Updated 6 March 2002
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Finland and the Finnish Language

The Finnish Language in the United States

I. Introduction

II. An Introduction to "Finglish"

III. Synopsis of the Finnish language in the United States during the 1940s

The Finnish Language in the United States

I. Introduction. The first shortened article is a nice introduction on how Finglish words are formed. The article is also pleasantly non-judgmental. Some Laaksonen family members may find the words hard to recognize when reading them, although most would certainly be familiar when hearing them.

Far be it for me as a Finnish American who learned virtually all his Finnish as an adult in Finland to give meaningful commentary, but… The second article seems to be a little overly critical and judgmental. It does recognize to some extent that the ”Finglish” words and grammar are often found in the spoken language in Finland itself. Many of the examples given (peti, lööki, hantuuki, lettu, läski, muusi) are really quite common or even dominant in the spoken language of Finland or in certain dialects. It seems strange to consider them as distinctly Finglish. Many grammar examples (meidän poika, ne on, jne) have long been typical of the spoken language of Finland. Use of these forms outside of formal situations or writing sounds stilted and artificial also in educated circles, although the author considers them as signs of being “not well versed” in the native language or of belonging to a lower social class.

It doesn’t seem surprising to me that written Finnish in America reflects the spoken language more than in Finland, where ”acceptable” colloquial usage is ”unacceptable” when written. “Standard” written Finnish is an arbitrary and conservative synthesis of dialects that was strongly influenced by nationalism after the Kalevala in the mid 19nth century, and differs markedly from the spoken language and dialects. In any case, the author is probably right that most of the people writing in “Finglish” papers probably weren’t well educated or were never formally educated in Finnish.

Be that as it may, the synopses below give some interesting insight into the language spoken by Yrjö and Hilja Laaksonen. Yrjö grew up completely bilingual, and maintained his Finnish through strong ties with the Finnish American community and his marriage with Hilja. Hilja learned English after emigrating to the US as an adult. Although apparently fluent (we are not sure how well she really understood all that we said), her English was heavily accented and grammatically flawed. Yrjö’s Finnish was nevertheless more “pure” than Hilja’s.

II. An Introduction to "Finglish" A shortened version of an article by Jenni Tuominen of The FAST Area Studies Program, Department of Translation Studies, University of Tampere.

The Definition of Finglish

The term "Finglish" was coined by Professor Nisonen at Suomi College in Hancock, Michigan to describe a linguistic phenomenon he encountered in America. In Finglish English items are nativized and inserted into the framework of Finnish syntax and morphology. Speakers range from Finnish monolinguals to English-dominant bilinguals whose knowledge of Finnish varies depending on background. Finglish is unique to this type of community, because Finnish speakers have difficulty understanding it.

Characteristic of Finglish is that

1) almost all voiced consonants in English are replaced by their voiceless counterparts in Finglish:

e.g. lumperi 'lumber' piiri 'beer'

rapoli 'trouble' karpetsi 'garbage'

2) three contiguous vowels are not allowed. They are broken up by inserting either a back or front glide depending on the phonetic environment:

e.g. leijata 'to play' sauveri 'shower'

3) syllabic consonants are modified by inserting a vowel in front of them:

e.g. kaluna 'gallon' rapoli 'trouble'

4) words should end in a vowel. The preferred word-final vowel is / i / but / a / is also encountered:

e.g. reimi 'frame' kaara 'car'

heerkatti 'haircut' loijari 'lawyer'

5) when the word in English begins with two or three consonants, all but the last consonant must be deleted before the word is acceptable for Finglish:

e.g. raikki 'strike' touvi 'stove'

raippi 'stripe' rosseri 'grocery'

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A Brief Finglish-English Vocabulary

