Wiktionary:About Finnish

^{The template Template:policy-TT does not use the parameter(s): 1=Language considerations (Finnish)
Please see Module:checkparams for help with this warning.}

This is a Wiktionary policy, guideline or common practices page. Specifically it is a policy think tank, working to develop a formal policy.

Policies – Entries: CFI - EL - NORM - NPOV - QUOTE - REDIR - DELETE. Languages: LT - AXX. Others: BLOCK - BOTS - VOTES.

Taxonomy and typology

Finnish belongs to the Finnic group of languages, which belongs to the Uralic family. It is an agglutinative language, which falls under the category of synthetic languages.

Pronunciation

Main entry: Appendix:Finnish pronunciation

As tone is important to Chinese, rhythm is important to Finnish. Long and short vowels and consonants must be distinguished. This takes place in the same way that phonemes between words are assimilated in English, like “Take care”, “stop point”, “Sara Atkins”, “slippery eel” or “Go overboard”, without glottal stops between words.

Finnish features vowel harmony, so that certain front vowels (ä, ö, y) and back vowels (a, o, u) do not co-occur in native words (except in compounds). There are few consonants, and plosives are unaspirated.

Templates

For pronunciation, {{fi-pronunciation}} is available. The template can automatically generate IPA pronunciation, hyphenation and rhyme data, but in some cases, it must be provided with additional info (for full information, read the template documentation):

when a word geminates, use {{fi-pronunciation|*}} (or if other conditions also apply, add a * at the end). some cases include:
- words of inflection type hame
- verbs (dictionary form is the first infinitive, which does geminate)
- some inflected forms (allatives of nouns or adjectives, second person singular imperatives and connegatives of verbs)
- certain adverbs (particularly -sti, -nne or -tse)
compound words; provide the compound word with hyphens between the components, such as {{fi-pronunciation|valta-tie}} for valtatie = valta + tie
- if any of the components geminate (see above), add a * at the end of that component, like {{fi-pronunciation|kone*-kieli}} for konekieli = kone + kieli
loanwords where the pronunciation cannot be determined from the spelling alone; give an approximate pronunciation as the parameter, such as {{fi-pronunciation|beisbool}} for baseball (pronounced like beisbool); hyphenation and rhyme info can be provided manually, like {{fi-pronunciation|beisbool|h=base-ball|r=eisboːl}}
words with unpredictable stress patterns: if the word consists of foreign elements, use - as if the words were compounds (e.g. bio-logia, because bio- + -logia), or " if the hyphenation may not be affected (e.g. mikro"skooppi, which may also be hyphenated as mik‧ros‧koop‧pi); otherwise use + (e.g. hämä+häkki for hämähäkki).
words in which vowels are separated and not diphthongs as usual: use . between the two vowels, such as {{fi-pronunciation|seesi.um}}
ideally also:
- distinguish between "native" /d/ and "borrowed" /d/ in words; the former (as a weak grade of /t/ in words like sade, voida, taide and tehdas) should be respelled as a capitalized D (saDe, voiDa, taiDe, tehDas), while borrowed /d/ in words like demokratia and diodi should be in lowercase. Apart from this exception, all respelling parameters should be spelled in all lowercase, although manually provided hyphenation needs to provide the correct capitalization.
- distinguish between "borrowed" /ts/ (in e.g. pizza) as opposed to "native" /ts/ (in e.g. metsä) by marking the former as t#s
  - the weak grade of the "native" /ts/ can be marked as t!s

To add audio pronunciations or more advanced info, please see the template documentation for help.

If you are not sure whether you can input this information correctly, you should use {{rfp|fi}} instead.

Etymology

Compounds and affixes

The format for compound words and affixes conforms to WT:ETY, but Finnish has some morphological features that need attention.

Suffixes

To get suffixed words in the appropriate categories, such as [[Category:Finnish terms suffixed with -ton]] contributors can use the template {{suffix|fi}}.

