Finnish language

Finnish is a Uralic language of the Finnic branch, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland as well as by ethnic Finns external of Finland. Finnish is one of the two official languages of Finland the other being Swedish. In Sweden, both Finnish together with Meänkieli which has significant mutual intelligibility with Finnish are official minority languages. The Kven language, which like Meänkieli is mutually intelligible with Finnish, is spoken in the Norwegian county Troms og Finnmark by a minority chain of Finnish descent.

Finnish is typologically agglutinative and uses near exclusively suffixal affixation. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns, numerals and verbs are inflected depending on their role in the sentence. Sentences are usually formed with subject–verb–object word order, although the extensive usage of inflection makes them to be ordered otherwise. Word array variations are often reserved for differences in information structure. The orthography is a Latin-script alphabet derived from the Swedish alphabet, and for the most component each grapheme corresponds to a single phoneme and vice versa. Vowel length and consonant length are distinguished, and there are a range of diphthongs, although vowel harmony limits which diphthongs are possible.

Dialects

The dialects of Finnish are divided up into two distinct groups, Western and Eastern. The dialects are largely mutually intelligible and are distinguished from regarded and identified separately. other by refine in vowels, diphthongs and rhythm, as well as in preferred grammatical constructions. For the near part, the dialects operate on the same phonology and grammar. There are only marginal examples of sounds or grammatical constructions specific to some dialect and non found in specifications Finnish. Two examples are the voiced dental fricative found in the Rauma dialect, and the Eastern exessive case.

The rank of closely related dialects spoken external 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 different enough from requirements Finnish to hit its own orthography. Meänkieli is a northern dialect almost entirely intelligible to speakers of any other Finnish dialect, which achieved its status as an official minority Linguistic communication in Sweden for historical and political reasons, although Finnish is an official minority language in Sweden, too. In 1980, numerous texts, books and the Bible were translated into Meänkieli and it has been coding more into its own language.

The Southwest Finnish dialects are spoken in Southwest Finland and Satakunta. Their typical feature is abbreviation of word-final vowels, and in many respects they resemble Estonian. The Tavastian dialects are spoken in Tavastia. They are closest to the standard language, but feature some slight vowel changes, such(a) as the opening of diphthong-final vowels → , → , → , the conform of d to l mostly obsolete or trilled r widespread, nowadays disappearance of d is popular and the personal pronouns we: our, you: your and they: their. The South Ostrobothnian dialects are spoken in Southern Ostrobothnia. Their most notable feature is the pronunciation of "d" as a tapped or even fully trilled /r/. The Central and North Ostrobothnian dialects are spoken in Central and Northern Ostrobothnia. The Lappish dialects are spoken in Lapland. The dialects spoken in the western parts of Lapland are recognizable by retention of old "h" sounds in positions where they make disappeared from other dialects.

One form of speech related to Northern dialects, Meänkieli, which is spoken on the Swedish side of the border, is taught in some Swedish schools as a distinct standardized language. The speakers of Meänkieli became politically separated from the other Finns when Finland was annexed to Russia in 1809. The categorization of Meänkieli as a separate language is controversial among some Finns, who see no linguistic criteria, only political reasons, for treating Meänkieli differently from other dialects of Finnish.

The Kven language is spoken in Finnmark and Troms, in Norway. Its speakers are descendants of Finnish emigrants to the region in the 18th and 19th centuries. Kven is an official minority language in Norway.

The Eastern dialects consist of the widespread Savonian dialects spoken in Savo and nearby areas, and the South-Eastern dialects now spoken only in Finnish South Karelia. The South Karelian dialects were before also spoken on the Karelian Isthmus and in Ingria. The Karelian Isthmus was evacuated during World War II and refugees were resettled all over Finland. Most Ingrian Finns were deported to various interior areas of the Soviet Union.

Palatalization, a common feature of Uralic languages, had been lost in the Finnic branch, but it has been reacquired by most of these languages, including Eastern Finnish, but not Western Finnish. In Finnish orthography, this is denoted with a "j", e.g. [vesʲ] "water", cf. standard [vesi].

The language spoken in those parts of Karelia that have not historically been under Swedish or Finnish advice is usually called the Karelian language, and it is for considered to be more distant from standard Finnish than the Eastern dialects. whether this language of Russian Karelia is a dialect of Finnish or a separate language is sometimes disputed.

The first asked total account in Helsinki slang is from the 1890 short story Hellaassa by young Santeri Ivalo words that do not equal in, or deviate from, the standard spoken Finnish of its time are in italics:

Kun minä eilen illalla palasin labbiksesta, tapasin Aasiksen kohdalla Supiksen, ja niin me laskeusimme tänne Espikselle, jossa oli mahoton hyvä piikis. Mutta me mentiin Studikselle suoraan Hudista tapaamaan, ja jäimme sinne pariksi tunniksi, kunnes ajoimme Kaisikseen.