Indeed. When people learn a language from birth, everything is taken for granted and as natural, so it's mostly language teachers who stop and think about all the ins and outs of a language, including all the quirks that differentiate it from other languages. And of course, JRR Tolkien, who is a special case all of his own, and might hold the record for the number of in-depth conlangs (constructed languages) he created. BTW, Tolkien was fascinated by the Kalevala epic of Finland, and this inspired some of his LOTR storylines.
Pretty sure it's easier for speakers of phonetic languages to pronounce other words. As a Turkish person I was told by my internet Fin that I was pronouncing Finnish words "better than expected".
Fact for you guys: on paper, Finland is the best country on earth, it may not have the largest economy/military but there is almost no corruption, people have high living standards, medical care, education and security is going really well too.
@@meri-tuuli Corruption increases year after year and the difference in that regard between Finland and other countries is getting smaller, wages remain stagnant while profits for the bosses and capitalists continue to increase, the gap between the rich and the poor is ever growing, unemployment and marginalization are huge problems that the government is trying to downplay and hide with ridiculous non-solutions. Privatization of medical care, closing of facilities providing medical care, fewer teachers teaching larger class rooms, more and more students are being forced to take out a loan to finance their studies and living instead of being granted proper financial aid, foreign powers are encroaching on Finland's sovereignity with the constant war games and military exercises, the growing desire of politicians to have Finland join NATO and have the country get swiped up in foreign wars... Just a few examples of the wrecking that's underway of this supposed "best country on Earth."
@Tapani J According to expert concensus it most probably came not from space but rather from a small group of newcomers. For some reason, the majority indigenous population, which at the time spoke some unidentified language which was neither Indo-European nor Uralic, then adopted the new language. (This mechanism is analogous to how Indo-European languages spread elsewhere.) The ancient local paleo-language, while extinct, left substatum words which still are present in modern Finnish and Sami languages. A bunch of them are toponyms such as Päijänne, Saimaa, Imatra, Inari.
6:50 front and back never appear in same word.... well it depends what you mean by that, because they can both appear in a compound word. "ompelutyö", "käkikello", "aamulypsy", "työpaikka" are good examples of compound words using both front and back. but of course they are not singular words in its literal meaning.
+Academia Cervena letters like w, b and c were used in old finnish writing. take a word like vanha(old). it used to be spelled wanha. somehow they we're just left in the alphabet.
minä olen suomalainen. minä olen puhunut suomen kieltä 83 vuotta. kuka sanoo, että se on vaikeaa?- i am from finland. i have spouken finise languesta 83 year. it not very difficold. näkemiin.
"Holy ö!" That is so so funny. Especially given that in Finnish, ö is a very rare breed, while ä accounts for about 5% of the letters in usage statistics. So I would indeed hold ö as a rare and precious little thing to be treated with reverence. :)
Because it has very few family languages, while in the rest of Europe basically all languages are germanic plus latin, so if you understand Swedish, you can read Danish and Norwegian without any problem (pronounciation is different obviously). I know Danish, Swedish and English and I can guess myself through german, dutch, swiss, french and most of the west European languages, the further south it gets it's harder but you can usually understand enough to get the basic message. Finnish however? Hah good luck dude, as a native Swedish speaker I look at Finnish like it's chinese with latin characters :P
As a european it's more or less easy to get into the most other european languages- at least some basics. You just need some vocabulary and know some grammar stuff to form sentences und then you can move on from there. In Finnish, even with a huge vocabulary knowledge it's still hard to form correct sentences if you are not familiar with all the cases etc.
@@krush59 I allways thought it was the other way around and still do unless I understood what you meant wrong because finnish has a good stone for rules unlike english is a mess. Why when you have the vowels why dont they allways stay the same vowels for example the words dont and you the o in there doesnt work the same way its supposed to wtf. And then y is supposed to not be a vowel what about the word dynamite its now the same as a for some reason
wow... somebody did their research :D Usually this kind of videos make me facepalm but this is perfect one! For a moment I thought u were finn aswell until you tried pronounce finnish words (I have never heard foreing doing it so well 10 internet point's for u) Just wondering, do you know why non-finns calls Karjala as Karelia? Too hard to pronounce?
Kiitos paljon! :) I'm glad you liked it! My Finnish pronunciation is still a work in progress, but it's good to hear that it's doing a good job! As for Karelia, I can't say for certain, but my educated guess would be that the _Karel-_ part comes from how the Swedes and/or Russians interpreted the name (cf. Swedish _Karelen_), and then you have the Latin country suffix _-ia_, which is where English got it from.
well... that would explain it. btw, "Suomi mainittu" is kind of meme in Finland(you probably knew it already) and that makes me wonder what makes Finland intresting? What I mean is that after Nokia died, there is really nothing we can provide, except engineers. Probably the only country in the world overflown by them. Germany is famous of their tech and cars, France is fueled by fashion and so on.... I really can't figure out why people would like to study finnish or even think to live here. I can't see any benefit about us. (government is flushing this country down to sewer anyway, so non-existing healthcare is only matter of time)
Well, you don't need an industry to be interesting :) Finland and the Nordic countries have high standards of living, low corruption, and a lot of nature and open space. Such things are enough to captivate a lot of people! Also, many people just love languages without caring where they come from. Since Finnish is quite different from most Western European languages, that's enough to make it interesting to a lot of language enthusiasts as well.
Great introduction, thanks! I'm a native Finnish speaker and it still shows when I speak English. It's like my brains has problems separating genders in speak, I easily mix he/she
When I'm speaking and not really focusing on either my pronounciation nor my sentences in any way (basically returning to rally english and rolling my r's and being generally really lazy with everything), I easily say he when I meant to say she. I think it's just because my mouth is being lazy and saying 'she' is just a tiiiny bit more work. XD
Sorry for replying to such an ancient comment, but I thought it was fitting how you referred to your "brains" immediately after mentioning how your Finnish shows when speaking English. For those not in the know, the Finnish word for "brain" is, of course, "aivot", making it plural, so that's probably a pretty common mistake for a Finnish speaker to make when speaking English. It's important for us Finns to remember that, unlike us, the poor English-speakers only have one brain.
No, I'm Swedish! Thank you for the complement :) I'd say my pronunciation is the result of listening and practicing, mostly! It helps that you can hear a fair bit of Finnish in Sweden, but of course I've done my share of studying too!
I heard some little foreign effect in a few words, like lattia, where you exaggerted the darkness, backness of the a vowels. But, I didn't guess you were Swedish, so good job in fading your native accent! :)
@@DieFlabbergast we're neighbouring countries, like she pointed out that a swede can hear a lot of Finnish even their home country. We Finns hear 2 type of Swedish: the one spoken in Finland, and the one in Sweden. The difference is roughly like that between US and UK English.
Now that's how you do an introduction! In my opinion, as a Finn and a language enthusiast, you covered much if not all the necessary basics to understanding the Finnish language. I will definitely share this video to people that are interested in Finnish , keep up the good work! Edit: Subscribed.
As a Spanish native speaker son of Polish parents and language enthusiast, you got a new subscriber. I have a couple of Finnish friends and we communicate in English. Spanish and Finnish has nothing in common but it's not too hard to pronounce for me, main differences are Y, J, H and the "extra" wovels, the rest sounds like Spanish. Kiitos paljon! 👍❤️
The distinction between short and long sounds seems to be one of the hardest things to learn in Finnish language. tule - come (imperative) tulee - comes tullee - probably comes tuule - (wind) blow (imperative) tuulee - the wind is blowing tuullee - the wind is probably blowing
Actually, finnish and spanish do have one big thing in common, and you just described it: There is very little difference in the written and pronounced forms of the language. Each letter and combination of letter is typically pronounced the same no matter where or how it appears, and each letter is also typically pronounced very precisely and distinctively. If a spanish speaker speaks slowly and methodically, I can write down pretty much exactly what they said without having a clue about what it means. Once I learn the few exceptions (J sounds like H, double L as J etc.) I have no problem with those either. No hope in hell to do the same with a french speaker, for example. This is actually a pretty massive advantage for a finnish speaker trying to learn spanish compared to many other indo-european languages, and is also why many finnish speakers like the spanish language and the sound of it - it sounds clear, precise and no-nonsense :)
Oh hey. I've been learning a little spanish and i'm finnish. Hola, encantada. Que tal? I know basic greetings and introductions. And some other stuff too. Like counting from uno to diez.
nnovl You did know, but only intuitively, not consciously. You have been usin them all the time :) But a language learner needs this advice to get into the language.
