Virkakirjeessä

Virkakirjeessä is a Finnish grammatical form that literally means “in the official letter.” It is created by taking the noun virkikirje, which refers to a letter issued by a public authority or an administrative body, and adding the inessive ending -ssä. As such, virkakirjeessä denotes location or content found inside an official letter.

In practical use, virkakirjeessä functions as a descriptive marker in bureaucratic or archival Finnish. It is most often encountered in formal writing, metadata, archives, or documentation where the aim is to indicate that a particular piece of information, instruction, or communication is contained within an official letter or correspondence from an authority. The form is more typical in specialized texts than in everyday speech.

Grammatically, virkakirjeessä is the inessive form of virkikirje. The inessive case answers “where?” and is used to express location within something, such as a document or container. When used in descriptions, it helps readers understand the origin or placement of information within official communications.

See also: Finnish grammar, how the inessive case (-ssa/-ssä) marks location, and the broader use of bureaucratic terminology in Finnish administrative writing.