111-705: The University of Helsinki ( Finnish : Helsingin yliopisto , Swedish : Helsingfors universitet ; UH ) is a public university in Helsinki , Finland . The university was founded in Turku in 1640 as the Royal Academy of Åbo under the Swedish Empire , and moved to Helsinki in 1828 under the sponsorship of Tsar Alexander I . The University of Helsinki is the oldest and largest university in Finland with
222-577: A de facto third language of instruction. It is a member of various prominent international university networks, such as Europaeum , UNICA , the Utrecht Network , and is a founding member of the League of European Research Universities . The university has also received international financial support for global welfare; for example, in September 2021, the U.S. Department of Defense provided
333-761: A language decree from the Emperor that would gradually give Finns a position equal to that of the Swedish within the Finnish government. In practical terms it meant the re-establishment of the Parliament, which had remained inhibited since the Russian conquest. A separate Finnish currency , the Markka , was introduced in 1860, and Snellman managed to tie it to silver instead of to the ruble . The Markka came to be of
444-764: 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
555-476: A 1960 coin, commemorating the introduction of the markka denomination in 1860. He was recently selected as the main motif for another commemorative coin, the €10 Johan Vilhelm Snellman commemorative coin , minted in 2006 celebrating the 200th anniversary of his birth. The obverse depicts J.V. Snellman. It also depicts the logo of the Europe Coins Programme. The reverse design features represent
666-671: A Grand Duchy, a state ruled by the Russian Empire from 1809 to 1917. When Grand Duchy of Finland was established in 1809, the Grand Duke Alexander I expanded the university and allocated substantial funds to it. Following the Great Fire of Turku in 1827, higher education within the country was moved to Helsinki, the new administrative heart and the capital of the Grand Duchy of Finland, in 1828, and renamed
777-473: 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
888-528: A historic region or province of Finland, with four of these representing Swedish-speaking regions. Membership is optional. The chancellor is the highest representative of the University of Helsinki. He is elected by the college, the highest body of staff representation at the university. According to the University Act, the chancellor's task is to promote the sciences and monitor the interests of
999-405: 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
1110-475: 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
1221-490: A multidisciplinary science community of more than 6,500 students and 1,600 teachers, a residential area emphasising ecological values and the natural surroundings, including recreational areas and nature reserves, and forms a unique whole. The campus also has the Viikinlahti conservation area, which is particularly popular among bird watchers. The National Library of Finland is the foremost research library in Finland and
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#17327731231651332-571: A national service and development centre for the library sector and promotes national and international cooperation in the field. The Main Library of the university is used by students for research and studying. Located a few blocks down the street from the university's main building in the city center, the new Main Library was opened in 2012 in the Kaisa House. The new library merged the undergraduate library and four dispersed faculty libraries of
1443-445: 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
1554-628: 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 a few minority languages spoken around the Baltic Sea and in Russia's Republic of Karelia . The closest relative of Finnish
1665-616: A square named after the Finnish Nobel prize winner, A. I. Virtanen. Kumpula Campus Library is also located in the Physicum. The Kumpula Sports Centre is planned for the recreational use of both university staff and students and citizens of Helsinki alike. Completed in 2004, the Exactum provides facilities for seismology, computer science and mathematical subjects, as well as administrative services. The campus comprises two main parts:
1776-440: 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
1887-400: A year later. Snellman was educated at the Royal Academy of Turku from 1822, where he studied theology as well as history, Greek, Latin and world literature, as well as a little bit of physics and other natural sciences. While studying at the academy, Snellman also received permanent national romantic influences, but he differed from the romantics in that he was interested in the future and
1998-485: Is a part of the city, in line with the old university tradition. The university facilities still form a functional and coherent whole, consisting not only of historically valuable buildings, but also of facilities for 20,000 students and 3,000 teachers and other staff. The Kumpula Campus , housing the Faculty of Science, is located four kilometers north from the centre of Helsinki near tram lines 6 and 8. The campus houses
2109-441: Is a research institution under the University of Helsinki. It is responsible for the national botanical, zoological, geological and paleontological collections consisting of samples from around the world. The collections serve scientific, public informational and educational purposes. The Student Union of the University of Helsinki ( Helsingin yliopiston ylioppilaskunta , HYY) was founded in 1868. It currently has 32,000 members and
2220-508: 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
2331-560: Is another independent institute within the University of Helsinki, an Institute for Advanced Study , which is modeled upon the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey . Previous directors include Raimo Väyrynen (2002–2004) and Juha Sihvola (2004–2009). University of Helsinki is ranked at 101-150st in the world by the 2023 Academic Ranking of World Universities published by Shanghai Jiao Tong University . According to
