100-455: The Finnish Government ( Finnish : Suomen valtioneuvosto ; Swedish : Finlands statsråd ; lit. ' Finland's council of state ' ) is the executive branch and cabinet of Finland , which directs the politics of Finland and is the main source of legislation proposed to the Parliament . The Government has collective ministerial responsibility and represents Finland in
200-414: A parliamentary system , in which the prime minister controls the legislative agenda and the president's powers are limited to foreign policy and defence. A common problem during cohabitation is that each leader wants his or her own policies to be carried out so that the public is positive toward their strategies, and he or she will be elected when the time comes. Because each party is in competition, there
300-819: A "j", e.g. vesj [vesʲ] "water", cf. standard vesi [vesi] . The first known written account in Helsinki slang is from the 1890 short story Hellaassa by young Santeri Ivalo (words that do not exist in, or deviate from, the standard spoken Finnish of its time are in bold): Kun minä eilen illalla palasin labbiksesta , tapasin Aasiksen kohdalla Supiksen , ja niin me laskeusimme tänne Espikselle , jossa oli mahoton hyvä piikis . Mutta me mentiin Studikselle suoraan Hudista tapaamaan, ja jäimme sinne pariksi tunniksi, kunnes ajoimme Kaisikseen . There are two main registers of Finnish used throughout
400-612: A Latin-script alphabet derived from the Swedish alphabet, and is phonemic to a great extent. Vowel length and consonant length are distinguished, and there are a range of diphthongs , although vowel harmony limits which diphthongs are possible. Finnish belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic language family ; as such, it is one of the few European languages that is not Indo-European . The Finnic branch also includes Estonian and
500-474: A change in the presidency. This alignment of president and assembly should have lasted until at least the normally scheduled 1998 assembly elections. However, in 1997, President Chirac made the ill-fated strategic decision to dissolve parliament and call for early legislative elections. This plan backfired when the French electorate turned back to the leftists and removed the right-wing assembly majority. Chirac
600-473: A considerable influence upon the spoken word, because illiteracy is nonexistent and many Finns are avid readers. In fact, it is still not entirely uncommon to meet people who "talk book-ish" ( puhuvat kirjakieltä ); it may have connotations of pedantry, exaggeration, moderation, weaseling or sarcasm (somewhat like heavy use of Latinate words in English, or more old-fashioned or "pedantic" constructions: compare
700-418: A directly elected executive president, i.e., semi-presidential systems. In a true parliamentary system, the head of state, whether president or constitutional monarch, has no significant influence over the government. As seen above, the theory of cohabitation is no longer limited to France . However, there are not many countries where the constitutional structure exists in which it could occur. Since some of
800-518: A few minority languages spoken around the Baltic Sea and in Russia's Republic of Karelia . The closest relative of Finnish is either Ingrian , or depending on the definition, Karelian . Finnic languages form a dialect continuum, where for instance Finnish and Estonian are not separated by any single isogloss that would separate dialects considered "Finnish" from those considered "Estonian", despite
900-461: A group of voters (e.g. voters on the left) may be split between two or more presidential candidates, thus making it unlikely that any of this group's candidates wins the presidential election, but these coordination problems may be resolved in the legislative election, leading to a different outcome in the two elections. Alternatively, a party that wins a majority of support in both the presidential and legislative elections may nonetheless fail to control
1000-460: A language of administration, journalism, literature, and science in Finland, along with Swedish. In 1853 Daniel Europaeus published the first Swedish-Finnish dictionary, and between 1866 and 1880 Elias Lönnrot compiled the first Finnish-Swedish dictionary. In the same period, Antero Warelius conducted ethnographic research and, among other topics, he documented the geographic distribution of
1100-429: A minority government , but two weeks later Morawiecki lost a no-confidence vote, and parliament appointed former prime minister Donald Tusk to his third cabinet . The periods of cohabitation occurred during the following years: 1989–1990 ( Jaruzelski ), 1993–1995 ( Wałęsa ), 1997–2001, 2005 [briefly] ( Kwaśniewski ), 2007–2010 ( L.Kaczyński ), 2015 [briefly] & 2023–present (Duda). The 2012 Romanian political crisis
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#17327729300901200-450: A month after presidential ones, thus creating a coattail effect that encourages those who won the presidential election to confirm their vote in the legislative elections. The near-simultaneity of presidential and legislative elections makes cohabitation less likely by reducing the prospect of major changes in public opinion between the two elections, but cohabitation remains a possibility even if public opinion remains stable. For example,
1300-475: A more systematic writing system. Along the way, Finnish lost several fricative consonants in a process of sound change . The sounds [ð] and [θ(ː)] disappeared from the language, surviving only in a small rural region in Western Finland. In the standard language, however, the effect of the lost sounds is thus: Modern Finnish punctuation, along with that of Swedish, uses the colon (:) to separate
