Appendix:Finnish pronunciation
This page details the pronunciation of Standard Finnish (Standard Spoken Finnish, yleispuhekieli), which is, unless otherwise specified, the spoken variety used to document Finnish pronunciations on the English Wiktionary. It is the standard prestige variety used in e.g. formal discussions, newscasts and official speeches, and is the primary variety taught in schools.
Key
Legend:
- IPA: The phoneme expressed in the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet). If the symbol is a link, it points to the relevant Wikipedia article.
- Examples: A Finnish word containing the phoneme, both as short (ungeminated for consonants) and long (geminated for consonants), as available. Each word is accompanied by an audio clip.
- English approximation: A rough approximation of the sound in an English word. This is only a rough approximation and should not be taken as an accurate representation of the sound.
- Explanation: An explanation of the sound.
- Notes: Additional notes in the form of footnotes.
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Notes
- ^ 'Native' /d/ is only found root-medially as a weak grade of /t/ under consonant gradation. More specifically, the phoneme can only appear between two vowels, either on its own or as part of /hd/. The realization of this phoneme varies by dialect and speaker.
- ^ Only ungeminated, except for one word: hihhuli. Exact realization varies slightly depending on the environment.
- ^ Only ungeminated.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Finnish plosives are always unaspirated.
- ^ Clear /l/, similar to Spanish, French and German, but unlike the dark /l/ of American English.
- ^ In native words always word-medial, and only in ⟨nk⟩ /ŋk/ (before ⟨k⟩ as a short consonant) or ⟨ng⟩ /ŋː/ (long, weak grade of ⟨nk⟩). In foreign borrowings the phoneme may also occur before another consonant (in which environment it is always ungeminated) or word-finally.
- ^ Realized as a trill ("rolled R"), like in Spanish ⟨rr⟩, Italian and many Slavic languages. When ungeminated and intervocalic, it may also be a tap , especially in faster speech.
- ^ Exhibits considerable variation depending on speaker and context. Usually somewhat retracted, (voiceless alveolar retracted sibilant), but may be realized as a voiced between vowels in fast speech, or (by some speakers) as after rounded vowels.
- ^ Only ungeminated. Realized as an approximant, not a fricative; roughly something between an English ⟨v⟩ and ⟨w⟩.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 The foreign voiced plosives are pronounced as such in Standard Spoken Finnish, at least by educated speakers. Pronouncing them as unvoiced is common among monolingual Finnish speakers (e.g. outside major cities), but is considered rustic or folksy or some.
- ^ Realized as in Standard Finnish. In idiolects without , it is usually realized as /ʋ/ when ungeminated and /hʋ/ when geminated.
- ^ Not reliably distinguished from /s/ by all speakers for most words (when ambiguity is not a risk).
- ^ Follows the vowel or consonant it modifies.
- ^ Usually marked between vowels with an apostrophe, especially when representing the weak grade of ⟨k⟩.
- ^ Falls on the first syllable.
- ^ Falls on the first syllable of later words as part of a compound.
- ^ A back vowel. The Finnish /ɑ/ is not necessarily quite a cardinal . Depending on the description, it might be near-open or central or near-back . It is also possible that the exact realization varies somewhat.
- ^ Mid vowel (mid front unrounded vowel), between and .
- ^ Mid vowel (mid back rounded vowel), between and .
- ^ Mid vowel (mid front rounded vowel), between and .
- ^ Diphthongs ending in ⟨i⟩ can be present in any syllable. Diphthongs ending in ⟨u⟩ or ⟨y⟩ are in standard Finnish only present in root-initial or open syllables, while later closed syllables have a hiatus.
- ^ Rare in initial syllables.
- ^ Very rare in initial syllables and fairly uncommon in general.
- ^ Opening diphthongs are only present in root-initial syllables.
Table
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Consonants
All consonants except /j/ and /ʋ/ may appear geminated. Geminated /h/ is however very rare.
Plosives
Standard Finnish native plosives are unvoiced and unaspirated: /k/, /p/, /t/.
An additional 'native' /d/ can be found as the weak grade of /t/ (under consonant gradation), and thus only occurs between vowels, either independently or as part of /hd/ (thus, native /d/ is never geminated). This originates as a spelling pronunciation by Swedish speakers learning Finnish during the 19th century, as it was spelled ⟨d⟩ (earlier also ⟨dh⟩) in an attempt to represent /ð/, its pronunciation in the Southwest Finnish literary standard at the time. In other dialects, it may be realized as , , or lost, only leaving behind e.g. a glide. Even in Standard Finnish, the consonant may in rapid speech become an alveolar tap.
Recent borrowings can also contain the phonemes /b/, /d/ and /ɡ/, which are pronounced as voiced plosives, although in monolingual Finnish speech they may only be partially voiced, if at all. However, minimal pairs do exist.
For (potential) glottal stops, see final gemination below.
Fricatives
Native words only have two fricatives: /s/ and /h/. The pronunciation of /s/ is highly variable. It is often devoiced and somewhat retracted, but may be voiced between two vowels in fast speech, and may even become a /ʃ/ "sh-sound" after rounded vowels.
Two more fricatives can be found in loanwords: /f/ and /ʃ/ ⟨š⟩. The latter is often pronounced as if it were /s/ if there is no risk of confusion.
Finnish ⟨v⟩ is not a fricative.
Rhotic
The single Finnish rhotic /r/ is a rolled R, but if ungeminated, may be realized as a tap between two vowels in rapid speech.
Lateral
Finnish /l/ is always a bright L, never a dark (velarized) L.
