105-461: VR-Group Plc ( Finnish : VR-Yhtymä Oyj , Swedish : VR-Group Abp ), commonly known as VR , is a government-owned railway company in Finland . VR's most important function is the operation of Finland's passenger rail services with 250 long-distance and 800 commuter rail services every day. With 7,500 employees and net sales of €1,251 million in 2017, VR is one of the most significant operators in
210-819: 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
315-612: 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
420-525: A blue stripe above the windows. VR operates sleeper services between Helsinki/Turku and Lapland , which also include car-carrying ( motorail ) wagons. Double-deck sleeping carriages (including rooms with en suite showers and toilets) were introduced on the Helsinki– Rovaniemi service in the 2000s. These wagons are painted in a green-and-white livery similar to the InterCity coaches. Since 2016,
525-473: 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
630-518: 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
735-460: 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
840-567: A monopoly in rail transport. In 1995 the company went through a process of corporatization to become the VR Group. Since 2010, the maintenance and the construction of the railway network have been the responsibility of the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency ( Finnish : Väylävirasto ). The operation and network were originally carried out by the parent company Valtionrautatiet until 1995, when it
945-475: 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
1050-488: A new diesel generator car supplying 1 500 V electricity for the sleeper cars between Rovaniemi and Kemijärvi; this setup was continued in use until the electrification extension to Kemijärvi was completed at the end of 2013. Sleeper services between Turku and Joensuu and Helsinki and Kajaani were withdrawn in 2006, but with the new direct line between Lahti and Kerava , the daytime services were made quicker. On 12 January 2009, VR announced they had requested tenders for
1155-445: 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
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#17327809172461260-566: A revamped bikeshare system, this time spanning 1,500 bikes and 150 stations. The expanded bike program brought the service to Munkkiniemi , Pasila , and Vallila . In addition to having 1,400 bikes and 140 stations in Helsinki, the service covered Matinkylä and Olari in Espoo with 100 bikes and 10 stations. The 2018 season saw a further-expanded network, with a total of 2,200 bikes at 220 stations, of which 70 are located in Espoo. The season fare
1365-555: 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
1470-440: 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
1575-706: A total of about 14,400 people. Because in most parts of Finland the density of population is low, Finland is not optimally suited for railways. Commuter services are nowadays rare outside the Helsinki area, but express trains interconnect most cities. As in France , the majority of passenger services are connections to the capital, Helsinki. In the 2010s, VR has made connections faster by reducing stops at minor stations and increasing running speeds with new locomotives and renovated high-speed trains. VR provides motorail services. Cars can be loaded onto and unloaded from trains at seven stations: Helsinki , Turku and Tampere in
1680-405: A travel card or from HSL's vending machines or mobile application. Additionally, single and day tickets may be bought aboard buses from the driver. HSL controls the sale and inspection of transit tickets. Apart from the bus network, all of HSL's services use a proof-of-payment system: there are no gates at metro and commuter rail stations or tram stops. Instead, passengers are required to present
1785-456: A user could use to travel from any of the 50 stations to another. The bikeshare system is a joint venture between CityBike Finland, HKL, and HSL. The system is sponsored by HOK-Elanto 's grocery shop chain Alepa , which has purchased the commercial space on the bicycles. Due to this, the bicycles are colloquially known as alepapyörät ( ”Alepa bikes” ). In late 2016 HSL announced the details of
1890-459: A valid ticket to fare inspectors, who randomly patrol the network. If caught without a valid ticket, a passenger must pay a fine of €100 in addition to the full price of the ticket. HSL is owned by the cities of Helsinki , Espoo , Vantaa , Kerava , and Kauniainen and the municipalities of Kirkkonummi and Sipoo . In 2017, Tuusula and Siuntio voted to join HSL. The other municipalities in
1995-437: 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,
2100-508: 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