1400-503: A new president (there is no vice-president in France) and a new election takes places less than two months after a resignation, a new president being elected for a new, full term; that happened in 1969, when de Gaulle resigned because the people voted against a referendum proposed by him . The first "near miss" with cohabitation occurred with the election of Socialist President François Mitterrand in 1981. A right-wing coalition headed by
1500-445: A north–south split as well as an east–west split. The northern dialects of Proto-Finnic, from which Finnish developed, lacked the mid vowel [ ɤ ] . This vowel was found only in the southern dialects, which developed into Estonian , Livonian , and Votian . The northern variants used third person singular pronoun hän instead of southern tämä (Est. tema ). While the eastern dialects of Proto-Finnic (which developed in
1600-511: A period of cohabitation from 2012 to 2013, occasioned by the defeat of the ruling United National Movement party by the opposition Georgian Dream coalition in the 2012 parliamentary election . At the same time, a new constitutional system came into effect and the leader of the defeated party, the incumbent President Mikheil Saakashvili , had to appoint the Georgian Dream leader, Bidzina Ivanishvili , as prime minister . According to
1700-502: A political appointee who serves at the pleasure of the minister. Although ministers' portfolios are divided among the participating political parties, the Government has collective ministerial responsibility , and the ministers are expected to follow a government programme agreed upon during government formation talks. The Prime Minister may sit with a subset of the Government in a ministerial committee (cabinet committee), when it
1800-456: A proposal is enacted into law, it must be confirmed by the President of Finland . As such, the president has the power of a delaying veto as a check against majority politics and potential violations of international agreements. Periods of cohabitation , wherein the president and the government represent different political positions, can create strife. The president's veto can be overridden by
1900-555: A separate taxonomic " Finno-Samic " node is controversial. The Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California , United States, classifies Finnish as a level III language (of four levels) in terms of learning difficulty for native English speakers. Finnish is spoken by about five million people, most of whom reside in Finland. There are also notable Finnish-speaking minorities in Sweden, Norway, Russia, Estonia, Brazil, Canada, and
2000-440: A total amount of Finnish-speakers roughly between 7,200 and 15,600. In the latest census , around 1000 people in Russia claimed to speak Finnish natively; however, a larger amount of 14,000 claimed to be able to speak Finnish in total. There are also forms of Finnish spoken by diasporas outside Europe, such as American Finnish , spoken by Finnish Americans , and Siberian Finnish , spoken by Siberian Finns . Today, Finnish
2100-491: Is a Finnic language of the Uralic language family, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. Finnish is one of the two official languages of Finland, alongside Swedish . In Sweden , both Finnish and Meänkieli (which has significant mutual intelligibility with Finnish ) are official minority languages . Kven , which like Meänkieli is mutually intelligible with Finnish,
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#17327729300902200-508: Is abbreviation of word-final vowels, and in many respects they resemble Estonian. The Tavastian dialects ( hämäläismurteet ) are spoken in Tavastia . They are closest to the standard language, but feature some slight vowel changes, such as the opening of diphthong-final vowels ( tie → tiä , miekka → miakka , kuolisi → kualis ), the change of d to l (mostly obsolete) or trilled r (widespread, nowadays disappearance of d
2300-467: Is another form of divided government . In this situation, the executive is directed by a president of one party who serves for a fixed term of years, even if and while the legislature is controlled by another party; in cohabitation, by contrast, executive power is divided between a president of one party and a cabinet of another party. Cohabitation thus only occurs in systems that have both parliamentary government (i.e. ministers accountable to parliament) and
2400-534: Is further illustrated by the fact that the president can dissolve the Assembly at any time (but not more than once in a year), whereas the legislature has no powers of removal against the president. The sole caveat to this position of presidential pre-eminence was the fact that the president's selection to the premiership required approval by the National Assembly , the lower house of parliament: because
2500-422: Is little room for progression since the friction between both sides holds each other back. Whilst leaders of the same political spectrum help each other in decision-making when in power concurrently, cohabitation can lead to a decline in national authority and make the country appear outwardly insecure. Although originally believed to be improbable, France was governed under a cohabitation of leaders for almost half