Bert Karlsson Thank you for your interest. In Finnish the languages have the same name as the country, if it isn't something like Union ... Republic ... etc. So they are not adjectives. The adjective for Swedish would be ruotsalainen, and that's used for persons, and things Swedish, except the language. Well, we speak languages (nouns), we don't say I speak the linguistic called English, but the language called English. Plus, compare what else we can speak, besides languages - I can speak rubbish or nonsense, even very well :) The ending -(t)(t)a making ruotsi to ruotsia just means it's in an object form, like the Swedish han to honom & hon to henne (English he to him & she to her) etc. Just in Finnish every word behaves like this. The endings are more regular, luckily :)
This was a great, not overly daunting intro to Finnish, showing both the familiar features (loanwords from Germanic) and the unusual features of the language. The book excerpt at the end really provided a taste of the "flavour" of Finnish. I've had a lifelong interest in languages and linguistics, and can say that this and the other intro video I've watched are among the very best I've come across, particularly in the clarity of the grammar explanations. I've never before come across the detailed colour coding, and that truly helps to visually find - and importantly to better remember - the key points. Perhaps the only issue is that the red may be too dark against the black background, and would cause trouble for colourblind people. Red, green, blue and violet would be most troublesome. Orange, yellow, pink, light blue and light green would be most legible against the black. So, thanks for preparing this material and keep making more videos.
Thank you for your kind words! Your comment shows that the video has come across just as I hoped it would :) I've tried to adapt the colors better in my newer videos, especially using slightly brighter tones of red. It's one of those things that I honestly didn't even think about at first, so it's good that people pointed it out to me! More content is always in the works!
.....IMHO: THIS NARRATOR'S COMMAND OF THE PRONUNCIATION, OF SO MANY OF THESE LANGUAGES, IN THESE VIDEOS, IS EXTREMELY IMPRESSIVE, AND INSPIRING!!!!! "BRAVO!!!!!" THE HIGHEST RESPECT TO YOU, SIR!!!!
Det skulle vara väldigt intressant att höra om fornnordiska och isländska. Och kanske jämförelser mellan dem och svenskan. Det är väldigt intressant att höra om den gamla grammatiken, med kasus m. m.
"Noniin." LOL. I have to recommend the "Noniin" video by comedian Ismo Leikola, who correctly describes it as the most important word in Finnish. It's in Finnish with English subtitles. The link is: ruclips.net/video/HtAd78dWUlA/видео.html
I usually avoid commenting, but I must say: this was a stellar performance. I'm a Finn myself, and this video taught me some things I was not aware of, and it was able to articulate many things I knew but would not have been able to put forth so clearly. Thanks a bunch - hope many others will see and enjoy this!
Indeed. So many points of grammar are not covered at school because it's taken for granted that "everyone knows them". These are often the very quirks that differentiate that language from other languages. Learning another language really makes one understand and appreciate one's native language better.
You take courses when you arrive. You can learn something through the web, But it really just becomes relevant and meaningful, when you sit at a course, talking with real people :)
"More video please! I really need to learn finnish. I'm applying to work in Finland and I'am required to learn finnish." Means "Lisää videoita kiltti! Minun pitää oppia suomea. Minä haen työhakemusta suomesta ja minun pitää osata suomea että pääsen sisään."
wait what you're swedish??? you literally have no accent at all (by that i mean you sound like a native english speaker lol). also your finnish is almost perfect, but the accent just makes it funnier to hear, it sounds really cute :D
@@aliceberethart that's cool!! it's the same here, since swedish and finnish are both official languages here. we see swedish everywhere and it's cool, it's easy for us to learn eachother's languages :D
I´m Mexican and maaaaaan, we talk in so different accents and sub languages but the pronuntiation of finnish, DAAAAAAAAAMN they are masters of lyrics. I really want learn finnish, if someone here need help with Latin Spanish, Argentinian, Chilean, Mexican from north, Mexican from South, Colombian, etc, i can give you a hand if you teach me a little bit of this beautiful language (Suomi). Greetings from Monterrey Mx. ñ.ñ
This is outside of the scope of this video. But I've read that Khanty and Mansi spoken in Siberia are a Ugric languages just like Hungarian. You sadly barely find anythinh about it online, however as they are very threatened languages.
@@KoteDarasuum Personally, I just prefer to speak about the "Uralic" language family as a whole, there doesn't seem to be a more definitive consensus everyone can agree on with regard to the sub-categories under the larger family tree, so it's simpler that way. Like, Finnish and Hungarian, for example, are often grouped under the category of "Finno-Ugric" languages, but other times they're referred to as two distinct branches of their own, "Finnic" and "Ugric". And then there are the Sami languages, do they form a branch of their own of the Uralic tree along with "Finno-Ugric" and "Samoyedic"? I have no idea, so it's simpler for me to just think of the "Uralic" languages as a one big, happy family. Of course, even that isn't so simple and clear-cut (I suppose when it comes to languages, it never is.) For example, what is the relationship, if there is one, between the Uralic and the Yukaghir languages? Who knows, not me, that's for sure.
Wow! As a native speaker of finnish, I find this very informational as a introduction to the mechaniscs of the finnish language for foreigners! Good job!! 😎👍🏻
As a Finn I was very surprised about all this information in 10 minutes. I even learned something new myself! Very comprehensive and well presented video, full 10 points!
Great pronunciation there! At first I thought you were just saying the words awkwardly (mic shyness or something, I get that), and I still wasn't sure if you were a native or not until I read your comment! Hyvää työtä. c:
Academia Cervena, I know but hasn't it stayed steady at around 5% in recent years? Of course a hundred years ago it was like 12% and before that I think it was up to 20-30% but in recent years has it also decreased?
I believe it has been more stable since the turn of the milennium. In absolute numbers the number of Swedish speakers has stopped decreasing, but the share has still decreased, although at a slower pace than before (5,9% in 1990; 5,3% in 2016). But a continued decrease can be seen in other ways. For example the share of Swedish speakers in the Uusimaa province fell from 11,3% in 1990 to 8,1% in 2016. Granted, the share of Finnish speakers in the same region fell from 87,6 to 79,9% in the same time, but since immigrants in this region tend to adopt Finnish as their second language, the "market share" of Finnish will not be hurt, while as for Swedish, it will.
Swedish in Finland has decreased quite a bit. About 100 years ago, an estimated 20% spoke Swedish as their first language, but these days it's more like 5%. Also, it's largely confined to very small areas, mostly coastal, and of course the Swedish-speaking Åland Islands, so outside these areas you would find very few native Swedish speakers to carry on the language to the next generations.
Favorited! Nice short review. About historical Carelian language area. Before Russian language spread to the area from the south, it was the home of the tribe Carelians. Novgorodians who were allied with the Carelians, gradually took parts of the Karelian land under their control starting 1100 AD, and finally ended their independence 1278 AD. After that Carelians became a tribe divided by two nations: Novgorod and Sweden, and Russian language became dominant on the Novgorodian side.
Ca. 100 years ago there were nearly 250 000 people who spoke Karelian as mother tongue. Today the number of Karelian speakers has declined to below 40 000 speakers. Same phenomenon applies to the other speakers of Uralic languages living in Russia, thanks to Russification of indigenous peoples...
Yeah, plenty of them moved into Finland after the Soviet-Finland wars, too. And now their children are Finns, not Karelians any more. But the people who left their country still consider themselves as Karelians.