2205-523: Is located at the Iso Paja [ fi ] building, previously occupied by the state-owned broadcasting company Yle , in northern-central Helsinki . Rail transport started in Finland in 1862 between Helsinki and Hämeenlinna, and multiple main lines and smaller private railways were built in the following decades. VR mainly operated on the high-demand main lines. During the twentieth century, most private railway companies were shut down and VR assumed
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#17327809172462310-664: 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
2415-746: 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
2520-629: 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
2625-557: Is the VR's "flagship", mainly connecting largest cities to the capital with top running speed up to 220 km/h. Other EMUs in use are the Sm2 and Sm4 on commuter rail services . In addition, VR operates Pääkaupunkiseudun Junakalusto Oy -owned Sm5 class EMUs in Helsinki local traffic . VR currently operates one class of diesel-powered multiple units: the Czech -built single carriage Dm12 , which
2730-807: Is the most far-reaching; it serves the northern, north-eastern, and western suburbs of the city, as well as Helsinki Airport in Vantaa. Trams in Helsinki are operated by HKL . Helsinki was the only Finnish city with tram service in use from 1972, when tram services in Turku ended, until 2021, when the Tampere light rail was opened. Tram service in Helsinki began in 1891. HSL offers three types of bus service: standard buses, neighbourhood buses and nine small headway crosstown lines ("runkolinja", literally: trunk lines). HSL tickets are also valid on most U-routes which are run by separate companies and serve cities outside of
2835-548: Is used mainly on secondary lines. The multiple unit classification system follows a similar logic as the locomotive classification system: the first letter signifies the power source (in addition to electric and diesel, gasoline ( B , bensiini ) and wood gas ( P , puukaasu ) have been used), followed by the letter m ( moottorivaunu ) signifyng a multiple unit, followed by a serial number. In July 2022, VR Group established operations in Sweden by acquiring Arriva Sverige AB from
2940-472: Is used to allow more seats for the same train length. The last wooden-bodied carriages were withdrawn by the mid-1980s. Prior to the 1970s these had been the mainstay of VR's passenger rolling stock. VR has three types of locomotive hauled passenger coaches: In addition to these, VR has ordered 12+13 Class Edo control cars from Transtech, eight of which have been in regular passenger traffic since 29 October 2013. The cars are used in InterCity connections with
3045-615: 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
3150-535: The Greater Helsinki area ( Järvenpää , Nurmijärvi , Mäntsälä , Pornainen , Hyvinkää , and Vihti ) have the possibility of joining HSL in the future. About 1.3 million people live in the 14 municipalities of Greater Helsinki and the population is estimated to increase to approximately 1.5 million by the year 2030. HSL's office is located in Opastinsilta 6 A, Helsinki. After the founding of HSL,
3255-565: The Länsimetro expansion program extended the metro lines west to Lauttasaari and southern Espoo , serving eight new stations. The second phase of the extension opened in December 2022. At that time, the total number of metro stations on the line increased from 25 to 30. Commuter rail service in the region is operated by VR . There are 52 stations in the network, which are served by 15 lines. Out of HSL's three rail networks, commuter rail
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3360-631: The Russian invasion of Ukraine , VR operated jointly with Russian Railways a passenger rail service named Allegro between Helsinki and Saint Petersburg . However due to sanctions imposed on Russia as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine , all passenger rail traffic between Finland and Russia has been suspended in March 2022, and the rolling stock has since been parked. These trains were in late 2023 taken over by VR, and are planned to be used in domestic traffic in Finland beginning 2025. If and when
3465-532: 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
3570-457: The Vectron and will replace the aging Sr1. The locomotives will be fitted with helper diesel engines that can be used for shunting in partly unelectrified railyards. Deliveries will occur between 2017 and 2026. At the beginning of traffic, locomotives were distinguished by their names, and by 1865 also by their numbers. In 1887, the locomotives were given their original classification system. It
3675-513: 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