2600-412: Is not necessary or desirable to have the entire Government convene. There are government-specific and optional ministerial committees in addition to the four statutory ministerial committees: The Government initiates the majority of legislation . A proposed act ( Finnish : laki ; Swedish : lag ) is drafted in the respective ministry under the direction of its minister, after which it is reviewed by
2700-664: Is one of two official languages of Finland (the other being Swedish), and has been an official language of the European Union since 1995. However, the Finnish language did not have an official status in the country during the period of Swedish rule , which ended in 1809. After the establishment of the Grand Duchy of Finland , and against the backdrop of the Fennoman movement , the language obtained its official status in
2800-746: Is popular) and the personal pronouns ( me: meitin ('we: our'), te: teitin ('you: your') and he: heitin ('they: their')). The South Ostrobothnian dialects ( eteläpohjalaismurteet ) are spoken in Southern Ostrobothnia . Their most notable feature is the pronunciation of "d" as a tapped or even fully trilled /r/ . The Central and North Ostrobothnian dialects ( keski- ja pohjoispohjalaismurteet ) are spoken in Central and Northern Ostrobothnia . The Lapland dialects ( lappilaismurteet ) are spoken in Lapland . The dialects spoken in
2900-399: Is possible to reshuffle portfolios during the life of a Government. There are no senior or junior ministers, and ministers without portfolio are no longer permitted under the 2000 constitution. Ministers are not required to be Members of Parliament (MPs), although they often are. Each minister is assisted by a secretary of state ( Finnish : valtiosihteeri ; Swedish : statssekreterare ),
3000-426: Is required to be non-partisan while in office, but so far all presidents were elected as partisan candidates. A cohabitation occurred in 2007, when president Lech Kaczyński was forced to appoint Donald Tusk , his main rival in 2005 presidential election as prime minister . In 2023, after a defeat for the incumbent party , president Andrzej Duda tried to reappoint incumbent prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki to
3100-435: Is specifying the actual monetary sums for benefits described in general terms in an act. Decrees form an important body of law alongside acts of Parliament. State funds can be spent only in the framework of the state budget ( Finnish : valtion talousarvio ; Swedish : statsbudget ), which must be confirmed by Parliament. The Government drafts the annual budget and introduces it to Parliament for discussion and approval. If
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3200-629: Is spoken in the Norwegian counties of Troms and Finnmark by a minority of Finnish descent. Finnish is typologically agglutinative and uses almost exclusively suffixal affixation . Nouns , adjectives , pronouns , numerals and verbs are inflected depending on their role in the sentence . Sentences are normally formed with subject–verb–object word order, although the extensive use of inflection allows them to be ordered differently. Word order variations are often reserved for differences in information structure . Finnish orthography uses
3300-559: Is unlikely, it can occur when in the State Duma there is no stable majority loyal to the president. Thus, cohabitation evolved between 1998 and 1999, when the State Duma twice refused to appoint Viktor Chernomyrdin as prime minister. However, since the appointment of the new prime minister was caused by the recent default , there was a risk that the opposition would improve its result after the snap election, which in turn would lead to even more tension between President Boris Yeltsin and
3400-541: The 2004 presidential election , as prime minister in August 2006. The Palestinian National Authority , a quasi-governmental organization responsible for administering the Palestinian territories , has operated within the framework of a semi-presidential republic since the creation of the office of prime minister in the spring of 2003. While the president has the power to appoint anyone as prime minister, there
3500-641: The Council of the European Union . In the incumbent Orpo Cabinet , the Government comprises 19 ministers leading 12 ministries . Majority coalition governments have become the foundation of the Finnish Government; apart from a few historical exceptions, a Government is usually assembled by the representatives of two major parties and a number of smaller parties. The Government is the most important executive body of Finland composed of
3600-493: The European Commission report, with the expiration of Saakashvili's two terms as president and the victory of the Georgian Dream candidate, Giorgi Margvelashvili , in the 2013 presidential election , Georgia completed a complex and peaceful transition from a presidential to a parliamentary system. The period of cohabitation was assessed in the same report as "uneasy but functioning." The president of Poland
3700-615: The Finnish Diet of 1863. Finnish also enjoys the status of an official minority language in Sweden . Under the Nordic Language Convention , citizens of the Nordic countries speaking Finnish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any interpretation or translation costs. However, concerns have been expressed about
3800-500: The French Fourth Republic ; the prime minister, similarly, was to "direct the work of government", providing a strong leadership to the legislative branch and to help overcome partisan squabbles. Since 1962, French presidents have been elected by popular vote, replacing the electoral college , which was only used once. This change was intended to give Fifth Republic presidents more power than they might have had under
