See also: Finnish braille. pronounced as /notice/Finnish orthography is based on the Latin script, and uses an alphabet derived from the Swedish alphabet, officially comprising twenty-nine letters but also including two additional letters found in some loanwords. 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 following table describes how each letter in the Finnish alphabet (Finnish: suomen aakkoset) is spelled and pronounced separately. If the name of a consonant begins with a vowel (usually pronounced as /[æ]/), it can be pronounced and spelled either as a monosyllabic or bisyllabic word. In practice, the names of the letters are rarely spelled, as people usually just type the (uppercase or lowercase) glyph when they 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.
| Glyphs | Name | Name pronunciation | Notes on usage (for more, see Finnish phonology) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A, a | Finnish: aa | pronounced as //ɑː// | ||
| B, b | Finnish: bee | pronounced as //beː// | Occurs in relatively new loanwords, such as Finnish: banaani 'banana' and Finnish: bussi 'bus'. Typically represents pronounced as /[b̥]/ or pronounced as /[p]/. | |
| C, c | Finnish: see | pronounced as //seː// | Occurs in unestablished loanwords, such as Finnish: [[curry]] and Finnish: [[cesium]]. Typically represents pronounced as /[k]/ or pronounced as /[s]/. | |
| D, d | Finnish: dee | pronounced as //deː// | In present standard language, stands for pronounced as /[d]/, but it represents pronounced as /[d̥]/ or pronounced as /[t̪]/, and the pronunciation in dialects varies greatly. Natively used in Western dialects as pronounced as /[ɾ]/ and not at all in Eastern dialects. | |
| E, e | Finnish: ee | pronounced as //eː// | The precise pronunciation tends to be between pronounced as /[e]/ and pronounced as /[ɛ]/. | |
| F, f | Finnish: äf, Finnish: äffä | pronounced as //æf//, pronounced as //ˈæf.fæ//, occasionally pronounced as //ef// | Occurs in relatively new loanwords, such as Finnish: asfaltti 'asphalt' or Finnish: uniformu 'uniform'. Historically and in dialectal pronunciation (apart from some Western dialects), pronounced as //f// is typically replaced with pronounced as //ʋ// or medially pronounced as //hʋ// (e.g. Finnish: kahvi pronounced as //ˈkah.ʋi// ← Swedish Swedish: kaffe 'coffee'). Even newer loanwords may have an alternative spelling where has replaced (Finnish: asvaltti, Finnish: univormu). Note that the names of the country, language, and nationality beginning with F (Finland, Finnish, Finn) are non-native, the native ones being Finnish: Suomi, Finnish: suomi, and Finnish: suomalainen. | |
| G, g | Finnish: gee | pronounced as //ɡeː// | Occurs natively in the digraph, which marks the long velar nasal pronounced as /[ŋː]/ (with no pronounced as /[ɡ]/ sound). Otherwise only occurs in relatively new loanwords, such as Finnish: gaala 'gala' and Finnish: geeni 'gene'. Typically represents pronounced as /[ɡ̊]/ or pronounced as /[k]/. | |
| H, h | Finnish: hoo | pronounced as //hoː// | Normally a voiceless fricative, but the precise pronunciation depends on the preceding vowel; between two vowels may be pronounced as breathy-voiced pronounced as /[ɦ]/. | |
| I, i | Finnish: ii | pronounced as //iː// | pronounced as /[i]/ | |
| J, j | Finnish: jii | pronounced as //jiː// | Without exception pronounced as /[j]/ (English consonant), as in German and Swedish, never fricative or affricate as in French or English. | |
| K, k | Finnish: koo | pronounced as //koː// | ||
| L, l | Finnish: äl, Finnish: ällä | pronounced as //æl//, pronounced as //ˈæl.læ//, occasionally pronounced as //el// | ||
| M, m | Finnish: äm, Finnish: ämmä | pronounced as //æm//, pronounced as //ˈæm.mæ//, occasionally pronounced as //em// | ||
