Фин тілінің ауызша түрі

Spoken form of the Finnish language

Colloquial or spoken Finnish (suomen puhekieli) is the unstandardized spoken variety of the Finnish language, in contrast with the standardized form of the language (yleiskieli). It is used primarily in personal communication and varies somewhat between the different dialects. This article focuses on the variety of spoken Finnish that is predominant in the Helsinki metropolitan area and urbanized areas in the Tavastian and Central Finland dialectal areas, such as the cities of Tampere, Jyväskylä, Lahti, Hyvinkää, and Hämeenlinna – as well as in coastal cities such as Vaasa and Porvoo, which have been traditionally Swedish speaking and have experienced an influx of Finnish speakers from a variety of dialectal areas. The standard language takes most of its features from these dialects, i. e. most "dialectal" features are reductions with respect to this form of language. The combination of the common spoken Finnish and a dialect gives a regional variant (aluepuhekieli), which has some local idiosyncrasies but is essentially similar to the common spoken Finnish. The basics of Finnish needed to fully understand this article can be found in pages about Finnish phonology and Finnish grammar.

As in any language, the spoken version(s) of Finnish often vary from the written form. Some of the latter's constructs are either too arbitrary (e. g. "soft d", cf. Finnish phonology), or too dialectal, e. g. hän (see below), for use in the spoken language. Furthermore, some very common and "accentless" sound changes are not reflected in the standard language, particularly fusion, liaison and some diphthong reductions. There is also the problem that purists want to avoid irregularity regardless of actual usage. This has left some sound changes common in spoken language out from the standard language. There is a tendency to favor "more logical" constructs over easily pronounceable ones. This ideal does reflect spoken Finnish usage to a degree, as Finnish is demonstrably a conservative language with few reduction processes, but it is not entirely accurate. The problem of avoiding "irregularity" is most evident in spelling, where internal sandhi is not transcribed, because there is the idea that morphemes should be immutable. For example, the "correct" spelling is syönpä ("I eat" with emphasis), even though the pronunciation is usually syömpä. The explanation is that n and pä are in different morphemes just like the explanation that English boys is not spelled with a z is that they are in different morphemes. There are also a number of grammatical forms which are used in written Finnish, but only very rarely in spoken. For example, there are a number of constructions using participles which are usually rendered analytically in speech. Some cases and moods are rarely constructive in spoken Finnish, e. g. the instructive and comitative cases and the potential mood. Some survive only in expressions. On the other hand, spoken language has its own features rarely or never found in formal language. Most importantly, there is very common external sandhi, and some assimilatory sound changes. (On the contrary, there is no vowel reduction.) In some variants (e. g. Vaasa, Kymenlaakso) of spoken Finnish n kanssa ("with [something]") is abbreviated into a clitic that is effectively a comitative case, e. g. nkans or nkaa.

The most common reflexes for old Finnish dental fricatives are for , and or for For example, metsä, metsän or mettä, metän ← meθθä, meθän "forest, of the forest" and meidän < meiðän "ours". Loss of also occurs, e. g. meiän. These are seen as "accent free" pronunciations. Dialects generally have different reflexes — in fact, the different reflexes are used as a distinguishing feature between different dialects. For more details, see Finnish phonology.

One important sound change, which has gone to completion in Estonian but occurs idiosyncratically in Finnish, is mutation of word final into a glottal stop , orthographically represented by an apostrophe. In some dialects, such as Savo, word final is systematically replaced by , e. g. isä'iän ← isän ääni "father's voice". Both pronunciations can be heard in the Helsinki area. This means that the genitive/accusative form n, which is very common in any form of Finnish, is simply noted by a glottal stop. However, this glottal stop undergoes sandhi whenever followed by consonant, or more often than not (see below).

Personal pronouns are used extensively in spoken Finnish whereas in formal forms the pronoun is often optional (indicated in brackets in this article). Furthermore, the pronouns themselves in spoken Finnish are different from those used in formal Finnish. Personal pronouns mä and sä are used extensively in colloquial Finnish in place of minä and sinä ('I' and singular 'you'). The pronouns se and ne, which in the formal language are used only as non human personal pronouns meaning ('it' and plural 'they'), are used in the spoken language as personal pronouns (which in the formal language would be hän ('he', 'she' and singular 'they') and he (plural 'they'). See the tables below for examples.

