Finnish language - Finnish language. Distributed mainly in Finland (the official language of the country; the number of Finnish speakers is over 4.3 million people, 1974 estimate), in the USA, Canada, Sweden, Norway (about 500 thousand people), in the USSR ( about 85 thousand people, 1970, census). Belongs to the Baltic-Finnish branch of the Finno-Ugric (Ugric-Finnish) languages.

At the heart of the formation of F. I. 3 ethnically related tribal groups: central - em (hyame); southwestern - Sumi (Suomi) - ancient settlers from northern Estonia - and eastern - Savo (western group of the Korela, or Karjala, tribe, who settled from the area of Lake Ladoga and the Karelian Isthmus).

The pre-literate period of development of the Finnish language (in the form of dialect varieties of Baltic-Finnish speech) lasted until the 40s. 16th century Written literary Finnish language appears with the creation of Finnish writing (1540). There are 2 main periods in the development of the literary language: Old Finnish and New Finnish. Old Finnish (1540–1820) is divided into 2 stages: the initial (1540–1640) is associated with the activities of the founder of the Old Finnish literary language , which based the written language on the southwestern Finnish dialect of the region of the then capital of Turku, which was influenced by the Emsky dialect. The complete translation of the New Testament (1548) and the Psalter (1551) laid the foundations of the Old Finnish literary language, which existed in church use until the 20th century. The second stage (until 1820) is characterized by the imposition of Swedish as the official language. After the liberation of Finland from Swedish rule (1809), a period of national awakening began and favorable conditions developed for the development of the Finnish language. The New Finnish period (from 1820) is divided into 2 stages: early New Finnish (1820–70) and modern Finnish (from 1870). The first is characterized by the expansion of the dialect base of the literary language at the expense of eastern dialects. A significant influence on the development of the Finnish language and the solution to the question of its dialect basis was exerted by , who combined in his work a normalized literary language based on Western dialects with figurative means of expression of Eastern dialects. The literary language is moving closer to the colloquial language. Old Finnish language becomes a specific church language. The Finnish language is becoming the official language of education and literature. By a special decree (1863) it receives equal rights with the Swedish one. tongue. Creativity was of great importance for the development of literary Finnish , and to stabilize phonetic and morphological norms - the activities of A. Ahlquist. By the 70s. 19th century the foundations of modern literature in Finnish are laid.

On the territory of Finland, the Finnish language has 7 dialects, forming 2 dialects - Western and Eastern. Leveling of dialects is noted, in the literary language a balance has been achieved between the Western and Eastern dialect base. The Finnish language is characterized by the frequent use of vowel sounds (for every 100 vowels there are 96 consonants in the flow of speech); alternation of consonant grades and vowel harmony. Modern Finnish is an agglutinative language of a nominative structure with a relatively free word order. Grammatical indicators are built up based on the word base. There are 15 cases in the declension system. The definition and the defined agree in number and case. There is no gender category. In verbal inflection there are 2 voices (active and passive), 4 moods (indicative, conditional, imperative, possibilistic), 4 tenses (present, imperfect, perfect, plusquaperfect). Infinitive forms of the verb combine some features of nouns (case and possessive suffixes). In the vocabulary there are borrowings from Baltic, Germanic. and glory languages. Writing is based on the Latin alphabet.

Lit.: Hakulinen L., Development and structure of the Finnish language, trans. from Finnish, parts 1–2, M., 1953–55; Fundamentals of Finno-Ugric linguistics, c. 2, M., 1975; Suomen kielen käsikirja, Hels., 1968.

A little personal

First of all, it must be said that it is impossible to learn Finnish without being born in Finland. In principle. This is, so to speak, the starting point. The author can be accused of excessive pessimism, capitulation, and alarmism, but this will be wrong. Ei pidä paikkaansa, as a Finn would say, that is, literally “does not keep his place.” As evidence, one can cite the visit of Russian President V.V. Putin and his press conference, which Finnish television broadcast live. That is, it was possible to observe the work of translators. Russian-speaking residents of Finland who know Finnish were unpleasantly surprised: if the President of Russia has such a crappy translator!!!

Nevertheless. Nevertheless, we need to live here, we need to do business with our northwestern neighbor, we need to get acquainted with the culture of Finland. And that’s why Russians and Russian-speaking people have learned, are teaching, and will continue to learn Finnish. Despite all the hopelessness of this enterprise. But this is generally typical for people who think in Russian - to get involved in hopeless enterprises.

