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Spoken FinnishThis article deals with features of the spoken Finnish language, specifically how it is spoken in Greater Helsinki capital region. This applies also to other cities, such as Vaasa, where the regional dialect has been supplanted by "generic Finnish" due to large number of people moving in from other regions. It will only make limited sense without the information contained in the Finnish language phonetics and Finnish language grammar pages. Introduction As in any language, the spoken version(s) of Finnish vary, sometimes markedly, from the written form. Some of these variations are due to speakers' inexactitude, but some aspects of spoken Finnish have different grammatical properties from written Finnish. The formal language is a constructed language, a fusion of dialects that is no one's mother tongue. Some of its constructs are either too "made up" (e.g. "soft D", cf. Finnish phonetics), or too dialectal, e.g. hn (see below), for use in the spoken language. There is also the problem that purists want to avoid irregularity regardless of actual usage. There is a tendency to favor "more logical" constructs over easily pronounceable ones. For example, ruoka should gradate to ruoan, but it is pronounced ruuan - both spellings are used. The problem of avoiding "irregularity" is most pronounced in spelling, because there is the idea that morphemes should be immutable. For example, the "correct" spelling is synp ("I'll eat"), even though the pronunciation is always symp. The explanation is that -n- and -p are in different morphemes. There are also a number of grammatical forms which are used in written Finnish, but only very rarely in spoken. For example, there are a number of constructions using participles which are usually rendered analytically in speech. Some cases and moods are rarely constructive in spoken Finnish, e.g. the instructive and comitative cases and the potential mood. Some survive only in expressions. On the other hand, spoken language has its own features rare or not found in formal language. In some variants (e.g. Vaasa, Kymenlaakso) of spoken Finnish -n kanssa is abbreviated into a clitic that is effectively a comitative case, e.g. -nkans or -nkaa. Another difference is the more extensive use of modifiers that "soften" imperatives and questions: -s (Could you ..?), -pa/-p (Will you ..?), -han/-hn (It's certain that ..). This means that the overly harsh imperative vist! (make way!) becomes friendlier, e.g. vists, vistpp or visthn. Pronunciation Since the stress in Finnish always falls on the first syllable of the word, the ends of words greater than one syllable tend to erode. This is frequently by the loss of a final vowel, or assimilation of a final vowel with a preceding vowel: - 'anteeksi!' = 'sorry!' -> 'anteeks!'
- 'yksi' = 'one' -> 'yks'
- 'puhun suomea' = 'I speak Finnish' -> 'puhun suomee'
A related phenomenon is the mutation of a final consonant, similar to the initial consonant mutation in Welsh. It allows the speech to not to "get stuck" to word boundaries, and because of this, may be heard even in formal language. When a word ends in a stressed syllable, which ends in a vowel or an omittable consonant, the consonant beginning the next word is doubled and it connects the words. For example, nyt vaan becomes nyvvaan. The two words end up being pronounced as if they were a compound word, i.e. the auxiliary stress is on the syllables beginning the words. This is virtually never written down, except in dialectal transcriptions. For example, "Now it arrives! You go first": - Nyt se tulee! Mene sin ensin. (standard)
- Ny se tulee! Mee s ensin. (spoken, usually spelled like this)
- Nysse tulee! Meess ensin. (actual pronunciation)
If the consonant cannot be omitted, this does not happen. For example: - Menetk sin ensin?
- Meeks ensin? = "Will you go first?"
The meaning would change, if the consonant was omitted: - Mene sin ensin.
- Meess ensin. = "You go first."
Generally, you should notice that spoken Finnish is not neatly divided up into words as the spelling would suggest, similarly to French. For example, regardless of word boundaries, np is always mp, nk is always ŋk (where ŋ is a velar nasal). Observe the result, if we denote only an actual break in pronunciation with a space: - Viitsisitsottaattompois japistŋoveŋkii?
- Viitsisit s ottaa ton pois ja pist oven kii? (standard spelling)
- Viitsisitk sin ottaa tuon pois ja pist oven kiinni? (formal language)
Personal pronouns Few dialects use the personal pronouns 'min' and 'sin', but they are instituted in the formal language. Most people use shorter equivalents, like these found in Greater Helsinki region. - min -> m
- sin -> s
The root words are also shorter: - minu- -> mu-
- sinu- -> su-
The third person pronouns 'hn', 'he' are commonly used in spoken language only in Southwestern Finland, and increasingly rarely also there. Elsewhere they are usually replaced by their non-personal equivalents - note that there is no pejorative sense in talking about people as 'it', unlike in English. - hn -> se
- he -> ne
For example, the sentence "Did he mistake me for you?" has these forms: - Luuliko hn minua sinuksi?