3780-640: The European Union. Road trailers (often of VR's subsidiary Transpoint) can be easily accommodated on ordinary flat wagons. Much of the freight on the VR network is carried from Russia in Russian wagons, including large capacity eight-axle oil tank wagons. VR also has a one-third ownership of SeaRail , a specialist operator of freight wagons designed for through running (via ferry) to Sweden and elsewhere in Western Europe. The Sm3 class Pendolino
3885-458: 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
3990-535: The Finnish public transport market area. VR was created in 1995 after being known as Swedish : Finska Statsjärnvägarna , Finnish: Suomen Valtion Rautatiet (Finnish State Railways) from 1862 to 1922, and Valtionrautatiet ('State Railways', Swedish : Statsjärnvägarna ) from 1922 to 1995. As part of the concern, Avecra is a subsidiary for onboard catering service, Pohjolan Liikenne for bus traffic, VR Track for developing and maintaining of infrastructure and VR Transpoint for freight. Since 2017, its headquarters
4095-678: The German state-owned company Deutsche Bahn . As part of this acquisition, which was finalised on 1st July 2022, VR Group gained control over extensive local and regional public transportation operations, including bus, tram and train services in Stockholm , Östergötland , and Skåne , including Skånetrafiken's Pågatåg . This acquisition brought approximately 2,300 employees into the VR Group. The acquired operations include 740 buses, 180 trains, and 70 trams, facilitating around 58 million bus journeys and 54 million train journeys annually. Following
4200-406: The HSL area. A ferry to Suomenlinna is part of the HSL network. This route is operated on two ferries, Suokki and Suomenlinna II . In 2016 HSL launched Helsinki's bikeshare program. Starting on 2 May 2016, users could register to use the network for a day fee of €5, a week fee of €10 or the entire season from May to the end of October for €25. The initial network included 500 bikes, one of which
4305-513: The HSL mobile app. Student status would be automatically verified through the Ministry of Education's Koski service. Students whose information is not found in the Koski service, such as students of folk high schools, would be able to receive discounts on physical fare cards. HSL's decision was appealed to the administrative court, as receiving the student discount would require owning a smartphone if
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4410-525: The Hr11 class becoming Dr11. In addition to this the borderline between midweight and heavy locomotives was changed to 15.1 tons and the second letter in multiple units is always m (for moottorivaunu ). The wide Finnish loading gauge allows the passenger coaches to be considerably wider than most European passenger coaches. The aisle and seats are wider than in other European trains in the standard 2+2 configuration, and in commuter traffic 3+2 seat configuration
4515-491: The Nordic countries. In August 2021 VR began operating the Tampere light rail . In March 2022, VR acquired the Swedish bus and rail company Arriva Sverige, which operates urban transport in Stockholm and regional transport in southern and southeastern Sweden. Arriva Sverige was part of Arriva and owned by Deutsche Bahn . Following the acquisition, it was announced that Arriva Sverige would become an independent company within
4620-454: The Russian border but there is also a connection to the Swedish rail network through Tornio . Train ferry connections from Turku to Stockholm , Sweden, and to Travemünde , Germany have previously existed. VR operated steam locomotives until 1975. Although the regular use of steam traction for scheduled passenger services ended in 1970, occasional use continued until 1975. As of 2011,
4725-565: The Sr2 and the upcoming Sr3 locomotives pushing the train. First class, or Extra as VR calls it, is marked with Extra signs outside of the coaches on InterCity trains. Even restaurant coaches are marked similarly. On the "Blue" carriages, first class used to be distinguished by a yellow stripe above the windows and restaurant cars by a red stripe. Cars equipped with diesel generators, which are used to provide electricity to InterCity or sleeper wagons on non-electrified tracks, can be distinguished by
4830-694: 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
4935-401: The VR Group. VR operates the commuter traffic in the Helsinki area on behalf of HSL and its own commuter rail services in southern Finland . There are plans to open a new passenger rail service between Finland and Sweden in the end of 2024, between Haparanda in northern Sweden and Helsinki . The cross-border railway will be electrified according to Finnish standards by then. Before
5040-557: The acquisition, Arriva Sverige was rebranded as VR Sverige and operates under the VR Group brand. Since 2022, VR has grown in Sweden with contracts that include train services in regions like Bergslagen and Gävleborg . VR Sverige also secured a 10-year contract to operate bus services for SL in Tyresö, Stockholm , beginning in July 2025. This contract is valued at approximately €215 million and involves around 190 employees. In addition to