Aurinkohirvi Those Karelians who moved to Finland were mostly from the area that had been Sweden or Finland for centuries, meaning that area hadn't been Russia, most of the time. From the Russian side of the Karelia, there were not so many people moving to Finland. So, those Karelians had been Finnish, felt themselves Finnish for generations, that didn't change in Finland. But, of course they had a different dialect, and were sometimes called Russians in the more Western Finland. But now most of their offspring have naturally dropped that dialect, wanting to assimilate. My Finnish roots are elsewhere, so that's not why I'm saying this. Just for the Karelians. I lived in Lahti, which got a huge Karelian population after the WWII. I grew up there in the 70's and 80's, and you couldn't hear who was from Karelia, except of the grandmothers sometimes. I heard more Savo dialect than Karelian in Lahti. For foreigners, Savo is the next province towards heartland Finland, when you come from Karelia in the east. Karelia is a Finnish area divided by the Russians and Swedes centuries ago. Finland would be nearly double its size, if the Karelia hadn't been divided. But what I've read from the old stories, the Karelians in the east didn't want to be Swedish, and those in the Swedish (later Finnish) didn't want to be Russian. Mainly this was because the Swedish side was Catholic and later Lutheran, the Russian side was Orthodoxe.
Aurinkohirvi I really dislike people that claim that Karelians are not Finnish. ”Finnish” in modern times refers to the multiple northern finnic tribes that lived in the area of Finland are now part of the same state. Modern Finns are not direct descendants of JUST the ancient ”sum” tribe, who were the tribe first called by the name ”finns.” Finns today are a mix of Tavastians, Finns, Karelians, Kvens and Izhorians. Claiming that Karelians are not Finnish is equivalent to saying that people living in Tavastia are not Finnish because they don’t live on the coast like the Sum did.
Well, a 15 case system doesn't necessarily have to be much harder than a 6 case one; it all depends on how they're used :) This video about Finnish grammar might be of interest: ruclips.net/video/K8OvpTGF4dM/видео.html
well on top of having 6 cases russian also has 3 grammatical genders and you need to learn the case endings for each of them, plus you also need to learn plural forms, i'm not sure which is better
Learning the Russian cases is harder, in my opinion, because you have to learn all the cases in masculines that end with a strong consonant, masculines that end with й, masculines that end with ь, neuters that end with O, neuters that end with Е, neuters that end with мя, feminines that end with A, feminines that end with ь, words that end with ия or ие.... and then you have to learn the separate case endings for adjectives - in masculine, neutral and feminine cases. To make it worse, different genders use similar looking case endings in different case. Such as, if a word has the case ending U, you need to know if the word is masculine or feminine to know, if it's in the dative or the accusative case. As a Finn it's hard to understand that coffee is somehow male (it's a bloody liquid!) and water is female, and even harder that I if I speak of drinking them, depending of which I drink, I have to choose a different case marker to express this fact.
My language has seven, and I have to say, some words have endings in certain cases that even us native speakers can't figure out. It's very hard to reach the native speak level for foreigners.
Another comment is that the video is totally disregarding the Finnish language profiency in Estonia. According to the PIAAC (Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies) survey, 16% of the survey's target population (that is, residents aged 16-65) report Finnish proficiency at least at intermediate level. This should be coupled with the fact that around 8,000 residents explicitly declare Finnish as their nationality.
I would like to add that also some Sami languages (not only Swedish) have official status in some Finnish municipalities nowadays (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sami_languages#Finland).
Of course! But those municipalities all have a Finnish speaking majority, and are thus depicted as such on the map. Since the video focuses on Finnish, the map shows where this language is spoken by a majority/minority only :)
I think you shouldve added a part of estonia (tallin) in for the areas who speak finnish. Cold war forced them to learn it so they could watch and listen non-censored tv and radio. Nowadays you can go to tallin and speak finnish and the elder population will most likely understand you.
You missed his point. The cases correspond to the English prepositions. Make a list of them, and you'll see how many of them there are. Then that case list is not so alien :) And English has cases with the personal pronouns, like he (nominative) has also the forms his (genitive) & him (accusative). Just Finnish works like that with all the other pronouns, nouns, adjectives & numerals. But there is something that makes the case system hard to learn. Some words change when they get the case ending, I mean the stem itself, the end of the word where the case ending is attached. Then it's the nominative case (simple name case like 'he') that has changed the most, and it's often the less used cases, where the original form has remained. (in a few words it hasn't, but mostly it has). But, it's very predictable, because Finnish grammar rules are mostly sound based, kind of 'hip hop' :)
Eero Haanpää Then they are not all cases. They are the cases with some other things you can add even after the case ending. Like talossa (in the house/in a house), can become talossani (in my house) & talossanikin (in my house too) etc. Also, the plural comes before the case ending, so taloissa (in the houses/in houses) etc. Then we ca reach to 79 or something. But that approach is not how Finns use them. We don't learn by hart how many forms there are for one word. It's better to learn what the the sall additions mean in the end of the word, and in which order they come. The basic 15 cases the language learner can practise, until getting how the pattern works. After that, you only need to realize with a new word, which pattern it belongs to. Besides, it's more like 12 cases, the 3 last ones in the list of this video are not active, mostly. Meaning, for many words you don't need them.
In practice, most of the cases are rarely used, and just three of them account for something like 3/4 of total usage in everyday use. As for the rest, they are fairly regular, and the next important group (locative cases) have related endings, so memorising the most often used case endings becomes less daunting.
My gramma had come to Northern Minnesota and spoke Finn to us hoping we would absorb it. I realized today listening she would state something to the effect “Satan is in the House”. When we arrived. Yikes
3:07 Of course it is on the decrease when you are forbidden to speak your mother tongue in the daycare and/or school (even between friends). Imagine them doing the same thing to some of other prominent languages in Sweden...
In Sweden, at least speaking from personal anecdotes, the continued preservation of Finnish is highly encouraged. If you have a parent for example who is a native speaker you have special access to a language teacher from a very young age. Newspapers, radio, TV and websites also more often than not include Finnish as a language option. No mother tounge in Sweden is being forbidden and since Finnish is one of the five minority languages in Sweden, it has a very high status and can enjoy several privileges not found amongst other languages.
@@basedgodkyon Well it was probably news papers doing their thing, but I've read many times that children speaking meänkieli were told not to speak it in daycare or school.
That language map is strange. According to it St. Petersburg was Finnish speaking but Helsinki was not. Sure there were many more Swedish speakers but half of Helsinki spoke Finnish. Š is used in normal words like šakki (chess/check). Formerly it also was used in šekki (cheque) but now it is written with a normal s. Sometimes people write "sh" instead but that is incorrect and wrong. I presentably would get rid of those and replace with s and z (including pronunciation). The standard Finnish layout is same as Swedish so it does not have the letters. Cases do not affect only nouns but adjectives, pronouns and numerals. "kolmessa punaisessa talossa" (in three red houses)
I definitely acknowledge your criticism of the map. When making maps of the 'traditional spread' of languages during this time, when standardization and urbanization really started to become significant factors, it's often hard to draw the line. In this case I chose to focus on the more traditional aspects, and largely ignore the urban situation. Thus while the map represents the time around 1900, its scope leans a bit into the past and has a more rural focus.
I'd say maybe 96% of the people here speak Finnish natively. Statistics don't count Swedish speakers, because Swedish is their mothertongue, not Finnish. The map shows Swedish to be the more spoken language on the coast areas, but that's incorrect since most people on the coast are people who have Finnish as their first language. Also, Finnish does use B and F in words, so what you said was partly incorrect.
You definitely have a point about bilinguals not being covered by the official statistics. That's something I'll keep in mind for any future revisions. However, I disagree with you that the maps would be either inaccurate or unclear. As for the letters *b* and *f*, I said that they are not used in originally Finnish words, and they aren't. They are of course present in originally foreign words (e.g. _banaani_, _filmi_), as well as in slang (e.g. _biisi_, _leffa_).
