Tyttöinä

Tyttöinä is a Finnish word form that represents the plural essive case of the noun tyttö, meaning girl. As a grammatical ending, -inä marks the essive plural, which conveys a state or role—essentially “as girls” or “in the capacity of girls.” The singular equivalent is tyttönä, meaning “as a girl.”

In usage, tyttöinä is employed when describing groups of girls in a way that characterizes their role, state, or identity within a context. Finnish uses essive forms to indicate temporary or contextual states without a finite verb to be, so tyttöinä functions within sentences to describe how a group is being regarded or described at a given time. The form is common in descriptive, analytical, or literary contexts and can appear in sociolinguistic, demographic, or ethnographic writing where gendered group description is relevant.

Tyttöinä is one of several cases that modify the noun to express role or state; it contrasts with other forms such as tyttöinä vs. tyttöjä (partitive plural) or työt? and tyttöt (nominative plural). Because Finnish has rich inflection, the precise ending changes with number and case, and tyttöinä specifically targets the plural essive function. In everyday speech, speakers often rely on broader phrasing, but tyttöinä remains a correct and standard form in formal or descriptive Finnish.