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#17327731231652442-540: Is divided into eleven faculties. They are listed below in the official order used by the university, reflecting both the history of the university and the hierarchy of disciplines at the time when the university was established: The university also has several independent institutes, such as research centres and libraries, the most notable of which are perhaps the National Library of Finland and Helsinki University Library . Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies
2553-514: 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 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
2664-720: Is known as Dynamicum. The Meilahti Campus , with the Faculty of Medicine, is a part of the Meilahti Hospital District on the edge of the city centre. Just a few kilometres from the City Centre Campus, the Meilahti area has been transformed into a cradle of top research on medicine, 'Medilahti'. Established in the 1930s, the Women's Clinic was accompanied by Finland's leading hospital, Helsinki University Central Hospital (HUCH) in 1966. The same year saw
2775-514: Is located in the semi-suburban greenspace of the Viikki area, some 8 kilometres north-east of the city centre. It houses the Faculties of Agriculture and Forestry, Biosciences, Veterinary Medicine and Pharmacy. It is an important concentration in the field of biosciences, even by European standards. Indeed, it is often called the bioscience campus or the "green campus". In addition to biosciences,
2886-631: 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, 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
2997-499: Is one of the world's wealthiest student organizations, with assets of several hundred million euros . Among other things, it owns a good deal of property in the city centre of Helsinki. The union has been at the centre of student politics from the 19th Century nationalist movements, through the actions of the New Left in the 1960s, up to the present. Its governing assembly consists of parties which are connected to faculty organisations,
3108-609: 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
3219-746: 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
3330-674: Is the administrative heart of the University of Helsinki and has the largest concentration of faculties in Helsinki. After the Great Fire of Turku in 1827, Emperor Nicholas I ordered the Royal Academy of Turku be moved to the new capital city of the Grand Duchy of Finland, Helsinki, where the Imperial Alexander University in Finland began to operate the next year. Helsinki was to become Finland's window to
3441-499: The Continuation War the university was heavily damaged by bombs during a soviet air raid on 27 February 1944. After World War II, university research focused on improving Finnish living conditions and supporting major changes in the structure of society and business. The university also contributed to the breakthrough of modern technology. The progress of scientific development created many new disciplines and faculties at
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3552-668: 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
3663-520: The Imperial Alexander University in Finland in honour of the late benefactor of the university. In the capital the primary task of the university was to educate the Grand Duchy's civil servants. The university became a community subscribing to the new Humboldtian ideals of science and culture, studying humanity and its living environment by means of scientific methods. The new statutes of the university enacted in 1828 defined
3774-560: The Student Nations , and the mainstream political parties . The student nations are student organisations that provide extra-curricular activities to students. Along with the faculty-based organisations, the nations provide one of the main nodes of student social life. The nations at University of Helsinki have a special legal status in the Universities Act. There are 15 nations at the university, each one representing
3885-573: The Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2023, the University of Helsinki is ranked at 121st overall in the world. In 2024 THE–QS World University Rankings list, the University of Helsinki was ranked 115th. The University of Helsinki offers a wide range of master's degree programmes, taught entirely in English. The scope of the programmes is 120 ECTS credits , completed with two years of full-time study. Some programmes are organised by
3996-483: The University of Helsinki . Once Finland declared its full independence in 1917, the university was given a crucial role in building the nation state and, after World War II , the welfare state. Members of the academic community promoted the international relations of the new state and the development of its economic life. Furthermore, they were actively involved in national politics and the struggle for equality. In
4107-400: The interwar period the university was the scene of a conflict between those who wanted to advance the usage of Finnish language in the university, to the detriment of Swedish and those who opposed such move. Geographer Väinö Tanner was one of the most vocal defenders of Swedish language usage. Swedish People's Party of Finland initiated a campaign collecting 153 914 signatures in defense of
4218-444: 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 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
4329-513: 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
4440-536: The 1830s–1840s, accumulate too much resistance and aversion to his person and his policies. In 1868 he was forced to resign from the senate. For the remainder of his life, he continued to participate in the political debate, and now ennobled he belonged to the Nobles' Chamber of the parliament. Snellman never lost his popularity among his Fennoman followers, but he had become a highly divisive symbol in Finland's political landscape. Johan Vilhelm Snellman first appeared on
4551-489: The Botanical Garden, surrounding the old building stock of Kumpula manor and the modern new building stock located a couple of hundred metres north of the manor. The greenness of the area makes the dynamic campus stand out as a unique, distinctive complex. The campus offers study and research facilities for 6,000 students and 1,000 teachers. The Finnish Meteorological Institute moved to the area in 2005. That building