3900-579: The Russia , the State Duma has to approve a prime minister chosen by the president . However, if the State Duma rejects the president's candidate(s) three times in a row the President has the right to dissolve the State Duma and call legislative elections, but he cannot do so within a year after the last election, which in this period may lead to cohabitation. Though the rest of the time cohabitation
4000-532: The Ural Mountains region and/or the bend of the middle Volga . The strong case for Proto-Uralic is supported by common vocabulary with regularities in sound correspondences, as well as by the fact that the Uralic languages have many similarities in structure and grammar. Despite having overlapping geographical distributions, Finnic languages and Sami languages are not closely related, and the hypothesis of
4100-513: The stem of a word and its grammatical ending in some cases, for example after acronyms , as in EU:ssa 'in the EU'. (This contrasts with some other alphabetic writing systems, which would use other symbols, such as e.g. apostrophe, hyphen.) Since suffixes play a prominent role in the language, this use of the colon is quite common. In the 19th century Johan Vilhelm Snellman and others began to stress
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4200-458: The Finnish dialects. The most important contributions to improving the status of Finnish were made by Elias Lönnrot . His impact on the development of modern vocabulary in Finnish was particularly significant. In addition to compiling the Kalevala , he acted as an arbiter in disputes about the development of standard Finnish between the proponents of western and eastern dialects, ensuring that
4300-630: The Gaullist Rally for the Republic controlled the assembly at the time. Almost immediately, Mitterrand exercised his authority to call assembly elections, and the electorate returned an assembly with an absolute majority of Socialists , ending the presumed crisis. However, when assembly elections were held as required in 1986, five years later, the Socialists lost their majority to the right. Mitterrand decided to remain president, beginning
4400-458: The Government and forwarded as a government proposal ( Finnish : hallituksen esitys ; Swedish : regeringens proposition ) to Parliament for processing and possible amendments. However, since coalition governments have become the norm in Finland, the parties represented in the Government usually form the majority in the parliament, making the process somewhat more harmonious. Since 1957, all governments have been majority governments . Before
4500-415: The Government requires more funds mid-year, they have to submit an additional budget proposal to Parliament. For 2018, the central state budget was €55.8 billion, not including municipal budgets and non-departmental bodies like state-owned enterprises . The current Orpo cabinet is Finland's 77th Government, which was inaugurated on 20 June 2023. Out of the total 19 ministerial posts, eight ministers are from
4600-543: The National Assembly and had to select his government from them. Cohabitation was a product of the French Fifth Republic , albeit an unintended one. This constitution brought together a president with considerable executive powers and a prime minister , responsible before Parliament . The president's task was primarily to end deadlock and act decisively to avoid the stagnation prevalent under
4700-430: The National Assembly because that support is distributed unequally across legislative districts. In another scenario, a presidential candidate from a new party may win the presidency despite his party not having the candidates or the party apparatus to win legislative elections. Cohabitation can also occur if the presidential and legislative elections occur at different times due to extraordinary circumstances. For example,
4800-731: The National Coalition, seven from the Finns, three from the Swedish People's Party, and one from the Christian Democrats. The incumbent 19 ministers and their associated portfolios are listed below: The following is a list of all Finnish governments since 1917. 77/108 102/200 129/200 112/200 102/200 105/200 Finnish language Finnish ( endonym : suomi [ˈsuo̯mi] or suomen kieli [ˈsuo̯meŋ ˈkie̯li] )
4900-591: The Palestinian Authority and hostilities between Fatah and Hamas broke out in December 2006, leading to the appointment of a caretaker government led by Salam Fayyad on June 14, 2007. Sri Lankan politics for several years witnessed a bitter struggle between the president and the prime minister , belonging to different parties and elected separately, over the negotiations with the LTTE to resolve
5000-588: The Parliament, although this is in practice not done. Parties can also agree to not to vote along party lines but to leave the decision to individual MPs, although this is uncommon. While the Parliament passes acts, the Government or an individual ministry issues decrees ( Finnish : asetus ; Swedish : förordning ) as delegated legislation . Decrees clarify, specify, and guide the implementation of an act of Parliament, but cannot contradict it. They are similar to US standing executive orders . A typical example
5100-537: The State Duma, especially since at this time preparations for the impeachment process were already underway. In consequence, Boris Yeltsin had to nominate Yevgeny Primakov for prime minister, who had broad support among the left opposition. A cohabitation in a semi-presidential system also existed in Ukraine between 2006 and 2010. After 2006 Ukrainian parliamentary election , Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko had to appoint Viktor Yanukovych , his rival from
