Veistellään

Veistellään is Finnish, the present passive form of the verb veistellä, meaning to carve or sculpt. In the passive, the actor is not specified, and the emphasis is on the action itself. In English this form corresponds to “is being sculpted” or “are being sculpted.”

Etymology and related forms: Veistellä belongs to the vocabulary of sculpture and carving, with related nouns such as veistos (a sculpture) and veistely (carving or sculpting as a process). The agent can be named with a by-phrase (for example, “veistetty veistäjän toimesta,” meaning “carved by a sculptor”), but the verb form veistellään itself leaves the actor implicit. The form is part of standard Finnish grammar and is widely used in artistic, educational, and descriptive texts.

Usage and meaning: Veistellään is commonly used to describe ongoing or general actions of carving or sculpting when the doer is unknown or unimportant. It appears in exhibition catalogs, instructional writings, and news reporting about artistic processes. It is not a progressive tense in the sense of English “is carving”; Finnish lacks a dedicated progressive aspect, so passive present serves to convey ongoing action in many contexts. Examples include: Patsaita veistellään puusta. Korujen veistäminen viittaa aktiivisesti veistämisen prosessiin, ja passive form veistellään voi tuoda esiin käsityön ja materiaalin roolin.

See also: veistos, veistely, veistäjä, veistoksen valmistus, Finnish passive voice.