| N, n | Finnish: än, Finnish: ännä | pronounced as //æn//, pronounced as //ˈæn.næ//, occasionally pronounced as //en// | ||
| O, o | Finnish: oo | pronounced as //oː// | The precise pronunciation tends to be between pronounced as /[o]/ and pronounced as /[ɔ]/. | |
| P, p | Finnish: pee | pronounced as //peː// | ||
| Q, q | Finnish: kuu | pronounced as //kuː// | Mainly occurs in foreign proper names (in loanwords digraph has often been replaced with). Typically represents pronounced as /[k]/, though some speakers mispronounce it as pronounced as /[ɡ]/. | |
| R, r | Finnish: är, Finnish: ärrä | pronounced as //ær//, pronounced as //ˈær.ræ//, occasionally pronounced as //er// | ||
| S, s | Finnish: äs, Finnish: ässä | pronounced as //æs//, pronounced as //ˈæs.sæ//, occasionally pronounced as //es// | ||
| T, t | Finnish: tee | pronounced as //teː// | The precise pronunciation tends to be dental pronounced as /[t̪]/ rather than alveolar pronounced as /[t]/. | |
| U, u | Finnish: uu | pronounced as //uː// | The precise pronunciation tends to be between pronounced as /[u]/ and pronounced as /[o]/. | |
| V, v | Finnish: vee | pronounced as //ʋeː// | Typically represents approximant pronounced as /[ʋ]/ rather than fricative pronounced as /[v]/. | |
| W, w | Finnish: kaksois-vee Finnish: tupla-vee | pronounced as //ʋeː//, pronounced as //ˈkɑk.soisˌʋeː//, pronounced as //ˈtup.lɑˌʋeː// | The "double-v" may occur natively as an archaic variant of, but otherwise in unestablished loanwords and foreign proper names only. It occurs in some rare surnames such as Finnish: Waltari (e.g. Mika Waltari, a world-famous author) or in some rare first names such as Finnish: Werner (e.g. Werner Söderström, a well-known publisher). In collation the letter is treated mostly like . Typically represents pronounced as /[ʋ]/. | |
| X, x | Finnish: äks, Finnish: äksä | pronounced as //æks//, pronounced as //ˈæk.sæ//, occasionally pronounced as //eks// | Occurs in unestablished loanwords, such as taxi or fax, but there is often a preferred alternative where has been replaced with digraph (Finnish: taksi, Finnish: faksi). Typically represents pronounced as /[ks]/. | |
| Y, y | Finnish: yy | pronounced as //yː// | The precise pronunciation tends to be between pronounced as /[y]/ and pronounced as /[ø]/. | |
| Z, z | Finnish: tset, Finnish: tseta | pronounced as //tset//, pronounced as //ˈtse.tɑ//, pronounced as //zet//, pronounced as //ˈze.tɑ// | Occurs in unestablished loanwords, such as Finnish: zeniitti pronounced as //tse.niːt.ti// 'zenith' or Finnish: [[pizza]], but there may be an alternative spelling with (e.g. Finnish: pitsa). Typically represents pronounced as /[ts]/ (like in German), but sometimes pronounced as /[dz]/ or pronounced as /[z]/. | |
| Å, å | Finnish: ruotsalainen oo | pronounced as //oː//, pronounced as //ˈruot.sɑˌlɑi.nen oː// | The "Swedish ", carried over from the Swedish alphabet and redundant in Finnish; retained especially for writing Finland-Swedish proper names (such as Ståhlberg). All Finnish words containing are names; there it represents pronounced as /[oː]/ (identically to). | |
| Ä, ä | Finnish: ää | pronounced as //æː// | ||
| Ö, ö | Finnish: öö | pronounced as //øː// | The precise pronunciation tends to be between pronounced as /[ø]/ and pronounced as /[œ]/. |
In addition, is sometimes listed separately and after, although officially it is merely a variant of the latter and can be alphabetized as . Similarly, and are variants of and, but they are often overlooked, as they are only used in some relatively new loanwords and foreign names, and may be replaced with and, respectively, if it is technically impossible to reproduce and .[1] The Finnish keyboard layout on Microsoft Windows does not include or ; thus, in practice, only highly formal sources such as official texts, encyclopedias or Helsingin Sanomat use them.
