Eliniänsä

Eliniänsä is a Finnish noun phrase used to refer to the length of a person’s life, i.e., a person’s lifespan or life expectancy. It is a possessive construction that centers on elinaika, the concept of lifespan, and functions in biographical, statistical, and everyday language to describe how long someone has lived or is expected to live.

In standard Finnish the common form for this idea is elinaikansa. The phrase can take the personal possessive suffix to indicate the owner: elinaikani (my lifespan), elinaikasi (your lifespan), elinaikansa (his/her/its lifespan). The expression appears in contexts such as biographies, demographic reports, and discussions of longevity. For example: “Hänen elinaikansa on 82 vuotta.” and “Keskimääräinen elinaikansa maassa on noussut viime vuosikymmeninä.” These illustrate how the term functions both in individual and population-level statements.

Usage notes: elinaikansa typically refers to the length of life in a qualitative sense (how long someone has lived) or in quantitative terms (a specific number of years). It is distinct from related concepts like elinikä, which can also mean lifespan or lifespan expectation, and from elinaika, which can denote a period or duration more generally.

See also: elinaika, elämä, ikä, elinikä.