Tietäjille

Tietäjille is the allative plural form of tietäjä, meaning “to/for the seers.” In Finnish grammar, this form is used when the seers are the recipients or target of an action, for example in phrases like lahja on tarkoitettu tietäjille (“the gift is intended for the seers”).

Tietäjä means a wise person, seer, or traditional healer/shaman in Finnish folklore and ethnology. The word is built from the root tieto, “knowledge,” with the agentive suffix -jä. The plural nominative is tietäjät, and the allative plural is formed by adding the suffix -lle to the plural stem, yielding tietäjille.

In folklore and historical descriptions, tietäjät were respected practitioners who possessed knowledge of healing, divination, weather signs, and ritual speech. They could be male or female and often played central roles in communities, guiding decisions, offering remedies, and performing rites. The concept is frequently discussed in ethnographic literature to illustrate traditional knowledge systems in Finnish culture, and it is distinct from other figures such as noita (witch) in some narratives.

In modern Finnish, tietäjille primarily appears in linguistic, literary, and educational contexts as the allative plural form of tietäjä. It may occur in phrases like tietäjille suunnattu materiaali (“material aimed at the seers”). The term continues to be part of discussions of Finnish folklore and language, illustrating how case and number interact in the language’s noun system.

See also: tietäjä, noita, Finnish folklore, Finnish grammar.