Talk:Finnish language

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Finnish language. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070418154217/http://www.norden.org/avtal/sprak/sk/sprak_sprak.asp?lang= to http://www.norden.org/avtal/sprak/sk/sprak_sprak.asp?lang=
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20140202104119/http://svenskfinland.fi/historyfin.htm to http://svenskfinland.fi/historyfin.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 03:09, 1 October 2017 (UTC)

Talk page archived

Links added! Cheers. --CaptainNtheGameMaster (talk) 18:03, 31 May 2018 (UTC)

"Alternative" pronunciations in the table

This is not common practice, and /r/ is not a dental plosive, so it does not belong in the table. Mentioning the actual pronunciation under the table is sufficient. SURJECTION _{·talk·contr·log·} 07:53, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

Again: the standard educated pronunciation is /d/, and the table is about that standard pronunciation. If it were about dialects, you'd have to add in palatalization and all that as well. SURJECTION _{·talk·contr·log·} 07:55, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

please help with Finnish language section in Syntactic gemination article

Please translate fi:Rajageminaatio into there. - Altenmann >talk 18:16, 28 December 2018 (UTC)

Incorrect information in Medieval Period section

Second paragraph contains information not found in the reference 19 . The referred article talks about New Age period 17th and 18th centuries not medieval period. Also the paragraph implies that area of modern Finland was only under Swedish control during the Middle Age when major parts of modern Finland were part of Sweden until 1808. I suggest removing this paragraph completely or major refactoring. 217.156.136.74 (talk) 13:16, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

References

"Standard language" / "formal language"

Both terms are used (so far as I can tell) interchangeably. If these terms are decided mean the same thing, both should be mentioned but probably just one should be subsequently used. If they mean different things, they should be defined in the article. Kdtbhl (talk) 20:07, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

future tense in swedish influenced writting

Germanic languages are influencing Finnish. While vocab from swedish and english can be seen other features too. Sveticism article refers to a future tense. AND the rising intonation for questioning is found in Finnish young people's speech.

I do not add these to the article as purists will just remove it. But these features are found in the language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.112.30.115 (talk) 19:41, 13 February 2021 (UTC)

No 'ž' in alphabet

In Consonants section, "The official alphabet includes "z" [z] and 'ž' [ʒ]" is a confusing, as it implies the Finnish alphabet includes 'ž', which is untrue. --Sw-f (talk) 21:09, 16 May 2022 (UTC)

I've removed it as you appear to be right, remember WP:BOLD. TylerBurden (talk) 00:29, 17 May 2022 (UTC)

The Finnish alphabet does not include <š> and <ž>, but the Finnish orthography does. Subtle difference. — SURJECTION ^{/ T / C / L /} 14:42, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

These letters are shown in italic and are used in loanwords And foreign names. Even letters other than that are also shown that way ~2026-39454-14 (talk) 02:22, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

those letters are shown in Italic and it means that they are used for loanwords and foreign names ~2026-39454-14 (talk) 02:21, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

Traditional dialects

This article should (at least in my opinion) only be concentrating on traditional dialects + Kven and Meänkieli (both of which are Peräpohjola dialects, and thus not really separate from Finnish). The other "dialects", such as "Helsinki slang", "American Finnish", "Sweden Finnish", "Siberian Finnish" etc are not notable and should be placed in a separate section. They should also be removed from the infobox. The same story with the "Ingrian", "Kainuu", "Rauma", "Värmland" variants, they are all offshoots from traditional Western and Eastern Finnish dialects. Skäggdopping (talk) 19:18, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Dubious

"The usual analysis is that Finnish has long and short vowels and consonants as distinct phonemes." Do we have a source for this? I thought the normal analysis was that Finnish long vowels/consonants are sequences of two phonemes; at least this is the analysis Fred Karlsson gives in Suomen yleiskielen segmentaalifoneemien paradigma. Stockhausenfan (talk) 21:08, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

Sámi

I think it would be natural to mention that Finnish is related to the geographically close (in fact, overlapping) Sámi, but perhaps also pointing out that the relationship is quite remote with no mutual intelligibility.

The article says:

Finnish demonstrates an affiliation with other Uralic languages (such as Hungarian) in several respects including:

...

