heistä

Heistä is the elative plural form of the Finnish personal pronoun he (they). The elative case expresses origin or source and is commonly used to indicate topics or concerns in relation to a group, effectively meaning “from them” or “about them” depending on the verb and context. In practice, heistä is often translated as “about them” in English, though it can function with verbs that require the elative meaning, such as talking about or knowing about a group.

Grammatically, heistä is formed by taking the pronoun stem he and adding the elative suffix -stä. It is used with verbs that govern the elative, for example: puhutaanko heistä? meaning “are we talking about them?” or Mitä heistä tiedät? meaning “What do you know about them?” In these uses, the focus is on information or discussion concerning the people referred to.

Examples of usage:

- Puhutaan heistä. (People are talking about them.)

- Mitä heistä tiedät? (What do you know about them?)

- Olen kuullut heistä. (I’ve heard about them.)

- Heistä on tullut paljon puhetta. (There has been a lot of talk about them.)

Notes and related forms: heistä is one of several inflected forms of the pronoun he; another common form is meistä, meaning “from us.” The pronoun system in Finnish uses various case endings to express relations such as origin, location, and topic, and heistä is a routine part of discussing groups of people in both spoken and written Finnish.

---