Today is Finnish Language Day! I’m going to make this a short post by virtue of the fact that, while I have seen a lot written about this topic, I usually haven’t seen it in “bite-sized” pieces.
So here we go!
First off: Finnish is a Finno-Ugric Language with close relatives in Estonian and, to a lesser degree, in the Sami Languages, and more distantly in Hungarian (not also to mention minority languages of the Russian Federation from which their original source likely was).
These languages have very high numbers of cases in comparison to the Germanic or Slavic Languages, but what few people will tell you is the fact that most of these cases are straight-up prepositions (this is true in all of the Finno-Ugric Languages which I have studied: Finnish, Hungarian, Estonian and Northern Sami).
Let’s look at how the word “talo” (house) is declined:
Wiktionary.org
This probably might not mean much to you if you’re an absolute beginner, so let’s help you. I’ll give the singular examples.
Nominative (talo) – use this if it is the SUBJECT of the sentence (so “the house is beautiful” = the house is what the sentence is about).
Accusative (talo) – use this if it is the OBJECT of the sentence (so “the dragon ate the house” = the house is what the primary doer of the sentence is doing the thing to, hence it is in the accusative)
Genitive (talon) – use this to indicate OWNERSHIP. The word “talon” by itself would mean “of the house” or “the house’s”.
Partitive (taloa) – used in a lot of ways, but use it with NUMBERS or to indicate SOME OF that thing. Taloja -> some houses (note that I used the plural form). The singular you can use with numbers, like with “lähes 400 taloa” -> “nearly four hundred houses” (400 – neljäsataa, which itself uses a partitive in the word “sataa” -> “hundreds” (in the singular because it, too, is preceded by a number)
This is where it gets easier:
Talossa – in the house
Talosta – from the house, about the house (as in “tell me more about yourself”)
Taloon – into the house
Talolla – on the house, upon the house (you also use this to indicate ownership, Finnish says “upon me there is” [minulla on] as opposed to “I have”)
Talolta – from upon the house to off the house (you also use this to indicate “from me” in “do you want something from me?”)
Talolle – to the house (you can also give things to people, hence “minulle” -> to me)
Talona – as a house (you may also see this ending to indicate at a time or date or in older words to indicate “in” hence “kotona” -> at home)
Taloksi – into a house (as in “I turned into a house yesterday”, not sure how that could happen). Like the one above except for this one normally highlights the presence of change or transformation.
Talotta – without a house.
Any thoughts? Corrections? Requests for future content? Let me know!
A World With Little Worlds 