pääni

Pääni is the Finnish word meaning “my head.” It is formed by the noun pää, meaning head, plus the first-person singular possessive suffix -ni, which marks ownership directly on the noun. This is a typical Finnish construction, where possessive suffixes attach to nouns to express possession without a separate possessive pronoun.

In use, pääni refers specifically to the speaker’s head. For example: Pääni on kipeä. (My head hurts.) Pääni täyttyy ideoista. (My head is full of ideas.) These forms are common in everyday speech and writing.

The possessive suffix system allows for other possessors with the same noun, such as pääsi for “your head” or päämme for “our head.” The base noun remains pää, while the suffix changes to indicate who owns it. Finnish possessive forms are part of its agglutinative grammar, where affixes express person and number directly on the noun.

Phonetically, pääni is pronounced with a long vowel in the first syllable, typically approximated as [ˈpæːni] in Finnish.

See also: Pää (head) and Päänsärky (headache).