5145-529: 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
5250-437: The city of Helsinki) were moved into the transport authority. When it was founded, HSL had a revenue of over €500 million and approximately 350 employees. In 2016, HSL started to develop a revamped version of its native journey planner, Reittiopas , originally released by YTV in 2001. The replacement intermodal public transport route planner named as Digitransit is built on open source OpenTripPlanner. In February 2017,
5355-427: 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 ) Helsinki Regional Transport Authority The Helsinki Regional Transport Authority ( Finnish : Helsingin seudun liikenne, HSL ; Swedish : Helsingforsregionens trafik, HRT ) is the inter-municipal authority that maintains
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#17327809172465460-614: The company operates two classes of electric locomotives ( Sr1 and Sr2 ) and three classes of diesel locomotives ( Dv12 , Dr14 and Dr16 ). The use of diesel locomotive hauled passenger trains has declined due to electrification of all main lines and the (re)introduction of railbuses ( Dm12 ) on secondary routes. In October 2010, VR announced plans to renew its locomotive fleet by ordering around 200 new locomotives, which are expected to enter service in 2015–25. On 20 December 2013, VR announced plans to purchase 80 new electric locomotives, with 97 options. The upcoming Sr3 will be based on
5565-445: The concept as: The base colour for HSL is blue (#007AC9). Each of the forms of transit are represented with a colour of its own. Fonts used in HSL brand are Gotham Rounded and Gotham XNarrow. The foremost font type is Gotham Rounded which is present in most of the materials. Gotham XNarrow is used less, mostly in advertisements, quotations, numberings and line listings. HSL has its own collection of dedicated pictograms which follow
5670-404: 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
5775-499: The day-to-day operation of the transit system. HSL was founded on 1 January 2010 on the basis of the Finnish public transportation law, joukkoliikennelaki , which was adopted on 3 December 2009. According to joukkoliikennelaki , HSL is responsible for the planning of public transportation in Greater Helsinki . The traffic functions of the inter-municipal Helsinki Metropolitan Area Council (YTV) and planning, procuring and tendering functions of Helsinki City Transport (HKL, within
5880-468: The design guidelines. They also offer a library for the ready-made pictograms that are used both in signposts and on the website as icons without the frame. HSL's duty is to do its part in taking care of the functioning, economical aspects and caring of nature in greater Helsinki. This goal is achieved by promoting the usage of public transportation and by organizing affordable and well functioning public transportation services. HSL takes care of planning
5985-478: 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
6090-445: 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
6195-551: 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
6300-446: 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
6405-461: 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
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#17327809172466510-470: 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
6615-415: 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
6720-411: 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
6825-624: 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
6930-419: 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
7035-477: The new coaches have begun to replace the blue carriages even on the way to Kolari. Electrification extends from Oulu northwards to Kemijärvi. In 2006, direct sleeper services were discontinued beyond Rovaniemi (to Kemijärvi ) because the new double-deck sleeping carriages were unable to operate with diesel haulage. The sleeper service to Kemijärvi was restarted in March 2008, by adding to the train in Rovaniemi
7140-463: The new route planner was opened for public use, and the phasing-out of Reittiopas Classic began. The official name of the transport authority is Helsingin seudun liikenne -kuntayhtymä HSL in Finnish and Samkommunen Helsingforsregionens trafik HRT in Swedish. The official name of HSL in English is Helsinki Regional Transport Authority . Also the shorter form of the name, Helsinki Region Transport ( HSL ) may be used in everyday use. HSL oversees
