The Finnish alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet, and especially its Swedish extension. Finnish ( or suomen kieli) is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland (92% As of 2006) and by ethnic Finns outside The Swedish Alphabet consists of the following 29 letters Upper Case A, B, C, D, E, F Officially it comprises 28 letters:
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, X, Y, Z, Å, Ä, Ö
In addition, W is traditionally listed after V, although officially it is merely a variant of the latter. The letter A is the first letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is a (eɪ plural B is the second letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled bee or occasionally be (biː plural bees. C is the third letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled cee or occasionally ce (siː D is the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled dee or occasionally de (diː E is the fifth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled e (iː plural es or ees (also written E's E F is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled ef or eff (ɛf G is the seventh letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled gee or occasionally ge (dʒiː I is the ninth letter of the Latin alphabet. Its English name is i (aɪ J is the tenth letter in the modern Latin alphabet; it was the last of the 26 letters to be added K is the eleventh letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled kay (keɪ L is the twelfth letter of the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is el or occasionally ell (ɛl M is the thirteenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled em (ɛm N is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled en (ɛn O is the fifteenth letter of the modern Latin Alphabet. Its name in English is spelled o (oʊ plural usually o's or os; sometimes P is the sixteenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled pee or occasionally pe (piː Q is the seventeenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled cue (kjuː R is the eighteenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled ar (ɑr pronounced or) S is the nineteenth letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled ess or occasionally es (ɛs generally es- T is the twentieth letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled tee or occasionally te (tiː U is the twenty-first letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled u (juː V is the twenty-second letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled vee or occasionally ve (viː X is the twenty-fourth letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled ex or occasionally ecks (ɛks plural exes The letter Y is the twenty-fifth letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Z is the twenty-sixth and last letter of the modern Latin alphabet. The letter Å represents various sounds in the Swedish, Finnish (although no native Finnish words contain the letter å Danish, Norwegian " 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. W is the twenty-third letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled double-u (ˈdʌbljuː Similarly, Š and Ž are variants of S and Z, respectively, but they are often overlooked, as they are only used in a few loanwords and some foreign names. The Grapheme Š, š (Latin S with Háček) is used in various contexts usually denoting the Voiceless postalveolar fricative, including The grapheme Ž ( minuscule: ž) is formed from Latin Z with the addition of Háček.
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Summary of the main characteristics
The following table describes how each letter in the Finnish alphabet is spelled and pronounced separately. In practice, the names of the letters are rarely spelled, as people usually just type the (uppercase or lowercase) glyph when then want to refer to a particular letter. The pronunciation instructions enclosed in slashes are broad transcriptions based on the IPA system (in notes, more narrow transcriptions are enclosed in square brackets). Phonetic transcription (or phonetic notation) is the visual system of symbolization of the sounds occurring in spoken human Language. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA is a system of phonetic notation based on the Latin alphabet, devised by the International Phonetic
| Glyphs | Spelling | Pronunciation | Notes on usage (for more, see Finnish phonology) |
|---|---|---|---|
| A, a | aa | /ɑː/ | |
| B, b | bee | /beː/ | Occurs in relatively unestablished loanwords, such as banaani (banana) or bussi (bus). This article deals with the sound patterns of the Finnish language. The letter A is the first letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is a (eɪ plural B is the second letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled bee or occasionally be (biː plural bees. Often pronounced as [p]. |
