Finnish alphabet

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The Finnish alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet, and especially its Swedish extension. Officially it comprises 28 letters:

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, X, Y, Z, Å, Ä, Ö

In addition, W is traditionally listed after V, although officially it is merely a variant of the latter^[1].

[edit] Summary of the main characteristics

The following table describes how each letter in the Finnish alphabet is spelled and pronounced separately. In practice, the names of the letters are rarely spelled, as people usually just type the (uppercase or lowercase) glyph when then want to refer to a particular letter. The pronunciation instructions enclosed in slashes are broad transcriptions based on the IPA system (in notes, more narrow transcriptions are enclosed in square brackets).

[edit] Writing Finnish

The Finnish orthography strives to represent all morphemes phonologically and, roughly speaking, the sound value of each letter tends to correspond with its value in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) – although some discrepancies do exist. When writing Finnish, the foundational principle is that each letter stands for one sound and each sound is always represented by the same letter, within the bounds of a single morpheme. The most notable exception to this rule is the velar nasal [ŋ], which do not have an allotted letter; instead, it is written with the digraph ng when geminated, and otherwise with N that is followed by K.

In Finnish, the vowels and consonants may be short or long, and the difference is significant. A short sound is written with a single letter and a long sound is written with a double letter. It is necessary to recognize the difference between such words as tuli (/tuli/, fire), tuuli (/tuːli/, wind) and tulli (/tulːi/, customs) or tapaan (/tɑpɑːn/, I meet) and tapan (/tɑpɑn/, I kill).

[edit] The extra letters Ä and Ö

The sign at the bus station of the Finnish town Mynämäki, illustrating a variation of the letter Ä.

The two extra vowel letters Ä and Ö (accompanied by the Swedish Å, which is actually not needed for writing Finnish) are the main peculiarities in the Finnish alphabet. In Finnish, these extra letters are collectively referred to as the ääkköset (a somewhat playful modification of aakkoset, which is the Finnish word for the alphabet as a whole) when they need to be distinguished from the basic Latin alphabet.

Although the glyphs of the ääkköset are derived from the similar looking German umlauted letters, they are considered letters in their own right and thus alphabetized separately (after Z). The dots on the base glyph are not modifications but essential parts of each letter, much like the hook in Q distinguishes Q from O. As Finnish is unrelated to Germanic languages, the Germanic umlaut or convention of considering AE equivalent to Ä, and OE equivalent to Ö is inapplicable in Finnish. Moreover, in Finnish, both AE and OE are vowel sequences, not single letters, and have independent meanings, e.g. haen (I seek) vs. hän (he, she). When Ä and Ö are not available, they are replaced by A and O.

In handwritten text, the actual form of the extra marking may vary from a pair of dots to a pair of short vertical bars, to a single horizontal bar, or to a wavy line resembling a tilde (in practice, almost any diacritic mark situated above the base glyph would probably be interpreted as a carelessly written pair of dots), but in computerized character sets, these alternatives are incorrect.

[edit] Non-native letters in the Finnish alphabet

The Bank of Åland uses a stylized letter Å in its logotype.

In the Finnish writing system, some basic Latin letters are considered redundant, and other letters generally represent sounds that are not inherent in the Finnish language. Thus, they are not used in established Finnish words, but they may occur in newer loanwords as well as in foreign proper names, and they are included in the Finnish alphabet in order to maintain interlingual compatibility. The pronunciation of these letters varies quite a lot.

• The redundant letters are often replaced with more common alternatives in Finnish, except in proper names. They include C (which may be replaced with either K or S), Q (which is usually replaced with K or KV), and X (which is replaced with KS). In addition, the Swedish Å is redundant from the Finnish point of view, as its pronunciation is more or less equivalent to the Finnish way of pronouncing O. It is officially included in the Finnish alphabet so that keyboards etc. would be compatible with Swedish, which is one of the two official languages in Finland, as well as for the reproduction of Swedish proper names, which are quite common in Finland, even as surnames of monolingual speakers of Finnish.
• The letters representing foreign sounds can be found in relatively new loanwords, but in more established loanwords they have been replaced with alternatives that better reflect the typical Finnish pronunciation, eg. kahvi "coffee", parta "beard". The letters include B, F, and G (which is also used to mark the inherent velar nasal [ŋ], however). From a historical point of view, even D could be said to belong to this group, but the [d] sound has long been an established part of standard language.
• W and Z could be classified into both of the aforementioned groups. The [w] sound is foreign to Finnish, but historically W was used to mark [v] or, rather, [ʋ] sound, as in German or Polish. Although this is today considered archaic and V is used instead, W may still occur in some old surnames as a variant of V, as well as being often used for faux-archaic effect (rather similarly to English "ye olde"). Likewise, the [z] sound is not native to Finnish, but Z (or TZ) was formerly used to denote [ts] (as in German). It is still often pronounced as [ts], but its pronunciation varies greatly: some speakers may pronounce it as [s], or sometimes [tʃ].
• The letters Š [ʃ] and Ž [ʒ] (S and Z with carons) are officially recommended instead of 'SH' and 'ZH' for transcription from another alphabet. For example, Russian Бре́жнев (transcribed Brezhnev in English) is transcribed Brežnev. However, these sounds are foreign to the Finnish language, the letters do not appear on Finnish keyboards and their pronunciation is not consistent. The [ʃ] sound is familiar to most Finnish speakers and quite commonly used in many loanwords, eg. šakki "chess", shampoo, but [ʒ] is restricted to foreign words only.

Diacritical or accent marks are never added to letters in Finnish words (since the dots above the Finnish graphemes Ä and Ö are not diacritics). Generally, diacritics are retained in foreign-language proper names, e.g. Vilén, if possible, but when arranging words alphabetically, diacritics are usually ignored. A few foreign characters or glyphs may need closer scrutiny:

• Œ is alphabetized as OE, not as Ö.
• Æ may sometimes be replaced with Ä, but when retained, Æ is alphabetized as AE, not as Ä.
• Ø may sometimes be replaced with Ö, but even if it is retained, these two glyphs are considered equivalent to each other.
• Estonian Õ and Hungarian Ő are alphabetized as Ö, not as O; the Portuguese Õ, on the other hand, is alphabetized as O.
• Ü and Ű are alphabetized as Y, not as U.
• ß is alphabetized as (and should be replaced with) ss.
• Ð is alphabetized as (and usually replaced with) D.
• Þ is alphabetized as (and usually replaced with) TH.

[edit] References

1. ^ http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/abc.html

[edit] See also

• Finnish phonology
• Estonian alphabet
• Latin alphabet
• Swedish alphabet
• Norwegian alphabet
• Letter Å, Letter Ä, Letter Ö

[edit] External links

• Omniglot: writing systems and languages of the world: Finnish
• Aakkostus Suomessa (the standard for Finnish alphabet, SFS 4600, explained in Finnish)
• Letters in Finnish
• Finnish orthography and the characters š and ž (official recommendation)
• Pronunciation of Finnish (with sound files)
• Finnish pronunciation (compared to English, IPA available)