7245-507: The next free number in running order. As a result, the last steam-powered heavy passenger locomotive class was designated Hr3, and its first diesel-powered counterpart Hr11. The current VR locomotive classification system was taken into use on 1 January 1976. The first (capital) letter was now used to differentiate between locomotive types: S ( sähkö ) for electric, D for diesel and T ( työkone ) for maintenance equipment. The serial numbers of diesel locomotive classes were not changed,
7350-431: The notation system was changed to two letters and a serial number. The first letter in the designation now signified the types of trains the locomotive was generally planned to haul: The second small letter indicated the weight of the locomotive: When diesel locomotives were taken into service in the 1950s, they were additionally differentiated by the steam locomotive classes by beginning their numbering from 11 instead of
7455-430: The operation of all public transportation in the Helsinki region. However, apart from select bus routes with electric units, the agency does not operate any rolling stock. Therefore, it relies mainly on independent contractors for the operation of the network. The Helsinki Metro is operated by HKL . The metro line opened in 1982. The system serves 30 stations in total on its two lines, M1 and M2 . The first phase of
7560-453: 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
7665-616: 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,
7770-447: 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
7875-483: The position of director of the Geological Survey of Finland and has no previous experience in public transportation. HSL's board voted on the selection and in the election HKL's CEO Ville Lehmuskoski and Nykänen both received seven votes, and the selection was then decided by drawing lots. The selection of a new CEO in 2020 became politicized a few days before the selection. Mika Nykänen, who was selected for
7980-634: The position, has a long history in the National Coalition Party, and his selection as director of the Geological Survey of Finland has been considered political. Other candidates for the CEO position included HKL's CEO Ville Lehmuskoski, OnniBus.com's founder Pekka Möttö, and other veterans of the public transportation industry. In the summer of 2021, HSL (Helsinki Regional Transport Authority) decided that starting in 2022, students would only be able to receive discounts on fares purchased through
8085-420: The proposed Helsinki–Tallinn Tunnel is built, trains may be run by VR, Elron or a joint-venture similar to the former arrangement with Russia. Domestic and international freight services are provided by VR Transpoint, a part of VR. In 2009, both domestic and international freight traffic declined, which worsened VR's financial position. International freight traffic was concentrated to the four railways across
8190-399: The public transportation network of the nine municipalities of Greater Helsinki , Finland . HSL oversees the operation of all of Helsinki 's public transportation. The system consists of local buses, trams , metro trains , ferries, commuter trains , and bikeshare . Apart from four electric buses, HSL does not own rolling stock. Due to this, HSL relies on third-party contractors for
8295-654: The purchase of 20 new sleeping cars, valued at €60–70 million. The two bidders interested were Alstom, which manufactures the Pendolino and some commuter trains for VR, and Finnish Transtech, which manufactured VR's new sleeping cars. The decision led to the resignation of the President and CEO of VR-Group, Henri Kuitunen, and the group's Chairman of the Board, Antti Lagerroos. Helsingin Sanomat reported they had wanted to defer
8400-491: The purchase of Arriva Sweden, VR Group has also strengthened its presence in the Swedish rail market through the acquisition of MTRX , a high-speed train operator on the Stockholm-Gothenburg route. Acquired in 2024, MTRX was rebranded as VR Snabbtåg Sverige and became part of VR Group’s long-distance operations. The MTRX acquisition included six Stadler Flirt X74 EMUs, which operate over 120 weekly services on
8505-746: 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
8610-501: The regional public transportation and internal public transportation of Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa. Beside planning, HSL also tenders the bus companies. The organization owns no buses or rail rolling stock. One of the agency's jobs is to compile the Helsinki Region Transport System Plan. HSL began installing new fare card readers on public transportation vehicles in 2016. The new reader's interface
8715-408: The replacement of older sleeping car rolling stock until 2012 at the earliest. However, the decision went ahead because VR is a state owned business and there was pressure to seek orders from Finnish Transtech, which is currently struggling due to market downturns, in order to secure jobs. The Finnish loading gauge allows the operation of freight vehicles considerably larger than most other railways in