Nouns:

aiskriimi	'ice cream'	länketti	'blanket'
äpyli	'apple'	naffiksi	'enough'
autvitti	'outfit'	Paarti	'party'
haartätäkki	'heartattack'	paatitamppu	'bathtub'
jaarti	'yard'	petiruuma	'bedroom'
käretsi	'carrot'	Piltinki	'building'
keeki	'cake'	piutipaalari	'beauty parlor'
pörttei	'birthday'	siisonki	'season'
raatsi	'garage'	Soopa	'soap'
reisi	'crazy'	Suutti	'suit'
rekvesti	'breakfast'	Tentisti	'dentist'
resletti	'bracelet'	Tineri	'dinner'
ressinki	'dressing'	Tormi	'storm
riisari	'freezer'	toustari	'toaster'
rippi	'trip'	veikeisseni	'vacation'
rontti	'front'	vö rnitseri	'furniture'

Verbs

hairata	'hire'	miitata	'meet'
hengata	'hang'	moukata	'smoke'
huntata	'hunt'	pätsätä	'patch'
känslätä	'cancel'	tartata	'start'
koolata	'call'	tötiä	'study'
läänätä	'plan'	vyllätä	'fill'

Pussaa se peipiboki kitsistä petiruumaan!

'Push the baby buggy from the kitchen to the bedroom!'

Synopsis of Selma Siiri Sahlman’s article on the Finnish Language in the United States during the 1940s

The constant change in the Finnish language in Finland has been overwhelming. Finns arriving today in the United States encounter a language spoken by the older immigrants that is very different from what they are accustomed to.

Inasmuch as immigration into the United States from Finland took place chiefly in the years between 1850 and 1914, it is only natural that the language which the immigrants carried over was a tongue spoken at the

time of their departure from their native country. The Finnish speech in common use contained a host of

Swedish words. Since the tendency to clear the land of Swedish elements grew stronger during the

immediate period after Finnish independence in 1917, it is easy to understand that the transmission of those

foreign elements to the American continent is largely due to the immigrants who brought their speech habits

with them.

Some examples of this type that have survived in daily use:

English	Swedish	Finglish	Modern Finnish
bed	bädd	peti	vuode
blanket	filt	filtti plänketti	huopa
kitchen	kök	kyökki kitsi	keittiö
onion	lök	1ööki	sipuli
pancake, small	plätt	lätty lettu	ohukainen
pork	fläsk	läski	sianliha
potato	potatis	potaatti	peruna
potatoes, mashed	potatismos	potaattimuusi	perunamuhennos
sauce or gravy	sås	soosi	kastike
soup	soppa	soppa	keitto or liemi
telegram	telegram	telekrammi	sähke
telephone	telefon	telefooni	puhelin
towel	handduk	hantuuki	pyyheliina

Kyökki represents the Swedish kök, kitsi the English kitchen, filtti and plänketti respectively the Swedish filt and the English blanket. ² Many Finns in Finland use in common speech the word peti instead of standard Finnish vuode. Peti is apparently a loan word from the Swedish bädd. Tiskari is the common term for 'housemaid'. (The Finnish equivalent is palvelijatar.) Tiskari is probably a loan word from Swedish diska, 'to wash dishes'; in common colloquial vernacular the Finnish verb is tiskata, still in use in Finland as well as tiskari, 'dishwasher', and tiski, 'dish'.

The common word for the standard Finnish palvelijatar, 'housemaid', in American Finnish is piika, which is also an old Swedish loan word in Finnish (Swedish piga). It is often used in Finland in a derogatory sense. A strange phenomenon, however, is that there is nothing derogatory in the present Finglish noun piika, 'domestic help' or the verb piikoa, 'to work as a domestic help' or the compound piika-paikka, 'working place of a domestic help'.

When used today in Finland these Swedish borrowings seem old-fashioned and even vulgar. Because of the resemblance of English and Swedish it might be possible that the English cognates have reinforced the use of the original Swedish borrowings.