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#17327729300905200-694: The United States. The majority of the population of Finland (90.37% as of 2010 ) speak Finnish as their first language . The remainder speak Swedish (5.42%), one of the Sámi languages (for example Northern , Inari , or Skolt ), or another language as their first language. Finnish is spoken as a second language in Estonia by about 167,000 people. The Finnic varities found in Norway's Finnmark (namely Kven ) and in northern Sweden (namely Meänkieli ) have
5300-495: The assembly can dismiss the government by a vote of no confidence , it follows that the prime minister must command a majority in the assembly. This was not a problem whilst the legislative majority was aligned with the president, and indeed, de Gaulle , who was responsible for inspiring much of the Constitution, envisioned that the president would resign if the people disavowed him in an assembly election, and would then elect
5400-529: The border created between Sweden and Finland in 1809 when Russia annexed Finland. This caused the speakers of Meänkieli to be isolated from the developments of standard Finnish and instead be influenced by the Swedish language. However, it is still mutually integible with Finnish, and is thus sometimes considered a dialect of the Finnish language. The Kven language is spoken in Finnmark and Troms , in Norway. Its speakers are descendants of Finnish emigrants to
5500-407: The colloquial language) ei kö teillä ole e(i) ks teil(lä) oo "don't you (pl.) have (it)?" (compare eiks to standard Estonian confirmatory interrogative eks ) Cohabitation (government) Cohabitation is a system of divided government that occurs in semi-presidential systems , such as France , whenever the president is from a different political party than
5600-404: The country. One is the "standard language" ( yleiskieli ), and the other is the " spoken language " ( puhekieli ). The standard language is used in formal situations like political speeches and newscasts. Its written form, the "book language" ( kirjakieli ), is used in nearly all written texts, not always excluding even the dialogue of common people in popular prose. The spoken language, on
5700-478: The difference between saying "There's no children I'll leave it to" and "There are no children to whom I shall leave it"). More common is the intrusion of typically literary constructions into a colloquial discourse, as a kind of quote from written Finnish. It is quite common to hear book-like and polished speech on radio or TV, and the constant exposure to such language tends to lead to the adoption of such constructions even in everyday language. A prominent example of
5800-445: The effect of the standard language is the development of the consonant gradation form /ts : ts/ as in metsä : metsän , as this pattern was originally (1940) found natively only in the dialects of the southern Karelian isthmus and Ingria . It has been reinforced by the spelling "ts" for the dental fricative [θː] , used earlier in some western dialects. The spelling and the pronunciation this encourages however approximate
5900-441: The first cohabitation. There have been only three periods of cohabitation, but each is notable for illustrating the oscillation of powers between the president and prime minister. After the 1986 assembly elections, Mitterrand was forced to nominate as a Prime Minister Jacques Chirac , the leader of Rally for the Republic (RPR), the largest party in the majority coalition. Throughout the cohabitation between Mitterrand and Chirac,
6000-551: The formal. However, in signalling the former in writing, syncope and sandhi – especially internal – may occasionally amongst other characteristics be transcribed, e.g. menenpä → me(n)empä . This never occurs in the standard variety. he mene vät ne mene e "they go" loss of a number contrast on verbs in the 3rd person ( menee is 3rd person singular in the formal language) ( minä) o le n mä o o n "I am" or "I will be" and no pro-drop (i.e., personal pronouns are usually mandatory in
6100-446: The future status of Finnish in Sweden, for example, where reports produced for the Swedish government during 2017 show that minority language policies are not being respected, particularly for the 7% of Finns settled in the country. The Uralic family of languages, of which Finnish is a member, are hypothesized to derive from a single ancestor language termed Proto-Uralic , spoken sometime between 8,000 and 2,000 BCE (estimates vary) in
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#17327729300906200-461: The grammatical and phonological changes also include the most common pronouns and suffixes, which amount to frequent but modest differences. Some sound changes have been left out of the formal language. For example, irregular verbs have developed in the spoken language as a result of the elision of sonorants in some verbs of the Type III class (with subsequent vowel assimilation ), but only when
6300-470: The language, which he based on Swedish, German, and Latin. The Finnish standard language still relies on his innovations with regard to spelling, though Agricola used less systematic spelling than is used today. Though Agricola's intention was that each phoneme (and allophone under qualitative consonant gradation ) should correspond to one letter, he failed to achieve this goal in various respects. For example, k , c , and q were all used for
