kirjassa

Kirjassa is the inessive singular form of the Finnish noun kirja, meaning book. It translates roughly to “in the book” and is used to indicate location inside the book or within the text.

Morphology and usage: The inessive case is marked by the suffix -ssa or -ssä. For stems ending in a back vowel, such as kirja (ends with -a), the form is -ssa, yielding kirjassa. This form can refer to physical location inside the book or to information that appears within the book’s text. For example, you can say “Kirjassa kerrotaan…,” meaning “In the book, it is stated that…,” or “Kirjassa on kuva,” meaning “There is a picture in the book.”

Context and notes: Kirjassa is commonly used in literary analysis, summaries, or discussions of a specific book to point to content inside that book. Finnish does not use articles, so kirjassa functions without an accompanying article. Related forms show other relations to a book, such as kirjastoflows like kirjastossa (in the library) or kirjaston, but among the most frequent contrasts are kirjasta (from the book) and kirjaan (into the book).

Etymology and scope: The word comes from the basic noun kirja (book) and follows Finnish vowel harmony and case system. As with other inessive forms, kirjassa appears in contexts where the book is the location or source being referenced, whether discussing what the book says, contains, or depicts.