Introduction to Finnish A short introduction to the Finnish language This is a very concise introduction. There is a much more comprehensive e-book, by the same author: Introduction to Finnish . How does Finnish relate to other languages? The Finnish language, spoken mainly in Finland but also by people of Finnish origin in Sweden and other countries, belongs to the Fenno-Ugric group of languages , which is a part of the Uralian family of languages. Other Uralian languages include: Estonian , which is rather near to Finnish ; Hungarian , which is very different from Finnish, with a fairly small number of related words ; and several languages spoken in Russia, mostly by small ethnic groups. The Uralian family of languages is possibly related to Indo-European languages (such as English, German, Swedish, Latin, Russian, Hindi, etc), but the relationship is highly debatable. The arguments are based on a few similarities which might, according to other scholars, be based on language universals, loanwords, or pure coincidences. – Note that some similarities in vocabularies are caused by relatively new loanwords which were taken into Finnish from Swedish due to strong cultural contacts (only very few words have gone in the opposite direction).

There are several structural similarities between Uralian and Altaic languages. However, linguists generally do not regard the undeniable typological similarities as evidence for common origin. See the Finno-Ugrian FAQ , section How are present-day languages related? A language with suffixes Both Uralian and Indo-European protolanguages had a relatively rich system of word flexion, e.g. about six cases for nouns. Typically Indo-European languages have developed towards a more analytic system where grammatical relations are expressed by word order, prepositions, and other auxiliary words rather than word flexion. On the other hand, in Uralian languages flexion has typically been preserved, and in part it has even expanded. Thus, for example, contemporary English has essentially just two cases (nominative and genitive), whereas Finnish has more than a dozen cases . Finnish has also a rich set of verb forms. Thus, Finnish is a synthetic language: it uses suffixes to express grammatical relations and also to derive new words. To take a simple example, the single Finnish word talossanikin corresponds to the English phrase in my house, too.

The suffix -ssa is the ending of the so-called inessive case, roughly corresponding to the English preposition in. The suffix -ni is a possessive one, corresponding to my in English. And the suffix -kin is an enclitic particle corresponding to the English word too (and the Latin enclitic -que). An example of verb flexion is kirjoitettuasi, which requires an entire sentence when translated into English: after you had written. There are, however, some tendencies from synthetic to analytic expression in contemporary spoken Finnish. Thus, in free speech most Finns would rather say e.g. mun talossa (with mun corresponding to English my) than talossani, and verb forms like kirjoitettuasi usually only appear in written language – spoken language uses an analytic expression roughly corresponding to the English one. Flexion uses suffixes only in Finnish. Originally the system was simply agglutinative: suffixes were “glued” to words by simple concatenation. (Compare this with e.g.

the old Indo-European system of vowel alteration, which still lives in irregular verb flexion like in English sing : sang : sung.) However, due to various phonetic changes, in Finnish suffixes very often cause changes in the word root, causing phenomena which resemble flexion (e.g. juon ‘I drink’, join ‘I drank’), and for several suffixes there are alternative forms. Typical changes in the base word include: final -i in nouns often (but not in new loanwords like grilli) changes to -e- in inflected forms, e.g. the genitive of kivi 'stone' is kiven (with -n as the genitive case suffix) final -nen (which is rather common in adjectives and occurs in nouns, too) in the singular nominative changes to -se- (or -s-) in other words, e.g. hevonen ‘horse’, hevoset ‘horses’ consonant gradation: double consonants kk, pp, tt are often (basically, before closed syllables) replaced by single k, p, t, e.g.

the genitive of lakki ‘cap’ is lakin similar phenomenon for single consonants: single k, p, and t are often replaced by absence of a consonant, v, and d, respectively, e.g. laki : lain, lupa : luvan, katu : kadun. For several suffixes, there are two alternative forms, because Finnish (unlike e.g. Estonian) has a phonetic feature called vowel harmony: in a non-compound word, the back vowels a, o, u do not appear in a word which contains any of the front vowels ï¿½, ï¿½ or y, and vice versa. (Vowels e and i are neutral with respect to vowel harmony.) Thus e.g. the so-called inessive case suffix has two forms, -ssa and -ssï¿½, so that e.g. the word kala takes the first form and kylï¿½ takes the second. Suffixes are also used for word derivation. Another word formation tool is composition: glueing two words together.

The following list of derived and composite words should give some idea of the mechanisms: talous ‘economy’, from talo ‘house’ taloudellinen ‘economical’ taloudellisuus ‘economicality’ kansantalous ‘national economy’, using kansa ‘people, nation’ kansantaloustiede ‘(study of) economics’, using tiede ‘science’, which is derived from tietï¿½ï¿½ ‘to know’. The word derivation tools have been used to produce names from Finnish ingredients instead of borrowing international words. For example, telephone is puhelin and university is yliopisto in Finnish. This approach was especially used in the 19th century when Finnish was consciously developed from the status of a language spoken by common people into a written, official (since 1863) and cultural language. Later international words have been adopted to a greater extent, so e.g. television is televisio in Finnish, but word formation has still been used e.g. for words like tietokone ‘computer’. However, Finnish has quite a lot of loanwords from several Indo-European (and other) languages, adopted during a long period of time.

However, especially old loanwords are difficult to recognize, partly because they have been taken from the predecessors of contemporary languages, partly because they have been adapted to fit into the Finnish phonetic system. Phonetics – simple or difficult? Truly Finnish words – i.e. excluding newest loanwords – obey the following phonetic rules: consonant clusters are rare and never appear in the beginning or at the end of a word; thus, for example, Swedish strand has become ranta in Finnish they lack the sounds b, g, f, sh, which are typically replaced by p, k, v (or hv), s (or h), respectively; e.g. Finnish kahvi ‘coffee’ comes from Swedish kaffe, and English bacon is pekoni in Finnish a word usually ends with a vowel or a single consonant like n or s; words taken from other languages often have an i appended for this reason, e.g. the Swedish word kurs ‘course’ has been adopted in the form kurssi. In spoken Finnish, final vowels of some words are often dropped out, which leads to forms not complying with the above-mentioned rules. E.g. kaksi ‘two’ often becomes kaks.

