Finnish orthography

Finnish orthography is based on the Latin script, and uses an alphabet derived from the Swedish alphabet, officially comprising twenty-nine letters but also including two additional letters found in some loanwords. 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.

Alphabet

The following table describes how each letter in the Finnish alphabet () is spelled and pronounced separately. If the name of a consonant begins with a vowel (usually ), it can be pronounced and spelled either as a monosyllabic or bisyllabic word.

!Name pronunciation

!Notes on usage (for more, see Finnish phonology)

|A, a

|B, b

|Occurs in relatively new loanwords, such as 'banana' and 'bus'. Typically represents or .

|C, c

|Occurs in unestablished loanwords, such as and . Typically represents or .

|D, d

|In present standard language, stands for , but the pronunciation in dialects varies greatly.

|E, e

|The precise pronunciation tends to be between and .

|F, f

|, , occasionally

|Occurs in relatively new loanwords, such as 'asphalt' or 'uniform'. Historically and in dialectal pronunciation (apart from some Western dialects), is typically replaced with or medially (e.g. ← Swedish 'coffee'). Even newer loanwords may have an alternative spelling where has replaced (, ). Note that the names of the country, language, and nationality beginning with F (Finland, Finnish, Finn) are non-native, the native ones being , , and .

|G, g

|Occurs natively in the digraph , which marks the long velar nasal (with no sound). Otherwise only occurs in relatively new loanwords, such as 'gala' and 'gene'. Typically represents or .

|H, h

|Normally a voiceless fricative, but the precise pronunciation depends on the preceding vowel; between two vowels may be pronounced as breathy-voiced .

|I, i

|J, j

|Without exception (English consonant ), as in German and Swedish, never fricative or affricate as in French or English.

|K, k

|L, l

|, , occasionally

|M, m

|, , occasionally

|N, n

|, , occasionally

|O, o

|The precise pronunciation tends to be between and .

|P, p

|Q, q

|Mainly occurs in foreign proper names (in loanwords digraph has often been replaced with , aside from unestablished recent loanwords, such as queer). Typically represents , though some speakers pronounce it as .

|R, r

|, , occasionally

|S, s

|, , occasionally

|T, t

|The precise pronunciation tends to be dental rather than alveolar .

|U, u

|The precise pronunciation tends to be between and .

|V, v

|Typically represents approximant rather than fricative .

|W, w

|

|, ,

|The "double-v" may occur natively as an archaic variant of , but otherwise in unestablished loanwords and foreign proper names only. It occurs in some rare surnames such as (e.g. Mika Waltari, a world-famous author) or in some rare first names such as (e.g. Werner Söderström, a well-known publisher). In collation the letter was treated like before 2022. Typically represents .

|X, x

|, , occasionally

|Occurs in unestablished loanwords, such as taxi or fax, but there is often a preferred alternative where has been replaced with digraph (, ). Typically represents .

|Y, y

|The precise pronunciation tends to be between and .

|Z, z

|Occurs in unestablished loanwords, such as 'zenith' or , but there may be an alternative spelling with (e.g. ). Typically represents (like in German), but sometimes or .

|Å, å

|,

|The "Swedish ", carried over from the Swedish alphabet and redundant in Finnish; retained especially for writing Finland-Swedish proper names (such as Ståhlberg). All Finnish words containing are proper names and their derivatives (); there it represents (identically to ). The spelling ('tram', colloquial, from Swedish ) sometimes occurs in practice, but the standard spelling is .

|Ä, ä

|Ö, ö

|The precise pronunciation tends to be between and .

The letters and are variants of and , but they are often overlooked, as they are only used in some relatively new loanwords and foreign names, and may be replaced with and , respectively, The Finnish keyboard layout on Microsoft Windows does not include or ; thus, in practice, only highly formal sources such as official texts, encyclopedias or Helsingin Sanomat use them.