Academia Cervena Well I guess that's fair enough. Got to say though, before Finnish was even a "proper language", we did borrow words from other languages, so you could pretty much say the letters are "native" to the language.
Capitalist Roope That time especially, before the formal Finnish, shows that Finnish didn't really have b, g or d. Your name Roope (from Robert) is one prove of this. And pulla from Swedish bulle etc. The letter g was only used in the ng combination, which is actually a different sound, like the siNG in English, compare siNG-er and fin-Ger. But a real g as in guitar(ra) would be turned to kitara. Even d was really a th like in the English article THe (not like thing or think. Compare thigh and THy). The Swedish scribes of 16th-18th centuries describe the sound that it's not really a 'd', nor an 'r', r a 'l'. Funny that now it's divided to all those, D in the official Finnish, R & even L in dialects. Or it has also been dropped in many dialects. All the real b-d-g have long been alien to Finnish, Finnish p-t-k are actually really close to them, many English ears hear the Finnish p as b, etc. Their opposition is called voicing opposition, and it doesn't exist in Finnish. Though the b-d-g are now official sounds in finnish also, still you hear kids struggle with them fr some time. So banaani can slip to panaani, gorilla to korilla. Maybe d to t doesn't happen very often, because part of their difference is, that they are said in a bit different place in Finnish. Maybe diagrammi can come as tiakrammi from some kids, or tisko for disko. But names like David and Daniel were long Taavetti and Tanieli/Taneli, just after WWII this has started to change. But f had actually come earlier to many Finnish dialects. It wasn't so alien sound to the Finnish sound system. But for long it had also other possibilities, like kahvi (coffee), sohva from sof(f)a. Even though we now have slang words like leffa, some dialects put it as lehva, leheva, or lehee...va just for fun, and everybody gets it right away :)
The map isn't incorrect. It clearly shows the areas where Swedish is significant or dominant, including officially bilingual areas, as compared to the rest of the country which is officially monolingual, and has relatively few people who speak Swedish as their first language. Of the Swedish-speaking population, one source says that 44% live in officially bilingual towns and municipalities where Finnish dominates, and another 41% in officially bilingual towns and municipalities where Swedish dominates. To reiterate, the map correctly shows those areas.
I'm finnish, why am I watching this
Koska sä haluat ehkä alitajuntaisesti tietää, onko tässä videossa virheitä. Ite ainakin tulin kattoo tätä virheitten ja tylsyyden takia :D
Koska mitä meistä puhutaan sekä suosituksissa..
Koska voit flexaa sil et osaat nää asiat jo
Koska voit
@@herobroilerii sama
I am a native speaker of Finnish, and even I learnt something new. Apparently it was pointless to teach these vowel groups to us back at school, lol
Indeed. When people learn a language from birth, everything is taken for granted and as natural, so it's mostly language teachers who stop and think about all the ins and outs of a language, including all the quirks that differentiate it from other languages.
And of course, JRR Tolkien, who is a special case all of his own, and might hold the record for the number of in-depth conlangs (constructed languages) he created. BTW, Tolkien was fascinated by the Kalevala epic of Finland, and this inspired some of his LOTR storylines.
Vokaalisointu kyllä opetetaan yläasteella.
Niitä opetellaa ala ja yläasteella
I love the Finnish language and would love to travel to Finland one day! Greetings from Germany 🇩🇪🇫🇮☺️
What the hell man are you a Uralic speaker in disguise? Your pronunciation sounds so native
It sounds about 75% accurate
Poopoo
If you are native it doesn’t speak native but it’s a good effort!
Pretty sure it's easier for speakers of phonetic languages to pronounce other words. As a Turkish person I was told by my internet Fin that I was pronouncing Finnish words "better than expected".
@@bg3622 I hope that holds true for me as well, I speak spanish as a my NL
The pronunciation is absolutely perfect.
Fact for you guys: on paper, Finland is the best country on earth, it may not have the largest economy/military but there is almost no corruption, people have high living standards, medical care, education and security is going really well too.
All of those good things are getting worse, sadly.
Rudde
No not really
@@meri-tuuli Corruption increases year after year and the difference in that regard between Finland and other countries is getting smaller, wages remain stagnant while profits for the bosses and capitalists continue to increase, the gap between the rich and the poor is ever growing, unemployment and marginalization are huge problems that the government is trying to downplay and hide with ridiculous non-solutions. Privatization of medical care, closing of facilities providing medical care, fewer teachers teaching larger class rooms, more and more students are being forced to take out a loan to finance their studies and living instead of being granted proper financial aid, foreign powers are encroaching on Finland's sovereignity with the constant war games and military exercises, the growing desire of politicians to have Finland join NATO and have the country get swiped up in foreign wars... Just a few examples of the wrecking that's underway of this supposed "best country on Earth."
i speak the karelian dialect in finland and i can understand karelian very well
I am so glad Finnish is so difficult. Our language propably came from the space. It is so unique. Nice.
@Tapani J According to expert concensus it most probably came not from space but rather from a small group of newcomers. For some reason, the majority indigenous population, which at the time spoke some unidentified language which was neither Indo-European nor Uralic, then adopted the new language. (This mechanism is analogous to how Indo-European languages spread elsewhere.)
The ancient local paleo-language, while extinct, left substatum words which still are present in modern Finnish and Sami languages. A bunch of them are toponyms such as Päijänne, Saimaa, Imatra, Inari.
I watch "Keeping up Appearances" on DVD with Finnish subtitles. I have no time to read all those long words!
6:50
front and back never appear in same word.... well it depends what you mean by that, because they can both appear in a compound word.
"ompelutyö", "käkikello", "aamulypsy", "työpaikka" are good examples of compound words using both front and back. but of course they are not singular words in its literal meaning.
you speak finnish super well!
I have no idea why I always click on these Finnish language videos. Or actually I do. I'm Finnish.
Who is Finnish?
👇
This video is literally my whole 9th grade Finnish class.
I was looking for a Sami language course in Austria but it was Norway to be found.
wider spread?
God damn you actualy speak very good finnish.
Mielestäni aamukasteen hivelemä Abloy on esteettisesti silmää miellyttävä ja siinä piilee koko videon esanssi.
b is used in banaani = banana
Yes, and _banaani_ is a loanword :)
Academia Cervena how about bataatti = sweet potato
_Bataatti_ is a loanword too (compare Swedish _batat_); it's related to the word 'potato' :)
+Academia Cervena letters like w, b and c were used in old finnish writing. take a word like vanha(old). it used to be spelled wanha. somehow they we're just left in the alphabet.
+Mäk Kylis were * God damn auto correct..
I want to know why "f" is not used. There's a word "fakultatiivinen" which obviously includes the letter "f".
F is used, but only in (recent-ish) loanwords and slang, e.g. 'fakultatiivinen', 'faarao', 'farkut' and 'leffa'.
Oh thank you! :)
minä olen suomalainen. minä olen puhunut suomen kieltä 83 vuotta. kuka sanoo, että se on vaikeaa?- i am from finland. i have spouken finise languesta 83 year. it not very difficold. näkemiin.
I’m going to Finnish this language
No we use b in word bussi witch means bus
Holy ö! I've never ever heard a foreinger pronouncing Finnish this well! You seriously sounded almost like a native person.
Thank you for the compliment! :) (though mostly pronouncing one word at a time helps!)
How did you train this good accent?
"Holy ö!" That is so so funny. Especially given that in Finnish, ö is a very rare breed, while ä accounts for about 5% of the letters in usage statistics. So I would indeed hold ö as a rare and precious little thing to be treated with reverence. :)
Holy Island?
I have to agree, that was very close! And when I say very close, it sounded nearly pefect. I can tell because I am a native speaker.
Suomi gäng
👇🏻
Suomi perkele
torilla
Voi vittu
SUOMI
Missä vitussa mun kalja on nyt saatana lol
Finnish is an incredibly beautiful language, but I can tell why it's considered one of the hardest languages to learn.
