Suomalaisen

Suomalaisen is the genitive singular form of the Finnish word suomalainen, which can function as both a noun meaning a Finn and an adjective meaning Finnish. In use, suomalaisen denotes possession or relation, as in phrases like suomalaisen kulttuurin piirteet (features of Finnish culture) or suomalaisen kirjallisuuden klassikot (classics of Finnish literature).

In Finnish, the normal noun and adjective suomalainen inflect according to case and number. The plural nominative is suomalaiset, and the genitive plural is suomalaisten. The form suomalaisen is commonly encountered in contexts where something belongs to or originates from a Finnish person or from Finland, reflecting both ethnic and national dimensions depending on the sentence.

The suffix -lainen is productive in Finnish for creating demonyms and adjectives from place names or ethnonyms, yielding words such as ruotsalainen (Swedish person), venäläinen (Russian), or jyväskyläläinen (person from Jyväskylä). The word otherwise shares the neutral, descriptive tone typical of Finnish ethnonyms and can appear in journalism, academia, and everyday language.

Etymology traces suomalainen to Suomi, the Finnish name for Finland, combined with the suffix -lainen, which forms words indicating origin, affiliation, or characteristic. Because Suomen kieli is agglutinative, suomalainen and its inflected forms are commonly used across a wide range of grammatical contexts, making suomalaisen a versatile element in Finnish discourse.