On these pages you can find some information about the Finnish language. Still, the author studied it quite persistently and for quite a long time. This is more of a somewhat chaotic reference book than a textbook, so the materials posted on this site can be used as a supplement to existing textbooks - very bad and insufficient, by the way. Actually, this forced the author to begin bringing into a more or less strict form what he had extracted from various books over the course of several years. Therefore, I apologize for some lack of rigor - the author is not a professional and studied the language largely in practice.

The author also tried, first of all, to highlight grammatical forms, which are given insufficient space in Russian-language textbooks, especially for beginners, although it should be noted that many of these forms are very rare, especially in spoken language.

The author used examples and explanations from many textbooks, without providing links, therefore the materials posted in the Finnish language section are in no way subject to copyright, but, on the contrary, are what is called public domain, or an object of free access and distribution . Still, it would be polite to refer to the author if it is intended to use his materials in a more or less close to the original form, and even more so in their entirety.

And finally. I tried to avoid too abstruse terminology, but if it is still present, then it is inevitable. The grammar of the Finnish language is sophisticated and confusing, but if you study it long enough, it begins to feel like there is a certain structure to it. Nevertheless, there are a lot of people who speak fluent Finnish without knowing any grammar at all. Such people have what the Finns call kielipää - literally “language head”, that is, a sense of language, language intuition, language guess. So see for yourself whether you should start to understand all this, after all, only 5 million people speak Finnish, while Chinese is spoken by one and a half billion.

Features of the Finnish language and its place among other languages

Finnish belongs to the Finno-Ugric language family, unlike many other European languages that form the Indo-European family.

Finno-Ugric languages are spoken in only a few places outside Russia: Finnish in Finland and Sami dialects in Lapland, Estonian in Estonia, and Hungarian in Hungary. At the same time, the Sami dialects are so different from the rest that they can be separated into a separate group.

Almost all other languages of the Finno-Ugric family are distributed mainly in the territory of modern Russia - from Karelia to the Urals. The closest relatives to the Finnish language are Estonian, Karelian, Vepsian, Ludik, Votic, Livonian, which are spoken on the eastern and southern coasts of the Baltic Sea. In terms of the number of people speaking languages of the Baltic-Finnish subgroup, Finnish and Estonian languages predominate on the shores of the Baltic. Finnish and Estonian have not only a similar linguistic structure, but also a related lexical basis. Thus, it is not particularly difficult for Finns and Estonians to generally understand each other when communicating in their native languages.

Thus, the Finnish language is very different from Hungarian, and their relationship can only be reliably determined as a result of linguistic-historical analysis. By and large, the Finnish language has a degree of relationship with Hungarian, approximately like the Germanic language with Iranian.

The Finno-Ugric languages and the Samoyed languages widespread in Siberia form the Ugric language family.

Nowadays, Finnish is spoken by the majority of the population of Finland - about 92%. In addition, there are about 300 thousand ethnic Finns in the world living outside Finland in the border countries of Sweden and Norway, as well as among the Finnish diaspora in North America, Estonia, Russia (mainly in the Leningrad region and Karelia).

Finnish is one of the two official languages of Finland along with Swedish, and is also an officially recognized minority language in Sweden. In the Kingdom of Sweden, both the standard Finnish language and Meänkieli, the Finnish dialect in the Turnedalen region, are recognized. In Russia, the Finns consider themselves primarily the Ingrians, who settled in the 17th century. the territory of the modern Leningrad region after the conclusion of the Stolbovo Peace Treaty (1617), according to which the Ladoga region and Ingermanland went to Sweden. In addition, ethnic Finns live in Karelia, where Finnish is recognized as one of the national languages of the republic, along with Karelian and Vepsian.

The ethnogenesis of the Finns took place on the basis of three ancient tribes: Häme (em), the Finns proper Suomi (sum) and Western Karelians. Thus, the classification of Finnish dialects according to morphological and phonetic characteristics is based on their genetic correlation with the ancient tribal languages of these three ethnic groups.

The original title was " Suomi» (« Finland") applied only to the territory inhabited by the Finns themselves (Suomi), and then spread to the surrounding lands. In Russian chronicles of the 13th century. The ethnonym Su clearly points to the Finns themselves, i.e. population of southwestern Finland.

