86-563: The Senate of Finland ( Finnish : Suomen senaatti ; Swedish : Senaten för Finland ) combined the functions of cabinet and supreme court in the Grand Duchy of Finland from 1816 to 1917 and in independent Finland from 1917 to 1918. The body that would become the Senate was established on August 18, 1809, when Tsar Alexander I of Russia summoned the Diet of Porvoo and directed
172-540: 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,
258-542: A gliding vowel or a vowel glide , is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable . Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech apparatus ) moves during the pronunciation of the vowel. In most varieties of English , the phrase "no highway cowboy" ( / n oʊ ˈ h aɪ w eɪ ˈ k aʊ b ɔɪ / noh HY -way KOW -boy ) has five distinct diphthongs, one in every syllable . Diphthongs contrast with monophthongs , where
344-819: 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
430-838: A Finnish vice-chairman. From 1858 and onwards the members of the senate were formally known as senators. After the February Revolution in Russia the Vice Chairman of the Economic Division became the Chairman of the Senate. Due to the Civil War in 1918 the Senate was relocated to the town of Vaasa from January 29 to May 3. In 1918 the economic division became the Cabinet and the judicial division became
516-560: 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
602-473: 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
688-494: A diphthong differently than when those sounds are produced in hiatus. For example, due to English diphthong raising , many North American English speakers pronounce /aɪ/ with closer vowels than /a.ɪ/ , and, among a subset of those, the diphthong /aʊ/ may be similarly raised as compared to /a.ʊ/ . In words coming from Middle English , most cases of the Modern English diphthongs [aɪ̯, oʊ̯, eɪ̯, aʊ̯] originate from
774-421: A diphthong, they can be transcribed with two vowel symbols with a period in between. Thus, lower can be transcribed ⟨ ˈloʊ.ɚ ⟩, with a period separating the first syllable, / l oʊ / , from the second syllable, ⟨ ɚ ⟩. The non-syllabic diacritic is used only when necessary. It is typically omitted when there is no ambiguity, as in ⟨ haɪ kaʊ ⟩. No words in English have
860-509: A diphthong. Diphthongs often form when separate vowels are run together in rapid speech during a conversation. However, there are also unitary diphthongs, as in the English examples above, which are heard by listeners as single-vowel sounds ( phonemes ). In the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), monophthongs are transcribed with one symbol, as in English sun [sʌn] , in which ⟨ ʌ ⟩ represents
946-465: 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
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#17327719156561032-460: 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
1118-424: A monophthong becomes a diphthong. Monophthongization or smoothing is a vowel shift in which a diphthong becomes a monophthong. While there are a number of similarities, diphthongs are not the same phonologically as a combination of a vowel and an approximant or glide. Most importantly, diphthongs are fully contained in the syllable nucleus while a semivowel or glide is restricted to the syllable boundaries (either
1204-434: A monophthong. Diphthongs are transcribed with two symbols, as in English high /haɪ/ or cow /kaʊ/ , in which ⟨ aɪ ⟩ and ⟨ aʊ ⟩ represent diphthongs. Diphthongs may be transcribed with two vowel symbols or with a vowel symbol and a semivowel symbol. In the words above, the less prominent member of the diphthong can be represented with the symbols for the palatal approximant [ j ] and
1290-535: A more peripheral vowel and ends with a more central one, such as [ɪə̯] , [ɛə̯] , and [ʊə̯] in Received Pronunciation or [iə̯] and [uə̯] in Irish . Many centering diphthongs are also opening diphthongs ( [iə̯] , [uə̯] ). Diphthongs may contrast in how far they open or close. For example, Samoan contrasts low-to-mid with low-to-high diphthongs: Narrow diphthongs are the ones that end with
1376-475: 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
1462-445: 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
1548-555: 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
1634-628: A similar length. In languages with only one phonemic length for pure vowels, however, diphthongs may behave like pure vowels. For example, in Icelandic , both monophthongs and diphthongs are pronounced long before single consonants and short before most consonant clusters. Some languages contrast short and long diphthongs. In some languages, such as Old English , these behave like short and long vowels, occupying one and two morae , respectively. Languages that contrast three quantities in diphthongs are extremely rare, but not unheard of; Northern Sami
1720-440: 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
