kielistä

Kielistä is a Finnish inflected form derived from the noun kieli, which means language or tongue. In this context, kielistä is the genitive plural form and is used when referring to languages collectively, often in constructions that highlight a subset or part of a group of languages.

The primary function of kielistä is to express relationships of possession or belonging among languages, especially after numerals or words that indicate a portion of a group. A common example is the phrase yksi kielistä, meaning one of the languages. This usage allows speakers to identify a single language within a larger set, such as when discussing multiple languages spoken in a region or by a population.

Kieli, the base word, is a fundamental term in linguistics and everyday speech for both “language” and “tongue.” Like many Finnish nouns ending in -i, kieli has several inflected forms for different cases and numbers, and kielistä is one of the forms used in plural expressions concerning languages.

In summary, kielistä is the genitive plural form of kieli, serving to talk about languages as items within a larger group. It appears in contexts ranging from linguistic discussion to comparative statements about different languages, always reflecting a relationship to multiple languages rather than a single language. See also the entry on kieli for related forms and usage.