| Glyphs | Name | Name pronunciation | Notes on usage (for more, see Finnish phonology) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Š, š | Finnish: hattu-äs, Finnish: hattu-ässä; Finnish: suhu-äs, Finnish: suhu-ässä | pronounced as //ˈhat.tu.æs//, pronounced as //ˈhat.tu.æsæ//; pronounced as //ˈsu.hu.æs//, pronounced as //ˈsu.hu.æsæ// | The " with caron" is a rare variant of . It occurred in some relatively new loanwords, such as Finnish: šakki 'chess' and Finnish: šillinki 'shilling', but is often replaced with digraph (Finnish: šampoo → Finnish: [[shampoo]]) or, in more established loanwords, with plain (Finnish: sampoo). In theory it represents pronounced as /[ʃ]/ but actual pronunciation may vary. | |
| Ž, ž | Finnish: hattu-tset, Finnish: hattu-tseta | pronounced as //ˈhat.tuˌtset//, pronounced as //ˈhat.tuˌtse.tɑ// | The " with caron" is a rare variant of . It occurs in some unestablished loanwords, such as Finnish: džonkki 'junk', and foreign proper names, but is often replaced with digraph . In theory represents pronounced as /[ʒ]/ but the actual pronunciation may vary. |
The main peculiarities in the Finnish alphabet are the two extra vowel letters and (accompanied by the Swedish, which is actually not needed for writing Finnish). In Finnish, these extra letters are collectively referred to as the Finnish: ääkköset when they need to be distinguished from the ISO basic Latin alphabet; the word is a somewhat playful modification of Finnish: aakkoset, which is the Finnish for the alphabet as a whole. Another informal term is Finnish: skandit or Finnish: skandimerkit, which is short for Finnish: skandinaaviset merkit "Scandinavian characters" (however, the Danish and Norwegian variants and are usually not taken into account).
In Finnish, the letters, and are the "front vowel" counterparts to the "back vowel" letters, and — grammatical endings and word suffixes using these letters will use either the front or back form depending on the vowel harmony of the word they are affixed to. The glyphs for and are derived from the similar looking German umlauted letters, but as with versus, they are considered letters in their own right and thus alphabetized separately (after).
The Germanic umlaut or convention of considering digraph equivalent to, and equivalent to is inapplicable in Finnish. Moreover, in Finnish, both and are vowel sequences, not single letters, and they have independent meanings (e.g. Finnish: haen "I seek" vs. Finnish: hän "he, she").
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 situated above the base glyph (for example,) would probably be interpreted as a carelessly written pair of dots . However, in computerized character sets, these alternatives are incorrect. The front-vowel counterpart of using the glyph rather than is carried over from Swedish, and additionally avoids confusion in cursive script with, which is common in Finnish.
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. The pronunciation of these letters varies quite a lot.
In Finnish, words are ordered alphabetically according to the collation rules specified in the official standard SFS 4600. There are a few cases where Finnish collation is different from the rules applied in English:
Diacritics are never added to letters in native Finnish words (as the dots above the Finnish graphemes and are not considered diacritics). Generally, diacritics are retained in foreign-language proper names, e.g. Vilén, if possible, but when arranging words alphabetically, diacritics are usually ignored (this also applies to and, despite them being an officially recognized part of Finnish orthography). There are, however, some exceptions:
The standard does not specify how one should alphabetize the letter when used in other languages than German, but at least as regards the Estonian or Hungarian, it seems consistent to treat it as equivalent to (and even more so, since in Estonian and Hungarian is not considered a mere variant of, as it is in German). It would seem problematic, however, to apply the same principle to e.g. (u-diaeresis) as used in Spanish or (nasal vowel) as used in Portuguese, as these letters represent quite different orthographic traditions.
Other special cases:
Ligatures are alphabetized as two individual letters:
Letters and characters taken from other alphabets (e.g. Σ 'Greek capital letter sigma') or writing systems are collated after Latin letters.
See also: Finnish phonology. 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 pronounced as /[ŋ]/, which does not have an allotted letter.