This means that loanwords may have undergone quite considerable changes. However, apart from these phonetic adaptations, Finnish tends to be a conservative language in the sense that words change very slowly. For example, linguists think that the Finnish word kala ‘fish’ is exactly the same as in the proto-Uralian language thousands of years ago, and the Finnish word kuningas borrowed from Germanic languages has remained almost unchanged through centuries whereas in the Germanic languages the word has changed quite a lot (English king, Swedish kung, German Kï¿½nig etc). You have probably now realized why Finnish words are rather long in the average: root words are long due to the conservativeness, suffixes and composition are used to derive new words, and suffixes are used for flexion. The phonetic rules mentioned above make the language easy to pronounce in a sense. However, there are several difficulties if you try to learn Finnish and your native language is English, for example. Some vowel sounds, especially those denoted by “y” (corresponds to German “ï¿½”) and “ï¿½”, take some time to learn. The diphthongs such as “uo” (in e.g.

“Suomi” ‘Finland’) might take even more time. Additional difficulties are caused by double consonants such as “kk”, which should be pronounced basically as prolonged consonants. The difference between single and double consonants is very often distinctive; e.g., laki and lakki are completely different words, in pronunciation and meaning. Similarly, the length of vowels is distinctive two, and a long vowel is (almost) always written by doubling the vowel letter, e.g. “aa”. On the positive side, the Finnish pronunciation rules are rather regular. It has even been claimed to be perfectly regular so that each letter always means one and the same sound and vice versa, but this is not quite true. Word order expresses nuances Word order is often said to be “free” in Finnish. The truth is that one can often change word order without changing the basic meaning of the sentence, but the emphasis or side meanings or style typically changes. Consider first the English sentence Pete loves Anna. If we change the word order to Anna loves Pete, we get a sentence with an entirely different meaning. Not so in Finnish: Pete rakastaa Annaa and Annaa rakastaa Pete both have the same basic meaning in the sense of speaking about Pete loving Anna.

The case suffix -a in Annaa designates the grammatical object, no matter what the word order is. (If we wanted to say that Anna loves Pete, we would say Anna rakastaa Peteï¿½.) In fact, in this case we could put the words of this sentence into any order, still speaking about Pete loving Anna, but with different purposes and different tones: Pete rakastaa Annaa. This is the normal word order, the same as in English. Annaa Pete rakastaa. This emphasizes the word Annaa: the object of Pete’s love is Anna, not someone else. Rakastaa Pete Annaa. This emphasizes the word rakastaa, and such a sentence might used as a response to some doubt about Pete’s love; so one might say it corresponds to Pete does love Anna. Pete Annaa rakastaa. This word order might be used, in conjunction with special stress on Pete in pronunciation, to emphasize that it is Pete and not someone else who loves Anna. Annaa rakastaa Pete. This might be used in a context where we mention some people and tell about each of them who loves them. So this roughly corresponds to the English sentence Anna is loved by Pete.

Rakastaa Annaa Pete. This does not sound like a normal sentence, but it is quite understandable. Peculiarities in grammar Some specific grammatical features of Finnish: There is no definite or indefinite article. In speech, some pronouns or other words (e.g. yks(i) ‘one’, se ‘it’) are sometimes used in an article-like manner. There is no grammatical gender. Even the third person singular pronoun hï¿½n corresponds to both he and she. There is no direct counterpart of Indo-European passive verb forms. However, Finnish grammars often confuse things by calling some verb forms “passive” forms. These forms are actually forms that imply a personal (human) agent without specifying him, her, or them. E.g. the English expression was solved should not, in general, be translated by using the “passive” form (ratkaistiin) of the verb (ratkaista) corresponding to solve but by using a normal (active) form (ratkesi) of a distinct, although related, verb ratketa. The translation ratkaistiin would be correct if we knew that something was solved by a human being and not e.g.

by a computer or by the course of events. The word expressing negation, corresponding to English not, behaves as a verb, inflected according to the subject person: en : et : ei : emme : ette : eivï¿½t, e.g. (minï¿½) en lue = I do not read, (sinï¿½) et lue = you do not read etc. This verb has imperative forms (meaning ‘don’t…’), but they are formed rather irregularly: ï¿½lï¿½, ï¿½lkï¿½ï¿½n etc Questions that require a yes or no answer are normally formed so that the verb is at the beginning and has the suffix -ko or -kï¿½ (e.g. Rakastaako Pete Annaa?). In answering such a question, the originally Finnish way (now often replaced by just kyllï¿½ for ‘yes’ and ei for ‘no’) is to say either the verb or the negation verb in an appropriate form, in this case rakastaa or ei.

Ownership or possession expressed by the verb have in English is expressed by using verb corresponding to English be and putting the logical subject into a case ending with -lla or -llï¿½. Thus, I have a dog is in Finnish Minulla on koira (“at me (there) is (a) dog”). The URL of this page is ~jkorpela/finnish-intro.html For related material, please consult my other pages about Finnish . Date of creation: 1997-04-14 (?). Last modified: 2014-08-13. This page belongs to section Culture of Finland - history, people, clothing, traditions, women, beliefs, food, customs, family Culture of Finland Suomalaiset , Tavastians , or Hämäläiset and Karelians or Karjalaiset Orientation Identification. The terms "Finland" and "Finns" are external obscure derivations from early (first century C.E. ) Roman references to people known as Fenni (probably Lapps or Saami) who occupied lands north of the Baltic Sea.