{{suffix|fi|elo|ton}} → elo +‎ -ton

Many Finnish words end with more than one suffix. One should refer words to the word they are directly derived from, if one exists. Notice that the parts are shown in their lemma forms, even if they change when integrated together, as in the case of elottomuus:

{{suffix|fi|eloton|uus}} → eloton +‎ -uus

However, if needed, multiple suffixes can be appended by using {{affix}} (or {{af}}); for example,

{{affix|fi|elo|-ton|-uus}} → elo +‎ -ton +‎ -uus

Vowel harmony

Several Finnish suffixes exist as two vowel-harmonic variants. To avoid duplicating content and to keep instances of the suffix in one and the same category, back-harmonic allomorphs (suffixes with any of the vowels a o u) are treated as "default". Front-harmonic allomorphs (suffixes with any of the vowels y ä ö) should be linked to their back-harmonic counterpart. This should happen automatically, but in case it fails, it is easiest achieved with the alt2 parameter:

{{suffix|fi|isä|ton|alt2=tön}} → isä +‎ -tön

Prefixes

To get prefixed words in the appropriate categories, such as [[Category:Finnish terms prefixed with epä-]] contributors can use the template {{prefix|fi}}.

{{prefix|fi|epä|itsekäs}} → epä- +‎ itsekäs

Compounds

To get compound words into [[Category:Finnish compound terms]] contributors can use the template {{compound|fi}}.

{{compound|fi|ammatti|kieli|t1=profession|t2=language}} → ammatti (“profession”) +‎ kieli (“language”)

Note that multiword terms are not compounds, with one exception: a compound may have spaces when at least one of its components has them, which will also result in a hyphen in the spelling of the compound.

If a word is inflected, the link is supposed to take the reader to the lemma, not to the inflected form:

{{compound|fi|järvi|alt1=järven|ranta|t1=of a lake|t2=shore}} → järven (“of a lake”) +‎ ranta (“shore”)

Glosses

Glosses, if shown, should be shown

after each part
inside round brackets, inside double quotation marks
unitalicized

This appearance can be produced with {{m}}.

{{m|fi|ammatti||profession}} → ammatti (“profession”)

Etymology IDs

Certain Finnish spellings have multiple lemma etymologies (note that etymologies involving compounds, etc. should link to the lemma, not to an inflected form). So-called etymology IDs are used to distinguish between them.

The etymology IDs can be checked from the page source ({{etymid}} or {{senseid}}), or with the "ShowIDs" gadget. {{etymid}} should be used for etymology sections and have to be added for every case where a page has multiple lemma etymologies. {{senseid}} may optionally be used to link to specific senses if there is a reason to be specific, but may not be used to entirely replace {{etymid}} (i.e. having sense IDs is not a reason to not have an etymology ID).

If there are multiple etymologies but only one of them is a lemma, etymology IDs are necessary only if the lemma form is not the first etymology. This should only be the case if the lemma is rare or nonstandard.

To add an ID to etymologies with compounds, suffixes, etc., there are two options: to use ID parameters, or to use inline syntax:

{{compound|fi|kuusi|puu|id1=tree|t1=spruce|t2=tree}} → kuusi (“spruce”) +‎ puu (“tree”)

{{compound|fi|kuusi<id:tree>|puu|t1=spruce|t2=tree}} → kuusi (“spruce”) +‎ puu (“tree”)

With {{m}}, only the former is available (as |id=).

Multiword terms

Multiword terms should not have etymologies that only explain what each of the parts are; however, just adding glosses is enough additional information to justify them.

Instead, words should be linked to the lemma through the |head= parameter, e.g.

{{fi-adv|head=[[jokin|jossain]] [[määrä|määrin]]}} → jossain määrin

If IDs are involved, {{ll}} may be used:

{{fi-noun|head={{ll|fi|karvas|id=bitter}} {{ll|fi|kalkki|id=chalice}}}} → karvas kalkki

The |head= parameter does not need to be specified if all words are already the correct lemma, and have no IDs (as is the case with many adjective + noun terms). In this case, all words are linked automatically.