The first written monument of the Finnish language is the first printed book - ABC-Kirja Archbishop of Turku Mikael Agricola (1543). Subsequently, Agricola published a large number of translations of various fragments from the Bible and other spiritual literature. An important milestone in the development of modern literary Finnish was the publication in 1835 of the national Karelian-Finnish epic “Kalevala” by Elias Lönnrot. However, Swedish continued to prevail as the official language in Finland until the second half of the 19th century. Only in 1863 did the Finnish language receive formally equal rights on a par with Swedish.

The phonological system of the Finnish language is characterized by the contrast in length and shortness of all vowels and some consonant phonemes, and a large number of diphthongs; the opposition of consonants in hardness/softness and deafness/voice is completely absent - except t/d. Some consonants ( b, f etc.) are found only in later borrowings from other languages. The all-Ural harmony of vowels along the row is preserved.

Stress in Finnish is dynamic, with the main stress being always falls on the first syllable, and the minor may fall on the third syllable or, if it is short, on the fourth, and then on every second syllable, except the last.

While retaining ancient agglutinative features, the Finnish language also contains elements of inflection, mainly manifested in the alternation of vowels and consonants in individual microparadigms and word formation models.

As in all Uralic languages, Finnish does not have a grammatical gender category. The category of number is represented by a binary opposition – singular/plural. Paired body parts are most often designated by a singular name. The declination paradigm consists of 16 cases(of which 14 are actively used), adjectives agree in number and case with nouns, which is typical for the Baltic-Finnish languages. In addition, case relations are expressed by postpositions. Compared to, for example, Germanic languages, Finnish there is also no article category(a, the – in English; en, et – in Swedish).

Compared to other Baltic-Finnish languages, Finnish is archaic. First of all, this is expressed by the consistent preservation of personal-possessive suffixes to express the meaning of possessiveness (possession) and - as in Karelian - synthetic forms of the superlative degree of comparison of adjectives and adverbs.

There are no grammatical categories of aspect and voice in the Finnish language, as in most Uralic languages. Finnish verbs have the categories of person, number, mood (indicative, imperative, conditional, potential) and tense (present and perfect in all moods, imperfect and plusquaperfect in the indicative). Special forms of the future tense have not developed in the Finnish language, as a result of which the present tense form is used in conjunction with lexical and some grammatical means to express it.

Traditionally, the Finnish language has 4 forms of the infinitive. Moreover, in a number of cases, their function is similar to gerunds and verbal nouns. As in other Baltic-Finnish languages, such infinitive forms can change according to cases, however, without having a complete declension paradigm.

Negation is expressed by a special negative verb ei(halua-n “want”, halua-t “want”, en halua “don’t want”, et halua “don’t want”, etc.), as well as a special affix. As in most Uralic languages, in Finnish the meaning of possession is expressed by a construction with the verb “to be” ( Minulla on koira. – I have a dog.).

The basic word order in Finnish speech is: subject - predicate - object. Definitions expressed by nominal parts of speech in the genitive case always precede the defined.

Many people consider Finnish a difficult language to learn, but in many ways its difficulty is exaggerated. Partly due to its lexical composition and grammatical features, partly due to its unusual phonetics, the Finnish language stands out against the background of Indo-European languages. But if you can understand its logic, then learning the Finnish language will be interesting and easy.

So, as the ancients said - Vaikeuksien kautta tähtiin!

When traveling to a new country, many of us wonder what language they speak there. Which is understandable, because in any case you will have to communicate with people - be it with local residents or service staff. In this article we find out what language you need to speak in order to be understood in Suomi, and knowledge of English will come in handy.

State language

Finland is one of the few countries in the world where two official languages are officially recognized - Finnish and Swedish. Swedish is formally equal to Finnish, but in recent years there has been a tendency towards its less frequent use in everyday life.

Statistics show that Finnish is spoken by about 5.5% of the total population. Third place (0.8%) in prevalence belongs to the mighty Russian language, since the Russian ethnic group, numbering about 50,000 people, is the largest. There are even fewer Estonians in Finland, so the Estonian language is practically not heard on city streets (0.3%).

In the history of the country, the Swedish and Finnish languages have always had a strong connection, which could not but affect its national traditions. This fact is explained very simply: for almost six centuries Finland was under the control of Sweden, which subsequently led to its cultural dependence.

A few years after the revolution that took place in 1917, which resulted in the creation of an independent state (until this year Suomi was in the orbit of Russian influence), the Swedish language was legally equalized with Finnish, as it remains to this day.

In the school system, learning Finnish and Swedish is compulsory.

