Finnish alphabet
The Finnish alphabet is:
- A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, ÃÂÃÂ
, ÃÂÃÂ, ÃÂÃÂ
- the three extra vowel letters, "ÃÂÃÂ ", "ÃÂÃÂ" and "ÃÂÃÂ".
- For purposes of alphabetization "W" is equivalent to V.
- "Š" and "Ž" might be seen in transcriptions (and a few loanwords) from Slavic languages: "Tšaikovski, Gorbatšov, Tšetšenia, Tšekki, Azerbaidžan, Brežnev, daža."
"W" is used mainly in foreign names and loanwords. Some old Finnish names still retain it from the time when it was used instead of "V".
The "ÃÂÃÂ" occurs frequently, for example it occurs five times in pÃÂäivÃÂämÃÂäÃÂärÃÂä (date).
Design features
The Finnish orthography is strongly influenced by the phonemic principle: with just a few exceptions, each distinctive sound of the language is represented by exactly one letter, and each letter represents exactly one sound. This makes the language easy for its speakers to spell, and facilitates learning to read and write.The exceptions to the "one letter, one sound" principle include the "W", noted above, plus a more widespread one: the long sounds of Finnish (both vowels and consonants) are represented with doubled letters. This causes no confusion, and permits these sounds to be written without having to nearly double the number of letters.
The characters "ÃÂÃÂ" and "ÃÂÃÂ", although composed of A or O plus the two dots of the umlaut diacritic, nevertheless are considered to be independent letters, even though "ÃÂÃÂ" and "ÃÂÃÂ" represent sounds similar to the corresponding sounds in German. An appropriate parallel from the English alphabet are the characters "C" and "G". They have a closer kinship than many other characters, but are indeed considered characters in their own merits. (In the German system, the umlaut are alphabetized together with their mother-characters, which is convenient as they often correlates with distinctions of tense, mood, or plurality (such as Rad—RÃÂäder for "wheel"—"wheels"). No such correlations occur in Finnish.) The two dots on "ÃÂÃÂ" and "ÃÂÃÂ" are used in English and several other languages to mark dieresis; i.e. two consecutive vowels forming separate syllables, as in coÃÂördinate. This is again not the case in Finnish. Thus, it ought to be improper to call these characters umlauts. However, no better name is known in English.
For technical reasons or convenience, the letter combinations "sh" and "zh" are often used in quickly or less carefully written texts instead of "ÃÂÃÂ" and "ÃÂÃÂ". This is a deviation from the "one letter, one sound" principle, and as such is liable to cause confusion.
See also: Latin alphabet, Letter ÃÂÃÂ , Letter ÃÂÃÂ, Letter ÃÂÃÂ, Swedish alphabet.