Nasals
Finnish has three nasals: /m/, /n/ and /ŋ/. While the first two are common and can appear in any position, /ŋ/ in native words is only found either as part of /ŋk/ ⟨nk⟩ or /ŋː/ ⟨ng⟩ between two vowels. In loanwords, it may appear as a short /ŋ/ even before other consonants or at the end of a word.
Approximants
/j/ and /ʋ/ are approximants in Finnish. The latter is spelled ⟨v⟩, but is not a fricative.
Vowels
All vowels may appear short or long, and there is very little if any difference in quality between the short and long variants of the same vowel.
⟨a⟩ is /ɑ/, a decidedly back vowel. ⟨y⟩, ⟨ä⟩ and ⟨ö⟩ are /y/, /æ/ and /ø/ respectively, all front vowels. Finnish /e/, /o/ and /ø/ are mid vowels.
Standard Finnish has 18 diphthongs, which are listed in the tables above.
Other features
Final gemination
- See also: Finnish phonology § Sandhi on Wikipedia
Some Finnish words or word roots feature final gemination (also called boundary lengthening, Finnish: rajakahdennus), which is usually marked with /ˣ/ (Finnish: jäännöslopuke; see also the entry for this symbol). This feature (argued to be morphophonetic) originates from the loss of some final consonants (primarily ⟨-k⟩ or ⟨-h⟩) always follows a vowel, and its realization depends on what follows it:
- If /ˣ/ is followed by a consonant, the consonant becomes geminated if it isn't already.
- If /ˣ/ is followed by a vowel or the end of the utterance, it usually manifests as a glottal stop , which may or may not be geminated, and may even be completely omitted in rapid speech.
This feature is not indicated in the Finnish orthography, but results in minimal pairs (albeit marginal). It can at times even surface within words due to clitics (jonnekin) /ˈjonːeˣkin/ → /ˈjonːekːin/ (respelled ⟨jonnekkin⟩), even though final gemination does not affect possessive suffixes. However, there are cases in which final gemination has in effect become grammaticalized, such as the partitive singular of hame → hametta, in which the geminated consonant is spelled with gemination.
In standard Finnish, final gemination occurs primarily in the following cases:
- nominals:
- verbs:
- first infinitive forms (dictionary forms)[† 1]
- note that the third-person singular present indicative does not have final gemination even if it is a homograph (i.e. spelled identically)
- connegative forms of verbs (except for conditional)
- second-person singular imperative forms of verbs (identical with the indicative connegative)
- first infinitive forms (dictionary forms)[† 1]
- adverbs:
- the third-person possessive suffix -nsa
The following features may or may not have final gemination depending on the idiolect (speaker and variety):
- nominals:
- comitative forms of adjectives (i.e. when not followed by a possessive suffix)
- verbs:
- past passive participles (-ttu)
- conditional connegative
- the numeral kolme (“three”)
- the pronoun itse (“self”)
Furthermore, in some dialects, final gemination is completely absent.
Suprasegmentals
Stress
Stress occurs on the first syllable of any given word. In compounds, secondary stress occurs at the beginning of each component word, which may result in stress falling on consecutive syllables if a component is only a single syllable. Certain other words have phonemic secondary stress as well.
Rhythmic secondary stress, generally taken as weaker than the phonemic secondary stress found in compound words (or some other words), as described above, has been interpreted in different ways. Such stress is not strictly phonemic and can depend on the speaker and context. Songs and poems, in particular, may take significant liberties.
According to the traditional explanation, rhythmic stress also occurs roughly on odd syllables and is assigned left-to-right, with the leftmost syllable in a prosodic foot being stressed, but may skip up to two light syllables if a heavy syllable follows (e.g. ⟨omenanamme⟩ → o.me.na.nam.me). Some suffixes may also incur secondary stress automatically, in which case they may 'steal' it from an immediately preceding syllable. Syllables containing (the start of) certain inflectional suffixes, including possessive suffixes, may also avoid secondary stress, by e.g. shifting it to the preceding syllable, even if it is a light syllable.
An alternative explanation, offered by Karvonen (2005; see Further reading), instead posits that rhythmic stress is predominantly assigned right-to-left, which results in different stresses for words with more than four syllables (e.g. kolesteroli in the traditional explanation is ko.les.te.ro.li, but when assigned right to left, is instead ko.les.te.ro.li). In addition, vowel hiatuses are avoided when assigning stresses (televisio is te.le.vi.si.o, not xte.le.vi.si.o), and syllables may instead stress shift back by one if that syllable has higher priority (is heavy, or contains a long vowel/diphthong).
Final syllables (in words more than one) are usually not stressed, but if the final syllable is heavy (ends in a consonant or contains a long vowel or diphthong) and the preceding syllable is light (ends in a short vowel) and unstressed, the final syllable may receive stress (e.g. taistelevan becomes tais.te.le.van instead of tais.te.le.van). As can be seen in the example, this may and will cause stress in earlier syllables to shift forwards.
Sandhi
Finnish is rich in sandhi phenomena. Besides the final gemination listed above, there are instances of assimilation: /nk/ is generally realized as if it were and /np/ as .
Further reading
- Suomi, Kari, Toivanen, Juhani, Ylitalo, Riikka (2008) Finnish sound structure – Phonetics, phonology, phonotactics and prosody (Studia Humaniora Ouluensia 9) (overall work in English), Oulu University Press, →ISBN
- Auli Hakulinen with Maria Vilkuna, Riitta Korhonen, Vesa Koivisto, Tarja Riitta Heinonen, and Irja Alho (2004) Iso suomen kielioppi, Helsinki: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, →ISBN
- Daniel Howard Karvonen (2005) Word prosody in Finnish (doctoral dissertation; overall work in English), University of California, Santa Cruz
See also
Footnotes
- ^ Some Helsinki slang first infinitive forms are an exception.