1806-563: A vowel which on a vowel chart is quite close to the one that begins the diphthong, for example Northern Dutch [eɪ] , [øʏ] and [oʊ] . Wide diphthongs are the opposite – they require a greater tongue movement, and their offsets are farther away from their starting points on the vowel chart. Examples of wide diphthongs are RP/GA English [aɪ] and [aʊ] . Languages differ in the length of diphthongs, measured in terms of morae . In languages with phonemically short and long vowels, diphthongs typically behave like long vowels, and are pronounced with
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#17327719156561892-884: A vowel, European Portuguese has 14 phonemic diphthongs (10 oral and 4 nasal), all of which are falling diphthongs formed by a vowel and a nonsyllabic high vowel. Brazilian Portuguese has roughly the same amount, although the European and non-European dialects have slightly different pronunciations ( [ɐj] is a distinctive feature of some southern and central Portuguese dialects, especially that of Lisbon). A [w] onglide after /k/ or /ɡ/ and before all vowels as in quando [ˈkwɐ̃du] ('when') or guarda [ˈɡwaɾðɐ ~ ˈɡwaʁdɐ] ('guard') may also form rising diphthongs and triphthongs . Additionally, in casual speech, adjacent heterosyllabic vowels may combine into diphthongs and triphthongs or even sequences of them. In addition, phonetic diphthongs are formed in most Brazilian Portuguese dialects by
1978-434: Is a less precise or broader transcription, since these diphthongs usually end in a vowel sound that is more open than the semivowels [j w] or the close vowels [i u] . Transcribing the diphthongs as ⟨ aɪ̯ aʊ̯ ⟩ is a more precise or narrower transcription, since the English diphthongs usually end in the near-close vowels [ɪ ʊ] . The non-syllabic diacritic , the inverted breve below ⟨◌̯⟩ ,
2064-508: 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
2150-411: Is known to contrast long, short and "finally stressed" diphthongs, the last of which are distinguished by a longer second element. In some languages, diphthongs are single phonemes , while in others they are analyzed as sequences of two vowels, or of a vowel and a semivowel. Certain sound changes relate to diphthongs and monophthongs . Vowel breaking or diphthongization is a vowel shift in which
2236-400: Is more close than the first (e.g. [ai] ); in opening diphthongs, the second element is more open (e.g. [ia] ). Closing diphthongs tend to be falling ( [ai̯] ), and opening diphthongs are generally rising ( [i̯a] ), as open vowels are more sonorous and therefore tend to be more prominent. However, exceptions to this rule are not rare in the world's languages. In Finnish , for instance,
2322-399: Is not clear which symbol represents the syllable nucleus, or when they have equal weight. Superscripts are especially used when an on- or off-glide is particularly fleeting. The period ⟨ . ⟩ is the opposite of the non-syllabic diacritic: it represents a syllable break. If two vowels next to each other belong to two different syllables ( hiatus ), meaning that they do not form
2408-605: 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
2494-460: Is placed under the less prominent part of a diphthong to show that it is part of a diphthong rather than a vowel in a separate syllable: [aɪ̯ aʊ̯] . When there is no contrastive vowel sequence in the language, the diacritic may be omitted. Other common indications that the two sounds are not separate vowels are a superscript, ⟨ aᶦ aᶷ ⟩, or a tie bar, ⟨ a͡ɪ a͡ʊ ⟩ or ⟨ a͜ɪ a͜ʊ ⟩. The tie bar can be useful when it
2580-746: 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
2666-415: Is possible for languages to contrast [ij] and [iː] . Diphthongs are also distinct from sequences of simple vowels. The Bunaq language of Timor, for example, distinguishes /sa͡i/ [saj] 'exit' from /sai/ [saʲi] 'be amused', /te͡i/ [tej] 'dance' from /tei/ [teʲi] 'stare at', and /po͡i/ [poj] 'choice' from /loi/ [loʷi] 'good'. Some languages or dialects also articulate the component sounds of
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2752-629: 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
2838-540: The Diet to draw up regulations for a Government Council. In 1816, Alexander renamed this body the Senate to demonstrate that it was equal to rather than inferior to its Russian equivalent . The Senate was headed by the Governor-General of Finland . The members of the Senate had to be Finnish citizens. The Senate was divided into the economic division and the judicial division. In 1822 both divisions were given
2924-470: The English and Italian languages, among others, many phoneticians do not consider rising combinations to be diphthongs, but rather sequences of approximant and vowel. There are many languages (such as Romanian ) that contrast one or more rising diphthongs with similar sequences of a glide and a vowel in their phonetic inventory (see semivowel for examples). In closing diphthongs, the second element
3010-615: 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