- Luuliks se mua suks?
Numerals Numerals 1-10 in colloquial spoken Finnish: - yks (yksi)
- kaks (kaksi)
- kolme
- nelj
- viis (viisi)
- kuus (kuusi)
- seittemn (seitsemn)
- kaheksan (kahdeksan)
- yheksn (yhdeksn)
- kymmenen
Numbers 1-10 are not only used in counting, they also have their own names which can be different from the numerals used in counting. Numbers that have longer names are often shortened in speech. This may be problematic for foreigner to understand, if she/he has learned words by book: - ykknen (number one)
- kakkonen (number two)
- kolmonen (number three)
- nelonen: (number four)
- viitonen (number five) -> vitonen
- kuutonen (number six) -> kutonen
- seitsemn (number seven) -> seiska
- kahdeksikko (number eight) -> kasi
- yhdeksikk (number nine) -> ysi
- kymmenen (number ten) -> kymppi
Verbs As noted in the Finnish grammar page, the passive form is normally used in speech for first-person plural. This happens in all tenses, and also for the conditional: 'me olemme olleet lomalla' = 'we have been on holiday' -> 'me on oltu lomalla', 'me ollaan oltu lomalla' In the latter case the 'me' is obligatory, whereas it is not in the 'proper' case since the verb's inflection indicates the person and number. However, 'ollaan oltu lomalla' may be used for example when being asked 'Where have you been?'='Miss te olette olleet?', yet this is very spoken language, and should not be used in written text. The third-person singular form of the present tense is often used after 'ne' in place of the plural form. The full present-tense paradigm of 'puhua' = 'to speak' in everyday speech is: - m puhun (min puhun)
- s puhut (sin puhut)
- se puhuu (hn puhuu)
- me puhutaan (me puhumme)
- te puhutte (te puhutte)
- ne puhuu (he puhuvat)
Some frequently used short verbs have abbreviated (irregular) roots. There is a peculiarity here: in Finnish, the third person imperative is the root (uninflected form) for personal forms. For example, mene! (go!) gives the personal forms menen, menet, menee (I go, you go, he goes, respectively). The first infinitive is menn "to go", where consonant gradation changes -nn- into -n-, the final - is removed and -e- is added: menn -> mene-. However, the root might change in spoken language, even though the infinitive stays the same. | engl. | I inf. | imp. | irreg. imp. |
|---|
| be | olla | ole | oo | | go | menn | mene | mee | | come | tulla | tule | tuu | | put | panna | pane | paa | For example, Mene tai tule, mutta pane se ovi kiinni ja ole hiljaa -> Mee tai tuu, mut paa se ovi kii ja oo hiljaa. (word-by-word) "Go or come, but put the door closed and be quiet." The reply might be Meen tai tuun, paan oven kii ja oon hiljaa ("I will go, put it closed and be quiet"). The infinitives are unchanged: Menn tai tulla, panna ovi kii ja olla hiljaa ("To go or to come, to put it closed and to be quiet"). Questions In everyday speech, the -ko/k suffix has the -s clitic added, becoming -kos/ks, which in turn reduces to -ks: olenko min hengiss? = 'am I alive?' -> oonksm hengiss?
puhutko sin englantia? = 'do you (sg.) speak English?' -> puhuts englantii? or puhuks englantii?
tuliko hn jo? = 'did he/she come yet?' -> tulikse jo? (via tuliko se jo?)
tekeek Pekka jotain jrkevkin? = 'does Pekka do something that makes sense, too?' -> tekeeks Pekka jotain jrkevki?
haluammeko me nyt lhte? = 'do we want to go now?' -> halutaanksme ny lhtee? (via halutaanko me nyt lhte?)
odotatteko te tss hetken? = 'would you (pl.) wait here for a moment?' -> ootattekste ts hetken?
sanoivatko he jotain? = 'did they say something?' -> sanoksne jotain? (via sanoiko ne jotain?)