Because it has very few family languages, while in the rest of Europe basically all languages are germanic plus latin, so if you understand Swedish, you can read Danish and Norwegian without any problem (pronounciation is different obviously). I know Danish, Swedish and English and I can guess myself through german, dutch, swiss, french and most of the west European languages, the further south it gets it's harder but you can usually understand enough to get the basic message. Finnish however? Hah good luck dude, as a native Swedish speaker I look at Finnish like it's chinese with latin characters :P
It is because there's no global interest in teaching it. It's quite basic and not so hard to learn.
@@sampokemppainen3041 It is hard. Just not for us finns as we start learning it right away when we get born
As a european it's more or less easy to get into the most other european languages- at least some basics. You just need some vocabulary and know some grammar stuff to form sentences und then you can move on from there.
In Finnish, even with a huge vocabulary knowledge it's still hard to form correct sentences if you are not familiar with all the cases etc.
@@krush59 I allways thought it was the other way around and still do unless I understood what you meant wrong because finnish has a good stone for rules unlike english is a mess. Why when you have the vowels why dont they allways stay the same vowels for example the words dont and you the o in there doesnt work the same way its supposed to wtf. And then y is supposed to not be a vowel what about the word dynamite its now the same as a for some reason
I started to Learn Suomen Kieli. But I coudn't Finnish...
😂
sad story lol
suomen kieli*
Meri Kurvinen, Suomen kieli*
@@baato870 suomen kieli*
wow... somebody did their research :D
Usually this kind of videos make me facepalm but this is perfect one!
For a moment I thought u were finn aswell until you tried pronounce finnish words (I have never heard foreing doing it so well 10 internet point's for u)
Just wondering, do you know why non-finns calls Karjala as Karelia? Too hard to pronounce?
Kiitos paljon! :) I'm glad you liked it! My Finnish pronunciation is still a work in progress, but it's good to hear that it's doing a good job!
As for Karelia, I can't say for certain, but my educated guess would be that the _Karel-_ part comes from how the Swedes and/or Russians interpreted the name (cf. Swedish _Karelen_), and then you have the Latin country suffix _-ia_, which is where English got it from.
well... that would explain it.
btw, "Suomi mainittu" is kind of meme in Finland(you probably knew it already) and that makes me wonder what makes Finland intresting?
What I mean is that after Nokia died, there is really nothing we can provide, except engineers. Probably the only country in the world overflown by them. Germany is famous of their tech and cars, France is fueled by fashion and so on.... I really can't figure out why people would like to study finnish or even think to live here. I can't see any benefit about us. (government is flushing this country down to sewer anyway, so non-existing healthcare is only matter of time)
Well, you don't need an industry to be interesting :)
Finland and the Nordic countries have high standards of living, low corruption, and a lot of nature and open space. Such things are enough to captivate a lot of people!
Also, many people just love languages without caring where they come from. Since Finnish is quite different from most Western European languages, that's enough to make it interesting to a lot of language enthusiasts as well.
I want to know what things in other videos made you facepalm.
I think it's just the English word for Karjala...
Great introduction, thanks! I'm a native Finnish speaker and it still shows when I speak English. It's like my brains has problems separating genders in speak, I easily mix he/she
When I'm speaking and not really focusing on either my pronounciation nor my sentences in any way (basically returning to rally english and rolling my r's and being generally really lazy with everything), I easily say he when I meant to say she. I think it's just because my mouth is being lazy and saying 'she' is just a tiiiny bit more work. XD
Alvarnea Oh you don’t need to stop rolling r - just pretend you’re Scottish 😉
@@jojoUK120 I'm training to speak like Billy Connolly.
His Glasgow accent is brilliant. We have a dialect with a somewhat similar intonation.
Sorry for replying to such an ancient comment, but I thought it was fitting how you referred to your "brains" immediately after mentioning how your Finnish shows when speaking English. For those not in the know, the Finnish word for "brain" is, of course, "aivot", making it plural, so that's probably a pretty common mistake for a Finnish speaker to make when speaking English. It's important for us Finns to remember that, unlike us, the poor English-speakers only have one brain.
@@Alvarnea sama täällä
Swede here to support our Finnish cousins, cheers!
Kippis
Jeh jeh you realy suppertonesus
Btw why we finnish People have to learn swedish but swedes dont
"No koska suomen vientituotteista 20% menee ruotsiin'' t:mun porukat
@@samitissari3268 Probably because Finland used to be a part of Sweden :P
How is your pronunciation so good?! Are you also Finnish? Greetings from Finland!!!
No, I'm Swedish! Thank you for the complement :) I'd say my pronunciation is the result of listening and practicing, mostly! It helps that you can hear a fair bit of Finnish in Sweden, but of course I've done my share of studying too!
I heard some little foreign effect in a few words, like lattia, where you exaggerted the darkness, backness of the a vowels.
But, I didn't guess you were Swedish, so good job in fading your native accent! :)
@@AcademiaCervena Your English is pretty decent as well… ;)
@@timomastosalo I didn't guess he was Swedish: I honestly thought he was an American (I'm British, btw).
@@DieFlabbergast we're neighbouring countries, like she pointed out that a swede can hear a lot of Finnish even their home country.
We Finns hear 2 type of Swedish: the one spoken in Finland, and the one in Sweden. The difference is roughly like that between US and UK English.
Now that's how you do an introduction! In my opinion, as a Finn and a language enthusiast, you covered much if not all the necessary basics to understanding the Finnish language. I will definitely share this video to people that are interested in Finnish , keep up the good work!
Edit: Subscribed.
Thank you very much! I definitely intend to!
I agree, this was a great video. Even as a Finn I think I learned a little bit more :P
Kääk! Qmmitus! :D
Finally a video that has doesn’t just have someone absolutely butchering these words.
Swede here. Finnish is such a cool language. Cheers to my brothers and sisters across the pond!
This dude speaks extraordinarily fluid finnish.
I love the Finnish language so much. I love the way it sounds, and I love the way the grammar works.
i shall help you to learn it if you need help
I want to learn Finnish too!
Bhuvnesh Kapoor sure, happy to help
MrLepola Good.
From where should we start !
My user id- bhuvneshbhanukapoor
As a Spanish native speaker son of Polish parents and language enthusiast, you got a new subscriber. I have a couple of Finnish friends and we communicate in English. Spanish and Finnish has nothing in common but it's not too hard to pronounce for me, main differences are Y, J, H and the "extra" wovels, the rest sounds like Spanish. Kiitos paljon! 👍❤️
I've known some Spanish speakers, it's uncanny how easy pronouncing Finnish comes to them.
The distinction between short and long sounds seems to be one of the hardest things to learn in Finnish language.
tule - come (imperative)
tulee - comes
tullee - probably comes
tuule - (wind) blow (imperative)
tuulee - the wind is blowing
tuullee - the wind is probably blowing
Actually, finnish and spanish do have one big thing in common, and you just described it: There is very little difference in the written and pronounced forms of the language. Each letter and combination of letter is typically pronounced the same no matter where or how it appears, and each letter is also typically pronounced very precisely and distinctively. If a spanish speaker speaks slowly and methodically, I can write down pretty much exactly what they said without having a clue about what it means. Once I learn the few exceptions (J sounds like H, double L as J etc.) I have no problem with those either. No hope in hell to do the same with a french speaker, for example. This is actually a pretty massive advantage for a finnish speaker trying to learn spanish compared to many other indo-european languages, and is also why many finnish speakers like the spanish language and the sound of it - it sounds clear, precise and no-nonsense :)
Oh hey. I've been learning a little spanish and i'm finnish.
Hola, encantada. Que tal? I know basic greetings and introductions. And some other stuff too. Like counting from uno to diez.