In their own language, Finns generally refer to themselves as Suomalaiset and their land or country as Suomi , which may derive from suo , the Finnish expression for a bog or swamp. Finns constitute the majority of the citizens of the Republic of Finland, which has a Swedish-speaking minority as well as Saami (Lapp) and Rom (Gypsy) minorities. While language was a highly divisive issue as late as the 1920s and 1930s, many Finnish speakers now recognize the value of Swedish for communicating with other Nordic countries. A distinction between urban, industrialized, coastal southwestern Finland and the rural interior northeast is an important historical and regional division in terms of culture and identity. However, socialist versus nonsocialist affiliations are more meaningful at the political level. Despite these distinctions, most citizens strongly believe that they share a common culture and heritage. Location and Geography. Finland is bordered on the east by Russia, on the south by the Gulf of Finland and Estonia, on the west by the Gulf of Bothnia and Sweden, and on the north and northwest by Norway. A quarter of its territory is north of the Arctic Circle. Four physiographic-biotic regions divide the country.

An archipelagic belt embraces the southwestern coastal waters and the Åland Islands. A narrow coastal plain of low relief and clay soils, historically the area of densest rural settlement and mixed farming production, extends between the Russian and Swedish borders. A large interior plateau contains dense forests, thousands of lakes and peat bogs, and rocky infertile soils associated with a glacially modified landscape with numerous drumlins and eskers. This district lies north and east of the coastal plain toward the Russian border. Beyond the Arctic Circle, forests give way to barren fells, extensive bogs, rugged mountains, and the large rivers of Lapland. Continental weather systems produce harsh cold winters that last up to seven months in the interior eastern and northern districts, yet long summer days permit farming far to the north. The climate in the south and west is moderated by the waters of the Gulf Stream and north Atlantic drift current. Demography. In 1997, the population was about 5,147,000 people, of whom 93 percent were ethnically and linguistically Finns. High mortality from wars and famine dampened population growth between the sixteenth and late nineteenth centuries.

In the twentieth century, a falling birthrate and emigration led to very low population growth. Dramatic internal migration accompanied an economic transformation between the 1950s and the mid-1970s, when agriculture and the forestry industry were rapidly mechanized. At that time, many young people left the rural east and northeast to work in the urban industrialized south. While 75 percent of the population lived in rural areas just before World War II, by the late 1990s, 62 percent of the people were urban dwellers. About a sixth of the population lives in the Helsinki metropolitan area along the south-central coast in the province of Uusimaa. Helsinki became the capital in 1812 under Russian control, replacing the role Turku had served during Swedish domination. Substantial Finnish populations live in Russia, the United States, Canada, and Sweden, and smaller numbers reside in Australia, South Africa, and Latin America. Finland Linguistic Affiliation. Finnish belongs to the family of Finno-Ugric languages in northeastern Europe, Russia, and western Siberia, a group that includes Saami (Lapp) and Hungarian.

The most closely related languages are Estonian, Votish, Livonian, Vepsian, and the closely allied Karelian dialects of the Balto-Finnic branch. Although Finnish was established as a written language as early as the sixteenth century, its official status in Finland did not become equivalent to that of Swedish until after the Language Ordinance of 1863. Finnish is a euphonious language with many Germanic and Slavic loan words. Symbolism. About 1.5 million saunas are significant visual architectural symbols, especially in the rural landscape. Ritualized bathing in the sauna reinforces a web of cultural ideas about sociality, hospitality, cleanliness, health, sisu ("gritty perseverance"), and athleticism. The Kalevala , an epic poem synthesized by Elias Lönnrot in the early nineteenth century, is a powerful literary evocation of Finnish origins, unity, and destiny as a people. It frequently refers to other aspects of Finnish culture that have become significant symbols of identity, such as the savusauna (smoke sauna) and the ancient stringed instrument the kantele .

Another mid-nineteenth century artistic achievement, the composition Vårt land or Maamme ("Our Land"), with words by Johan Ludvig Runeberg and music by Fredrik Pacius became the national anthem. Citizens throughout the country fly the national flag, a blue cross on a white background, during the celebration of Midsummer. The national coat of arms, a crowned lion standing on a red field with silver roses, derives from Swedish heraldic crests of the sixteenth century and appears on a variety of postage stamps, banknotes and coins, and official seals. History and Ethnic Relations Emergence of the Nation. Human habitation in Finland dates to the early postglacial period in the late eighth millennium B.C.E. , long before Finno-Ugric migrations into the area from the east or possibly from eastern Europe. Previous theories held that the ancestors of the Finns migrated into southwestern Finland from Estonia as recently as the first century C.E. , during the early Roman Iron Age. Recent research, including paleoecological evidence of agricultural grain pollens dating to the second millennium B.C.E. , suggests a much earlier proto-Finnish presence.

A combination of archaeological, historical linguistic, and genetic evidence suggests that the spread of the "Comb Ceramic" culture in northern Finland around 4000 B.C.E. may represent the appearance of a proto-Finnic-speaking population in that region that came from an eastern European source area. As the "Battle-Axe or Corded Ware" culture arrived in southwestern Finland around 3000 B.C.E. , proto-Finnic began diverging into early Saami-speaking and Finnish-speaking populations. The latter people gradually added farming to their hunting, trapping, and fishing adaptation. By the beginning of the Bronze Age around 1500 B.C.E. , these tribes were geographically divided. Those in the southwest were heavily influenced by Scandinavian cultures, while those in the interior and eastern districts had ties with peoples of the Volga region. A series of crusades by the expanding Swedish kingdom between the 1150s and 1293 was the vehicle for spreading the Roman Catholic Church into Finland. By the time of the Lutheran Reformation in the early sixteenth century, the Swedish Crown had strong control of colonial Finland, and a modified estate system forced Finnish peasants to participate in the wars of their Swedish lords.