When a negative sentence is formed, the main verb goes into the imperative mood and gives all of its inflections to the negative verb ei, e. g. tuemme → emme tue. Usually the word mitään ("anything") and an expletive is added to the sentence. This means that even if the negative verb ei is left out, the meaning is indicated by this context. For example:

Ei se mitään osaa. "He doesn't know anything." Se mitään osaa. "He know anything." ("doesn't" omitted)

This omission of the negative verb ei is considered one of the most recent changes in Finnish. Usually this construction indicates mistrust or frustration. (A parody article by Jaakko Häkkinen calls this aggressiivi, see aggressive mood.) However, it can be a neutral negative statement: Tästä artikkelista mitään opi (From this article, you don't learn anything).

Linguists such as Mielikäinen argue that the dialects of Finnish have been considerably homogenized by 20th century developments of urbanization and other internal population movements to the point that "pure" dialects have disappeared. "Local spoken languages" have developed from standard Finnish to give variety with essentially standard Finnish structure but with some local features. Considerable stigma has been associated with dialects (accurately or not) perceived as rural in the 20th century. People who have moved to the city have adopted a variety resembling standard Finnish, which has been imposed upon dialect speakers by the school, the military and the employers. Breaking up some consonant clusters on syllable boundaries with an epenthetic vowel is a feature of several dialects, such as those of Ostrobothnia and Savonia: The neutral vowel is the same as the preceding vowel. For example, juhla → juhula "celebration", salmi → salami "strait", palvelu → palavelu "service", halpa → halapa "cheap", äffä → ähävä (via ähvä) "letter F". Pairs of dissimilar consonants with or (in Savo, also ) as the first consonant are subject to epenthesis; other clusters or geminates are not. However, a strong epenthetic vowel is seen as dialectal, and in Helsinki and urbanized areas, indicates origins "in the countryside" (since for Helsinki people, everything but Helsinki is rural).

Tavastian dialects are diverse because other, surrounding dialects have influenced them. The following features are all found in Finnish spoken in Helsinki, and many of them occur also in some other Tavastian dialects. Word sillai "in that way", which is usually something else like silleen elsewhere. Partitive plurals ending ja/ jä in generic Finnish become i, and likewise the partitive plural ia/ iä simplifies to ii: märkiä takkeja → märkii takkei "wet jackets". (also in Nurmijärvi, Kotka)
The first infinitive, e. g. juosta "to run", is replaced by the third person form juoksee "runs" by some speakers. For example, standard Voisitko sinä juosta hakemaan sen becomes Voisitsä juoksee hakeen sen "Could you run to get it". This form is probably historically speaking not the third person form, but the colloquial, shortened form juokseen of the third infinitive form juoksemaan, which exhibits a tendency to oust the first infinitive even in the formal language, cf. the old dispute, whether alkaa juoksemaan ("to start running") should be allowed in the formal language or not (the current norm is still alkaa juosta with the first infinitive). (also in Tuusula and Nurmijärvi)
Abbreviations are common in Finnish spoken in the Southern coast of Finland. Final syllables in frequently used words may erode, like sitten → sit, mutta → mut. Case endings might be abbreviated, usually by the loss of the final vowel, e. g. siltä → silt. (If a geminate would be "left dangling" at the end of the word, it becomes a single consonant, e. g. talossa → *taloss → talos.) Helsinki also has a local slang, containing foreign loanwords which may be unintelligible to people from other parts of Finland. Some slang words have spread to the spoken language of youngsters elsewhere in Finland. Tampere is also in the area of Tavastian dialects. Occasional flapping or deletion of intervocalic "L"; the resulting sound is orthographically nil: kyllä siellä olisi → kyä siä ois. This is seen even in the accentless form oisko ← standard olisiko.

Some difference in pronouns, myö, työ for me, te. Notice that the Savo dialect has complicated differences in grammar, vowels and consonants compared to the standard language, e. g. öylen for eilen, mänj for meni, omaa rataansa → ommoo rattoosa. The Savo dialect is the largest single dialect, and as such, has variants that differ significantly.

Aila Mielikäinen. Heikki Paunonen.