Note that all forms have the clitic -s between the -ko/k suffix and the subject clitic. It can be speculated that this has spread from the singular second and third persons, where the clitics begin with an -s, cf. puhut(k)-s and tulik-se above. Possessive suffix Spoken language has a different grammar for the possessive suffix. For direct addresses, save for one form it is not used, so that the pronoun cannot be omitted. Even in the second-person singular, the pronoun is virtually never omitted. | Formal | Spoken | English | | (minun) taloni | mun talo | my house | | (sinun) talosi | (sun) talos | your (sg) house | | (hnen) talonsa | sen talo | his/her house | | (meidn) talomme | mein talo | our house | | (teidn) talonne | tein talo | your (pl) house | | (heidn) talonsa | niitten talo | their house | Notice one fact: Finnish has no possessive pronouns; these pronouns are formed like "I's house", "you's house", "we's house". However, the suffices -s, -nsa and -nne are used to avoid repeating a pronoun, e.g. "He took his hat and left" is Se otti lakkinsa ja lhti. (The incorrect word-by-word translation from English *Se otti sen lakin ja lhti would mean "He took the hat and left".) Omission of the negative verb When a negative sentence is formed, the main verb goes into the imperative mood and gives all of its inflections to the negative verb ei, e.g. tuemme → emme tue. Usually the word mitn ("anything") and an expletive is added to the sentence. This means that even if the negative verb ei is left out, the meaning is indicated by this context. For example: - Ei se mitn osaa. "He doesn't know anything."
- (Vittu) se mitn osaa. "(Fucking) he know anything."
Usually this construction indicates mistrust or frustration. (There is a less than serious text calling this aggressiivi.) However, it can be a neutral negative statement: Tst artikkelista mitn opi (From this article, you don't learn anything). Important regional variations This is a feature of several dialects, such as those of Pohjanmaa and Savo: breaking up consonant clusters on syllable boundaries with an epenthetic vowel. The neutral vowel is the same as the preceding vowel. For example, juhla -> juhula "celebration", salmi -> salami "strait", palvelu -> palavelu "service", halpa -> halapa, ff -> hv (via hv) "letter F". All words do not expand, e.g. lapsi, maksu, lnsi. It appears that the first consonant determines if the word expands: mutable clusters begin with an L or H, and immutable clusters begin with P, K, T, N, M, R and S. (The remaining consonants D, J, and V do not form clusters in native Finnish.) Likewise, double consonants are immutable. - Helsinki: Despite this text describing primarily the Helsinki area speech, there are some features that are not found elsewhere. One is the word sillai "in that way", which is usually something else like silleen elsewhere. Partitive plurals ending -ja/-j in generic Finnish become -i, and likewise the partitive plural -ia/-i simplifies to -ii: mrki takkeja -> mrkii takkei "wet jackets". Final syllables in frequently used words may erode, like sitten -> sit, mutta -> mut. More extensively than elsewhere, the case endings might be abbreviated, usually by the loss of the final vowel, e.g. silt -> silt. (If a geminate would be "left dangling" at the end of the word, it becomes a single consonant, e.g. talossa -> *taloss -> talos.)
- Helsinki also has a local slang, containing foreign loanwords which may be unintelligible to people from other parts of Finland.
- Karelia: min -> mie, sin -> sie
- Turku (west coast): min -> m, sin -> s
- Savo: some pronoun changes, me -> my, and te -> ty. Notice that the Savo dialect has complicated changes in grammar, vowels and consonants compared to the standard language, e.g. eilen -> ylen, meni -> mj (palatalization), omaa rataansa -> ommoo rattoosa. The Savo dialect is the largest single dialect, and as such, has variants that differ significantly.
- Pohjanmaa: Consonant clusters with -j- are not allowed, so that a -i- is pronounced instead, e.g. kirja -> kiria. Minor vowel changes, for example, taloa -> talua, iso -> isoo. The sound D is completely replaced with R, which produces problems such as that there is no contrast between veden (of water) and veren (of blood).
- Vaasa, Pohjanmaa, to an extent generic Finnish, too: Many frequently used expressions become clitics - this is optional, though. E.g. pronouns become clitics for the negative verb ei and for the verb "to be". In this table, the apostrophe (') is something between a full J and no sound at all.
| Written | Spoken | Written example | Spoken example |
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| min | m' | min olen, min en, min en ole | moon, men, men o | | sin | s' | sin olet, sin et, sin et ole | soot, set, set o | | hn | s' | hn on, hn ei, hn ei ole | son, sei, sei'oo | | me | m' | me olemme, me emme, me emme ole | mollaan, mei, mei'olla | | te | t' | te olette, te ette, te ette ole | tootte, tette, tette oo | | he | n' | he ovat, he eivt, he eivt ole | noon, nei, nei'oo | One small detail, which irritates people from other places to no end, is that the word kuka ("who") is replaced by its partitive form, ket ("at who"), e.g. Ket siell oli? ("Who was there?") Other unusual question pronouns are mihin (std. miss, "where") and mihk (std. mihin, "into where"). External links *http://savonsanomat.fi/muljaatin/ Standard Finnish-Savo converter.
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