The destruction of Finnish settlements and crops and large population losses resulted from conflicts between the Swedish and Russian empires. By the mid-eighteenth century, there were strong Finnish separatist movements. Russia finally conquered Finland during the Napoleonic wars of 1808–1809, annexing it as an autonomous grand duchy. National Identity. The nineteenth century was a period of coalescence of feelings of national consciousness in scientific thought, politics, art, and literature, as exemplified by the 1835 compilation of Finnish and Karelian rune songs in the Kalevala . This movement served as a counterpoint to a growing Russification of Finnish institutions, and Finland declared itself independent immediately after the Russian Revolution of 1917. The new state was immediately embroiled in a civil war that resulted from growing class tension between property owners (the counterrevolutionary "White" forces) and landless farm, forest, and factory workers (the "Red" forces) who wanted a socialist state. The scars from that conflict had not healed when Finland was united by its battles with the Soviet Union during World War II.

Finland surrendered several eastern territories that amounted to 10 percent of its area, and 420,000 Karelian Finns in those areas migrated across the newly formed national boundaries to Finland, requiring a massive resettlement and rural land reform program. Since World War II, the Finnish parliamentary state has actively pursued an official policy of neutrality combined with expanded trade and cultural contacts with the Soviet Union, and then Russia, a political adaptation known as the Paasikivi-Kekkonen Line. Ethnic Relations. Swedish is the second official language and is spoken by about 6 percent of the population. Living primarily in the southwestern part of the country, Swedish colonists and Swedish-speaking Finns were, for centuries, a ruling elite. Swedish was the language of commerce, the courts, and education, and Finnish was regarded as a peasant language until the nationalist movement of the nineteenth century advanced it as an official written and cultural language of the majority. Political tensions arising from this ethnolinguistic division have largely faded as the Swedish-speaking minority has declined in size and assimilated through marriage with Finnish speakers.

By contrast, Finland's 6,500 Saami, or Lapps, have largely avoided assimilation into the cultural mainstream, having been displaced from the southern part of the country by northward-colonizing Finns over the past two thousand years. Separateness is now reinforced as much by the economic marginality and limited educational opportunities in Finnish Lapland as by cultural and linguistic isolation. Gypsies have lived in Finland since the sixteenth century and perhaps have endured the greatest prejudice of any minority. They number between five thousand and six thousand and in recent decades, the government has attempted to improve their economic situation and lessen overt discrimination. Foreigners, while never numerous, have increased to seventy-four thousand and have come mostly from Russia, Estonia, Sweden, and Somalia. Urbanism, Architecture, and the Use of Space With the rise of permanent agricultural settlements in the fertile plains of the western and southern regions in the Middle Ages, communal ownership and management created a system in which an entire hamlet, including fifteen to twenty closely spaced farms, assumed joint ownership of fields, forests, and pastures.

Land reforms in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries broke down the communal villages, but the newly created individual farmsteads retained a modified courtyard arrangement with dwelling units, sauna or bath-house, grain and food storage buildings, livestock barns, and hay sheds enclosing an inner yard. Wooden domestic architecture achieved a high level of craftsmanship and embellishment, with two-story houses marking prosperous farms. However, in the eastern and interior areas, agricultural settlement occurred later and was characterized by a more flexible system of land ownership and farmstead organization. The persistence of "burn-beating" cultivation ( poltta kaskea, kaskiviljelys ), a form of pioneer extensive farming in which patches of conifer forest were cut and burned to create fertilized fields, involved mobile populations and a dispersed pattern of settlement. Remote individual farms or extended dual-family holdings were won from the forest, often along glacial esker ridges or "home hills" ( harju, vaara ). While these historical patterns of settlement affect the current rural landscape, six of ten Finns now live in urban areas.

The largest cities are greater Helsinki with about 911,000 people, Tampere with 189,000, Turku with 169,000, and Oulu with 114,000. The majority of residential dwellings of all types have been constructed since World War II, largely consisting of apartment house complexes in large cities. Adapting socially and emotionally to this urban landscape has been problematic for many recent migrants from the countryside. Many city dwellers still view themselves as partly rural, a fact attested to by a weekend and holiday return to cottages in the countryside. Finland remains one of the most sparsely populated countries in Europe, with only 26 people per square mile (16 people per square kilometer). The development of contemporary architectural movements in the twentieth century may be seen as an attempt to adapt the demands of modern housing projects, offices, churches, and public buildings to the forests, lakes, light conditions, and other distinctive features and materials of the landscape. Pioneered by Alvar Aalto and Erik Bryggman, Finnish modern architecture employs a "neoplastic" use of space that emerges directly from the function and surroundings of building structures.

Despite the notable innovations of the twentieth century, much of the national architectural identity resides in older buildings that have achieved an iconic status: the medieval castles at Savonlinna and Turku; eighteenth-century vernacular wooden churches; the early nineteenth-century neoclassical center of Helsinki designed by C.L. Engel which now contains the Council of State, the University of Helsinki, and the Helsinki Cathedral; and Helsinki's railway station, designed by Eliel Saarinen and completed in 1914, an imposing granite building that presages the Art Deco skyscrapers built in American cities two decades later. Food and Economy Food in Daily Life. Milk is prominent in the diet as a beverage and the basic ingredient in a variety of curdled, soured, and cultured forms; in broths used for soups, stews, and puddings; and in regional specialty dishes such as "cheese bread" ( juustoleipä ). There are notable differences between western and eastern Finland in bread making and the manner of souring milk.

A large midday meal in a rural household may include fish baked in a rye loaf ( leipäkukko ), potatoes ( peruna ), barley bread ( rieska ), cheese ( juusto ), pickled beets ( punajuuri ), cloudberries in sauce, milk, and coffee. Food Customs at Ceremonial Occasions. Coffee is a "national drink" that mediates the distinction between the rural interior and the urban industrial A Lapp reindeer breeder from Inari. Finland's Lapps have maintained a separate cultural identity. south. In the early nineteenth century, coffee was an expensive imported beverage consumed by the aristocracy, but it has been incorporated into all strata of society. It is the center of the ubiquitous "coffee ceremony," a ritualized display of hospitality, elegance, and self-restraint in which an abundance of delicate pastries is served. Commercially produced sausage ( makkara ), which became increasingly common in the diet after the 1950s, represents a relatively recent shift toward large-scale food-processing industries. Abhorred by nutritionists for its high fat and sodium content and ridiculed and scorned in popular lore and jokes, sausage is nonetheless considered a versatile convenience food.