Me as a finnish speaker, learnt something new. I never knew about the vocal groups! Very well made video
Thank you! I'm happy to hear it! Isn't it a great feeling when you suddenly realize something about how your native language works?
nnovl You did know, but only intuitively, not consciously. You have been usin them all the time :)
But a language learner needs this advice to get into the language.
i thought this is taught in middle school
@@prolainen8997 I don't remember if it was taught in middle school but high school at least. Might have been in middle school too
@@TheJere213 i learnt this in 5th grade
You should make more of these! I'm currently studying Finnish and this video really helped me out!
I will :) Both new language intros and Finnish videos are in the works!
Suomi pekrele kossu kalja makkarakeitto karjalanpiirakka mee töihi joo this makes no sense what i am writing
Terve. Suomi on hyvä kieli
Miksi vitussa
Yeah good luck trying to learn our language 😂
It sounds beautyful, but it looks like keyboard smash
@@Ollebolle112 lmao
minä en puhu soumea minä puhu routsia ja englantia I hope people who speak Finnish would under stand that
Ayep. I understood what you said.
Caroline Heiknert-Linder I'm Swedish and I think ruotsia is Swedish (Ruotsi is Sweden) and englantia is English (adjective).
Bert Karlsson Thank you for your interest. In Finnish the languages have the same name as the country,
if it isn't something like Union ... Republic ... etc. So they are not adjectives.
The adjective for Swedish would be ruotsalainen, and that's used for persons, and things Swedish, except the language. Well, we speak languages (nouns), we don't say I speak the linguistic called English, but the language called English. Plus, compare what else we can speak, besides languages - I can speak rubbish or nonsense, even very well :)
The ending -(t)(t)a making ruotsi to ruotsia just means it's in an object form, like the Swedish han to honom & hon to henne (English he to him & she to her) etc. Just in Finnish every word behaves like this. The endings are more regular, luckily :)
I'm estonian and I understand what you're saying ;)
Martin A
Go away u Eesti
This was a great, not overly daunting intro to Finnish, showing both the familiar features (loanwords from Germanic) and the unusual features of the language. The book excerpt at the end really provided a taste of the "flavour" of Finnish.
I've had a lifelong interest in languages and linguistics, and can say that this and the other intro video I've watched are among the very best I've come across, particularly in the clarity of the grammar explanations. I've never before come across the detailed colour coding, and that truly helps to visually find - and importantly to better remember - the key points.
Perhaps the only issue is that the red may be too dark against the black background, and would cause trouble for colourblind people. Red, green, blue and violet would be most troublesome. Orange, yellow, pink, light blue and light green would be most legible against the black.
So, thanks for preparing this material and keep making more videos.
Thank you for your kind words! Your comment shows that the video has come across just as I hoped it would :)
I've tried to adapt the colors better in my newer videos, especially using slightly brighter tones of red. It's one of those things that I honestly didn't even think about at first, so it's good that people pointed it out to me!
More content is always in the works!
.....IMHO: THIS NARRATOR'S COMMAND OF THE PRONUNCIATION, OF SO MANY OF THESE LANGUAGES, IN THESE VIDEOS, IS EXTREMELY IMPRESSIVE, AND INSPIRING!!!!! "BRAVO!!!!!" THE HIGHEST RESPECT TO YOU, SIR!!!!
It sound like you spent some time learning to pronounce Finnish.
Det skulle vara väldigt intressant att höra om fornnordiska och isländska. Och kanske jämförelser mellan dem och svenskan. Det är väldigt intressant att höra om den gamla grammatiken, med kasus m. m.
Jag ska lägga det förslaget på minnet!
Noniin. Nyt meillä on myös virallinen Ruotsi-Kerho täällä kommenteissa xD
"Noniin." LOL. I have to recommend the "Noniin" video by comedian Ismo Leikola, who correctly describes it as the most important word in Finnish. It's in Finnish with English subtitles. The link is: ruclips.net/video/HtAd78dWUlA/видео.html
I only understand word jag because i am from Finland and i have study swedish 6 months
Och fornsvenska
I usually avoid commenting, but I must say: this was a stellar performance. I'm a Finn myself, and this video taught me some things I was not aware of, and it was able to articulate many things I knew but would not have been able to put forth so clearly. Thanks a bunch - hope many others will see and enjoy this!
Very happy to be able to contribute in this way! There are often so many things to discover in how your own native language functions!
Indeed. So many points of grammar are not covered at school because it's taken for granted that "everyone knows them". These are often the very quirks that differentiate that language from other languages. Learning another language really makes one understand and appreciate one's native language better.
finally ! another great video, thank you for your efforts, you are doing a great job ! .
Thank you! :)
+Academia Cervena I am from finland!
Henxi Airsoft me too
More video please! I really need to learn finnish. I'm applying to work in Finland and I' am required to learn finnish.
You take courses when you arrive. You can learn something through the web,
But it really just becomes relevant and meaningful, when you sit at a course, talking with real people :)
Learned it yet? Opitko jo?
"More video please! I really need to learn finnish. I'm applying to work in Finland and I'am required to learn finnish." Means
"Lisää videoita kiltti! Minun pitää oppia suomea. Minä haen työhakemusta suomesta ja minun pitää osata suomea että pääsen sisään."
Very fascinating video, well researched, compact and evenly interesting from the start to the end, that's how you do a video.
wait what you're swedish??? you literally have no accent at all (by that i mean you sound like a native english speaker lol). also your finnish is almost perfect, but the accent just makes it funnier to hear, it sounds really cute :D
He doesnt sound like a native english speaker
The way he said dog sounds like dahg
@@aliceberethart that's cool!! it's the same here, since swedish and finnish are both official languages here. we see swedish everywhere and it's cool, it's easy for us to learn eachother's languages :D
It sounds so lovely
@@poplar6658 suomen kieli pähkinänkuoressa
Norsun kyrpä
It sounds so weird
Awww... Thanks
The best short introduction to finnish I have seen.
I´m Mexican and maaaaaan, we talk in so different accents and sub languages but the pronuntiation of finnish, DAAAAAAAAAMN they are masters of lyrics. I really want learn finnish, if someone here need help with Latin Spanish, Argentinian, Chilean, Mexican from north, Mexican from South, Colombian, etc, i can give you a hand if you teach me a little bit of this beautiful language (Suomi). Greetings from Monterrey Mx. ñ.ñ
BTW you have a good Finnish accent.
Thank you :)
Academia Cervena You are welcome
Academia Cervena Every else english speakers Can't speak finnish at all
That is right.
I was so sure that you're a native speaker@@AcademiaCervena
Finland is easy, go to Square and Scream "SUOMI PERKELE!"
Wow alot of these facts I dindt even know! Yet im a finn! Thank you
This is outside of the scope of this video. But I've read that Khanty and Mansi spoken in Siberia are a Ugric languages just like Hungarian. You sadly barely find anythinh about it online, however as they are very threatened languages.
That's correct. Khanty and Mansi are the closest living relatives of Hungarian. They're both endangered and spoken east of the Ural mountains.
Urgric languages belong in Uralic languages. Thats why finnish and hungary are said to be in finno-ugric or uralic language family.
@@KoteDarasuum Personally, I just prefer to speak about the "Uralic" language family as a whole, there doesn't seem to be a more definitive consensus everyone can agree on with regard to the sub-categories under the larger family tree, so it's simpler that way. Like, Finnish and Hungarian, for example, are often grouped under the category of "Finno-Ugric" languages, but other times they're referred to as two distinct branches of their own, "Finnic" and "Ugric". And then there are the Sami languages, do they form a branch of their own of the Uralic tree along with "Finno-Ugric" and "Samoyedic"? I have no idea, so it's simpler for me to just think of the "Uralic" languages as a one big, happy family. Of course, even that isn't so simple and clear-cut (I suppose when it comes to languages, it never is.) For example, what is the relationship, if there is one, between the Uralic and the Yukaghir languages? Who knows, not me, that's for sure.
Wow!
As a native speaker of finnish, I find this very informational as a introduction to the mechaniscs of the finnish language for foreigners!
