kielenään

Kielenään is a Finnish grammatical form derived from the noun kieli, meaning language or tongue. It represents the essive case form used to express a temporary state, role, or identity—roughly translating to “as a language” or “in the capacity of a language.”

In Finnish grammar, the essive case (ending -na/-nä) marks how something is functioning or what it is being in a given situation. Kielenään appears in contexts where the language or tongue is described as the role or function of someone or something, rather than indicating a permanent property. It can be contrasted with the translative kieliksi, which marks a change of state into a language, and with the inessive kielellä, which denotes “in a language” as a current state.

The use of kielenään is most common in descriptions related to language practice, interpretation, translation, or linguistic analysis, where an object or person is characterized by the language they employ or represent in a particular moment. As with other essive forms, its exact nuance depends on surrounding words and the broader sentence structure.

Because kielenään is a grammatical form rather than a standalone concept, it is primarily encountered in Finnish language reference grammar, textbooks, and scholarly discussions of case usage. It illustrates how Finnish encodes roles and temporary states through noun inflection rather than through separate prepositions.

See also: Finnish grammar, Essive case, Kieli.