8820-411: The route. VR has used several liveries in the past. When InterCity traffic started during the 1980s, VR's colour scheme was changed to red and white. In 2009, VR changed its corporate colour to green and all the coaches have been repainted in green and white. Finnish language Finnish ( endonym : suomi [ˈsuo̯mi] or suomen kieli [ˈsuo̯meŋ ˈkie̯li] )
8925-401: 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
9030-424: The south, Oulu further north, and Rovaniemi , Kemijärvi and Kolari in Lapland . Car transport trains stop at other stations along the way for normal passenger transport and is available as daily service to Rovaniemi and Kemijärvi and several times a week to Kolari. Finland is the only Nordic country to offer car transport on trains; however, car transport on trains is available in many European countries outside
9135-636: 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
9240-408: The student's information is found in the Koski service. The appeal also argued that the smartphone and its operating system must be sufficiently new for the HSL app to function. The phone's operating system must be Android or iOS. The Helsinki Administrative Court overturned HSL's decision, stating that students are entitled to receive discounts on physical fare cards in addition to the app. The decision
9345-465: 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
9450-422: 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
9555-499: 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
9660-492: 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
9765-400: The visual identity of all transportation services in Helsinki was unified under one brand name and logo. The HSL identity is heavily based on the color-coding of different elements to highlight the types of information presented; danger is represented in red, optional information in blue. The visual identity of HSL was created by the design office Kokoro & Moi. The designers have explained
9870-626: 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
9975-403: 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
10080-496: 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)
10185-488: Was based on the wheel arrangement of the locomotives: each wheel arrangement was assigned a letter of the alphabet, which was followed by a serial number. The assignment of letters to different wheel arrangements was made when the first locomotive using it was brought into service; the letter A signified a 4-4-0 wheelbase in the Whyte notation , B signified a 0-4-2ST locomotive, C a 0-6-0 locomotive, and so on. On 8 October 1942,
10290-560: Was considered more difficult to use than the previous one, so HSL was advised to redesign the interface. Most of the criticism focused on the difficulty of using the device's OK button. At the end of 2016, Yle reported HSL's decision to retain the interface. HSL's project manager, Satu Rönnqvist, explained the decision: "The old fare card readers have had many of these error selections, which result in thousands of compensation claims to HSL each year. These are being attempted to be reduced with this OK button." In March 2017, Yle reported that HSL
10395-525: 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
10500-459: Was increased to €30. As of 27 April 2019, the HSL area is divided into four zones designated A, B, C and D, roughly circularly divided according to distance from the city centre of Helsinki. Customers are obligated to buy a ticket spanning at least two zones at a time; the exception to this is zone D, for which a single zone ticket is available. Available tickets include single, multi-journey, day and seasonal tickets, all of which can be bought using
10605-545: 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
10710-437: Was split into VR and the rail administration entity Ratahallintokeskus . Companies in the group provide road freight and bus services, catering and real estate management, and provide data, technological, and telecommunications services for the transport and logistics sectors. The group owns a bus company, Pohjolan Liikenne , and a road freight haulage company VR Transpoint. Altogether the group includes 21 companies employing
10815-428: Was still considering a new fare card reader interface. HSL's customer and sales manager, Mari Flink, said that the company was conducting user tests regarding the ease of use of fare card readers. After these user tests, in the fall of 2017, HSL made the validation of season tickets faster. HSL's first CEO, Suvi Rihtniemi, retired and on November 3, 2020, Mika Nykänen was selected as her successor. Nykänen will come from
10920-543: 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
11025-562: 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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