In Finnish, both vowels and consonants may be either short or long. A short sound is written with a single letter, and a long sound is written with a double letter (digraph). It is necessary to recognize the difference between such words as Finnish: tuli pronounced as //ˈtu.li// 'fire', Finnish: tuuli pronounced as //ˈtuː.li// 'wind' and Finnish: tulli pronounced as //ˈtul.li// 'customs'. However, long consonants are sometimes written as short consonants in morpheme boundaries (see Finnish phonology#Sandhi for this phenomenon), thus, pronounced as //ˈhɑ.kel.lɑ.vɑ// is written as Finnish: hake'''l'''ava "open-box bed for wood chips" instead of expected *hakellava, and pronounced as //ˈtu.let.tæn.ne// is Finnish: tule '''t'''änne "come here" instead of *tule ttänne or *tulet tänne.
In syllabification, a long consonant is always regarded as having a syllable break in the middle (as in pronounced as //ˈtɑp.pɑː//), but a long vowel (or a diphthong) is regarded as a single unit that functions as the nucleus of a syllable. Either a long or short vowel may occur in a stressed as well as unstressed syllable. The phonetic quality of a vowel remains the same regardless of whether the vowel is long or short, or whether it is stressed or unstressed.
The velar nasal pronounced as //ŋ// (generally referred to as Finnish: äng-äänne 'the eng sound') does not have a letter of its own. Natively, a short pronounced as //ŋ// only occurs before pronounced as //k//, and it is simply written with, as in Finnish: ke'''n'''kä pronounced as //ˈkeŋ.kæ// 'shoe'. Since the alveolar nasal pronounced as //n// can not occur in such a position, pronounced as //ŋ// can be seen as an allophone of pronounced as //n//. However, if the pronounced as //k// is weakened (because of a phenomenon called consonant gradation that occurs when the word is inflected), the result is a long, or geminated, velar nasal pronounced as //ŋː// that is written with digraph, as in Finnish: ke'''ng'''ät pronounced as //ˈkeŋ.ŋæt// 'shoes'. The geminated pronounced as //ŋː// is not an allophone of geminated pronounced as //nː//, since minimal pairs do exist: Finnish: kangas pronounced as //ˈkɑŋ.ŋɑs// 'textile' vs. Finnish: kannas pronounced as //ˈkɑn.nɑs// 'isthmus'.
The treatment of the velar nasal in loanwords is highly inconsistent, often mixing the original spelling of the word with an applied Finnish pronunciation pattern. Finnish: E'''ng'''lanti "England" is pronounced pronounced as //ˈeŋ.lɑn.ti// (with a short pronounced as //ŋ// but no pronounced as //ɡ//), and even Finnish: ma'''gn'''eetti "magnet" is pronounced pronounced as //ˈmɑŋ.neːt.ti// (with plain being pronounced as pronounced as //ŋ// when followed by, as in classical Latin) – cf. a more specialized term Finnish: diagnoosi pronounced as //di.aɡ.noː.si// 'diagnosis', and in a word-initial position Finnish: '''gn'''uu pronounced as //ɡnuː// "gnu". Following the typical Finnish pronunciation pattern, Finnish: ko'''ng'''estio "congestion" is often pronounced pronounced as //ˈkoŋ.ŋes.ti.o//, but pronounced as //ˈkoŋ.ɡes.ti.o// may also occur.
Traditionally, pronounced as //b// and pronounced as //ɡ// are not counted as Finnish phonemes, since they only appear in loanwords. However, these borrowings being relatively common, they are nowadays considered part of the educated norm. The failure to use them correctly is sometimes ridiculed, e.g. if a news reporter or a high official consistently and publicly pronounces Finnish: Belgia 'Belgium' as pronounced as //ˈpel.ki.a//. Even many educated speakers, however, still make no distinction between voiced and voiceless plosives in regular speech, although minimal pairs exist: pronounced as //ˈbus.si// 'bus' vs. pronounced as //ˈpus.si// 'bag', pronounced as //ˈɡo.ril.lɑ// 'gorilla' vs. pronounced as //ˈko.ril.lɑ// 'with/at a basket'.
