81-610: The Finnish Customs ( Finnish : Tulli , Swedish : Tull ) is the customs service of the Republic of Finland . It is a government agency steered by the Ministry of Finance . The Finnish Customs is a part of the customs system of the European Union and has around 1,900 employees. On February 12 1812 , the founding of The General Customs Directorate of the Grand Duchy of Finland
162-681: A back). The complex one is concerned with the high vowels i, ü, ı, u and has both [±front] and [±rounded] features ( i front unrounded vs ü front rounded and ı back unrounded vs u back rounded). The close-mid vowels ö, o are not involved in vowel harmony processes. Turkish has two classes of vowels – front and back . Vowel harmony states that words may not contain both front and back vowels. Therefore, most grammatical suffixes come in front and back forms, e.g. Türkiye' de "in Turkey" but Almanya' da "in Germany". In addition, there
243-460: A tongue root harmony and a rounding harmony. In particular, the tongue root harmony involves the vowels: /a, ʊ, ɔ/ (+RTR) and /i, u, e, o/ (-RTR). The vowel /i/ is phonetically similar to the -RTR vowels. However, it is largely transparent to vowel harmony. Rounding harmony only affects the open vowels, /e, o, a, ɔ/ . Some sources refer to the primary harmonization dimension as pharyngealization or palatalness (among others), but neither of these
324-803: 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
405-599: 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
486-468: 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
567-508: 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
648-405: A few native modern Turkish words that do not follow the rule (such as anne "mother" or kardeş "sibling" which used to obey vowel harmony in their older forms, ana and karındaş , respectively). However, in such words, suffixes nevertheless harmonize with the final vowel; thus annes i – "his/her mother", and voleybolc u – "volleyballer". In some loanwords the final vowel
729-416: A front/back system, but there is also a system of rounding harmony, which strongly resembles that of Kazakh. Turkish has a 2-dimensional vowel harmony system, where vowels are characterised by two features: [±front] and [±rounded]. There are two sets of vocal harmony systems: a simple one and a complex one. The simple one is concerned with the low vowels e, a and has only the [±front] feature ( e front vs
810-475: A fully developed system. The one exception is Uzbek , which has lost its vowel harmony due to extensive Persian influence; however, its closest relative, Uyghur , has retained Turkic vowel harmony. Azerbaijani 's system of vowel harmony has both front/back and rounded/unrounded vowels. Tatar has no neutral vowels. The vowel é is found only in loanwords . Other vowels also could be found in loanwords, but they are seen as Back vowels. Tatar language also has
891-455: 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
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#1733084922374972-468: 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
1053-445: 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
1134-512: A rounding harmony superimposed over a backness harmony. Even among languages with vowel harmony, not all vowels need to participate in the vowel conversions; these vowels are termed neutral . Neutral vowels may be opaque and block harmonic processes or they may be transparent and not affect them. Intervening consonants are also often transparent. Finally, languages that do have vowel harmony often allow for lexical disharmony , or words with mixed sets of vowels even when an opaque neutral vowel
1215-403: A rounding harmony, but it is not represented in writing. O and ö could be written only in the first syllable, but vowels they mark could be pronounced in the place where ı and e are written. Kazakh 's system of vowel harmony is primarily a front/back system, but there is also a system of rounding harmony that is not represented by the orthography. Kyrgyz 's system of vowel harmony is primarily
1296-546: 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
1377-440: 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
1458-418: Is a secondary rule that i and ı in suffixes tend to become ü and u respectively after rounded vowels, so certain suffixes have additional forms. This gives constructions such as Türkiye' dir "it is Turkey", kapı dır "it is the door", but gün dür "it is the day", karpuz dur "it is the watermelon". Not all suffixes obey vowel harmony perfectly. In the suffix -(i)yor ,
1539-503: 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
1620-676: Is an a , o or u and thus looks like a back vowel, but is phonetically actually a front vowel, and governs vowel harmony accordingly. An example is the word saat , meaning "hour" or "clock", a loanword from Arabic. Its plural is sa a tl e r . This is not truly an exception to vowel harmony itself; rather, it is an exception to the rule that a denotes a front vowel. Disharmony tends to disappear through analogy, especially within loanwords; e.g. Hüsnü (a man's name) < earlier Hüsni , from Arabic husnî ; Müslüman "Moslem, Muslim (adj. and n.)" < Ottoman Turkish müslimân , from Persian mosalmân . Tuvan has one of
1701-715: Is called dominant ). This is fairly common among languages with vowel harmony and may be seen in the Hungarian dative suffix: The dative suffix has two different forms -nak/-nek . The -nak form appears after the root with back vowels ( o and a are back vowels). The -nek form appears after the root with front vowels ( ö and e are front vowels). Vowel harmony often involves dimensions such as In many languages, vowels can be said to belong to particular sets or classes, such as back vowels or rounded vowels. Some languages have more than one system of harmony. For instance, Altaic languages are proposed to have
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#17330849223741782-685: Is closely pronounced as the Finnish front vowel 'ä' [æ] . 7 out of the 10 local dialects have the vowel ë [e] which has never been part of the Hungarian alphabet, and thus is not used in writing. Unrounded front vowels (or Intermediate or neutral vowels) can occur together with either back vowels (e.g. r é p a carrot, k o cs i car) or rounded front vowels (e.g. tető , tündér ), but rounded front vowels and back vowels can occur together only in words of foreign origins (e.g. sofőr = chauffeur, French word for driver). The basic rule