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4662-480: The Department of Dentistry, Institute for Oral Health, Department of Public Health and Department of Forensic Medicine, also belong to the Meilahti campus. The Meilahti and Ruskeasuo areas form a close-knit complex providing a meeting place for medical education, international top-level research and nursing. The campus is a workplace for 2,000 students and 1,500 teachers. Thanks to the years-long project to combine
4773-647: The Departments of Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Statistics, Computer Science, and Geosciences and Geography. The university departments were located in Kumpula for the first time in 1978 when the City of Helsinki leased the area for the university. A planning competition for the city plan for the area was held a year earlier. In the 1980s, the Accelerator Laboratory of the Department of Physics
4884-462: The Faculties of Theology, Law, Arts, Behavioural Sciences and Social Sciences plus administrative functions. Most of the buildings on the campus have a major architectural significance ranging from the dominating Neo-Classical, through the Jugendstil, to 20th century Modernism. The City Centre Campus, extending around the historical centre of Helsinki, Senate Square, and Kruununhaka city district,
4995-760: The Finnish Museum of Natural History, returned to its original location in the Arppeanum building. Each year the museum also holds one or two temporary exhibitions in a specially designed area. Museums exhibition in Arppeanum Building was closed in June 2014. New main exhibition was opened in the Main Building in March 2015. The University Museum is in charge of the preservation and conservation of
5106-458: 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
5217-537: The Swedish language that were handed to the parliament and government in October 1934. On an international front academics from Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Iceland sent letters to the diplomatic representations of Finland in their respective countries warning about a weakening of the Nordic unity that would result from diminishing the role of Swedish in the University of Helsinki. In the 20th century, scholarly research at
5328-694: 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
5439-750: The University Main Building in 2015. Helsinki University Museum was established in 2003 by merging the former University Museum specialising in the history of the University of Helsinki, the Museum of Medical History, the Museum of the History of Veterinary Medicine, the Museum of the History of Dentistry and the Collections of Craft Science. To complement the new conglomeration of museums, the Mineral Cabinet, which today belongs to
5550-410: The University of Helsinki along with other Finnish and foreign universities. All programmes comply with the national legislation governing university education and are, therefore, recognised globally. Research institutes within the university include the following: The university is located on four main campuses . Originally, the entire university was located in the very centre of Helsinki, but due to
5661-706: The University of Helsinki reached the level of the European elite in many disciplines. This was manifested, among other things, by international recognitions granted to its professors, such as the Fields Medal received by the mathematician Lars Ahlfors (1936), the Nobel Prize in Chemistry granted to Professor A.I. Virtanen (1945) and the Nobel Prize in Medicine shared by Professor Ragnar Granit (1967). In
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#17327731231655772-411: The University of Helsinki. At present the university comprises 11 faculties, 500 professors and almost 40,000 students. The university has established as its goal to further its position as one of Europe's top multidisciplinary research universities. In March 2014, two people were arrested and in June 2014 sentenced to prison for three years for plotting a mass murder at the university. The university
5883-414: The Viikki Science Library. It also attracts an increasing number of businesses to the Helsinki Business and Science Park. The Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute and the Finnish Food Safety Authority, Evira, have also moved to Viikki and negotiations are under way to relocate MTT Agrifood Research Finland to Viikki to complement the Department of Economics and Management. The Viikki Campus unites
5994-441: The activities of the university. The university became a major center of Finnish cultural, political, and legal life in 19th century Finland, and became a remarkable primum mobile of the nationalist and liberal cultural movements, political parties, and student organisations. In the 19th century university research changed from being collection-centred to being experimental, empirical, and analytical. The more scientific approach of
6105-474: 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
6216-457: The campus is home to a wide range of other life science researchers and students in such fields as environmental science, veterinary medicine, food research and economics. Numerous international research groups also work on the Viikki Campus. The Viikki Campus is the location of four faculties, three independent research institutes (Institute of Biotechnology (BI), Natural Resources Institute Finland (LUKE) and Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE)) and
6327-419: The campus were also designed by Engel. The main building as well as other buildings of the campus were badly damaged during the Soviet bombings in World War II but rebuilt after the war. The plan concerning the concentration of university facilities dating back to the 1980s, aimed to achieve a closer unity between facilities. The City Centre Campus does not stand out from the rest of the urban environment but
6438-452: The case of bachelor's degrees, and by prior degree results, in the case of master and postgraduate degrees. The university is bilingual, with teaching by law provided both in Finnish and Swedish. Since Swedish, albeit an official language of Finland, is a minority language, Finnish is by far the dominating language at the university. Teaching in English is extensive throughout the university at master, licentiate, and doctoral levels, making it