Inflection

Inflection goes under inflection headings such as ====Conjugation==== and ====Declension====. Inflection templates are available for Finnish words. Nominals, which include nouns, adjectives, and adverbs, are declined. Verbs are conjugated. Use the inflection templates found under: Appendix:Finnish conjugation types and Appendix:Finnish declension types. For example:

====Conjugation====
{{fi-conj-sanoa|san|||o|a}}

For adjectives, the parameter |pos=adj should be used with declension templates:

====Declension====
{{fi-decl-korkea|pos=adj|korke|a}}

Part-of-speech

The part-of-speech section goes under a part-of-speech heading, such as ===Verb===. Use {{fi-noun}}, {{fi-verb}}, {{fi-adj}}, {{fi-adv}}, etc., or {{head}}. Do not indicate inflection types in the inflection parameters of the part-of-speech templates; use the inflection templates in the inflection sections instead.

===Verb===
{{fi-verb}}

Default lemma

Since Finnish words can have hundreds of possible inflections, they are organised under lemmas, or headwords. Finnish words are inflected as either nominals or verbs, and the lemmas for each are:

Nominals, including nouns, adjectives, and adverbs- the nominal singular.
Verbs- the first infinitive.

In all cases, entries for non-lemma forms should use the appropriate variant of the {{inflection of}} template to link to the lemma. Example:

==Finnish==

===Noun===
{{head|fi|noun form}}

# {{inflection of|fi|pöytä||nom|p}}

Derived terms

In some cases, it is beneficial to group compounds into their own list. This can be done by using a separate {{col-auto}} (or {{cola}}) with a title. The simplified example below is based on sokeri:

{{col-auto|fi
|sokeriton
}}

{{col-auto|fi|title=compounds
|hienosokeri
}}

Another option, when using a simple list:

* {{l|fi|sokeriton}}

; Compounds
* {{l|fi|hienosokeri}}

Related terms

Note that according to WT:EL § Related terms, these are for etymologically related terms, not semantically related terms (which should be "See also"). For compound words, related terms should generally only include terms for which all parts are related to each other, not cases where e.g. only one part of the compound is shared between the words.

Dialects

Finnish has many dialects for such a relatively small group of people. However, there is only one standard form. Dialectal entries are listed under the ==Finnish== heading as normal, and their status as dialectal should be marked using the template {{lb}}. {{fi-dial}} can be used for dialect data.

The varieties of Finnish are a part of a dialect continuum with its closest relatives, especially Karelian and Ingrian, and neighboring varieties of these will be mutually intelligible with varieties of Finnish. Regardless, in Wiktionary, these languages are treated as stand-alone languages and given their own headings, such as ==Karelian==. For a list of closely related languages recognized by Wiktionary, see Category:Finnic languages.

Labels

As with the rest of the languages, {{lb}} is used for sense-specific labels and {{tlb}} for headword-specific labels (also when the label applies to all senses in a list, but {{tlb}} templates should not be repeated in the same list). Dialect areas (including Western and Eastern Finnish) can be used as labels.

Anagrams

Anagrams conform to Wiktionary:Anagrams and are usually added by a bot. Spaces and punctuation are ignored. Ä, Ö, and Å are unique letters that are not interchangeable with plain letters.

Characters

In standard Finnish, the apostrophe is officially encoded as ’ (U+2019 RIGHT SINGLE QUOTATION MARK). However, Wiktionary currently normalizes the apostrophes as ' (U+0027 APOSTROPHE) in page titles. The conversion should be done automatically with links, so either can be used in the page source.

References

See Appendix:Finnish bibliography.

Sample entry

==Finnish==

===Etymology===
{{compound|fi|sana|kirja|t1=word|t2=book}}; a {{calque|nocap=1|fi|sv|ordbok}}.

===Pronunciation===
{{fi-pronunciation|sana-kirja}}

===Noun===
{{fi-noun}}

# [[dictionary]]
#: {{ux|fi|Wikisanakirja on vapaa '''sanakirja'''.|Wiktionary is a free '''dictionary'''.}}

====Declension====
{{fi-decl-kala|sanakirj|||a}}