The status of pronounced as //d// is somewhat different from pronounced as //b// and pronounced as //ɡ//, since it appears in native Finnish words, too, as a regular "weak" correspondence of the voiceless pronounced as //t// (as a result of consonant gradation), and even in the infinitives of many verbs, such as Finnish: syödä, "to eat". At the time when Mikael Agricola, the "father" of literary Finnish, devised a system for writing the language, this sound still had the value of the voiced dental fricative pronounced as //ð//, as in English "then". Since neither Swedish nor German of that time had a separate sign for this sound, Agricola chose to mark it with or .
Later on, the pronounced as //ð// sound developed in a variety of ways in different Finnish dialects: it was deleted, or became a hiatus, a flap consonant, or any of,,, . For example, historical and rare dialectal Finnish: meiðän, Finnish: käðen "our" (gen.), "hand" (gen.) could be:
In the middle of the 19th century, a significant portion of the Swedish-speaking upper class in Finland decided that Finnish had to be made equal in usage to Swedish. They even started using Finnish as their home language, even while very few of them really mastered it well. Since the historical pronounced as /
Initially, few native speakers of Finnish acquired the foreign plosive realisation of the native phoneme. Still some decades ago it was not entirely exceptional to hear loanwords like Finnish: deodorantti 'deodorant' pronounced as pronounced as //teotorantti//, while native Finnish words with a pronounced as //d// were pronounced in the usual dialectal way. Nowadays, the Finnish language spoken by native Swedish speakers is not anymore considered paradigmatic, but as a result of their long-lasting prestige, many people particularly in the capital district acquired the new pronounced as /[d]/ sound. Due to diffusion of the standard language through mass media and basic education, and due to the dialectal prestige of the capital area, the plosive pronounced as /[d]/ can now be heard in all parts of the country, at least in loanwords and in formal speech. Nowadays replacing pronounced as //d// with a pronounced as //t// is considered rustic, for example pronounced as //nyt tarvittais uutta tirektiiviä// instead of pronounced as //nyt tarvittaisiin uutta direktiiviä// 'now we could use a new directive'.
In Helsinki slang, the slang used by some, more rarely nowadays, in Helsinki, the voiced stops are found in native words even in positions which are not the result of consonant gradation, e.g. pronounced as //dallas// 's/he walked' (← native verb root Finnish: talla-), pronounced as //bonjata// 'to understand' (← Russian pronounced as //ponʲiˈmatʲ// понимать). In the Southwestern dialects of Rauma-Eurajoki-Laitila area, pronounced as //b//, pronounced as //d// and pronounced as //ɡ// are commonplace, since the voicing of nasals spread to phonemes pronounced as //p//, pronounced as //t// and pronounced as //k//, making them half-voiced, e.g. pronounced as //sendä// ← Finnish: sentään or pronounced as //ninɡo// ← Finnish: niin kuin. They are also found in those coastal areas where Swedish influenced the speech.
| Letter | spelling name | |
|---|---|---|
| A, a | Finnish: Aarne | |
| B, b | Finnish: Bertta | |
| C, c | Finnish: Celsius | |
| D, d | Finnish: Daavid | |
| E, e | Finnish: Eemeli | |
| F, f | Finnish: Faarao | |
| G, g | Finnish: Gideon | |
| H, h | Finnish: Heikki | |
| I, i | Finnish: Iivari | |
| J, j | Finnish: Jussi | |
| K, k | Finnish: Kalle | |
| L, l | Finnish: Lauri | |
| M, m | Finnish: Matti | |
| N, n | Finnish: Niilo | |
| O, o | Finnish: Otto | |
| P, p | Finnish: Paavo | |
| Q, q | Finnish: Kuu | |
| R, r | Finnish: Risto | |
| S, s | Finnish: Sakari | |
| T, t | Finnish: Tyyne | |
| U, u | Finnish: Urho | |
| V, v | Finnish: Vihtori | |
| W, w | Finnish: Wiski | |
| X, x | Finnish: Äksä | |
| Y, y | Finnish: Yrjö | |
| Z, z | Finnish: Tseta | |
| Å, å | Finnish: Åke | |
| Ä, ä | Finnish: Äiti | |
| Ö, ö | Finnish: Öljy |