FINNISH LANGUAGE

Maisa Martin
University of Jyväskylä
Department of Languages


1. ROOTS AND RELATIONS
Finnish belongs to the Finno-Ugrian language family. It is closely related to Estonian and remotely related to Hungarian. There are also many other related languages. For further information, click the heading.

2. FROM SPOKEN DIALECTS TO LITERARY LANGUAGE
Spoken Finnish has deep roots and many varieties, but the history of written Finnish also spans about 500 years.

3. FINNISH TODAY AND ALL OVER THE WORLD
Over 5 million people speak, read, and write Finnish daily. More than 100 universities all over the world teach Finnish.

4. WHY FINNISH IS SUCH AN EASY LANGUAGE?
Finnish may be different but it has many easy-to-learn features. By clicking the heading you will have access to some learning tools for Finnish.


1. ROOTS AND RELATIONS

The Uralic language family (in descending order of structural similarity)

The Finno-Ugric languages:

Baltic-Finnic: Finnish, Karelian, Ludian, Vepsian, Ingrian, Votian, Estonian, Livonian
Sámi (Lappish): several languages, Norwegian sámi has the most speakers
Volgaic: Mordvin, Mari (Cheremis)
Permian: Komi (Zyryan), Udmurt (Votyak)
Ugric: Hungarian, Khanty (Ostyak), Mansi (Vogul)

Samoyed languagues: Nenets (Yurak), Enets (Yenisev Samoyed), Nganasan ( Tavgy), Selkup (Ostyak Samoyed)

NB! The linguistic relationship is not (necessarily) a genetic relationship. Languages are related, whereas people may or may not be.

More on Finno-Ugric languages.



2. FROM SPOKEN DIALECTS TO LITERARY LANGUAGE

* Finnish has been spoken in the area of Finland since it was populated

* Mikael Agricola wrote the first books in Finnish: ABC book (1543), The New Testament (1548). To see his picture.


* The first translation of the complete Bible (1642)

* Elias Lönnrot collected oral poetry and compiled The Kalevala (1835). To see his picture.


* Secondary education in Finnish started in 1858 (Jyväskylän Lyseo)

* First doctoral dissertation in Finnish at the University of Helsinki in 1858

* Finnish became an official language in 1863, together with Swedish

* Teacher training in Finnish in Jyväskylä since 1863



3. FINNISH TODAY AND ALL OVER THE WORLD

* Finno-Ugric structures, Western European semantics and vocabulary.


* 5 million speakers, a variety of dialects and registers

* The Research Centre for Domestic Languages, Language Office.


* 7 university departments of Finnish language in Finland

* 102 universities in about 30 countries teach Finnish outside Finland.




4. WHY FINNISH IS SUCH AN EASY LANGUAGE

* no articles, no grammatical gender

* stress always on first syllable

* 1:1-relationship between sounds and letters

* rich word formation possibilities

* regular grammar

But: complex inflectional system, writing and speaking differ structurally, great deal of variety

More on the structure of Finnish language.