6400-506: The leader of the largest political party. The Government is composed of 11 ministries plus the Prime Minister's Office. Each ministry is led by at least one minister. Unlike the varying number and portfolios of ministers, the number and names of the ministries are fixed in law. All ministers sit in the Government. The Government itself proposes the number of ministers and their roles for the Parliament of Finland to confirm, and it
6500-467: The longstanding civil war . Since 1978, Sri Lanka transferred from parliamentary system to semi-presidential system, which the president has more executive power. Cohabitation does not occur within standard presidential systems . While a number of presidential democracies , such as the United States , have seen power shared between a president and legislature of different political parties, this
6600-415: The main cultural and political centres. The standard language, however, has always been a consciously constructed medium for literature. It preserves grammatical patterns that have mostly vanished from the colloquial varieties and, as its main application is writing, it features complex syntactic patterns that are not easy to handle when used in speech. The colloquial language develops significantly faster, and
6700-572: The majority of the members of parliament . It occurs because such a system forces the president to name a premier ( prime minister ) who will be acceptable to the majority party within parliament. Thus, cohabitation occurs because of the duality of the executive: an independently elected president and a prime minister who must be acceptable both to the president and to the legislature. Cohabitation took place in France in 1986–1988, 1993–1995, and 1997–2002. The president faced an opposition majority in
6800-558: The ministers. Its supreme powers are based on Section 3, Chapter 1 of the Constitution of Finland (and the subordinate Government Act of 2003): The governmental powers are exercised by the President of the Republic and the Government, the members of which shall have the confidence of the Parliament. The Government is led by the Prime Minister , considered practically the most powerful single office holder in Finland and often
6900-411: The modern-day eastern Finnish dialects, Veps, Karelian, and Ingrian) formed genitive plural nouns via plural stems (e.g., eastern Finnish kalojen < * kaloi -ten ), the western dialects of Proto-Finnic (today's Estonian, Livonian and western Finnish varieties) used the non-plural stems (e.g., Est. kalade < * kala -ten ). Another defining characteristic of the east–west split
7000-624: The most part, the dialects operate on the same phonology and grammar. There are only marginal examples of sounds or grammatical constructions specific to some dialect and not found in standard Finnish. Two examples are the voiced dental fricative found in the Rauma dialect , and the Eastern exessive case . The Southwest Finnish dialects ( lounaissuomalaismurteet ) are spoken in Southwest Finland and Satakunta . Their typical feature
7100-419: The need to improve the status of Finnish. Ever since the days of Mikael Agricola, written Finnish had been used almost exclusively in religious contexts, but now Snellman's Hegelian nationalistic ideas of Finnish as a fully-fledged national language gained considerable support. Concerted efforts were made to improve the status of the language and to modernize it, and by the end of the century Finnish had become
7200-483: The newly reelected Mitterrand called for new legislative elections that were won by a leftist majority, which lasted five years. In 1993, President Mitterrand found himself in a similar position when the right won an 80% majority in the National Assembly elections . Once again, he was forced to appoint an opposition member from the RPR and Union for French Democracy (UDF) parties. This time he appointed Édouard Balladur to
7300-410: The original constitution. While still seen as the symbol and embodiment of the nation, the president also was given a popular mandate. Of course, the majority party of the National Assembly retained power as well, but since the popularly elected president appointed the prime minister, the former was seen as having the upper hand in any conflict between executive and legislature. Furthermore, the imbalance
7400-453: The original pronunciation, still reflected in e.g. Karelian /čč : č/ ( meččä : mečän ). In the spoken language, a fusion of Western /tt : tt/ ( mettä : mettän ) and Eastern /ht : t/ ( mehtä : metän ) has resulted in /tt : t/ ( mettä : metän ). Neither of these forms are identifiable as, or originate from, a specific dialect. The orthography of informal language follows that of
7500-616: The other hand, is the main variety of Finnish used in popular TV and radio shows and at workplaces, and may be preferred to a dialect in personal communication. Standard Finnish is prescribed by the Language Office of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland and is the language used in official communication. The Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish ( Nykysuomen sanakirja 1951–61), with 201,000 entries,
7600-415: The period from 1986 to 2006, suggesting that French people no longer fear the prospect of having two parties share power. In 2000, at the initiative of prime minister Lionel Jospin and against the will of president Jacques Chirac , the term of a president was shortened from seven years to five years, a change accepted by a referendum . Furthermore, since 2002, legislative elections were now held roughly