| C, c | see | /seː/ | Occurs in unestablished loanwords, such as curry or city. C is the third letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled cee or occasionally ce (siː Typically pronounced as [k] or [s]. |
| D, d | dee | /deː/ | Historically used to stand for the voiced dental fricative [ð], which has since disappeared from Finnish. D is the fourth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled dee or occasionally de (diː The voiced dental non-sibilant fricative is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet In present standard language, D stands for [d] but the pronunciation in dialects varies a lot. Natively used in Western dialects as [ɾ]. |
| E, e | ee | /eː/ | The precise pronunciation tends to be between [e] and [ɛ]. E is the fifth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled e (iː plural es or ees (also written E's E |
| F, f | äf, äffä | /æf/, /ˈæfːæ/, occasionally /ef/ | Occurs in relatively unestablished loanwords, such as asfaltti (asphalt) or uniformu (uniform). F is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled ef or eff (ɛf In dialectal pronunciation (apart from some Western dialects), [f] is typically replaced with [ʋ] or medially [hʋ]. The more established loanwords also tend to have an alternative spelling where V [ʋ] has replaced F (asvaltti, univormu). |
| G, g | gee | /geː/ | Occurs natively in the digraph ng, which marks the long velar nasal [ŋː]. G is the seventh letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled gee or occasionally ge (dʒiː Ng (lowercase ng) is a digraph of the Latin alphabet. In English and several other European and English-derived orthographies it The velar nasal is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents Otherwise G occurs in relatively unestablished loanwords, such as gaala (gala) or geeni (gene). Often pronounced as [k]. |
| H, h | hoo | /hoː/ | The precise pronunciation varies greatly according to the surrounding sounds. |
| I, i | ii | /iː/ | The precise pronunciation tends to be between [i] and [e]. I is the ninth letter of the Latin alphabet. Its English name is i (aɪ |
| J, j | jii | /jiː/ | |
| K, k | koo | /koː/ | |
| L, l | äl, ällä | /æl/, /ˈælːæ/, occasionally /el/ | |
| M, m | äm, ämmä | /æm/, /ˈæmːæ/, occasionally /em/ | |
| N, n | än, ännä | /æn/, /ˈænːæ/, occasionally /en/ | |
| O, o | oo | /oː/ | The precise pronunciation tends to be between [o] and [ɔ]. J is the tenth letter in the modern Latin alphabet; it was the last of the 26 letters to be added K is the eleventh letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled kay (keɪ L is the twelfth letter of the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is el or occasionally ell (ɛl M is the thirteenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled em (ɛm N is the fourteenth letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled en (ɛn O is the fifteenth letter of the modern Latin Alphabet. Its name in English is spelled o (oʊ plural usually o's or os; sometimes |
| P, p | pee | /peː/ | |
| Q, q | kuu | /kuː/ | Mainly occurs in foreign proper names. P is the sixteenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled pee or occasionally pe (piː Q is the seventeenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled cue (kjuː Typically pronounced as [k] or [kv]. |
| R, r | är, ärrä | /ær/, /ˈærːæ/, occasionally /er/ | |
| S, s | äs, ässä | /æs/, /ˈæsːæ/, occasionally /es/ | |
| Š, š | suhu-äs, suhu-ässä, hattu-äs, hattu-ässä | /ˈsuhuˌæs/, /ˈsuhuˌæsːæ/, /ˈhatːuˌæs/, /ˈhatːuˌæsːæ/ | A variant of S. R is the eighteenth letter of the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled ar (ɑr pronounced or) S is the nineteenth letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled ess or occasionally es (ɛs generally es- The Grapheme Š, š (Latin S with Háček) is used in various contexts usually denoting the Voiceless postalveolar fricative, including Occurs in unestablished loanwords, such as šakki (chess) or šillinki (shilling), and is often replaced with SH or, in more establised loanwords, with plain S. In theory pronounced as [ʃ] but in practice often as [s]. Note: normally like 'shampoo-sampoo. ' |
| T, t | tee | /teː/ | The precise pronunciation tends to be dental rather than alveolar. T is the twentieth letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled tee or occasionally te (tiː 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 |
