Finnish - TopTranslations

The origins of Finnish

Finnish is a Uralic language within the Finno-Ugric family, which includes Hungarian and Estonian, and has been influenced by English, German and Slavic languages. Its roots trace back to the ancient Proto-Finnic language, from which Sámi later separated. Though Finnish has ancient origins, the first written records of the language date back to around 1500 AD. These early writings were based on Latin, German and Swedish systems, marking the beginning of the written form of Finnish that we recognise today.

Grammatical and lexical features

Finnish is an agglutinative language, meaning that words are formed by adding various suffixes. Interestingly, it lacks gender distinctions (though it does differentiate between singular and plural), but it has an impressive 15 grammatical cases! Here's a brief overview:

Nominative:

indicates the subject of the sentence.

Accusative:

marks the direct object.

Genitive:

answers the question “whose” and shows possession.

Partitive:

expresses partiality or lack of result, often used when the identity is unknown.

Inessive:

answers the question “where” with reference to an internal location.

Illative:

indicates movement “into” an internal place.

Adessive:

refers to “where” for an external location or explains “how” something is done.

Ablative:

describes movement “from” an external place.

Allative:

indicates direction “toward” an external place or serves as the indirect object.

Essive:

expresses a temporary state or role.

Translative:

denotes a change in status or a transformation.

Instructive:

explains “how” something is done.

Comitative:

answer the question “with whom”.

Abessive:

expresses the absence of something.

Historically, Finnish adopted many neologisms from foreign languages like Russian and Swedish. However, over time, these foreign terms have been replaced by words created from Finnish roots. For example, the word for “telephone,” puhelin, comes from the Finnish root puhella (“to speak”). Despite these shifts, modern Finnish remains quite consistent with its historical forms.

Modern Finnish

Finnish is primarily spoken in Finland, with some regional use in parts of Sweden. One notable regional variation is Meänkieli (meaning “our language”), spoken in the Tornedalen region, which closely resembles standard Finnish.

Despite not being widely spoken globally, Finnish has several dialects and variations. There are two main official forms of the language:

Puhekieli (spoken language): this is the informal version of Finnish, used in everyday conversations, on television and on the radio. It’s continually evolving and becoming simpler over time.
Yleiskieli (standard language): this form is used for formal events, official communication and education. It is the language taught in schools.

While the spoken and standard forms coexist, the informal puhekieli is gradually shaping modern Finnish as it becomes more widely used in casual settings.