Finnish phonetics Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
This article deals with the sound patterns of the Finnish language. The grammar of Finnish and the way(s) in which Finnish is spoken are dealt with in separate articles.
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Older borrowings from (e.g.) Swedish have had initial consonant clusters eroded. For example "koulu" <- school, "tuoli" <- stool.
More recent borrowings have retained their clusters, for example 'presidentti' = 'president'. However, it is common to hear these clusters eroded in speech ("resitentti") particularly, though not exclusively, by Finns who know little or no Swedish or English and who are not used to making sounds for letters such as d, c or x.
Note that in the sections below, wherever a is mentioned, ä should also be understood, depending on vowel harmony.
Without /d/, Finnish plosives have (in native words) no distinctive voice at all. The letters b and g do occur in Finnish in loanwords, but more often than not, they are pronounced voiceless, /p/ and /k/ respectively. Furthermore, the voiceless plosives in Finnish are never aspirated.
The compound -ng- is present in mid-position in some inflected Finnish words, but it is pronounced /ŋŋ/.
The following is a partial list of strong -> weak correspondences:
Some example sets of words:
This is an Article on Finnish phonetics. Page Contains Information, Facts Details or Explanation Guide About Finnish phonetics Phonetics
Originally, Finnish had no initial consonant clusters, this however is changing due to influence from other European languages.Vowels
Like the Turkish language, Finnish has vowel harmony, i.e. only certain designated vowels can appear together in a morpheme. However, this vowel harmony is only partial:
i and e are considered neutral vowels, but front vowels y, ö, ä never mix with back vowels u, o, a;
e.g., 'tyttö' = 'girl' is a possible Finnish morpheme because it has only front vowels, whereas *tytto is impossible because it has both front and back vowels.Vowel phonemes
Consonants
Plosives
Finnish has no voiced plosives in native words - with the exception of /d/ that developed from /ð/ voiced dental fricative (as in English 'the'). Nasals
Laterals
Fricatives
[š] (as English 'sh') and [f] only appear in non-native words.Trills
Semivowels
Consonant gradation
The consonant preceding the inflection of a word (either noun or verb) is subject to consonant gradation. Broadly, a consonant will adopt a 'strong' form if the following syllable is 'open' - containing a double vowel or not ending in a consonant - and a 'weak' form otherwise.
Note that in any given grammatical situation, the consonant can grade either way depending on the word involved. Here are some examples:
There are rare exceptions to the general rule, some of which are noted in the noun cases section.Length
All phonemes except /υ, d, j, h/ have distinctive length except in dialects.Stress
Like Hungarian, Finnish always places the primary stress on the first syllable of a word.