7700-447: The phoneme / k / . Likewise, he alternated between dh and d to represent the allophonic [ ð ] (like th in English this ), between dh and z to represent / θː / (like th in thin , but longer in duration), and between gh and g to represent the allophonic [ ɣ ] . Agricola did not consistently represent vowel length in his orthography. Others revised Agricola's work later, striving for
7800-537: The post of prime minister, because Chirac was focused on running for president instead of being prime minister for the third time. Balladur maintained this post through the cohabitation until May 18, 1995 when Jacques Chirac took office as president. In 1995, rightist leader Jacques Chirac succeeded Mitterrand as president, and, since the right had a majority in the assembly, he was able to appoint his fellow RPR member Alain Juppé as his prime minister, ending cohabitation by
7900-466: The power to choose a prime minister to the parliament. Cohabitation has occurred frequently, as Finland has multiple powerful parties which are not highly polarized between left and right, and also since the terms of a parliament are shorter (four years) than the presidential terms (six years). Theoretically, the president should remain strictly non-partisan, and presidents have usually formally renounced party membership while in office. Georgia underwent
8000-460: The president can dissolve the Assembly and call for new elections mid-term, as Emmanuel Macron did in 2024, which could theoretically lead to a different party winning. The president could also die, be incapacitated, resign, or be impeached during his term, leading to a new presidential election. Cohabitation could result, although the new president would then be likely to call new assembly elections. The Constitution of Finland , as written in 1918,
8100-472: The president focused on his foreign duties and allowed Chirac to control internal affairs. Since Mitterrand was distanced from these policies, Chirac began to reverse many of Mitterrand's reforms by lowering taxes and privatising many national enterprises. There were however tense moments, such as when Mitterrand refused to sign ordonnances , slowing down reforms by requiring Chirac to pass his bills through parliament. This lasted for two years until 1988 when
8200-746: The region in the 18th and 19th centuries. Kven is an official minority language in Norway. The Eastern dialects consist of the widespread Savonian dialects ( savolaismurteet ) spoken in Savo and nearby areas, and the South-Eastern dialects now spoken only in Finnish South Karelia . The South Karelian dialects ( eteläkarjalaismurteet ) were previously also spoken on the Karelian Isthmus and in Ingria . The Karelian Isthmus
8300-401: The second syllable of the word is short. The result is that some forms in the spoken language are shortened, e.g. tule-n → tuu-n ('I come'), while others remain identical to the standard language hän tulee "he comes", never * hän tuu ). However, the longer forms such as tule can be used in spoken language in other forms as well. The literary language certainly still exerts
8400-636: The status of official minority languages, and thus can be considered distinct languages from Finnish. However, since these languages are mutually intelligible , one may alternatively view them as dialects of the same language . No language census exists for Norway, neither for Kven, standard Finnish, or combined. As of 2023, 7,454 first- or second-generation immigrants from Finland were registered as having Norwegian residency, while as of 2021, 235 Finns were registered as foreigners studying at Norwegian higher education. Great Norwegian Encyclopedia estimates Kven speakers at 2,000-8,000. Altogether, this results in
8500-465: The travel journal, the words are those of a Finnish bishop whose name is unknown. The erroneous use of gelen (Modern Finnish kielen ) in the accusative case, rather than kieltä in the partitive, and the lack of the conjunction mutta are typical of foreign speakers of Finnish even today. At the time, most priests in Finland spoke Swedish . During the Middle Ages, when Finland
8600-422: The two standard languages being not mutually intelligible. Finnish demonstrates an affiliation with other Uralic languages (such as Hungarian and Sami languages ) in several respects including: Several theories exist as to the geographic origin of Finnish and the other Uralic languages. The most widely held view is that they originated as a Proto-Uralic language somewhere in the boreal forest belt around
8700-499: The use of Finnish through parish clerk schools, the use of Swedish in church, and by having Swedish-speaking servants and maids move to Finnish-speaking areas. The first comprehensive writing system for Finnish was created by Mikael Agricola , a Finnish bishop, in the 16th century. He based his writing system on the western dialects . Agricola's ultimate plan was to translate the Bible , but first he had to develop an orthography for
8800-492: The vicinity of the Ural Mountains . Over time, Proto-Uralic split into various daughter languages , which themselves continued to change and diverge, yielding yet more descendants. One of these descendants is the reconstructed Proto-Finnic , from which the Finnic languages developed. Current models assume that three or more Proto-Finnic dialects evolved during the first millennium BCE. These dialects were defined geographically, and were distinguished from one another along
