Korporaatti

Korporaatti is an archaic Finnish term that denotes a corporate body or organized entity with legal personhood, typically used in older Finnish legal and administrative texts. The word is connected to the broader concept of korporaatio (corporation) and has historical roots in legal language that entered Finnish through Swedish and Latin sources in the 18th and 19th centuries. In modern Finnish, korporaatti is largely out of use, with more common terms such as korporaatio, yhdistys, säätiö, or osakeyhtiö used depending on the type of entity.

In historical usage, korporaatti referred to bodies with recognized legal capacity, including guilds, universities, municipal councils, religious chapters, and other associations established by charter or statute. These entities could own property, contract, sue and be sued, and hold rights separate from their individual members. The concept reflects the period’s administrative and legal vocabulary, in which associations of persons and property were treated as distinct legal persons.

The term appears mainly in archival materials, older statutes, and linguistic studies examining the evolution of terms for artificial persons and associations in Finnish. Today, korporaatti is typically described as outdated or literary, with contemporary terminology preferring korporaatio and other specific designations based on the entity’s nature and function.

See also: korporaatio, yhdistys, säätiö, osakeyhtiö, oikeushenkilö.