Finnisch

Finnisch, or Finnish, is a Finnic language of the Uralic language family. It is the majority language of Finland and is spoken by communities in Sweden, Russia, and the Finnish diaspora elsewhere. It is one of Finland's two national languages, alongside Swedish, and is used in education, government, and media.

Finnish belongs to the Finnic branch of Uralic. The standard form is based on southwestern and central dialects, but regional varieties persist across Finland. Dialects are commonly grouped into Western, Central, and Eastern Finnish, with notable differences in pronunciation and vocabulary.

Finnish developed from Proto-Finnic. A major written tradition began with Mikael Agricola in the 16th century, who translated the Bible and helped standardize orthography. The modern standard was consolidated in the 19th and early 20th centuries amid national awakening and language reforms.

Linguistic features: Finnish is highly agglutinative, with extensive suffixation and about 15 grammatical cases. It uses vowel harmony, has no grammatical gender or definite/indefinite articles, and relies on postpositions. The language is written with the Latin alphabet, using diacritics such as ä and ö (and å in some loanwords), and typically has stress on the first syllable.

Usage and status: Finnish is an official language of Finland alongside Swedish and has protections for Sámi languages in parts of the country. It has a standard written form used in education and media, while regional dialects remain common in daily speech. Worldwide, there are roughly several million speakers, the vast majority in Finland.