Finnish newspapers published in America

The Finnish newspapers published in America have had a wide circulation. Twenty-one Finnish publications (just a few – Amerikan Uutiset, Raivaaja, New Yorkin Uutiset) appear here, including five dailies. The greatest settlements of Finns are in the region of the Great Lakes, Minnesota and Michigan. Any Finglish daily paper would serve as a good example of the special linguistic features of Finglish. Advertisements are commonly translated into Finglish rather than into Finnish in the Finnish papers in the United States. Done into the latter, a grocery or automobile advertisement would be unintelligible to a great many readers.⁴

Examples of Finglish usages as well as common errors can be found from a 1947copy of New Yorkin Uutiset (News of New York). We find the expression meidän nuoriso, 'our youth'. In standard Finnish the possessive suffix must be added to the noun. Thus the first person plural would be meidän nuorisomme.

English	Finnish	Finglish
my book	minun kirjani	minun kirja
your book	sinun kirjasi	sinun kirja
his, her book	hänen kirjansa	hänen kirja
our book	meidän kirjamme	meidän kirja
your book	teidän kirjanne	teidän kirja
their book	heidän kirjansa	heidän kirja

The same process seems to take place in Finland. The omission of the possessive suffix may be explained by the fact that the person who has written the article seems not to be well versed in his native tongue. In the clause 'Tämän meidän "paksin" [quotation marks in the original] laidat olivat niin tummentuneet' (the edges of this box of ours had become so dark), the Finglish noun paksin is in the genitive case, but the possessive stiffix of the first person plural has been dropped.

Confusion between singular and plural is rather common on the lower speech level in Finland. In Finglish this confusion seems to prevail. In the paper: 'Mrs. N. kuoli hospitaalissa niihin vammoihin, mitkä tuli' (pro tulivat, in the plural). English meaning: 'Mrs. N. died of the wounds she received.' Mitkä is the relative pronoun in the plural which ought to be followed by a verb form in the plural. In the clause 'Kaksi viimeistä laulua kohosivat ohjelman korkeiksi sädekehiksi' (the two last songs became the climax of the program), the correct form should be: Kaksi viimeistä laulua kohosi ohjelman korkeiksi sädekehiksi.

The following statement: 'Poika vietiin lääkärin tarkastettavaksi, joka sanoi ei olevan luuvikoja vaan on muuten pahoja kuhmuja' (The boy was taken to the doctor, who said that he had no fractures but bad bruisesc) corrected would be: Poika vietiin lääkärin tarkastettavaksi, joka ei sanonut olevan luuvikoja vaan muuten pahoja kuhmuja. The error has scarcely anything to do with English usage. It seems rather due to the wrong verb position. (I would say that it is influenced by English. The Finnish would be better translated as ”The boy was taken to the doctor, who said there were not any fractures, just bad bruises”.)

An offense of the worst kind occurs in the following sentence structure: 'Tässä juhlassa se antoi juhlatunnelman saada kuulla suomalaisia säveliä.' The same in good Finnish: Suomalaisten laulujen kuuleminen antoi tälle juhlalle juhlatunnelmaa (It cave a festive atmosphere to hear Finnish songs at this party). The English influence is evident in this case. Se antoi is simply a literal translation of 'it gave'. The whole construction sounds spurious and seems to be affected by English word order.

Finnish affirmative and negative constructions differ from those in most other languages. The negative is expressed by a negative verb which takes the personal endings. A typical bilingual construction is represented: 'Ei yksikään n.k. prefabricated house on rikkoutunut' (Not one of the so-called 'prefabricated' house(s) has broken).

Affirmative	On rikkoutunut	'has broken'
Negative	Ei ole rikkoutunut	'has not broken'

In the example, the substitution of the English prefabricated house probably causes the confusion of the negative.

