Erilläänä

Erilläänä is a Finnish adverb that signals separation or being apart. It is an infrequently attested form and is generally regarded as archaic or dialectal, with erillään being the standard synonym meaning “apart” or “separately.” Because erilläänä is not widely described in contemporary dictionaries, its precise status is largely historical or regional rather than normative.

Usage and register

The form appears mainly in older literary texts or in regional speech. In modern standard Finnish, erilläänä is rarely used; speakers and writers typically prefer erillään or constructions such as erillään toisistaan to express separation between parts or groups. When erilläänä does occur, it often carries a stylistic or emphatic tone, echoing the broader pattern in Finnish of using variant forms for emphasis in historical or poetic contexts.

Etymology and form

Erilläänä seems to derive from erillään plus an archaic or stylistic suffix, such as -nä, which some Finnish varieties used to create adverbial or adjectival nuances. The exact historical development and attested spellings vary across texts, and the form is not consistently described in standard reference works.

Summary

Erilläänä is a rarely used, mostly historical or dialectal variant of the more common erillään. It is of interest primarily to researchers of historical Finnish, dialectology, or poetry, rather than to speakers of contemporary standard Finnish. See also erillään.