Finnish alphabet

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 [http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/abc.html] . Similarly, "Š" and "Ž" are variants of "S" and "Z", respectively, but they are often overlooked, as they are only used in a few loanwords and some foreign names.

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).

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 vovels 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).

The extra letters "Ä" and "Ö"

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).

If the proper letters are not available, "Ä" and "Ö" must be replaced with "A" and "O", respectively. Even though there are lots of minimal pairs, e.g. "saari" (island) vs. "sääri" (leg), or "vaara" (danger) vs. "väärä" (wrong), which may be confused, the correct meaning can usually be reconstructed. For a Finnish reader, replacing "Ä" and "Ö" with "A" and "O" is less distracting than using the Germanic alternatives "AE" and "OE".

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.

Non-native letters in the Finnish alphabet

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.
* 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. 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 is today considered an established part of standard language. In addition, "Š" and "Ž" with special diacritics have been adopted, originally from the Czech alphabet, in order to represent [ʃ] and [ʒ] , which are not inherent in Finnish. They may be seen in transcriptions and a few loanwords: "Tšekki" (Czech), "Tšetšenia" (Chechnya), "Azerbaidžan" (Azerbaijan), "Tšaikovski" (Tchaikovsky), "Gorbatšov" (Gorbachev), "Brežnev" (Brezhnev), "datša" (dacha), "šakki" (chess), "šillinki" (shilling). On the other hand, many new loanwords from English, such as "show" and "sherry", tend to retain their original form. In less careful orthography, "SH" and "ZH" may replace "Š" and "Ž" even in other cases, but this can sometimes cause confusion (for example, "pasha" /pɑshɑ/ – where /s/ and /h/ are two distinct sounds – is a traditional Russian Easter delicacy, while "pašša" /pɑʃːɑ/ – in English, pasha – is a Turkish rank or honorary title).
* "W" and "Z" could be classified into both of the aforementioned groups. The English-style [w] sound is foreign to Finnish language, but historically "W" was used to mark [v] or, rather, [ʋ] sound. Although this is today considered archaic and "V" is used instead, "W" may still occur in some old surnames as a variant of "V". Likewise, voiced [z] sound is not inherent in Finnish language, but "Z" (or "TZ") was formerly used to denote [ts] (as in German). It is still often pronounced as [ts] , but some speakers may pronounce it as [s] , apparently trying to imitate the voiced [z] pronunciation but usually failing in a Finnish context.

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".

References

See also

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

External links

* [http://www.omniglot.com/writing/finnish.htm Omniglot: writing systems and languages of the world: Finnish]
* [http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/abc.html Aakkostus Suomessa] (the standard for Finnish alphabet, SFS 4600, explained in Finnish)
* [http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/lang/finnish-letters.html Letters in Finnish]
* [http://users.tkk.fi/~tuhkanen/Sery-C/Kotus-sz-hatut-EN.html Finnish orthography and the characters š and ž] (official recommendation)