Finnish (suomi)
Finnish is an official language of Finland, spoken by the majority of people here. About 6 million people speak Finnish. There are small Finnish-speaking minorities in Sweden, Norway, Russia and Estonia. In addition, a few hundred thousand emigrant Finns live in Sweden, and also in North America there remain communities of Finnish-speaking emigrants, notably in the upper peninsula of Michigan.
It is believed that the Baltic Finnic languages evolved from a Proto Finnic language, from which Sami was separated around 1500-1000 BC. The Baltic Finnic languages separated around the 1st century. Mikael Agricola, who was a Finnish bishop in the 16th century, created the first written form of Finnish language. He based his writing system on Swedish (which was the official language of Finland at the time), German and Latin. Many people revised the written form later.
Finnish is a member of the Finno-Ugric language family and is an agglutinative language, which modifies the forms of both noun and adjective depending on their roles in the sentence. It has a reputation for being difficult to understand and learn. This is mostly because there are few languages closely related to it, making the vocabulary unfamiliar. Since Finnish is agglutinative and inflected, it has a smaller core vocabulary than, for example, English, and uses derivative suffixes to a greater extent. As an example, take the word kirja (a book), from which one can form derivatives kirjain (a letter of alphabet), kirje (a letter, a piece of correspondence), kirjoittaa (to write), kirjoittaja (a writer), kirjallinen (something in written form), kirjata (to write down), kirjasin (a font) and others.
Probably the best known word of Finnish language is sauna. A form of sauna, with a stove with stones on it (kiuas), has generally been called the Finnish sauna.
For more information, please, visit: http://virtual.finland.fi/Education_Research/Language
Finnish is an official language of Finland, spoken by the majority of people here. About 6 million people speak Finnish. There are small Finnish-speaking minorities in Sweden, Norway, Russia and Estonia. In addition, a few hundred thousand emigrant Finns live in Sweden, and also in North America there remain communities of Finnish-speaking emigrants, notably in the upper peninsula of Michigan.
It is believed that the Baltic Finnic languages evolved from a Proto Finnic language, from which Sami was separated around 1500-1000 BC. The Baltic Finnic languages separated around the 1st century. Mikael Agricola, who was a Finnish bishop in the 16th century, created the first written form of Finnish language. He based his writing system on Swedish (which was the official language of Finland at the time), German and Latin. Many people revised the written form later.
Finnish is a member of the Finno-Ugric language family and is an agglutinative language, which modifies the forms of both noun and adjective depending on their roles in the sentence. It has a reputation for being difficult to understand and learn. This is mostly because there are few languages closely related to it, making the vocabulary unfamiliar. Since Finnish is agglutinative and inflected, it has a smaller core vocabulary than, for example, English, and uses derivative suffixes to a greater extent. As an example, take the word kirja (a book), from which one can form derivatives kirjain (a letter of alphabet), kirje (a letter, a piece of correspondence), kirjoittaa (to write), kirjoittaja (a writer), kirjallinen (something in written form), kirjata (to write down), kirjasin (a font) and others.
Probably the best known word of Finnish language is sauna. A form of sauna, with a stove with stones on it (kiuas), has generally been called the Finnish sauna.
For more information, please, visit: http://virtual.finland.fi/Education_Research/Language