Writing and pronunciation
Finnish writing system is very simple, compared to English at least. The Finnish writing system is rather new, first from 16th century, and after that it has been changed many times. All phonemes (almost) have their own letters. E.g. lumi ‘snow’ NOM > lum+ta > lunta ‘snow’ PARTITIVE. M’s assimilation is written. Letter x is not used, but ks e.g. yksi ‘one’. Indeed, the written language (kirjakieli ‘book language’) is rather far from the spoken one.
P[p], t[t̪], k[k]
d[d]
s
m[m], n[n]([ŋ])
l[l], r[r]
v[ʋ], j[j]
Pp[p:], tt [t̪:] kk[k:]
ss[s:]
mm[m:] nn[n:] ng[ŋ:]
ll[l:] rr[r:]
- B, g and f apper only in some loan words. Banaani and gorilla come to my mind.
- It's an interesting thing that d is not a voiced pair of /t/. T is dental and d is alveolar.
- They say the Finnish alveolar s is often heard sh, by the English. So there is only one sibilant, and it has much space.
- /h/ has quite much allophony. It's [h] word-initially, [ɦ] between vowels, and [x]~[ç] before unvoiced consonats, depending on the POA of the preceding vowel.
There is distinction in consonant quantity in Finnish. All consonants except d and h appear long, as geminates. J and v are never doubled either, but they are pronounces long after corresponding vowels. Vauva [ʋɑuw:ɑ] ’a baby’, papukaija [pɑpukɑij:ɑ] ‘a parrot’ In a word with doubled consonant, don’t say the consonant twice - just hold the sound longer. Indeed, two consonants may form a geminate. – Menen nyt. ‘I go now.’ [menen:yt]. N is pronounced [ŋ] before k, and ng is always pronounced long [ŋ:]. Kengät [keŋ:æt] ‘shoes’
- There are some (not written) 'final aspirations' word-finally. They cause lengthening of the first vowel of the following word, e.g. <tuo se> /tuox se/ 'bring it' [t̪uos:e]
There are eight vowels in Finnish. Though they may vary with each other by dialect, the inventory normally stays the same.
Rounded back vowels: u, o[o]
Unrounded back vowel: a [ɑ]
Rounded front vowels: y[y], ö [ø]
Unrounded front vowels:i, e[e], ä [æ]
E, ö and o are midvowels, so they are between e-ɛ, ø-œ and o-ɔ, like Spanish ones. Ä is roughly the English <a> in cat or can. /a/ is a backvowel pair of /æ/, so not as open as IPA [ɑ].
Vowels appear long, too. They are also doubled in writing. The traditional example of quantity distinction is: tuulee ‘it blows’ tulee ‘comes’ tule ‘come!’ tuule ‘blow’ tuullee ‘it may blow’ tullee ‘may come’ ei tuulle ‘it may not blow’ ei tulle ‘it may not come’. In the imperative and in the negative forms there is thus the not written glottal stop in the end.
There are plenty of diphthongs in Finnish. Roughly, if there are two vowels one after another, and one of them is closed one (u, i, y) they may form a diphthong. Äiti ‘mother’ kaikki ‘all’ uida ‘to swim’ suomi ‘Finnish’ työ ‘work’
Vowel harmony is one of Finnish characteristics. There are three kinds of vowels: grammatically back vowels (a, o, u), grammatically neutral vowels (e, i) and grammatically front vowels (ä, ö, y).
The grammatical back vowels cannot appear in a same (not compound) word with the grammatical front vowels. So there are two sets of endings: back and front. E.g. kaupa-ssa ‘in a shop’ töi-ssä ‘at work’. The neutral vowels (e, i) can appear with both groups. Alone they take front vowel endings: keksi-ssä ‘in a biscuit’
Was this enough about pronunciation? It’s complicated to tell, by writing. If you have questions, ask!
Some greetings:
Hei!, Moi!– Hi!, Hello!
Terve! ‘Health’ – Hello! (a bit more official)
Hyvää päivää! – Good day!
Mitä kuuluu? ‘What is heard?’ – how are yoy?
Miten/Kuinka menee? ‘How is it going?’ - How are you?
Hyvää! ‘Good’
Hyvin! ‘well’
Näkemiin ‘to seeings’ – Good bye! (Auf vieder sehen!)
Hyvästi – Goog bye!
Tip.
Suomi means Finland, and suomi mean Finnish. The only difference is that the country name is capitalized, and the language is not. If they must be separated, you can write suomen kieli ‘the Finnish language.
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