Good job!! 😎👍🏻
hello this is a person from finland and actually I think you sound like a Finnish person (sorry about my bad English)
This is one of the most straightforward videos about languages I've ever seen. The Finnish turns out to be a very beautiful language
As a Finn I was very surprised about all this information in 10 minutes. I even learned something new myself! Very comprehensive and well presented video, full 10 points!
I speak finnish, and I was born in Finland, mutta mä en koskaan tiennyt oikein mitään Suomen historiasta -3- Tämä opettaa paljon uusia asioita :>
Please do more video about Finnish language. Grammar videos are desired
Great pronunciation there! At first I thought you were just saying the words awkwardly (mic shyness or something, I get that), and I still wasn't sure if you were a native or not until I read your comment! Hyvää työtä. c:
Tuliks joku kattoo kommenttei onks täällä suomalaissii 🇫🇮▫️🔹
ev tam Joo🇫🇮
PERKEKEEE
Kinda sad to see how Finnish is decreasing outside Finland, how come Swedish isn't decreasing in Finland?
The share of Swedish speakers in Finland has been steadily decreasing for over 100 years.
Academia Cervena, I know but hasn't it stayed steady at around 5% in recent years? Of course a hundred years ago it was like 12% and before that I think it was up to 20-30% but in recent years has it also decreased?
I believe it has been more stable since the turn of the milennium. In absolute numbers the number of Swedish speakers has stopped decreasing, but the share has still decreased, although at a slower pace than before (5,9% in 1990; 5,3% in 2016).
But a continued decrease can be seen in other ways. For example the share of Swedish speakers in the Uusimaa province fell from 11,3% in 1990 to 8,1% in 2016. Granted, the share of Finnish speakers in the same region fell from 87,6 to 79,9% in the same time, but since immigrants in this region tend to adopt Finnish as their second language, the "market share" of Finnish will not be hurt, while as for Swedish, it will.
Academia Cervena, yeah I guess that's true. Also, weird how in Uusimaa, Finnish is only spoken by about 3/4, I guess that's what immigration does.
Swedish in Finland has decreased quite a bit. About 100 years ago, an estimated 20% spoke Swedish as their first language, but these days it's more like 5%. Also, it's largely confined to very small areas, mostly coastal, and of course the Swedish-speaking Åland Islands, so outside these areas you would find very few native Swedish speakers to carry on the language to the next generations.
how can you pronounce them so well?! you’re really good👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
I wish I could speak this language; the people in Finland are wonderful. I've been there many times.
How the f*** are you this good at the Finnish language I am Finnish and this is awesome
I love finnish language
Renan Queiroz milloin?
xD I intend until 2020 at least, I intend to try to find a master degree, job... or something like that :) To stay there a little at least.
Obrigado!
Mikko Kiiski Some... day
Jonakin päivänä (for you learners)
Miten menee opiskelu?
I am Finnish and a native Finnish speaker, and actually learned a lot of new information, great work :D
Mitä VITTUA
really well pronounced Finnish for a foreigner, great effort.
Favorited! Nice short review.
About historical Carelian language area. Before Russian language spread to the area from the south, it was the home of the tribe Carelians. Novgorodians who were allied with the Carelians, gradually took parts of the Karelian land under their control starting 1100 AD, and finally ended their independence 1278 AD. After that Carelians became a tribe divided by two nations: Novgorod and Sweden, and Russian language became dominant on the Novgorodian side.
Ca. 100 years ago there were nearly 250 000 people who spoke Karelian as mother tongue. Today the number of Karelian speakers has declined to below 40 000 speakers. Same phenomenon applies to the other speakers of Uralic languages living in Russia, thanks to Russification of indigenous peoples...
Yeah, plenty of them moved into Finland after the Soviet-Finland wars, too. And now their children are Finns, not Karelians any more. But the people who left their country still consider themselves as Karelians.
Aurinkohirvi Those Karelians who moved to Finland were mostly from the area that had been Sweden or Finland for centuries, meaning that area hadn't been Russia, most of the time. From the Russian side of the Karelia, there were not so many people moving to Finland.
So, those Karelians had been Finnish, felt themselves Finnish for generations, that didn't change in Finland. But, of course they had a different dialect, and were sometimes called Russians in the more Western Finland. But now most of their offspring have naturally dropped that dialect, wanting to assimilate.
My Finnish roots are elsewhere, so that's not why I'm saying this. Just for the Karelians. I lived in Lahti, which got a huge Karelian population after the WWII. I grew up there in the 70's and 80's, and you couldn't hear who was from Karelia, except of the grandmothers sometimes. I heard more Savo dialect than Karelian in Lahti.
For foreigners, Savo is the next province towards heartland Finland, when you come from Karelia in the east. Karelia is a Finnish area divided by the Russians and Swedes centuries ago. Finland would be nearly double its size, if the Karelia hadn't been divided. But what I've read from the old stories, the Karelians in the east didn't want to be Swedish, and those in the Swedish (later Finnish) didn't want to be Russian. Mainly this was because the Swedish side was Catholic and later Lutheran, the Russian side was Orthodoxe.
Aurinkohirvi I really dislike people that claim that Karelians are not Finnish. ”Finnish” in modern times refers to the multiple northern finnic tribes that lived in the area of Finland are now part of the same state. Modern Finns are not direct descendants of JUST the ancient ”sum” tribe, who were the tribe first called by the name ”finns.” Finns today are a mix of Tavastians, Finns, Karelians, Kvens and Izhorians. Claiming that Karelians are not Finnish is equivalent to saying that people living in Tavastia are not Finnish because they don’t live on the coast like the Sum did.
and for those who don't find Finnish interesting
Tolkien used it as a basis for Quenya (one of the elvish languages)
I didn't even know about vowel harmony even though i'm finnish damn
They do teach about that in primary school...
@@Peccath eh, i don't remember
@@asnek2527 don't sleep during the lessons
🕴️
So here I am,a random Asian trying to learn Finnish
Miten puhut suomea noin hyvin? 👍 Puhut melkein kuin suomalainen!
Vowel harmony is funny, since 'vampire' is 'vampyyri' in Finnish and I've heard Finnish people pronouncing it almost like 'vämpyyri' :D
Peccath vämppyyri.
15 cases!? rip and i whined about the cases while learning russian
Well, a 15 case system doesn't necessarily have to be much harder than a 6 case one; it all depends on how they're used :) This video about Finnish grammar might be of interest: ruclips.net/video/K8OvpTGF4dM/видео.html
well on top of having 6 cases russian also has 3 grammatical genders and you need to learn the case endings for each of them, plus you also need to learn plural forms, i'm not sure which is better
Learning the Russian cases is harder, in my opinion, because you have to learn all the cases in masculines that end with a strong consonant, masculines that end with й, masculines that end with ь, neuters that end with O, neuters that end with Е, neuters that end with мя, feminines that end with A, feminines that end with ь, words that end with ия or ие.... and then you have to learn the separate case endings for adjectives - in masculine, neutral and feminine cases.
To make it worse, different genders use similar looking case endings in different case. Such as, if a word has the case ending U, you need to know if the word is masculine or feminine to know, if it's in the dative or the accusative case.
As a Finn it's hard to understand that coffee is somehow male (it's a bloody liquid!) and water is female, and even harder that I if I speak of drinking them, depending of which I drink, I have to choose a different case marker to express this fact.
Hungarian has 18 (and +18 for the plurals) :p
My language has seven, and I have to say, some words have endings in certain cases that even us native speakers can't figure out. It's very hard to reach the native speak level for foreigners.
Another comment is that the video is totally disregarding the Finnish language profiency in Estonia. According to the PIAAC (Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies) survey, 16% of the survey's target population (that is, residents aged 16-65) report Finnish proficiency at least at intermediate level. This should be coupled with the fact that around 8,000 residents explicitly declare Finnish as their nationality.
I would like to add that also some Sami languages (not only Swedish) have official status in some Finnish municipalities nowadays (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sami_languages#Finland).