Features of the Finnish language

The history of the Finnish language goes back centuries. It is not so easy to study it on your own, since it is quite difficult. There are only 16 cases in the grammar alone! But the spelling is not difficult - as it is heard, so it is written.

The Finnish alphabet appeared in 1540. The alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet and 3 independent letters Å, Ä, Ö. The letter Å, called the Swedish O, is pronounced the same as the Finnish O and is found only in proper nouns. For example, Åbo.

Finnish pronunciation is easy. The main stress in words is almost always on the first syllable, and the secondary stress is on any other syllable except the last. There are a lot of vowels in words, and their abundance gives speech a certain rhythm and beautiful melody.
The Finnish alphabet has 8 vowels and 19 consonants. In this case, consonants can convey about 30 sounds. There are no words in Finnish that have 3 consecutive consonants. For example, the Swedish strand (“shore”) sounds like ranta in Finnish. There is no category of gender as such; there are only singular and plural.

It is noteworthy that in everyday life Finns say “you” to each other. “You” is only used in relation to older people or in dialogue with clients. One of the highlights of the Finnish language is the unusual names of countries. So, Russia is Veniaia Germany - Saxa, and Estonia is Viro. For the Russian ear, the Finnish language has a lot of funny expressions. For example, one cafe in Helsinki is called “Kakku Galeria”. Kakku is not at all what you think. This word translates as bun or cake. From the same series: pukari - bully, brawler; pukki—goat; sukunimi - surname; sukkamili - jealous and envious; huylata - to rest.

Is English required in Finland?

The Finnish education system provides for in-depth study of foreign languages. The first one is English. Unlike Swedish, it is added in 3rd grade. Thanks to EU membership, English has become widely spoken over the past decade.

So, when applying to a number of universities, you may be required to have a TOEFL certificate. If the purpose of your trip to Finland is tourism, rest assured that diligent study of English here will pay off. Many Finns understand and communicate perfectly in this language. However, this only applies to those living in large cities.

In conclusion, we would like to give a little advice: if you do not speak Finnish, stock up on a good phrasebook and remember English. His knowledge will come in handy in Finland!

The communicative means of communication between the peoples of this country and the state languages have a long history. Officially, they are considered Finnish and Swedish, but the country of Suomi is home to many speakers of other dialects and dialects.

Some statistics and facts

92% of the country's residents consider Finnish their native language. The second – no more than 6%.
About 6% of Finnish citizens speak Swedish at home, and almost 41% of respondents say it is their second language.
The official minority languages in Finland are Sami, Roma and Karelian.
The main languages of immigrants in Finland are Estonian and Russian.
Among foreign languages, English is most widely spoken in Suomi. German comes in second place, and very few Finns speak French.
Only less than 3,000 Sami are native speakers of the three Sami languages. The same number no longer speak the dialects of their ancestors.
At least 30 thousand of its inhabitants can speak Karelian in Finland. At least twice as many citizens of the country are fluent in Russian.

The two official languages in Finland are the result of historical events during which the two peoples were very closely connected with each other, territorially, economically, and politically.

History and modernity

Having been under Swedish rule for seven centuries, Finland only received an official mother tongue in 1809. Until the beginning of the 19th century, the only official language was Swedish. The further stay of Finland as part of the Russian Empire brought the need to study Russian, which was legislated by a decree of Emperor Alexander I.
Finnish became the official language of Finland in 1892, after all officials were required to speak it and issue documents.
Swedish also continues to be a state language and is taught during the three years of the school curriculum - from grades 7 to 9.
Several border municipalities have taken the initiative to replace Swedish lessons with Russian, but the government has not yet approved this project.

Note to tourists

In the southeast and south of the country, there is a high probability of meeting Russian-speaking employees of hotels, restaurants, shops and just passers-by on the streets. In other regions you will have to communicate in English, which Finns speak well. Hotels in large cities and tourist information centers have maps and public transport directions in English and even Russian.

- a state in northern Europe, a member of the European Union and the Schengen Agreement.

Official name of Finland:
Republic of Finland.

Territory of Finland:
The area of the state of the Republic of Finland is 338,145 km².

Population of Finland:
The population of Finland is more than 5 million inhabitants (5,219,732 people).

Ethnic groups of Finland:
Finns, Swedes, Russians, Estonians, etc.

Average life expectancy in Finland:
The average life expectancy in Finland is 77.92 years (see Ranking of countries in the world by average life expectancy).

