finniskieli

Finniskieli is a term sometimes used to refer to the Finnish language, though in Finnish the language is called Suomen kieli or Suomi. The name finniskieli may appear in translations or historical writings and is not the standard designation in Finnish themselves.

Finnish belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic language family. It is an agglutinative language with vowel harmony and a relatively large case system. The modern written form uses the Latin alphabet with the letters Å, Ä and Ö. Finnish is an official language in Finland alongside Swedish and is spoken by about five million people in Finland and by several million more worldwide, in diaspora communities and neighboring regions.

Finnish has no grammatical gender and relies on inflection, particles, and word order to convey meaning. It features extensive noun and verb morphology, including a large number of cases (often cited as around 15). Adjectives agree with nouns in number and case, and the language uses verb forms that express tense, mood, and aspect through inflection and participles. The basic word order is SVO, but Finnish allows substantial flexibility due to its rich inflection.

Historically, Finnish was written from the 16th century onward, with standardization accelerating in the 19th century. The modern standard Finnish is shaped by the spoken language and is taught nationwide. There is a tradition of regional dialects, commonly grouped into Western and Eastern varieties, which persist alongside the standard form. Finnish has borrowed extensively from Swedish, Russian, and English, reflecting Finland’s multilingual context and historical contacts.