| U, u | uu | /uː/ | The precise pronunciation tends to be between [u] and [o]. U is the twenty-first letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled u (juː |
| V, v | vee | /ʋeː/ | Typically pronounced as approximant [ʋ] rather than fricative [v]. V is the twenty-second letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled vee or occasionally ve (viː Approximants are speech sounds ( Phonemes) that could be regarded as intermediate between Vowels and typical Consonants In the articulation of approximants Fricatives are Consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together |
| W, w | kaksois-vee, tupla-vee | /ʋeː/, /ˈkɑksoisˌʋeː/, /ˈtuplɑˌʋeː/ | May occur natively as an archaic variant of V, but otherwise in unestablished loanwords and foreign proper names only. W is the twenty-third letter in the Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled double-u (ˈdʌbljuː Typically pronounced as [ʋ]. |
| X, x | äks, äksä | /æks/, /ˈæksæ/, occasionally /eks/ | Occurs in unestablished loanwords, such as taxi or fax, but there is often a preferred alternative where X has been replaced with KS (taksi, faksi). X is the twenty-fourth letter in the modern Latin alphabet. Its name in English is spelled ex or occasionally ecks (ɛks plural exes Typically pronounced as [ks]. |
| Y, y | yy | /yː/ | The precise pronunciation tends to be between [y] and [ø]. The letter Y is the twenty-fifth letter in the modern Latin alphabet. |
| Z, z | tset, tseta | /tset/, /ˈtsetɑ/ | Occurs in unestablished loanwords, such as zeniitti (zenith) or pizza, but there may be an alternative spelling with TS (e. Z is the twenty-sixth and last letter of the modern Latin alphabet. g. , pitsa). Typically pronounced as [ts] or sometimes as [s]. |
| Ž, ž | hattu-tset, hattu-tseta | /ˈhatːuˌtset/, /ˈhatːuˌtsetɑ/ | A rare variant of Z; often replaced with ZH. The grapheme Ž ( minuscule: ž) is formed from Latin Z with the addition of Háček. Mainly occurs in foreign proper names. In theory pronounced as [ʒ] but the actual pronunciation may vary. |
| Å, å | ruotsalainen oo | /oː/, /ˈruotsɑˌlɑinen oː/ | The "Swedish O", carried over from the Swedish alphabet and redundant in Finnish; retained especially for writing Finland-Swedish proper names. The letter Å represents various sounds in the Swedish, Finnish (although no native Finnish words contain the letter å Danish, Norwegian The Swedish Alphabet consists of the following 29 letters Upper Case A, B, C, D, E, F Finland Swedish is a general term for the closely related cluster of Dialects of Swedish spoken in Finland by Swedish-speaking Finns as their Pronounced as [o] or [ɔ]. |
| Ä, ä | ää | /æː/ | |
| Ö, ö | öö | /øː/ | The precise pronunciation tends to be between [ø] and [œ]. " 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. |
Writing Finnish
The Finnish orthography strives to represent all morphemes phonologically and, roughly speaking, the sound value of each letter tends to correspond with its value in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) – although some discrepancies do exist. The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific Writing system to write the language Phonology ( Greek φωνή (phōnē voice sound + λόγος (lógos word speech subject of discussion is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning This article deals with the sound patterns of the Finnish language. The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA is a system of phonetic notation based on the Latin alphabet, devised by the International Phonetic When writing Finnish, the foundational principle is that each letter stands for one sound and each sound is always represented by the same letter, within the bounds of a single morpheme. The most notable exception to this rule is the velar nasal [ŋ], which do not have an allotted letter; instead, it is written with the digraph ng when geminated, and otherwise with N that is followed by K. The velar nasal is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents Ng (lowercase ng) is a digraph of the Latin alphabet. In English and several other European and English-derived orthographies it
In Finnish, the vovels and consonants may be short or long, and the difference is significant. In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract In Articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a Speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper Vocal tract, the upper vocal A short sound is written with a single letter and a long sound is written with a double letter. It is necessary to recognize the difference between such words as tuli (/tuli/, fire), tuuli (/tuːli/, wind) and tulli (/tulːi/, customs) or tapaan (/tɑpɑːn/, I meet) and tapan (/tɑpɑn/, I kill).