Like coffee, it may appear as a common festival food at occasions such as Midsummer ( juhannus ), along with cheese bread, potato pasties ( perunapiirakka ), yeast coffee bread ( pulla ), beer, and vodka. Mämmi , a brown malted porridge, is typically served at Easter. Sima (a kind of mead), talouskalja (homemade beer), and viilia (soured whole milk) also may be served on special occasions. Basic Economy. Livestock raising was a major element in the peasant economy, along with fishing, hunting, tar production, and peddling. Wood as a commercial product did not become part of the farming economy until liberalized marketing policies, improved sawmilling techniques, and foreign demand converged in the late nineteenth century. The precariousness of crop cultivation, coupled with the emergence of new international markets for butter during the Russian colonial period (1808–1917), intensified the production of dairy cattle. Gradually, cultivated grasses replaced grains and wild hay as a source of cattle pasturage and fodder, and after the turn of the century, farmers began to establish cooperative dairies ( osuusmeijerit ).

The general shift toward commercial agriculture coincided with the decline of the burn-beating system. Nonetheless, many farm families in the northern and eastern regions maintained an essentially subsistence orientation until the 1950s. Increased mechanization and specialization in farm production (dairy cattle, hogs, and grains) occurred in the 1960s as the labor force moved into manufacturing and service industries; less than 11 percent of the labor force is now involved in agriculture and forestry. The rural economy is still based on modest family-owned farms where the marketing of timber from privately owned forest tracts is an important means of financing agricultural operations. Handicraft and artisan traditions were well developed historically, and some have survived the conversion to industrial manufacturing. Men specialized in making furniture, harnesses, wooden vessels or "bushels" ( vakka ), and metalwork. The sheath knife ( puukko ) was a versatile tool, and it continues to symbolize maleness in recreational hunting and fishing. Women specialized in textiles and lace making. The woven woolen wall rug ( ryijy ) has become a particularly popular art form in homes, emblematic of a family's patrimony.

By the Middle Ages local markets and fairs were important in the economy, with fairs often held in the vicinity of churches and associated with saints' days or other aspects of the religious calendar. Land Tenure and Property. Historically, in the west it was customary for a farm to be passed on to the eldest son or the eldest daughter's husband. In the east, the land was divided among all the adult male family members. These regional patterns have largely faded, and intergenerational transfers of land have become highly variable throughout the country. Despite a bias toward patrilineal transmission, farms can be inherited by sons or daughters or the oldest or youngest offspring or can be divided or jointly held by multiple heirs. However, at the beginning of the twentieth century, a landless proletariat constituted half the rural population. Major agrarian reforms included the Crofters' Law of 1918, the Lex Kallio of 1922, and the Land Procurement Law of 1945, all of which created holdings for landless rural poor and unfavorably situated tenant farmers. The Land Procurement Law also redistributed land to ex-servicemen and Karelian refugees in the wake of World War II. Commercial Activities.

With two-thirds of total output generated in the service sector, the economy is comparable to those in other advanced industrial nations. Finland joined the European Union (EU) in 1995, primarily to further political integration, but has experienced some economic benefits in the form of lower food prices. The gross domestic product per capita was $18,871 in 1996, close to the mean for EU countries. A recession-spurred unemployment rate exceeding 18 percent in the mid-1990s, has been the largest economic problem, stemming from the Soviet Union's collapse and the deterioration of bilateral Finnish-Soviet trade. The markka , or Finnmark, is the basic monetary unit. Major Industries. In recent years, metal, engineering, and electronics products have accounted for half of the country's exports, with forest products accounting for another third. The revolution in high-technology industries has been dramatic. These industries did not become prominent until the 1990s but now produce a large and growing share of exports. The Nokia Corporation, known in the 1980s primarily for paper and rubber products, has an expanding international market for mobile phones, computers, and related telecommunications products. Trade.

Furs and naval stores constituted a large share of the export trade in the Middle Ages, mainly destined for the cities of the Hanseatic League. German and Swedish merchants were prominent in Finland's early Baltic port cities. After the mid-nineteenth century, foreign trade shifted toward Saint Petersburg and Russian markets with lumber, paper, and agricultural products becoming the chief exports. After World War II, forest products remained crucial to the export economy, but they are now complemented by sophisticated metal, electronics, engineering, and chemical products. In recent years, trade with countries in the European Economic Community has expanded and has been reinforced by Finland's membership in the European Free Trade Association. Social Stratification Classes and Castes. Before the nineteenth century, Finnish society was divided into peasants Light blue vases at the Arabia Factory in Helsinki, which is known for its stoneware, china, and porcelain. Finnish design combines local artistic themes with tools and materials adapted to demanding northern conditions. ( talonpojat ), city dwellers, clergy, and nobility. Economic change led to the decline of the clergy and nobility and an expansion of the entrepreneurial and working classes.

In more recent decades, considerable social mobility and an egalitarian ethos emerged with increasing economic prosperity, a progressive social welfare system, an open educational system, and consensus politics. While Finns may not always recognize clear economic class divisions, they are likely to be conscious of the status attached to educational and honorific titles and political party affiliation. The currently unfolding class system includes farmers, the working class (nonrural manual laborers), the petit bourgeoisie (shop owners, small entrepreneurs), the lower middle class (lower-income service sector), the upper middle class (higher-income white-collar professionals), and the upper class (corporate owners and managers). Symbols of these loosely-drawn social strata, as in many Western democracies, can be rather subtle. Nonetheless, the kinds of work one does, and the level of education, professional training and/or professionalism demanded by one's livelihood, are often strong indicators of the degree of prestige and status one enjoys in Finnish society. Political Life Government. The administrative district or commune ( maalaiskunta ) embodies a sense of community and self-identification for its residents. It often coincides with the historical church parish, and is a local unit of self-government that generally collects taxes, regulates economic affairs, and maintains public order.