6549-405: The city center campus to a collection of approximately 1.5 million books. The architecture of the new building, designed by Anttinen Oiva Architects, has been praised and received several awards. The Helsinki University Museum is the museum of the University of Helsinki and was located until June 2014 on Snellmanninkatu off the north-east corner of Senate Square. Museums main exhibition moved to
6660-448: 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 ) Johan Vilhelm Snellman Johan Vilhelm Snellman ( Swedish pronunciation: [ˈjuːhɑn ˈvilːhelm ˈsnelːmɑn] ; 12 May 1806 – 4 July 1881) was an influential Fennoman philosopher and Finnish statesman , ennobled in 1866. He
6771-513: The completion of facilities for theoretical subject departments on Haartmaninkatu street. The building is now being renovated and extended. The latest completed facilities in the campus include the National Library of Health Sciences (Terkko) and the research and teaching centre Biomedicum that houses several research institutes including the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM), Neuroscience Center (NC), and Minerva Foundation Institute for Medical Research. The Ruskeasuo premises, including
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#17327731231656882-404: 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
6993-429: The dawn of Finnish culture. A park in Kuopio called the Snellman Park ( Snellmaninpuisto ) has been named after J. V. Snellman; it was formerly known as the former location of the Kuopio Market Square . In the middle of the park, a bust of J. V. Snellman sculpted by Johannes Takanen was unveiled on July 3, 1886. Snellman's birthday on May 12 is dedicated to him and it has become one of Finland's flag days , known as
7104-478: 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
7215-445: 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
7326-551: 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
7437-446: 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
7548-587: 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 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
7659-406: 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
7770-465: The hypothesis of 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
7881-470: 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
7992-434: The main branch of the University of Helsinki's library system. The National Library of Finland is the oldest and largest scholarly library in Finland as well as one of the largest independent institutes at the University of Helsinki. It is responsible for the collection, description, preservation and accessibility of Finland's printed national heritage and the unique collections under its care. The National Library also serves as
8103-415: 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
8214-411: 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
8325-624: 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
8436-419: 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
8547-453: 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
8658-616: 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,
8769-447: 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
8880-553: The political juncture did not allow the university to employ him. Instead, he took up the position as headmaster for a school in distant Kuopio and published starkly polemical periodicals, including the paper Saima in Swedish , which advocated the duty of the educated classes to take up the language of the then circa 85% majority of Finns, and develop Finnish into a language of the civilized world, useful for academic works, fine arts, state craft, and nation building . Saima
8991-401: The rapid growth of the university since the 1930s, premises have been built and acquired in other areas. The historical City Centre Campus has been the hub of activity ever since the university moved from Turku to Helsinki in the early 19th century. The campus has a central location and reflects the architectural style of this part of the city. The university buildings in the city center house
9102-746: 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
9213-401: 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
9324-575: The senior part of the school formed the core of the new university, while the junior year courses formed a grammar school. It was the third university founded in the Swedish Empire , following Uppsala University and the Academia Gustaviana in Dorpat (predecessor to the University of Tartu in Estonia ). The second period of the university's history covers the period when Finland was
9435-475: The spiritual activity of nations instead of history. He settled in Helsinki in 1828 when the university was moved there, after the Great Fire of Turku earlier that year. In 1835, after academic work amongst followers of Hegel , Snellman was appointed lecturer at the University of Helsinki , where he belonged to the famous circle of Cygnaeus , Lönnrot , and Runeberg comprising the brightest of their generation. Snellman's lectures quickly became popular with
9546-636: 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
9657-464: The students, but in November 1838 his lectureship was temporarily recalled after a judicial proceeding that ultimately aimed to establish firm governmental control of new and oppositional thought among the academics. As a consequence, Snellman exiled himself to Sweden and Germany, more or less voluntarily, from 1839 to 1842. By the time he returned to Helsinki, his popularity had increased further, but
9768-617: The task of the university as promoting the development of "the Sciences and Humanities within Finland and, furthermore, educating the youth for the service of the Emperor and the Fatherland". The Alexander University was a centre of national life that promoted the birth of a fully independent Finnish State and the development of Finnish identity. The great men of 19th century Finland, Johan Vilhelm Snellman , Johan Ludvig Runeberg , Elias Lönnrot and Zachris Topelius , were all involved in
