salaattien

Salaattien is the genitive plural form of the Finnish noun salaatti, meaning salad. In Finnish, the genitive case marks possession or relation, so salaattien translates roughly as “of the salads” or “the salads’.” It is used when something pertains to or belongs to more than one salad.

In practice, salaattien appears in noun phrases that describe a relationship to multiple salads. Examples include salaattien reseptit (the salads’ recipes or recipes for salads) and salaattien kastikkeet (dressings for the salads). Finnish often relies on such genitive forms to convey possession or association without an article or pronoun.

Grammar note: Salaatti forms a genitive plural as salaattien, contrasting with the nominative plural salaatit (salads) and the genitive singular salaatin (of the salad). The partitive plural is salaatteja (salads’ or some salads, in partitive sense). These endings illustrate Finnish’s system of case and number in noun inflection, where the same word can take different endings to express related meanings.

Etymology: The word salaatti is borrowed from Swedish sallad, which in turn derives from French salade (and ultimately Latin/Old influences related to the concept of salad). The genitive form salaattien follows Finnish plural inflection patterns.

See also: Finnish grammar and Finnish vocabulary. Salaattien demonstrates how Finnish marks possession and association with plural nouns in everyday phrases.