3096-531: The Middle High German diphthongs than to standard German diphthongs: Apart from these phonemic diphthongs, Bernese German has numerous phonetic diphthongs due to L-vocalization in the syllable coda, for instance the following ones: Yiddish has three diphthongs: Diphthongs may reach a higher target position (towards /i/ ) in situations of coarticulatory phenomena or when words with such vowels are being emphasized. There are five diphthongs in
3182-607: The Supreme Court and the Supreme Administrative Court of the independent Finland. The vice chairman of the economic division became the Prime Minister of Finland , and the other senators became ministers . Finland became a republic in 1919. Finnish language Finnish ( endonym : suomi [ˈsuo̯mi] or suomen kieli [ˈsuo̯meŋ ˈkie̯li] ) is
3268-532: 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
3354-513: 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
3440-666: The vocalization of /l/ in the syllable coda with words like sol [sɔw] ('sun') and sul [suw] ('south') as well as by yodization of vowels preceding / s / or its allophone at syllable coda [ ʃ ~ ɕ ] in terms like arroz [aˈʁojs ~ ɐˈʁo(j)ɕ] ('rice'), and / z / (or [ ʒ ~ ʑ ] ) in terms such as paz mundial [ˈpajz mũdʒiˈaw ~ ˈpa(j)ʑ mũdʑiˈaw] ('world peace') and dez anos [ˌdɛjˈz‿ɐ̃nu(j)s ~ ˌdɛjˈz‿ɐ̃nuɕ] ('ten years'). Phonetically, Spanish has seven falling diphthongs and eight rising diphthongs. In addition, during fast speech, sequences of vowels in hiatus become diphthongs wherein one becomes non-syllabic (unless they are
3526-458: 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
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3612-731: The Middle English long monophthongs [iː, ɔː, aː, uː] through the Great Vowel Shift , although some cases of [oʊ̯, eɪ̯] originate from the Middle English diphthongs [ɔu̯, aɪ̯] . The dialect of Hamont (in Limburg ) has five centring diphthongs and contrasts long and short forms of [ɛɪ̯] , [œʏ̯] , [ɔʊ̯] , and [ɑʊ̯] . The Afrikaans language has its origin in Dutch but differs in many significant ways, including
3698-590: The Oslo dialect of Norwegian , all of them falling: An additional diphthong, [ʉ͍ɪ] , occurs only in the word hui in the expression i hui og hast "in great haste". The number and form of diphthongs vary between dialects. Diphthongs in Faroese are: Diphthongs in Icelandic are the following: Combinations of semivowel /j/ and a vowel are the following: In French , /wa/ , /wɛ̃/ , /ɥi/ and /ɥɛ̃/ may be considered true diphthongs (that is, fully contained in
3784-694: 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
3870-529: 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
3956-478: 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 ) Diphthongs A diphthong ( / ˈ d ɪ f θ ɒ ŋ , ˈ d ɪ p -/ DIF -thong, DIP - ; from Ancient Greek δίφθογγος (díphthongos) 'two sounds', from δίς (dís) 'twice' and φθόγγος (phthóngos) 'sound'), also known as
4042-404: 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
4128-478: 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
4214-445: 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
4300-537: The following contexts: There are also certain instances of compensatory diphthongization in the Majorcan dialect so that /ˈtroncs/ ('logs') (in addition to deleting the palatal plosive) develops a compensating palatal glide and surfaces as [ˈtrojns] (and contrasts with the unpluralized [ˈtronʲc] ). Diphthongization compensates for the loss of the palatal stop (part of Catalan's segment loss compensation). There are other cases where diphthongization compensates for
4386-551: 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
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#17327719156564472-446: 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
4558-461: 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
4644-417: The labiovelar approximant [ w ] , with the symbols for the close vowels [ i ] and [ u ] , or the symbols for the near-close vowels [ ɪ ] and [ ʊ ] : Some transcriptions are broader or narrower (less precise or more precise phonetically) than others. Transcribing the English diphthongs in high and cow as ⟨ aj aw ⟩ or ⟨ ai̯ au̯ ⟩
4730-470: 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
4816-475: The latter as ⟨eeu⟩ . In diminutives ending in /ki/ formed to monosyllabic nouns, the vowels /u, ɪə, ʊə, ɛ, ə, œ, ɔ, a, ɑː/ are realised as closing diphthongs [ui, ei, oi, ɛi, əi, œi, ɔi, ai, ɑːi] . In the same environment, the sequences /ɛn, ən, œn, ɔn, an/ are realized as [ɛiɲ, əiɲ, œiɲ, ɔiɲ, aiɲ] , i.e. as closing diphthongs followed by palatal nasal. Phonemic diphthongs in German : In
4902-470: The loss of point of articulation features (property loss compensation) as in [ˈaɲ] ('year') vs [ˈajns] ('years'). The dialectal distribution of this compensatory diphthongization is almost entirely dependent on the dorsal plosive (whether it is velar or palatal) and the extent of consonant assimilation (whether or not it is extended to palatals). The Portuguese diphthongs are formed by the labio-velar approximant [w] and palatal approximant [j] with
4988-415: 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
