Appendix:Finnish pronunciation

This page details the pronunciation of Standard Finnish (Standard Spoken Finnish, ), which is, unless otherwise specified, the spoken variety used to document Finnish pronunciations on the English Wiktionary. It is the standard prestige variety used in e.g. formal discussions, newscasts and official speeches, and is the primary variety taught in schools.

Key
Legend:
 * IPA: The phoneme expressed in the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet). If the symbol is a link, it points to the relevant Wikipedia article.
 * Examples: A Finnish word containing the phoneme, both as short (ungeminated for consonants) and long (geminated for consonants), as available. Each word is accompanied by an audio clip.
 * English approximation: A rough approximation of the sound in an English word. This is only a rough approximation and should not be taken as an accurate representation of the sound.
 * Explanation: An explanation of the sound.
 * Notes: Additional notes in the form of footnotes.

Consonants
All consonants except and  may appear geminated. Geminated is however very rare.

Plosives
Standard Finnish native plosives are unvoiced and unaspirated:, ,.

An additional 'native' can be found as the weak grade of  (under consonant gradation), and thus only occurs between vowels, either independently or as part of  (thus, native  is never geminated). This originates as a spelling pronunciation by Swedish speakers learning Finnish during the 19th century, as it was spelled (earlier also ) in an attempt to represent, its pronunciation in the Southwest Finnish literary standard at the time. In other dialects, it may be realized as, , or lost, only leaving behind e.g. a glide. Even in Standard Finnish, the consonant may in rapid speech become an.

Recent borrowings can also contain the phonemes, and , which are pronounced as voiced plosives, although in monolingual Finnish speech they may only be partially voiced, if at all. However, minimal pairs do exist.

For (potential) glottal stops, see final gemination below.

Fricatives
Native words only have two fricatives: and. The pronunciation of is highly variable. It is often devoiced and somewhat retracted, but may be voiced between two vowels in fast speech, and may even become a "sh-sound" after rounded vowels.

Two more fricatives can be found in loanwords: and. The latter is often pronounced as if it were if there is no risk of confusion.

Finnish is not a fricative.

Rhotic
The single Finnish rhotic is a rolled R, but if ungeminated, may be realized as a tap between two vowels in rapid speech.

Lateral
Finnish is always a bright L, never a dark (velarized) L.

Nasals
Finnish has three nasals:, and. While the first two are common and can appear in any position, in native words is only found either as part of   or   between two vowels. In loanwords, it may appear as a short even before other consonants or at the end of a word.

Approximants
and are approximants in Finnish. The latter is spelled, but is not a fricative.

Vowels
All vowels may appear short or long, and there is very little if any difference in quality between the short and long variants of the same vowel.

is, a decidedly back vowel. , and  are,  and  respectively, all front vowels. Finnish, and  are mid vowels.

Standard Finnish has 18 diphthongs which are listed in the tables above.

Final gemination

 * See also:  on Wikipedia

Some Finnish words or word roots feature final gemination (also called boundary lengthening, Finnish: ), which is usually marked with (Finnish: ; see also the entry for this symbol). This feature (argued to be morphophonetic) originates from the loss of some final consonants (primarily or ) always follows a vowel, and its realization depends on what follows it:


 * If is followed by a consonant, the consonant becomes geminated if it isn't already.
 * If is followed by a vowel or the end of the utterance, it usually manifests as a , which may or may not be geminated, and may even be completely omitted in rapid speech.

This feature is not indicated in the Finnish orthography, but results in (albeit marginal). It can at times even surface within words due to clitics  &rarr;  (respelled ), even though final gemination does not affect possessive suffixes. However, there are cases in which final gemination has in effect become grammaticalized, such as the partitive singular of &rarr;, in which the geminated consonant is spelled with gemination.

In standard Finnish, final gemination occurs primarily in the following cases:


 * nominals:
 * (the nominative singular forms of) nominals belonging to type 48 (""); for some speakers, may be missing in compounds if not the final component, more often in rapid speech
 * allative singular and plural forms of nominals
 * verbs:
 * first infinitive forms (dictionary forms)
 * note that the third-person singular present indicative does not have final gemination even if it is a homograph (i.e. spelled identically)
 * connegative forms of verbs (except for conditional, in all persons, and imperative, in all other persons than the second-person singular)
 * second-person singular imperative forms of verbs (identical with the indicative connegative)
 * adverbs:
 * the adverbial cases prolative and sublative
 * adverbs derived with the suffixes, and
 * certain individual adverbs and adpositions
 * the third-person possessive suffix

The following features may or may not have final gemination depending on the idiolect (speaker and variety):


 * nominals:
 * comitative forms of adjectives (i.e. when not followed by a possessive suffix)
 * verbs:
 * past passive participles
 * conditional connegative
 * the numeral
 * the pronoun

Furthermore, in some dialects, final gemination is completely absent.

Stress
Stress occurs on the first syllable of any given word. In compounds, secondary stress occurs at the beginning of each component word, which may result in stress falling on consecutive syllables if a component is only a single syllable.

Secondary stress also occurs roughly on odd syllables, although it may skip up to two light syllables if a heavy syllable follows (e.g. &rarr; o.me.na.nam.me). This kind of secondary stress is weaker than the phonemic secondary stress found in compound words, as described above. The placement of these secondary stresses can be described formulaically, as the Finnish pronunciations on Wiktionary often do. However, they are not phonemic and can depend on the speaker and context. Songs and poems, in particular, may take significant liberties.

Some suffixes may also incur secondary stress automatically, in which case they may 'steal' it from an immediately preceding syllable. Syllables containing (the start of) certain inflectional suffixes, including possessive suffixes, may also avoid secondary stress, by e.g. shifting it to the preceding syllable, even if it is a light syllable.

Sandhi
Finnish is rich in sandhi phenomena. Besides the final gemination listed above, there are instances of assimilation: is generally realized as if it were  and  as.