8900-626: The western dialects preferred by Agricola retained their preeminent role, while many originally dialect words from Eastern Finland were introduced to the standard language, thus enriching it considerably. The first novel written in Finnish (and by a Finnish speaker) was Seven Brothers ( Seitsemän veljestä ), published by Aleksis Kivi in 1870. The dialects of Finnish are divided into two distinct groups, Western and Eastern. The dialects are largely mutually intelligible and are distinguished from each other by changes in vowels, diphthongs and rhythm, as well as in preferred grammatical constructions. For
9000-403: The western parts of Lapland are recognizable by retention of old "h" sounds in positions where they have disappeared from other dialects. One form of speech related to Northern dialects, Meänkieli , which is spoken on the Swedish side of the border is recognized in Sweden as its own distinct language, having its own standardized language separate from Finnish. This form of speech developed from
9100-496: Was a prescriptive dictionary that defined official language. An additional volume for words of foreign origin ( Nykysuomen sivistyssanakirja , 30,000 entries) was published in 1991. An updated dictionary, The New Dictionary of Modern Finnish ( Kielitoimiston sanakirja ) was published in an electronic form in 2004 and in print in 2006. A descriptive grammar (the Large grammar of Finnish , Iso suomen kielioppi , 1,600 pages)
9200-684: Was a major political conflict between Prime Minister Victor Ponta of the Social Democratic Party and the centre-right President Traian Băsescu , after the former was asked to form a government in May 2012. The dispute degenerated into civil disobedience and alleged democratic backsliding , lasting until the two sides signed an agreement on institutional cohabitation in December. There have been six periods of cohabitation in Romania, involving two presidents and five prime ministers. In
9300-529: Was an unspoken agreement upon the establishment of the office that the prime minister would be appointed from the majority party in the Legislative Council . This arrangement led to a period of cohabitation after the 2006 legislative election , in which Fatah President Mahmoud Abbas appointed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh prime minister after Hamas' victory in the elections. The cohabitation did not last long, however, as funds were withheld from
9400-422: Was constrained and he had no say over certain major reforms being instituted by the left-wing majority. This included the 1998 legislation to shorten the working week from 39 to 35 hours, which came into effect in 2000. Arend Lijphart contends that the French Fifth Republic usually operates under a presidential system , but when in cohabitation, this effectively changes, at least in terms of domestic policy, to
9500-525: Was evacuated during World War II and refugees were resettled all over Finland. Most Ingrian Finns were deported to various interior areas of the Soviet Union. Palatalization , a common feature of Uralic languages, had been lost in the Finnic branch, but it has been reacquired by most of these languages, including Eastern Finnish, but not Western Finnish. In Finnish orthography, this is denoted with
9600-410: Was forced to appoint Socialist Lionel Jospin to the premiership. Jospin remained prime minister until the elections of 2002, making this third term of cohabitation the longest ever, one of five years. Chirac called this a state of 'paralysis', and found it particularly difficult to arrange campaign activities for the National Assembly. With Jospin holding the premiership, Chirac's political influence
9700-412: Was originally similar to the French system of 40 years later. It included explicit provisions that the president focuses on national security and international relations. The arrangement was a compromise between monarchists and parliamentarians. In essence, a strong presidency was adopted instead of a constitutional monarchy . The new constitution of 2000 reduced the power of the president by transferring
9800-545: Was published in 2004. There is also an etymological dictionary, Suomen sanojen alkuperä , published in 1992–2000, and a handbook of contemporary language ( Nykysuomen käsikirja ). Standard Finnish is used in official texts and is the form of language taught in schools. Its spoken form is used in political speech, newscasts, in courts, and in other formal situations. Nearly all publishing and printed works are in standard Finnish. The colloquial language has mostly developed naturally from earlier forms of Finnish, and spread from
9900-543: Was the use of the reflexive suffix -(t)te , used only in the eastern dialects. The birch bark letter 292 from the early 13th century is the first known document in any Finnic language . The first known written example of Finnish itself is found in a German travel journal dating back to c. 1450 : Mÿnna tachton gernast spuho sommen gelen Emÿna daÿda (Modern Finnish: " Minä tahdon kernaasti puhua suomen kielen, [mutta] en minä taida; " English: "I want to speak Finnish, [but] I am not able to"). According to
10000-562: Was under Swedish rule , Finnish was only spoken . At the time, the language of international commerce was Middle Low German , the language of administration Swedish , and religious ceremonies were held in Latin . This meant that Finnish speakers could use their mother tongue only in everyday life. Finnish was considered inferior to Swedish, and Finnish speakers were second-class members of society because they could not use their language in any official situations. There were even efforts to reduce
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