9879-408: The teaching facilities of the Faculty of Medicine, Meilahti is now a functional unity of medicine and health care. The atmosphere in the campus inspires people in their studies, research and international co-operation. Although the Meilahti campus is intertwined with the rest of Meilahti district, it succeeds in forming a clear-cut campus area with its hospital-type building stock. The Viikki Campus
9990-465: 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
10101-413: The university led to specialisation and created new disciplines. As the scientific disciplines developed, Finland received ever more scholarly knowledge and highly educated people, some of whom entered rapidly evolving industry or the government. The third period of the university's history began with the creation of a fully independent Republic of Finland in 1917, and with the renaming of the university as
10212-500: The university with more than four million euros in funding for the treatment of MYC genes and breast cancer . The first predecessor of the university, The Cathedral School of Åbo , was presumably founded in 1276 for education of boys to become servants of the Church. As the university was founded in 1640 by Queen Christina of Sweden (1626–1689) in Turku (Sw. Åbo), as the Åbo Kungliga Akademi ( Latin : Regia Academia Aboensis ),
10323-418: The university's valuable museum collections and property: old tuition and research equipment, furniture and works of art. The museum maintains an index register of all valuables that are kept in the facilities of the university. The museum also provides library, archive and photographic services pertaining to the history of the university and the history of medical science. The Finnish Museum of Natural History
10434-564: The university. The chancellor has the right to attend meetings of the Government of Finland on matters concerning the University of Helsinki. Finnish language Finnish ( endonym : suomi [ˈsuo̯mi] or suomen kieli [ˈsuo̯meŋ ˈkie̯li] ) 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
10545-499: 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
10656-453: The utmost value for Finland. Snellman's tenure as Finance Minister would be tainted by the Finnish famine of 1866–1868 , aggravated by the government's strict fiscal policy , but Snellman worked to get aid while trying to protect the new currency. Snellman's inflexibility and high profile position in the political debate would however, together with his old reputation as radical agitator of
10767-555: 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
10878-626: 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
10989-403: 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
11100-528: The widest range of disciplines available. In 2022, around 31,000 students were enrolled in the degree programs of the university spread across 11 faculties and 11 research institutes. As of 1 August 2005, the university complies with the harmonized structure of the Europe-wide Bologna Process and offers bachelor, master, licenciate , and doctoral degrees . Admission to degree programmes is usually determined by entrance examinations, in
11211-487: The world; a European city to which the university belonged as an integral part. Carl Ludvig Engel , architect, was given the assignment of designing an Empire-style main building next to Senate Square, facing the Imperial Senate. The main building was completed in 1832. Thanks to the lessons learnt from the fire of Turku, the library was built separate from other premises. The library and several faculty buildings in
11322-496: 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)
11433-525: 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
11544-402: Was finally appointed professor, which was met with great satisfaction among politically interested Finns. However, Snellman's unparalleled popularity could not remain. He was a generation older than the most active political opposition, and now backed a government which had the brightest expectations for Finland under the rule of Emperor Alexander II . The language strife in Finland , of which he
11655-668: Was one of the most important 'awakeners' or promoters of Finnish nationalism, alongside Elias Lönnrot and J. L. Runeberg . Snellman was born in Stockholm, Sweden , the son of Kristian Henrik Snellman, a ship's captain. After the Russian conquest of Finland in 1808–09, and the promising establishment of the semi-autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland , his family moved there in 1813, to the Ostrobothnian coastal town of Kokkola . His mother Maria Magdalena Snellman died there only
11766-545: 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
11877-573: Was quarried into Kumpula rock and the construction of Kumpula Botanical Garden began in 1987. It was not, however, until the 1990s when the construction work proper began, transforming the area into a significant campus. The Chemicum, the building housing the Department of Chemistry and VERIFIN (Finnish Institute for Verification of the Chemical Weapons Convention), and the Physicum, which provides facilities for physics, geology and geography are located on Kumpula campus surrounding
11988-701: Was suppressed by the government in 1846. In 1848–49, Snellman was again rebuffed when applying for the position of professor at Finland's University in Helsinki. After having contemplated a renewed exile in Sweden, this time possibly definitive, Snellman in 1850 gave up the position in Kuopio and moved to Helsinki, where he and his family lived under economically awkward conditions until the death of Emperor Nicholas in 1855. Then it again became possible for Snellman to publish periodical papers on political issues. He had married Johanna Lovisa Wennberg in 1845, and they had five children before her death in 1857. In 1856, Snellman
12099-671: Was the chief initiator, contributed also to substantial opposition against him and his views. Finally and not least, his stance against the Polish rebels of the January Uprising of 1863 was seen by many as the ultimate sign of unprincipled ingratiation. In 1863 Snellman was called to a cabinet post in the Senate of Finland , in effect as Chancellor of the Exchequer, where he became an energetic and valued senator. He accomplished
12210-543: 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
12321-562: 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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