The extra letters Ä and Ö
The two extra vowel letters Ä and Ö (accompanied by the Swedish Å, which is actually not needed for writing Finnish) are the main peculiarities in the Finnish alphabet. In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract In Finnish, these extra letters are collectively referred to as the ääkköset (a somewhat playful modification of aakkoset, which is the Finnish word for the alphabet as a whole) when they need to be distinguished from the basic Latin alphabet.
Although the glyphs of the ääkköset are derived from the similar looking German umlauted letters, they are considered letters in their own right and thus alphabetized separately (after Z). A glyph is an element of writing Two or more glyphs representing the same symbol whether interchangeable or context-dependent are called Allographs the abstract unit they Diaeresis or trema See also Diaeresis History Historically the diaeresis mark or trema is far older than the umlaut mark The dots on the base glyph are not modifications but essential parts of each letter, much like the hook in Q distinguishes Q from O. As Finnish is unrelated to Germanic languages, the Germanic umlaut or convention of considering AE equivalent to Ä, and OE equivalent to Ö is inapplicable in Finnish. In Linguistics, umlaut (from German um - "around"/"the other way" + Laut "sound" is a process whereby a Moreover, in Finnish, both AE and OE are vowel sequences, not single letters, and have independent meanings, e. g. haen (I seek) vs. hän (he, she).
If the proper letters are not available, Ä and Ö must be replaced with A and O, respectively. Even though there are lots of minimal pairs, e. g. saari (island) vs. sääri (leg), or vaara (danger) vs. väärä (wrong), which may be confused, the correct meaning can usually be reconstructed. For a Finnish reader, replacing Ä and Ö with A and O is less distracting than using the Germanic alternatives AE and OE.
In handwritten text, the actual form of the extra marking may vary from a pair of dots to a pair of short vertical bars, to a single horizontal bar, or to a wavy line resembling a tilde (in practice, almost any diacritic mark situated above the base glyph would probably be interpreted as a carelessly written pair of dots), but in computerized character sets, these alternatives are incorrect. The tilde (~ (/ˈtɪldə/ is a Grapheme with several uses The name of the character comes from Spanish, from the Latin titulus A diacritic ( also called a diacritic or diacritical mark, point, or sign, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation A character encoding consists of a code that pairs a sequence of characters from a given character set (sometimes incorrectly referred to as Code page
Non-native letters in the Finnish alphabet
In the Finnish writing system, some basic Latin letters are considered redundant, and other letters generally represent sounds that are not inherent in the Finnish language. Thus, they are not used in established Finnish words, but they may occur in newer loanwords as well as in foreign proper names, and they are included in the Finnish alphabet in order to maintain interlingual compatibility. A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one Language from another with little or no translation "A proper name a word that answers the purpose of showing what thing it is that we are talking about" writes John Stuart Mill in A System of Logic The pronunciation of these letters varies quite a lot.
- The redundant letters are often replaced with more common alternatives in Finnish, except in proper names. They include C (which may be replaced with either K or S), Q (which is usually replaced with K or KV), and X (which is replaced with KS). In addition, the Swedish Å is redundant from the Finnish point of view, as its pronunciation is more or less equivalent to the Finnish way of pronouncing O. It is officially included in the Finnish alphabet so that keyboards etc. would be compatible with Swedish, which is one of the two official languages in Finland.