Capital of Finland:
Helsinki.

Major cities in Finland:
Helsinki, Turku.

Official language of Finland:
In Finland, according to a special law adopted in 1922, there are two official languages - Finnish and Swedish. The majority of the population of Finland speaks Finnish. Swedish is spoken by 5.5% of the population, Russian by 0.8%, and Estonian by 0.3%. Other languages are spoken by 1.71% of the Finnish population.

Religion in Finland:
The Finnish Evangelical Lutheran and Orthodox churches have the status of state religions. Almost 84.2% of Finnish residents belong to the first, 1.1% belong to the second, 1.2% belong to other churches, and 13.5% have no religious affiliation.

Geographical location of Finland:
Finland is located in northern Europe, with a significant part of its territory located beyond the Arctic Circle. On land it borders with Sweden, Norway and Russia; the sea border with Estonia runs along the Gulf of Finland and the Gulf of Bothnia in the Baltic Sea.

Rivers of Finland:
Vuoksa, Kajaani, Kemijoki, Oulujoki.

Administrative divisions of Finland:
Finland is divided into 6 provinces, governed by governments headed by governors appointed by the president of the country. The lowest administrative-territorial unit of the country is the commune. The communes are organized into 20 provinces, governed by provincial councils and serving for the development and interaction of their constituent communes.

Government structure of Finland:
Finland is a republic. The highest executive power in the country belongs to the president. The president is elected for a six-year term by direct popular vote.

Executive power in Finland is exercised by the government (the Council of State), which consists of the Prime Minister and the required number of ministers, no more than 18. The Prime Minister is elected by the Finnish Parliament and then formally approved by the President. The President of Finland appoints other ministers according to the recommendations of the Prime Minister. The government, together with the prime minister, resigns after each parliamentary election, as well as by decision of the president of the country in the event of loss of confidence in parliament, on a personal statement and in some other cases. The Finnish Parliament is unicameral and consists of 200 deputies. Deputies are elected by popular vote for a term of 4 years.

The Finnish judicial system is divided into a court, which deals with ordinary civil and criminal cases, and an administrative court, which is responsible for cases between people and the administrative authorities of the state. Finnish laws are based on Swedish law and, more broadly, on civil law and Roman law. The judicial system consists of local courts, regional courts of appeal and a high court. The administrative branch consists of administrative courts and the Supreme Administrative Court. Elected for a six-year term by direct popular vote.

In the section on the question What language is spoken in Finland asked by the author Flush the best answer is There are 2 official languages - Finnish and Swedish.
Finnish language (suomi, suomen kieli- belongs to the Baltic-Finnish branch of the Finno-Ugric family (more precisely, group) of languages and is classified as an agglutinative language. Finno-Ugric languages and Samoyedic languages (Enets, Nenets, Nganasan, Selkup) make up the Uralic language family .
The writing is based on the Latin alphabet.
Finnish is spoken by the majority of the population of Finland (92%), as well as by ethnic Finns living outside Finland - in Sweden and Norway, among the Finnish diaspora in the USA, Estonia, and Russia. Finnish is the official language of Finland, as well as an officially recognized minority language in Sweden (both standard Finnish and Meänkieli - Finnish in the Swedish region of Tournedalen).
The majority of Russian Finns are Ingrians who moved to the territory of the modern Leningrad region in the 17th century. Ethnic Finns also live in Karelia.
Source: I have been living in Finland for more than 10 years.
¤ Elena ¤
Genius
(50146)
I do what gives me pleasure and it’s not for you to judge me!

Reply from Victoria[expert]
in Finnish, but also in Swedish and English

Reply from Partition[guru]
Suomi has two official languages - Finnish and Swedish. Some Finns also speak English, less often French.

Reply from Verg[guru]
in Japanese, they sailed from there :)))

Reply from squint[guru]
you won't believe it)))))

Reply from Maria Kokoreva[guru]
in Finnish, maybe also in Swedish

Reply from Galchonok[active]
in Finnish

Reply from Boris[guru]
in Chukhonian

Reply from Vikulichka[newbie]
in Finnish it's Finns

Reply from GroovY[guru]
either Finnish or some other thread Turkidurkistan

Reply from Maria[master]
in Finnish)

Reply from Ilya Gushtyuk[newbie]
in Finnish

Reply from Ekaterina Hirvonen[newbie]
fluent English, naturally Finnish, some in Swedish.