Sanakirja

Sanakirja is Finnish for dictionary, a reference work that lists the words of a language along with information about their meanings, pronunciations, and usage. Dictionaries can be monolingual, Finnish-to-Finnish, or bilingual and multilingual, providing translations or equivalents in other languages. They may also specialize in areas such as technical terminology, medicine, or slang.

A typical dictionary entry includes the headword, phonetic or audio pronunciation, part of speech, inflected forms or lemma, and a definition or translation. Many entries offer example sentences, usage notes, synonyms and antonyms, and etymology. Some entries indicate common collocations, regional variants, or register (formal, informal). In languages with rich morphology like Finnish, dictionaries often provide information about inflection patterns and word formation, and some extend to grammatical notes or usage cautions.

Print dictionaries have a fixed scope and organization, usually alphabetical, while digital dictionaries offer advanced search functions, morphological parsing, voice pronunciations, and cross-referencing. Online and mobile dictionaries may include corpus-based usage data, automatic updates, and offline access. The digitization of dictionaries has facilitated rapid lookups, backlinks to related terms, and multilingual translation workflows, making them essential tools for language learning, translation, and writing.

In linguistic and educational contexts, sanakirja serves as a core resource for understanding word meanings, correct usage, and language evolution. It is a foundational instrument in lexicography, lexicon development, and language documentation. See also: lexicography, dictionary, glossaries.