A loan word, if it ends in a consonant, has a vowel ending attached to it.⁵

Here is a paradigm of ruuma, 'room,' which has displaced the standard Finnish huone:

Case	English	Finnish	Finglish
Nominative	room	huone	ruuma
Genitive	of the room	huoneen	ruuman
Accusative	room	huone, huoneen	ruuma, ruuman
Essive	as a room	huoneena	ruumana
Partitive	some of the room	huonetta	ruumaa
Translative	into the room	huoneeksi	ruumaksi
Inessive	in the room	huoneessa	ruumassa
Elative	from the room	huoneesta	ruumasta
Illative	into the room	huoneeseen	ruumaan
Adessive	at (on) the room	huoneella	ruumalla
Ablative	away from the room	huoneelta	ruumalta
Allative	toward the room	huoneelle	ruumalle
Abessive	without a room	huoneetta	ruumatta
Comitative	with a room	huoneineen huoneinensa	ruumineen ruuminensa
Instructive	with rooms	huonein	ruumin

The most interesting divergences between Finnish and Finglish are the direct English borrowings, as for instance heinä-'baana', 'hay barn'. This compound is a curious hybrid in which the first part is standard Finnish and the latter Finglish. The standard Finnish is heinälato, 'hay barn'.

Some examples of Finglish words illustrating the principle of spelling are listed below:

English	Finnish	Finglish
hay barn	heinälato	heinä-'baana'
hospital	sairaala	hospitaali
county	kunta	kaunti
cocoanut palm	kookospähkinäpalmu	cocoanut palmu
co-operative	osuustoiminnallinen	co-operatiivi
box	laatikko, rasia	paksi
hall	juhlahuoneisto, juhlasali	haali
farm	maatalo	farmi

These examples show fairly well to what extent the English words are revised in spelling to agree with the phonemic system of Finnish.

The American spelling has affected the Finglish in words like Amerika (Finnish Amerikka). In Finnish, Amerikka is pronounced with a long quantity of k, and in spelling the word the consonant k is geminated. The result is thus two k's for the English c. (Amerika occurs on page 6, column 2.)

Finally, mention should be made of those words which have no direct equivalents in Finnish. There is no word in Finland for 'undertaker,' because there is no corresponding occupation. However, among Finns in America, the need for the word has been coined in Hautaantoimittaja (literally, a person who provides a grave for the dead one).

A conversation carried on between two Finns in America is crowded with Finglish, such as the following: Minä ajan kaaralla vilitsiin (I'll drive to the village). In standard Finnish: Ajan autolla kylään. Pikkaa munat ja pane ne keisiin (Pick the eggs and put them in the case). In Finnish: Kerää munat ja pane ne munalaatikkoon.

Errors in grammar, omission of suffixes, confusion of the plural and the singular, wrong inflections of verbs, and wrong negative constructions are common in Finglish. The grammatical errors seem largely due to a poor linguistic background or lack of formal education on the part of the speaker.

Forms that are idiomatically more English than Finnish are common. For example, consider the sentence 'Take care of the boy'. In correct Finnish, the verb is pidä, but most American Finns use ota, which is a literal translation of take.⁸

A Finnish chicken farmer in Connecticut said that his daughter had 'taken care of the chickens' as follows: Seidi otti huolen kanoista (Seidi took care of the chickens). A further example: Ota huolen itsestäsi (Take care of yourself). In expressions like take the taxi, take the train, take the bus, and take me to the station, the verb to take is translated in Finglish to: ota auto (or taxi), ota juna, ota bussi, and ota minut asemalle. Iin correct Finnish usage we would find mene autolla, mene junalla, mene linja-autolla, and vie minut asemalle. Another common Finglish idiom influenced by English is found in the expression Hän on saanut kylmää (He has a cold). In standard Finnish, the verbs kylmettyä and vilustua signify 'to have a cold'.

Much has been written and debated about the imperfections of Finglish, but it has always had its defenders among the great reading public. The American Finns consider it a language of their own and dislike any interference from purists.

The destiny of Finglish in the United States seems to rest with the descendants of the first and second generation of immigrants. Finglish seems destined not to survive.