{| class="wikitable"

!Glyphs

!Name

!Name pronunciation

!Notes on usage (for more, see Finnish phonology)

|Š, š

|, ; ,

|The " with caron" is a rare variant of . It occurred in some relatively new loanwords, such as 'chess' and 'shilling', but is often replaced with digraph ( → ) or, in more established loanwords, with plain (). In theory it represents but actual pronunciation may vary.

|Ž, ž

|,

|The " with caron" is a rare variant of . It occurs in some unestablished loanwords, such as 'junk', and foreign proper names, but is often replaced with digraph . In theory represents but the actual pronunciation may vary.

The extra letters and

thumb|right|The sign at the bus station of the Finnish municipality [[Mynämäki, illustrating a stylized variation of ⟨ä⟩.]]

The main peculiarities in the Finnish alphabet are the two extra vowels ⟨ä⟩ and ⟨ö⟩ (and Swedish ⟨å⟩, which is not actually needed in Finnish). In Finnish, these extra letters are collectively called when they need to be distinguished from the ISO basic Latin alphabet; the word is a somewhat playful modification of , which is Finnish for "alphabet". Another informal term is or , short for "Scandinavian characters" (however, the Danish and Norwegian ⟨æ⟩ and ⟨ø⟩ are usually not taken into account).

In Finnish, ⟨ä⟩, ⟨ö⟩ and ⟨y⟩ are the "front vowel" counterparts to the "back vowels" ⟨a⟩, ⟨o⟩ and ⟨u⟩; grammatical endings and suffixes using these letters, use either the front or back form depending on the vowel harmony of the word. The glyphs for ⟨ä⟩ and ⟨ö⟩ are derived from the similar-looking German umlauted letters, but as with ⟨y⟩ versus ⟨u⟩, they are considered letters in their own right and thus alphabetized separately (after ⟨z⟩).

The Germanic umlaut or convention of considering digraph ⟨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 they have independent meanings (e.g. "I seek" vs. "he, she").

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 situated above the base glyph (such as, á ā ã) would probably be interpreted as a carelessly written pair of dots (ä). However, in computerized character sets, these alternatives are incorrect. The front-vowel counterpart of ⟨u⟩ using ⟨y⟩ rather than ⟨ü⟩ is carried over from Swedish, and also avoids confusion in cursive script with ⟨ii⟩, which is common in Finnish.

Non-native letters in the Finnish alphabet

thumb|[[Ålandsbanken 'Bank of Åland' uses a stylized letter 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 (which may be replaced with either or ), (which is usually replaced with , and particularly with ), and (which is replaced with ). In addition, the Swedish is redundant from the Finnish point of view, as its pronunciation is more or less equivalent to the Finnish way of pronouncing . 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, e.g. 'coffee', 'beard'. The letters include , , and (which is also used to mark the inherent velar nasal , however). From a historical point of view, even could be said to belong to this group, but the sound has long been an established part of standard language.
The letters and could be classified into both of the aforementioned groups. The sound is not regarded as a phoneme in Finnish, but historically was used to mark (or, rather, ), as in Dutch, German or Polish. Although this is today considered archaic and is used instead, may still occur in some old surnames as a variant of . Occasionally this can also be applied for faux-archaic effect, as in "Ye Olde Harbour". Likewise, the is not native to Finnish, but (or ) was formerly used to denote (as in German). It is still often represents , but its pronunciation varies greatly: some speakers may pronounce it , or sometimes .  The Finnish academic dictionary Kielitoimiston sanakirja prescribes pronunciations (e. g. ), (e. g. ), and (e. g. ).
The letters and ( and with caron) are officially recommended instead of and for transliteration from another alphabet, although in practice, and are often used. For example, Russian (transcribed Brezhnev in English) is transliterated . However, these sounds are foreign to the Finnish language, the letters do not appear on Finnish keyboards and their pronunciation is not consistent. The sound is familiar to most Finnish speakers and quite commonly used in many loanwords, e.g. 'chess', , but is restricted to foreign words only.

Collation order

In Finnish, words are ordered alphabetically according to the collation rules specified in the official standard SFS 4600.

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External links

Omniglot: writing systems and languages of the world: Finnish
Letters in Finnish
Finnish pronunciation (compared to English, IPA available)