1863-539: Is not involved. Van der Hulst & van de Weijer (1995) point to two such situations: polysyllabic trigger morphemes may contain non-neutral vowels from opposite harmonic sets and certain target morphemes simply fail to harmonize. Many loanwords exhibit disharmony. For example, Turkish vakit , ('time' [from Arabic waqt ]); * vak ı t would have been expected. There are three classes of vowels in Korean : positive, negative, and neutral. These categories loosely follow
1944-538: 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
2025-727: 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
2106-451: Is reconstructed also for Proto-Samoyedic . Hungarian , like its distant relative Finnish, has the same system of front , back , and intermediate (neutral) vowels but is more complex than the one in Finnish, and some vowel harmony processes. The basic rule is that words including at least one back vowel get back vowel suffixes ( kar ba – in(to) the arm), while words excluding back vowels get front vowel suffixes ( kéz be – in(to)
2187-624: 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
2268-486: Is technically correct. Likewise, referring to ±RTR as the sole defining feature of vowel categories in Mongolian is not fully accurate either. In any case, the two vowel categories differ primarily with regards to tongue root position, and ±RTR is a convenient and fairly accurate descriptor for the articulatory parameters involved. Turkic languages inherit their systems of vowel harmony from Proto-Turkic , which already had
2349-590: Is that words including at least one back vowel take back vowel suffixes (e.g. répában in a carrot, kocsiban in a car), while words excluding back vowels usually take front vowel suffixes (except for words including only the vowels i or í , for which there is no general rule, e.g. lisztet , hidat ). Some other rules and guidelines to consider: Grammatical suffixes in Hungarian can have one, two, three, or four forms: An example on basic numerals: Vowel harmony occurred in Southern Mansi . In
2430-402: Is typically long distance, meaning that the affected vowels do not need to be immediately adjacent, and there can be intervening segments between the affected vowels. Generally one vowel will trigger a shift in other vowels, either progressively or regressively, within the domain, such that the affected vowels match the relevant feature of the trigger vowel. Common phonological features that define
2511-401: Is used in two different senses. In the first sense, it refers to any type of long distance assimilatory process of vowels, either progressive or regressive . When used in this sense, the term vowel harmony is synonymous with the term metaphony . In the second sense, vowel harmony refers only to progressive vowel harmony (beginning-to-end). For regressive harmony, the term umlaut
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2592-501: Is used. In this sense, metaphony is the general term while vowel harmony and umlaut are both sub-types of metaphony. The term umlaut is also used in a different sense to refer to a type of vowel gradation . This article will use "vowel harmony" for both progressive and regressive harmony. Harmony processes are "long-distance" in the sense that the assimilation involves sounds that are separated by intervening segments (usually consonant segments). In other words, harmony refers to
2673-456: The o is invariant, while the i changes according to the preceding vowel; for example sön ü y o r – "he/she/it fades". Likewise, in the suffix -(y)ken , the e is invariant: Roma'dayk e n – "When in Rome"; and so is the i in the suffix -(y)ebil : inanıl a b i lir – "credible". The suffix -ki exhibits partial harmony, never taking a back vowel but allowing only
2754-594: 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
2835-546: The Khanty language , vowel harmony occurs in the Eastern dialects, and affects both inflectional and derivational suffixes. The Vakh-Vasyugan dialect has a particularly extensive system of vowel harmony: Trigger vowels occur in the first syllable of a word, and control the backness of the entire word. Target vowels are affected by vowel harmony and are arranged in seven front-back pairs of similar height and roundedness, which are assigned
2916-521: 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
2997-460: 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,
3078-506: 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
3159-453: 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
3240-674: 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
3321-419: The assimilation of sounds that are not adjacent to each other. For example, a vowel at the beginning of a word can trigger assimilation in a vowel at the end of a word. The assimilation occurs across the entire word in many languages. This is represented schematically in the following diagram: In the diagram above, the V a (type-a vowel) causes the following V b (type-b vowel) to assimilate and become
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3402-596: The border created between Sweden and Finland in 1809 when the Russian Empire 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 intelligible 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
3483-422: 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 ) Vowel harmony In phonology , vowel harmony is a phonological rule in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – must share certain distinctive features (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony
3564-404: 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
3645-478: 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
3726-445: 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
3807-406: The facilitation of the trade in goods, the protection of society and the environment, and the collection of customs duties, charges and taxes on import goods. It also compiles the official statistics on international trade . Finnish language Finnish ( endonym : suomi [ˈsuo̯mi] or suomen kieli [ˈsuo̯meŋ ˈkie̯li] ) is a Finnic language of
3888-551: 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
