Välilyöntiä

Välilyöntiä is the genitive or partitive form of the Finnish word välilyönti, which refers to the space character or the act of pressing the space bar on a keyboard. The term covers both the typographic character used to separate words and the action of inserting a space when typing. In Finnish, välilyöntiä is thus encountered in sentences describing the space between words or the use of the space bar.

In written Finnish, a välilyönti is used to separate words, numbers from units, and other elements where a break between signs is needed for readability. The standard convention is to use a single space between words; there is generally no space before punctuation marks such as a comma or period, and a space follows such punctuation.

In computing and digital typography, the space character is categorized as a whitespace character. The regular space has the Unicode code point U+0020 (and in ASCII, code 32). There are other space-like characters used in typography, such as the non-breaking space (U+00A0) and various narrow spaces, which can be employed to influence line breaks or text appearance in specific contexts.

Historically, spacing practices have varied, but contemporary Finnish typography typically adheres to a single normal space in most contexts, including printed publications and online text. The term välilyöntiä appears in linguistic, typographic, and software-related discussions whenever the space character in Finnish text is being described.