Every four years a communal council is elected to manage local affairs. Much of a council's work is implemented by a communal board composed of members appointed to reflect the council's political party composition. Leadership and Political Officials. With more than a dozen political parties, kunta government sometimes is represented by opposing coalitions of socialist and nonsocialist party interests. The same principle applies at the national level, where the two hundred representatives of the uni-cameral parliament ( Eduskunta ) are often elected by alliances of parties. The Social Democratic Party and the Agrarian Union (Centre) Party formed the basis of all majority governments well into the 1980s. Nonetheless, most parliamentary members follow the positions of their political parties and vote in blocs. The parliament promulgates laws, approves the national budget, monitors the legality of governmental activities, and, in concert with the president, exerts legislative power. Social Problems and Control. The institution of a village-governing alderman was part of the authoritarian moral environment in the dense rural settlements of the southern and western regions. Village fight groups and fights ( kylätappelut ) were ritualized conflicts, sometimes associated with weddings, which integrated communities via rivalry relationships.

In the sparsely settled eastern interior, social life was more individualistic and social control less formal. In contemporary society, independent courts and centrally organized police forces maintain public order. Crime rates generally increased between the 1960s and 1980s paralleling the country's growing wealth and urbanization. The economic recession of the early 1990s was accompanied by a decline in crime, followed by modest increases in recent years. Compared with other Nordic countries, Finland has very low rates for theft and narcotics offenses but an above average rate for assault. Military Activity. Finland's historical position as a frontier of colonization and military incursions by external empires is part of the collective conscience. Strategic victories against invading Soviet forces during the "Winter War" of 1939–1940 are symbolically integral to the lore and identity of many Finns. By contrast, the "reign of terror" after the civil war of 1917–1918 profoundly polarized the middle classes and working classes, with the working classes remaining alienated and embittered.

In foreign relations, Finland initially attempted to establish cooperative ties with other countries that had won their independence from Russia after World War I. However, it soon abandoned that position and began to seek the support of the League of Nations. After the mid-1930s, Nordic cooperation became the predominant orientation in foreign policy. Social Welfare and Change Programs In recent years, expenditures on social insurance (health, pension, accident, and disability programs), social transfers of income (maternity allowances, children's allowances, child support payments, municipal housing allowances), and social welfare (individuals in need) have approached one-fifth of the gross national product. The programs are financed by contributions from the state, municipal governments, employers, and insured individuals. As early as 1895, compensation was instituted for workers injured in accidents. A dramatic increase in medical care needed for disabled war veterans beginning in the 1940s spurred the state to expand public health programs. Finland has been a pioneer in maternity allowances and family welfare, offering one of the most generous systems of payments for mother and child care in the world.

Nongovernmental Organizations and Other Associations About 10 to 15 percent of the government's aid budget is allocated to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) involved in development and humanitarian projects. In 1997, as many as one hundred fifty Finnish NGOs maintained four hundred projects in more than seventy countries, mostly in Africa and Asia. The Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Mission, the Finnish Free Foreign Mission, Finnchurchaid, the Finnish Red Cross, and the Trade Union Solidarity Centre account for a large share of NGO activity. Gender Roles and Statuses Division of Labor by Gender. In the rural economy, women are the primary cattle tenders and men are field and forestry workers. Being a good emäntä (female head of a farmstead) involves a balance of cow care, child care, food processing, meal preparation, arduous cleaning in cow shed and house, and ritual displays of hospitality for visiting neighbors, friends, and relatives. An isäntä (male head of a farmstead) is symbolically and practically associated with the outdoor domain of preparing and maintaining pastures and hay fields, cutting wood, coordinating labor with other farms, and operating and maintaining machinery.

However, a decline in the availability of work crews of kin and friends and a concomitant increase in mechanization have contributed to convergence in male and female work roles. A complicating factor is that young women have left the countryside in greater numbers than have men in recent years. Farms have aging personnel and few assisting family members, and some farmers are forced into bachelorhood. The Relative Status of Women and Men. There is a long tradition of sexual equality in the sense that women's participation in political activity and public life has been encouraged. Finland was the first country to provide equal voting rights to women, instituting female suffrage in elections to the national parliament in 1906. Fully 9.5 percent (nineteen of two hundred members) of the parliament of Wooden buildings in Porvoo. Few of Finland's residences predate World War II. 1907 consisted of women. Female membership in the parliament currently is about 33 percent. Indeed, Finland's current president, Tarja Halonen, is a woman. The traditional role of rural women as resourceful, powerful workers translates well to urban contexts. The model of a man who works to support a wife who remains at home is not widely embraced.

There is an old pattern of sending girls for advanced education while keeping boys in farm work after rudimentary schooling. While women work alongside men in business, forestry, engineering and other fields, women's earnings are only 81 percent of men's, reflecting the greater numbers of women in low-paying service jobs. A lingering area of conservatism and sexual disparity involves men's unchanging attitudes toward their roles and the notion that women, despite their other obligations, are responsible for domestic work and child care. Marriage, Family, and Kinship Marriage. Endogamous tendencies characterized marriage in rural society, with mates frequently chosen from the same village, parish, or rural commune. This tendency was most pronounced in the eastern districts among large Karelian joint families and those of the same background and status. Night courting and bundling rituals achieved a high degree of elaboration among the youth in the southwest. Originally, bilocal marriages began with engagement and leave-taking ( läksiäiset ) ceremonies at the bride's home and ended with wedding rites ( häät ) at the groom's home. Under church influence, those customs were replaced by unilocal weddings at the bride's home. In recent years, community and regional endogamy have declined.