5074-411: 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
5160-624: 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
5246-419: 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
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#17327719156565332-435: The onset or the coda). This often manifests itself phonetically by a greater degree of constriction, but the phonetic distinction is not always clear. The English word yes , for example, consists of a palatal glide followed by a monophthong rather than a rising diphthong. In addition, the segmental elements must be different in diphthongs [ii̯] and so when it occurs in a language, it does not contrast with [iː] . However, it
5418-462: The opening diphthongs /ie̯/ and /uo̯/ are true falling diphthongs, since they begin louder and with higher pitch and fall in prominence during the diphthong. A third, rare type of diphthong that is neither opening nor closing is height-harmonic diphthongs, with both elements at the same vowel height. These may have occurred in Old English : A centering diphthong is one that begins with
5504-453: 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
5590-616: 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,
5676-447: 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
5762-746: 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
5848-401: 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
5934-636: 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
6020-612: The syllable nucleus: [u̯a], [u̯ɛ̃], [y̯i], [y̯ɛ̃] ). Other sequences are considered part of a glide formation process that turns a high vowel into a semivowel (and part of the syllable onset) when followed by another vowel. Diphthongs Semivowels In Quebec French , long vowels are generally diphthongized in informal speech when stressed . Catalan possesses a number of phonetic diphthongs, all of which begin ( rising diphthongs ) or end ( falling diphthongs ) in [j] or [w] . In standard Eastern Catalan, rising diphthongs (that is, those starting with [j] or [w] ) are possible only in
6106-492: The terms "falling" and "rising" are used, instead, to refer to vowel height , i.e. as synonyms of the terms "closing" and "opening". See below.) The less prominent component in the diphthong may also be transcribed as an approximant , thus [aj] in eye and [ja] in yard . However, when the diphthong is analysed as a single phoneme , both elements are often transcribed with vowel symbols ( /aɪ̯/ , /ɪ̯a/ ). Semivowels and approximants are not equivalent in all treatments, and in
6192-403: The tongue or other speech organs do not move and the syllable contains only a single vowel sound. For instance, in English, the word ah is spoken as a monophthong ( / ɑː / ), while the word ow is spoken as a diphthong in most varieties ( / aʊ / ). Where two adjacent vowel sounds occur in different syllables (e.g. in the English word re-elect ) the result is described as hiatus , not as
6278-465: 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
6364-422: 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
6450-499: 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
6536-433: The use of diphthongs in the place of several non-diphthong Dutch double vowels, or double-vowels being pronounced differently. Examples include: The long diphthongs (or 'double vowels') are phonemically sequences of a free vowel and a non-syllabic equivalent of /i/ or /u/ : [iu, ui, oːi, eu, ɑːi] . Both [iu] and [eu] tend to be pronounced as [iu] , but they are spelled differently: the former as ⟨ieu⟩ ,
6622-570: The varieties of German that vocalize the /r/ in the syllable coda , other diphthongal combinations may occur. These are only phonetic diphthongs, not phonemic diphthongs, since the vocalic pronunciation [ɐ̯] alternates with consonantal pronunciations of /r/ if a vowel follows, cf. du hörst [duː ˈhøːɐ̯st] 'you hear' – ich höre [ʔɪç ˈhøːʀə] 'I hear'. These phonetic diphthongs may be as follows: The diphthongs of some German dialects differ from standard German diphthongs. The Bernese German diphthongs, for instance, correspond rather to
6708-492: 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
6794-440: The vowel sequences *[a.ɪ a.ʊ] , so the non-syllabic diacritic is unnecessary. Falling (or descending ) diphthongs start with a vowel quality of higher prominence (higher pitch or volume) and end in a semivowel with less prominence, like [aɪ̯] in eye , while rising (or ascending ) diphthongs begin with a less prominent semivowel and end with a more prominent full vowel, similar to the [ja] in yard . (Sometimes, however,
6880-626: 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
6966-403: 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
7052-496: 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)
7138-525: 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
7224-545: 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
7310-543: 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
7396-562: 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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