- The letters representing foreign sounds can be found in relatively new loanwords, but in more established loanwords they have been replaced with alternatives that better reflect the typical Finnish pronunciation. The letters include B, F, and G (which is also used to mark the inherent velar nasal [ŋ], however). The velar nasal is a type of Consonantal sound used in some spoken Languages The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents From a historical point of view, even D could be said to belong to this group, but the [d] sound is today considered an established part of standard language. In addition, Š and Ž with special diacritics have been adopted, originally from the Czech alphabet, in order to represent [ʃ] and [ʒ], which are not inherent in Finnish. The Czech alphabet is a version of the Latin alphabet, used when writing Czech They may be seen in transcriptions and a few loanwords: Tšekki (Czech), Tšetšenia (Chechnya), Azerbaidžan (Azerbaijan), Tšaikovski (Tchaikovsky), Gorbatšov (Gorbachev), Brežnev (Brezhnev), datša (dacha), šakki (chess), šillinki (shilling). Transcription is the conversion into written typewritten or printed form of a Spoken language source such as the proceedings of a court hearing On the other hand, many new loanwords from English, such as show and sherry, tend to retain their original form. In less careful orthography, SH and ZH may replace Š and Ž even in other cases, but this can sometimes cause confusion (for example, pasha /pɑshɑ/ – where /s/ and /h/ are two distinct sounds – is a traditional Russian Easter delicacy, while pašša /pɑʃːɑ/ – in English, pasha – is a Turkish rank or honorary title).
- W and Z could be classified into both of the aforementioned groups. The English-style [w] sound is foreign to Finnish language, but historically W was used to mark [v] or, rather, [ʋ] sound. Although this is today considered archaic and V is used instead, W may still occur in some old surnames as a variant of V. Likewise, voiced [z] sound is not inherent in Finnish language, but Z (or TZ) was formerly used to denote [ts] (as in German). It is still often pronounced as [ts], but some speakers may pronounce it as [s], apparently trying to imitate the voiced [z] pronunciation but usually failing in a Finnish context.
Diacritical or accent marks are never added to letters in Finnish words (since the dots above the Finnish graphemes Ä and Ö are not diacritics). Generally, diacritics are retained in foreign-language proper names, e. g. Vilén, if possible, but when arranging words alphabetically, diacritics are usually ignored. A few foreign characters or glyphs may need closer scrutiny:
- Œ is alphabetized as OE, not as Ö. This article is about the typographic ligature for other uses see Oe Œ
- Æ may sometimes be replaced with Ä, but when retained, Æ is alphabetized as AE, not as Ä. Æ ( minuscule: æ) is a Grapheme formed from the letters A and E.
- Ø may sometimes be replaced with Ö, but even if it is retained, these two glyphs are considered equivalent to each other. The " Ø " ( minuscule: " ø " is a Vowel and a letter used in the Danish, Faroese and Norwegian
- Estonian Õ and Hungarian Ő are alphabetized as Ö, not as O; the Portuguese Õ, on the other hand, is alphabetized as O. Estonian In Estonian, Õ is the 27th letter of the alphabet (between W and Ä) representing the Close-mid back unrounded vowel The double acute accent ( ˝) is a Diacritic mark of the Latin script used primarily in written Hungarian.
- Ü and Ű are alphabetized as Y, not as U. Letter Ü The letter Ü occurs in Hungarian, Karelian, Turkish, Estonian, Azeri, Turkmen, Crimean The double acute accent ( ˝) is a Diacritic mark of the Latin script used primarily in written Hungarian.
- ß is alphabetized as (and should be replaced with) ss. The letter ß ( Unicode U+00DF is a letter in the German alphabet.
- Ð is alphabetized as (and usually replaced with) D. Eth ( Ð, ð; also spelled edh or eð) is a letter used in Old English, Icelandic, Faroese (in
- Þ is alphabetized as (and usually replaced with) TH. Î, î ( I - Circumflex) is a letter of Kurdish and Romanian language.
See also
- Finnish phonology
- Estonian alphabet
- Latin alphabet
- Swedish alphabet
- Norwegian alphabet
- Letter Å, Letter Ä, Letter Ö
External links
- Omniglot: writing systems and languages of the world: Finnish
- Aakkostus Suomessa (the standard for Finnish alphabet, SFS 4600, explained in Finnish)
- Letters in Finnish
- Finnish orthography and the characters š and ž (official recommendation)
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