Marriage rates also have declined as cohabitation has become more common in urban areas, yet that pattern preserves some of the aspects of the "trial marriage" of earlier times, when weddings were performed to finalize a marriage after a woman had conceived a child. Domestic Unit. Historically, joint families were common in the eastern Karelian area, where a founding couple, their adult male children, and the male children's wives formed multiple-family farm households that were among the largest (twenty to fifty persons) in Scandinavia. Elsewhere, it has been common for only one child to remain on the parents' farmstead, and smaller "stem" and nuclear families have prevailed. Overall, family size has become smaller under the impact of urbanization, dropping from an average of 3.6 persons in 1950 to 2.7 in 1975. Among families with children, the number of offspring declined from an average of 2.27 in 1960 to 1.9 in 1997. Inheritance. A common historical pattern was for a son to take over a farm and care for his parents in their old age.

However, the custom of patrilineal transmission is changing, perhaps as differential migration to cities alters the sex ratios in rural areas. In many cases, relinquishing coheirs (usually siblings who move away) must be compensated for their shares in a farm by the remaining heir; often this is done with timber income from a farm's forest tracts. Kin Groups. Kinship is basically bilateral, creating overlapping personal kindreds ( sukulaiset ) derived from the father's and mother's relatives. Socialization Child Rearing and Education. Gritty perseverance ( sisu ), personal autonomy and independence, and respect for the autonomy of others are central themes in child training and personality formation. Higher Education. Formal education generally is highly valued. In 1995, 2.2 million people had graduated from a senior secondary school, vocational Downtown street in Turku, Finland. school, professional institute, or university. More than 130,000 students currently are enrolled in twenty universities and other institutions of higher education. More than half the students are women.

The physical and social sciences are highly developed and well represented at major institutions such as the University of Helsinki, University of Jyvaskyla, University of Oulu, University of Tampere, and the University of Turku. Etiquette Finns have a self-conception and reputation for being reserved and sparing with words. Small talk is not valued. Accordingly, words and verbal promises are likely to be taken seriously. To some extent this is a public, formal persona that is belied by the intimacy and voluble conversation shared by good friends and family members. The sauna is a notable context in which people are more open and expressive. The rapid spread of mobile phones, computers, and other communications technology is creating a society that is highly interconnected, regardless of the nature of interpersonal interactions and demeanor. Finland has the highest per capita use of the Internet (nearly 25 percent of the population) and cellular phones (28 percent) in the world. Finns value educational degrees and other qualifications and may expect to be addressed with the appropriate title in professional or work settings. In recent years, there has been some resurgence in traditional conventions of etiquette that require the use of the second person plural as a formal means of address.

The second personal singular is appropriate for addressing relatives, friends, and children. Mutual use of first names implies a close personal relationship. The customary greeting involves a firm handshake, direct eye contact, and perhaps a slight nod of the head but rarely embracing or kissing. As a result of women's involvement in politics and public life, relations between men and women are relatively equitable. Condescending attitudes toward women are rarely tolerated. While the social acceptability of intoxication is decreasing among younger people and legal sanctions for drunk driving are severe, Finns have a reputation for weekend binge drinking. This pattern is more prominent among men and, to the extent that it disrupts family life, retards the social progress achieved by women. Although the per capita consumption of alcohol is about average for Europe, Finns have relatively high rates of alcoholism and alcohol-related social and medical problems. Religion Religious Beliefs. Traditional conceptions of the supernatural had much in common with those of other Balto-Finnic peoples. The creation of the world was associated with the culture hero Väinämöinen, and the cosmos was divided into an underworld of the dead, a middle world of the living, and a sky-heaven supported by a giant pillar.

Supernatural beings or deities included a god of the sky (Ilmarinen); a rain-giving god (Ukko), converted to a supreme or universal god under Christian influence; and other spirits of nature such as Tapio, a forest guardian of game. Many old features of Finnish-Karelian religion were preserved within the Russian Orthodox faith, which currently has about fifty-six thousand members in the venue of the Finnish Orthodox Church. However, Lutheranism, which contributed to an erosion of native religion, includes about 88 percent of the population as members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Revivalist movements such as Laestadianism have flourished in the context of the Lutheran Church. The distinction between Lutheran and Orthodox traditions ultimately has its roots in early conflicts between the Swedish kingdom and the semi-independent state of Novgorod. The 1323 Peace of Pahkinasaari established a frontier border through Finnish territory.

In the ensuing centuries, Finns to the west of the "Pahkinasaari line" were heavily exposed to Swedish, Scandinavian, and German culture and the Roman Catholic Church (ultimately replaced by Lutheranism), while Finns and Karelians in the Novgorodian realm to the east were influenced by Slavic culture and the Eastern (or Russian) Orthodox Church. Religious Practitioners. Before Christian and medieval Scandinavian influence, religion involved shamanism, with practitioners mediating between the present world and the upper and nether realms of the universe. Traces of this tradition survive in the divinatory practices of the seer, or tietäjä . Evangelical Lutheran clergy, elected by local parish members, are the prominent religious specialists in contemporary society. Rituals and Holy Places. Bear ceremonialism was part of the ancient hunting traditions. Ritual slaying, feasting, and return of the skull and bones of a bear were fundamental to sending the animal's soul back to its original home and thus facilitating its reincarnation. Ceremonies to promote farming and livestock became associated with holidays and the cult of the saints in the Christian calendar.

Lutheran life cycle rites involving baptism, confirmation, marriage, and death remain significant for most people. Death and the Afterlife. Living and dead formed a close unity in traditional Finnish and Karelian belief, and death was viewed largely as transfer to a new residence. The complex rituals accompanying death were orchestrated by women, who arranged the wake, washed and shrouded the body, and sometimes sang laments to send the deceased, along with food and implements, to the place of the family ancestors. Memorial feasts were held six weeks and one year after death. Those who passed on to the realm of the dead ( Manala or Tuonela ) remained a profound moral force among their living descendants. Days set aside for commemorating the dead eventually were adapted to a Christian calendar under Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox influence. Medicine and Health Care As a symbol of cleansing and purity, the sauna was a focus of therapeutic and curing activity as well as ritualized social bathing. It was common to give birth in the saunas before the availability of hospitals in the twentieth century, and cupping and bloodletting were performed there. Generally, the sauna is still seen as a remedy for pain and sickness.