Of course! But those municipalities all have a Finnish speaking majority, and are thus depicted as such on the map. Since the video focuses on Finnish, the map shows where this language is spoken by a majority/minority only :)
I think you shouldve added a part of estonia (tallin) in for the areas who speak finnish. Cold war forced them to learn it so they could watch and listen non-censored tv and radio. Nowadays you can go to tallin and speak finnish and the elder population will most likely understand you.
I confused him for a native speaker getting confused as hell
Hey im from Finland kiitos kun opetat muita puhumaan suomea thank you try to learn Finnish for this popular who watch this video👌😁😁
i stroked out for a sec when you showed all the 15 cases
You missed his point. The cases correspond to the English prepositions.
Make a list of them, and you'll see how many of them there are. Then that case list is not so alien :)
And English has cases with the personal pronouns, like he (nominative) has also the forms his (genitive) & him (accusative). Just Finnish works like that with all the other pronouns, nouns, adjectives & numerals.
But there is something that makes the case system hard to learn. Some words change when they get the case ending, I mean the stem itself, the end of the word where the case ending is attached. Then it's the nominative case (simple name case like 'he') that has changed the most, and it's often the less used cases, where the original form has remained. (in a few words it hasn't, but mostly it has). But, it's very predictable, because Finnish grammar rules are mostly sound based, kind of 'hip hop' :)
Eero Haanpää Then they are not all cases.
They are the cases with some other things you can add even after the case ending. Like talossa (in the house/in a house), can become talossani (in my house) & talossanikin (in my house too) etc.
Also, the plural comes before the case ending, so taloissa (in the houses/in houses) etc.
Then we ca reach to 79 or something. But that approach is not how Finns use them. We don't learn by hart how many forms there are for one word. It's better to learn what the the sall additions mean in the end of the word, and in which order they come.
The basic 15 cases the language learner can practise, until getting how the pattern works.
After that, you only need to realize with a new word, which pattern it belongs to. Besides, it's more like 12 cases, the 3 last ones in the list of this video are not active, mostly. Meaning, for many words you don't need them.
In practice, most of the cases are rarely used, and just three of them account for something like 3/4 of total usage in everyday use. As for the rest, they are fairly regular, and the next important group (locative cases) have related endings, so memorising the most often used case endings becomes less daunting.
This isn’t as daunting as I initially thought.
It’s pretty mind blowing how systematic the negatives are, however.
less than 4% of people speak swedish - force everyone to learn swedish.
The lone word "nyyppä" is one of my favorites simply because it's such a good finn-ification of a word.
Means newbie.
Enpä ollut tuollaista kuullut.
You only need one word in Finland and that is PERKELE
Ja vittu joka toiseen sanaa mitä sanot
This is great
My gramma had come to Northern Minnesota and spoke Finn to us hoping we would absorb it. I realized today listening she would state something to the effect “Satan is in the House”. When we arrived. Yikes
good video
Pretty sure that having more than 7 noun cases in any given language is against the Geneva convention…
3:07 Of course it is on the decrease when you are forbidden to speak your mother tongue in the daycare and/or school (even between friends). Imagine them doing the same thing to some of other prominent languages in Sweden...
In Sweden, at least speaking from personal anecdotes, the continued preservation of Finnish is highly encouraged. If you have a parent for example who is a native speaker you have special access to a language teacher from a very young age. Newspapers, radio, TV and websites also more often than not include Finnish as a language option. No mother tounge in Sweden is being forbidden and since Finnish is one of the five minority languages in Sweden, it has a very high status and can enjoy several privileges not found amongst other languages.
@@basedgodkyon Well it was probably news papers doing their thing, but I've read many times that children speaking meänkieli were told not to speak it in daycare or school.
That language map is strange. According to it St. Petersburg was Finnish speaking but Helsinki was not. Sure there were many more Swedish speakers but half of Helsinki spoke Finnish.
Š is used in normal words like šakki (chess/check). Formerly it also was used in šekki (cheque) but now it is written with a normal s. Sometimes people write "sh" instead but that is incorrect and wrong. I presentably would get rid of those and replace with s and z (including pronunciation). The standard Finnish layout is same as Swedish so it does not have the letters.
Cases do not affect only nouns but adjectives, pronouns and numerals. "kolmessa punaisessa talossa" (in three red houses)
I definitely acknowledge your criticism of the map. When making maps of the 'traditional spread' of languages during this time, when standardization and urbanization really started to become significant factors, it's often hard to draw the line. In this case I chose to focus on the more traditional aspects, and largely ignore the urban situation. Thus while the map represents the time around 1900, its scope leans a bit into the past and has a more rural focus.
I love that book! I've read it in Bulgarian. It's awesome to hear part of it in Finnish :)
my dad migrated to sweden from finland, haaparanta is the only majority finnish city in sweden
this is beautiful. and my hobby being learning new languages, now this is one more added to my list.av just fallen in love with finnish.
Just like JRR Tolkien did. He based much of certain elven languages of the Lord of the Rings on Finnish.
Easy to understand!
I want to watch more videos of Finnish!
I'm looking forward to new videos.
I'd say maybe 96% of the people here speak Finnish natively. Statistics don't count Swedish speakers, because Swedish is their mothertongue, not Finnish. The map shows Swedish to be the more spoken language on the coast areas, but that's incorrect since most people on the coast are people who have Finnish as their first language.
Also, Finnish does use B and F in words, so what you said was partly incorrect.
You definitely have a point about bilinguals not being covered by the official statistics. That's something I'll keep in mind for any future revisions. However, I disagree with you that the maps would be either inaccurate or unclear.
As for the letters *b* and *f*, I said that they are not used in originally Finnish words, and they aren't. They are of course present in originally foreign words (e.g. _banaani_, _filmi_), as well as in slang (e.g. _biisi_, _leffa_).
Academia Cervena
Well I guess that's fair enough. Got to say though, before Finnish was even a "proper language", we did borrow words from other languages, so you could pretty much say the letters are "native" to the language.
Capitalist Roope That time especially, before the formal Finnish, shows that Finnish didn't really have b, g or d. Your name Roope (from Robert) is one prove of this. And pulla from Swedish bulle etc.
The letter g was only used in the ng combination, which is actually a different sound, like the siNG in English, compare siNG-er and fin-Ger. But a real g as in guitar(ra) would be turned to kitara.
Even d was really a th like in the English article THe (not like thing or think. Compare thigh and THy). The Swedish scribes of 16th-18th centuries describe the sound that it's not really a 'd', nor an 'r', r a 'l'. Funny that now it's divided to all those, D in the official Finnish, R & even L in dialects. Or it has also been dropped in many dialects.
All the real b-d-g have long been alien to Finnish, Finnish p-t-k are actually really close to them, many English ears hear the Finnish p as b, etc. Their opposition is called voicing opposition, and it doesn't exist in Finnish. Though the b-d-g are now official sounds in finnish also, still you hear kids struggle with them fr some time.
So banaani can slip to panaani, gorilla to korilla. Maybe d to t doesn't happen very often, because part of their difference is, that they are said in a bit different place in Finnish. Maybe diagrammi can come as tiakrammi from some kids, or tisko for disko. But names like David and Daniel were long Taavetti and Tanieli/Taneli, just after WWII this has started to change.
But f had actually come earlier to many Finnish dialects. It wasn't so alien sound to the Finnish sound system. But for long it had also other possibilities, like kahvi (coffee), sohva from sof(f)a. Even though we now have slang words like leffa, some dialects put it as lehva, leheva, or lehee...va just for fun, and everybody gets it right away :)
The map isn't incorrect. It clearly shows the areas where Swedish is significant or dominant, including officially bilingual areas, as compared to the rest of the country which is officially monolingual, and has relatively few people who speak Swedish as their first language.
Of the Swedish-speaking population, one source says that 44% live in officially bilingual towns and municipalities where Finnish dominates, and another 41% in officially bilingual towns and municipalities where Swedish dominates. To reiterate, the map correctly shows those areas.