Tutuiksi

Tutuiksi is a Finnish grammatical form used to express a change of state from the adjective tutü, meaning familiar or well-known, into a state of being familiar or known to someone. It is formed with the translative suffix -ksi, indicating a transformation. In practice, tutuiksi is used to describe the process by which a person, thing, or concept becomes recognizable or well known to others, or becomes familiar within a group.

Usage and examples

Tutuiksi often appears with verbs of becoming, such as tull a (to become). It is commonly used with a recipient expressed in the appropriate case (for example, minulle, meille, monille) to indicate to whom the subject becomes familiar. A typical construction is that something has "tuleminen tutuiksi" for a target audience, or that someone "on tullut tutuiksi" to a group. For instance, unofficial examples in discourse might say that a new colleague has "tuttüksi monille" in the office, meaning the colleague has become familiar to many people there.

Relation to related terms

Tutuiksi is distinct from tuttu (the noun or adjective sense of acquaintance) and from tuttavaksi, which more explicitly conveys becoming an acquaintance. While tutuiksi emphasizes becoming familiar or recognized in a broader sense, tuttavaksi stresses the formation of a personal acquaintance. The forms and nuances reflect Finnish emphasis on social familiarity and status changes through specific suffixes.

Origin and grammar

The form derives from the adjective tutü with the translative suffix -ksi, a productive mechanism in Finnish for indicating change of state. It belongs to the broader system of case endings used to express transformations rather than location, possession, or direct object roles.