Kirjaimet

Kirjaimet, meaning letters, are the basic symbols used in writing systems to represent the sounds of a language. They are combined to form syllables and words, and their order and distinctions influence pronunciation, meaning, and readability. The plural term kirjaimet is used in Finnish to denote this set of symbols, though the concept is universal across languages.

Most languages that use the Latin script organize a finite alphabet of letters. In Finnish, the alphabet contains 29 letters: the 26 basic Latin letters plus Å, Ä, and Ö. The latter three are treated as independent letters in spelling and sorting, and they are essential for representing Finnish phonology. Many languages include letters with diacritics or use digraphs and ligatures that function as letter units in certain contexts.

Historically, letters emerged from pictorial symbols and gradually became standardized through handwriting, printing, and education systems. The advent of the printing press, type design, and then digital typography shaped the forms of letters. In computing, letters are encoded as code points in character sets such as Unicode, enabling consistent representation across platforms and languages. Uppercase and lowercase variants are used for grammatical and typographic purposes.

Letter use involves orthography and spelling rules that govern how letters combine to represent sounds. Some languages use digraphs or trigraphs as distinct letters for collation. In Finnish and many other languages, the correct handling of letters with diacritics is essential for meaning, pronunciation, and indexing in dictionaries and databases. Kirjaimet thus map sounds to symbols, support written communication, and reflect a language's history and identity.