Fun trivia about Finnish language (and Finland in general) part 2
Finnish is the only European language in which normal text contains more vowels than consonants.
All Finnish words have their main stress on the first syllable.
Finnish has vowel harmony, which means that a non-compound word can only contain either front vowels À, ö, y (pöytÀ, kÀpy) or back vowels a, o, u (auto, ruska). The vowels e and i are neutral and can mix with all other vowels (keittiö, aitaus)
Oscar Wilde said âFinnish is easy. You will learn it with no effort at all in 400 yearsâ.
Finnish has a vocabulary. The basic dictionary of Finnish has somewhere around 100Â 000 words, but thatâs only the core of the language, the words that are unlikely to disappear. Finnish dialect dictionary has around 350Â 000 words. WIth the countless possibilities with compound words, some people have even dared to say that Finnish has âan infinite number of wordsâ.
B, C, Q, W, Z, X and Ă
are in Finnish alphabet, but they are very rarely used, as they can be replaced by other letters (C with S or K, Q with K, W with V, Z with ts, X with ks, and Ă
with O). B is the most common of these, but sometimes it turns into P.
The letters mentioned above are, however, used in internet slang, hopefully ironically.
When Finnish is pronounced wrong, itâs jokingly called âhoono soomeâ, a bastardization of âhuono suomiâ, âBad Finnishâ. Most of often used when a non-native speaker uses the language.
Emo means (animal) mother in Finnish.
Hella means stove in Finnish.
When meeting a foreigner or traveling abroad, Finns often try to teach them their language. This is not to share the wonders of Finnish, but our world domination plan of destroying other languages.
