidy up oneself' from siisti 'tidy' + /-UTU/ (a kind of middle voice) + /-(d)A/ (infinitive suffix). Transcription below. š or sh [ʃ] appears only in non-native words, sometimes pronounced [s], although most speakers make a distinction between e.g. It is usually taught that diphthongization occurs only with the combinations listed. iness. tie – tiellä ('road' – 'on the road'). Diphthongs ending in i can occur in any syllable, but those ending in rounded vowels usually occur only in initial syllables, and rising diphthongs are confined to that syllable. Transcription below. In elaborate standard language, the gemination affects even morphemes with a vowel beginning: /otɑ/ + /omenɑ/ → [otɑʔːomenɑ] or [otɑʔomenɑ] ('take an apple!'). While /ʋ/ and /j/ may appear as geminates when spoken (e.g. whether kolme ('three') should cause a gemination of the following initial consonant or not: [kolmeʋɑristɑ] or [kolmeʋːɑristɑ] ('three crows'). The chart itself is not currently available. Even then, the Southwestern dialects formed an exception: consonant clusters, especially those with plosives, trills or nasals, are common: examples include place names Friitala and Preiviiki near the town Pori, or town Kristiinankaupunki ('Kristinestad'). Demonstration of Vowels. (Note: chattäillä would lack harmony if it was pronounced as written. In many Finnish dialects, including that of Helsinki, the gemination at morpheme boundaries has become more widespread due to the loss of additional final consonants, which appear only as gemination of the following consonant, cf. syllable but this is followed by a heavy syllable (CVV. In ideal case each letter corresponds to one and the same sound, and each sound corresponds to one and the same letter. connegative forms of present potential verbs, the possessive suffix of the third person, This page was last edited on 6 October 2020, at 15:26. Consonant doubling always occurs at the boundary of a syllable in accordance with the rules of Finnish syllable structure. For example, when the postposition -lla or -llä is added to kieli, it becomes kielellä, not kielella. Historically, this sound was a fricative, [ð] (th as in English the), varyingly spelled as d or dh in Old Literary Finnish. In some dictionaries compiled for foreigners or linguists, however, the tendency of geminating the following consonant is marked by a superscript x as in perhex. Additionally, acoustic measurements show that the first syllable of a word is longer in duration than other syllables, in addition to its phonological doubling. • The close vowels /i, y, u/ are similar to the corresponding cardinal vowels [i, y, u]. seinäkello 'wall clock' (from seinä, 'wall' and kello, 'clock') has back /o/ cooccurring with front /æ/. However, /ny/ + /se/ ('now it [does something]') is pronounced [nysːe] and not *[nyse] (although the latter would be permissible in the dialect of Turku). The second is predictive gemination of initial consonants on morpheme boundaries. See the diagram: The vowels in blue are front vowels (or "hard"), the vowels in green are neutral and the vowels in yellow are back vowels (or "soft"). The usual pronunciation is [ˈylæ.ˌosɑ] (with those vowels belonging to separate syllables). ess. kieltää, kielsi ('to deny', 'denied') but säätää, sääti ('to adjust', 'adjusted'). Due to diffusion of the standard language through mass media and basic education, and due to the dialectal prestige of the capital area, the plosive [d] can now be heard in all parts of the country, at least in loanwords and in formal speech. One helpful thing when studying Finnish is the regular pronunciation; we use to say that "Finnish is always pronounced like it's written".
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