Eläviltä

Eläviltä is the elative plural form of the Finnish adjective elävä, meaning alive or living. In Finnish grammar, eläviltä is used to express origin or source from living beings when the source noun is plural and in the elative case. It is not a standalone lexical item, but a grammatical inflection that conveys that the source comes from living ones.

The form is created from the adjective elävä, with the elative plural suffix -iltä. The phrase eläviltä indicates “from the living ones” and is typically used together with a plural noun in the elative case, such as todistajat (witnesses) or silminnäkijät (eyewitnesses). This emphasis on living sources is common in contexts where the credibility or immediacy of testimony is relevant.

Common usage examples include:

- Eläviltä todistajilta on saatu lisätietoja. (Additional information has been obtained from living witnesses.)

- Eläviltä silminnäkijöiltä kuultiin tarkkoja kuvauksia tapahtumista. (From living eyewitnesses, precise descriptions of the events were heard.)

In contrast to references to non-living sources, eläviltä signals that the origin lies with those who are alive at the time of reporting. It is frequently encountered in journalism, legal reporting, and testimony-related contexts where the distinction between living and deceased or non-human sources matters.

See also: elatiivi, elävä, Finnish grammar.