Possibly, this could be modified to

Finnish demonstrates an affiliation with other Uralic languages (such as Hungarian and Sámi) in several respects including:

...

However, I do not know if the traits mentioned are in fact shared by Sámi, so I do not know if this otherwise simple solution would be correct. Nø (talk) 09:36, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Actually I think mentioning Hungarian there is unnecessary since Finnish and Hungarian are not closely related (I think some of the examples given don't have Hungarian cognates but I'd have to search through my references to check). Stockhausenfan (talk) 12:14, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

If the traits mentioned are in fact shared with Hungarian (as stated), then I think mentioning Hungarian is very relevant - exactly because they are NOT very close. It demonstrates that despite being quite different, languages widely removed from each others in the Uralic family tree still have shared features. However, I also think that the relation to Sami should be mentioned in the article, one way or another. Nø (talk) 21:58, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

Language family classification

@MylowattsIAm, please find consensus on the talk page before making any more edits on the topic. You have been repeatedly changing the original language classification content in the article against the opinions of other editors, including breaking the 3-revert rule. State your case here and wait for consensus. Saltsjöbaden (talk) 20:12, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

@Saltsjöbaden An anonymous IP attempted to add the same information back. I'm not familiar with how to deal with edit wars; is there a way to alert the admins of this situation? FWIW I strongly oppose adding this information as no intermediate proto-languages have a consensus among experts. Stockhausenfan (talk) 12:01, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

I also want to remove "Finno-Ugric" which is now rejected by many (even most?) scholars, but I'll leave it for now due to the edit war. Stockhausenfan (talk) 12:45, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

That’s what I came here to suggest. Is it still a bad time?

I really don’t think the Finnic languages should be listed as coming from “Finno-Ugric” in the infobox. Why isn’t there even a question mark next to it? 2600:100A:B1E6:3EE:7C26:4497:517B:9845 (talk) 20:16, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

I removed it for now given that it's disputed and the infobox was the only presence it had on the article, see WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE. TylerBurden (talk) 20:48, 19 September 2024 (UTC)

The correct way of phrasing language family structures in the lede

I believe the correct way is to follow the families from closest to furthest away. Example from the Swedish language article:

Swedish (svenska [ˈsvɛ̂nːska] ⓘ) is a North Germanic language from the Indo-European language family, spoken predominantly in Sweden and in parts of Finland.

The problem is that currently on this article (Finnish language), it says the following:

Finnish (endonym: suomi [ˈsuo̯mi] ⓘ or suomen kieli [ˈsuo̯meŋ ˈkie̯li]) is a Uralic language of the Finnic branch, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland

• Problem 1: It starts from the furthest grouping (Uralic), not the closest (Finnic)
• Problem 2: It uses the term "branch" instead of "language family", but "language family" seems to be the correct definition linguistically.

Suggested fix:

Finnish (endonym: suomi [ˈsuo̯mi] ⓘ or suomen kieli [ˈsuo̯meŋ ˈkie̯li]) is a Finnic language of the Uralic language family, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland.
Saltsjöbaden (talk) 20:46, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Sounds better than the current version. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 21:59, 19 June 2024 (UTC)

Seems reasonable to me as well. TylerBurden (talk) 15:50, 20 June 2024 (UTC)

Updated the lede to match the above suggestion Saltsjöbaden (talk) 19:11, 21 June 2024 (UTC)

Prehistory

This page gives an outdated view of the diversification of Proto-Finnic; the modern view is explicated here: https://www.academia.edu/10172149/The_Diversification_of_Proto_Finnic Stockhausenfan (talk) 20:34, 3 June 2025 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Ei me mittä kaffelle men?.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 17:51, 22 December 2025 (UTC)

I just need to know better detail on why the alphabet section was removed

A tea introduced in alphabet section, I believe it didn't exist earlier, but it was suddenly removed. Does anyone know what's going on? ~2026-39454-14 (talk) 21:31, 13 July 2026 (UTC)

Because it was unsourced, a problem already on the article that doesn't need to grow, if you would like to add content, please add a WP:CITATION. TylerBurden (talk) 07:46, 14 July 2026 (UTC)