aakkoston

Aakkoston is the genitive form of aakkosto, a Finnish term for the alphabet or the set of letters and their conventional order used to write a language. In linguistics, education, and lexicography, aakkoston refers to both the collection of symbols that constitute a writing system and the rules for arranging those symbols in alphabetical order.

Etymology and scope: The word derives from aakkos- meaning "letter" combined with the suffix -sto, indicating a system or set. When used as a genitive, aakkoston means “the alphabet’s” or “the alphabet order.” It also covers sorting conventions, or collation, used to organize words and entries.

Finnish aakkosto: The modern Finnish alphabet consists of 29 letters: A through Z plus Å, Ä, and Ö. The presence of these extra characters influences sorting and spelling conventions in teaching materials, dictionaries, and software localized for Finnish.

Applications and usage: Aakkosto underpins literacy instruction, spelling rules, dictionary ordering, and data indexing. In computing and linguistics, it informs collation logic, search behavior, and language-specific sorting. Aakkoston can vary between languages, reflecting different writing systems and cultural conventions.

See also: Alphabet, Collation, Orthography, Finnish language.