3969-684: The front (positive) and mid (negative) vowels. Middle Korean had strong vowel harmony; however, this rule is no longer observed strictly in modern Korean. In modern Korean, it is only applied in certain cases such as onomatopoeia , adjectives , adverbs , conjugation , and interjections . The vowel ㅡ ( eu ) is considered a partially neutral and a partially negative vowel. There are other traces of vowel harmony in modern Korean: many native Korean words tend to follow vowel harmony, such as 사람 ( saram , 'person') and 부엌 ( bu-eok , 'kitchen'). 양성모음 (Yangseong moeum) 음성모음 (eumseong moeum) 중성모음 (jungseong moeum) Mongolian exhibits both
4050-562: The front-voweled variant -kü : dünk ü – "belonging to yesterday"; yarınk i – "belonging to tomorrow". Most Turkish words do not only have vowel harmony for suffixes, but also internally. However, there are many exceptions. Compound words are considered separate words with respect to vowel harmony: vowels do not have to harmonize between members of the compound (thus forms like bu | gün "this|day" = "today" are permissible). Vowel harmony does not apply for loanwords , as in otobüs – from French "autobus". There are also
4131-446: The future status of Finnish in Sweden, for example, where reports produced for the Swedish government during 2017 show that minority language policies are not being respected, particularly for the 7% of Finns settled in the country. The Uralic family of languages, of which Finnish is a member, are hypothesized to derive from a single ancestor language termed Proto-Uralic , spoken sometime between 8,000 and 2,000 BCE (estimates vary) in
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#17330849223744212-456: 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
4293-415: The hand). Single-vowel words which have only the neutral vowels ( i , í or é ) are unpredictable, but e takes a front-vowel suffix. One essential difference in classification between Hungarian and Finnish is that standard Hungarian (along with 3 out of 10 local dialects) does not observe the difference between Finnish 'ä' [æ] and 'e' [e] – the Hungarian front vowel 'e' [ɛ]
4374-470: 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
4455-415: 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
4536-411: 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
4617-469: The most complete systems of vowel harmony among the Turkic languages. Persian is a language which includes various types of regressive and progressive vowel harmony in different words and expressions. In Persian, progressive vowel harmony only applies to prepositions/post-positions when attached to pronouns. In Persian, regressive vowel harmony, some features spread from the triggering non-initial vowel to
4698-557: 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
4779-415: The natural classes of vowels involved in vowel harmony include vowel backness , vowel height , nasalization , roundedness , and advanced and retracted tongue root . Vowel harmony is found in many agglutinative languages. The given domain of vowel harmony taking effect often spans across morpheme boundaries, and suffixes and prefixes will usually follow vowel harmony rules. The term vowel harmony
4860-419: 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
4941-453: 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
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#17330849223745022-596: 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,
5103-447: 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
5184-714: 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
5265-406: The same type of vowel (and thus they become, metaphorically, "in harmony"). The vowel that causes the vowel assimilation is frequently termed the trigger while the vowels that assimilate (or harmonize ) are termed targets . When the vowel triggers lie within the root or stem of a word and the affixes contain the targets, this is called stem-controlled vowel harmony (the opposite situation
5346-401: 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
5427-636: 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
5508-517: The target vowel in the previous syllable. The application and non-application of this backness harmony which can also be considered rounding harmony. Many, though not all, Uralic languages show vowel harmony between front and back vowels. Vowel harmony is often hypothesized to have existed in Proto-Uralic , though its original scope remains a matter of discussion. Vowel harmony is found in Nganasan and
5589-459: 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
5670-422: 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
5751-495: 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
5832-492: 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
5913-626: 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
5994-403: 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
6075-492: 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)
6156-627: Was approved by Alexander I of Russia as the Grand Duke of Finland . By the 1850s , customs duties ' share of total state tax revenue was over 40 percent. The directorate was renamed the Board of Customs in 1881. The customs service of the Grand Duchy of Finland was autonomous from the customs service of the Russian Empire , and thus the transition to the customs service of an independent Finland in 1917
6237-515: 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
6318-545: 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
6399-400: Was smooth. Customs duties formed the backbone of the Finnish state economy until the 1930s , but the fiscal importance of duties has decreased drastically due to the international reduction or elimination of trade barriers since the 1950s . Finland joined the EU and its Customs Union in 1995, but this caused no significant challenges for Finnish Customs. The tasks of Finnish Customs include
6480-623: Was the use of the reflexive suffix -(t)te , used only in the eastern dialects. The Birch bark letter no. 292 from the early 13th century is the first known document in any Finnic language ; it is written in a variety that is closest to modern Karelian or Veps . 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
6561-558: 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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