Professional medical care and research are highly developed with a network of 265 state financed district health centers providing a wide spectrum of health services. Overall health care expenditures account for a substantial share of Finland's GNP. It is a leading country in research and treatment in the areas of pediatrics, heart disease, and alcoholism. Secular Celebrations Kekri , a traditional feast at the end of the harvest season in rural communities, declined in importance as Christmas came to dominate festival life in town and urban settings, yet old kekri customs, such as tin casting to foretell the future, still occur in the context of Christmas and New Year celebrations. While Easter retains more of its religious character than do other church holidays, in the 1980s a new Easter custom emerged in which children dress up as witches, carry willow twigs, and travel from house to house seeking treats. Apparently, the Easter witch phenomenon combines ritual elements from older Scandinavian and Eastern Orthodox traditions. Midsummer celebrates the maximum occurrence of light at the summer solstice, a time when towns and cities are deserted for lakeside cottages and farms, where bonfires are lit, food and drink are shared between friends and relatives, and the national flag is flown.

Other significant official national holidays include Independence Day (6 December), Vappu (May Day), and Mothers' Day (second Sunday of May). The Arts and Humanities Support for the Arts. The government maintains a competitive art grants system that allows composers and performing artists to pursue creative work for one to five-year periods. Literature. Finnish culture is known for its rune song (folk poetry) traditions, which were synthesized in the Kalevala , a powerful symbol of national identity. Aleksis Kivi's 1870 novel Seitsemän Veljestä ( Seven Brothers ), an unromantic portrayal of the struggle to clear virgin forest, furthered the development of Finnish as a literary language. That novel helped fuel the burgeoning national consciousness and became a source of inspiration in many areas of the arts. Influences from Scandinavian and Russian literature in the late nineteenth century reinforced a trend toward realism and social criticism, as exemplified by Minna Canth's depictions of women and the poor and Juhani Aho's treatment of emotional experience. Despite neoromanticist yearnings, a A Finnish family in a sauna in Oulu, Finland. Saunas provide a less formal, more open space for reserved Finns to express themselves.

strong realist current infused literature in the early twentieth century. This is seen in Ilmari Kianto's tragicomic portrayal of a tenant farm family's struggles during the prohibition years of the 1920s, Ryysyrannan Jooseppi ( Joseph of Ragged Shore ) (1924), and in the Nobel Prize winner F. E. Sillanpää's evocations of rural landscapes that overpower or dwarf human actors. From these roots have arisen versatile recent novelists and prose writers, including Väinö Linna, Antti Tuuri, and Olli Jalonen. The tradition of depicting ordinary people in familiar social settings has continued, although powerlessness, anxiety, and other psychological states have become prominent in contemporary literature. Graphic Arts. Innovative functionalist movements have distinguished architecture and the design of furniture, ceramics, glass, and textiles. The reputation of Finnish design for combining local artistic themes with tools and materials adapted to demanding northern conditions was established at international fairs and expositions early in the twentieth century. Similar innovations in industrial design since the 1960s are seen in protective equipment, forestry machinery, recreational clothing, sporting goods, and electronics.

The arena of contemporary visual arts is complex and evolving. As in architecture and design generally, a concern with the forces, shapes, colors, and textures of the northern landscape and the human relationship to nature have strongly influenced painting, sculpture, and other art forms. This is particularly evident in the representational romantic art that blossomed at the end of the nineteenth century. Akseli Gallen-Kallela's Great Black Woodpecker (1893) and his numerous paintings interpreting the Kalevala are exemplars. Abstract art movements did not gain a foothold until the 1950s. In recent years, however, graphic artists have experimented with innovative processes of image production and multimedia technologies to create new forms of art that sometimes serve as critiques of society and technology. In addition to a nationwide network of museums that arrange exhibitions, a new Museum of Contemporary Art (KIASMA) has been opened in Helsinki. Performance Arts. The Kalevala had an impact on musical performance. The composer Jean Sibelius drew inspiration from this source in composing his symphony Kullervo in the early 1890s, and later his life and work became important symbols of the national identity.

Opera gained a significant foothold with the organization of a festival at the fifteenth-century Olavinlinna Castle at Savonlinna between 1912 and 1916. That festival was revived in the 1960s, presaging a revival in opera in the 1970s and 1980s that has continued to the present. Operas drawing from specific historical events or themes, such as The Last Temptations and The Red Line , have resonated with Finnish audiences. Finland has nearly thirty symphony orchestras and a dozen major festivals offering classical, folk, and contemporary music as well as opera. Theater is another area with a rich history and a vibrant experimental present. There are about sixty institutional theaters, mostly in the cities and larger towns, and outdoor summer theater is often intertwined with community festival life in smaller towns and rural locales where amateur companies predominate. Plays based on the novels of Aleksis Kivi and Väinö Linna, are a popular part of the repertoire in those settings.

Bibliography Finland - Language, culture, customs and etiquette Finland Guide Award-Winning Culture Guides 80+ country-specific guides covering country characteristics, the people, language, culture, etiquette, business protocol, communication styles and much more . Finland Guide Finnish Language, culture, customs and etiquette Facts and Statistics Location: Northern Europe, Scandinavia, bordering Norway 729 km, Sweden 586 km, Russia 1,313 km Capital: Helsinki Climate: cold temperate; potentially subarctic but comparatively mild because of moderating influence of the North Atlantic Current, Baltic Sea, and more than 60,000 lakes Population: 5,268,799 (2014 est.) Ethnic Make-up: Finn 93%, Swede 6%, Sami 0.11%, Roma 0.12%, Tatar 0.02% Religions: Evangelical Lutheran 89%, Russian Orthodox 1%, none 9%, other 1% Government: republic Language in Finland Of the two official languages of Finland, Finnish is the first language spoken by 93% of the country's 5 million inhabitants.

Finnish, unlike Scandinavian languages, is not Germanic but in a class of its own. Theoretically, it is related to Hungarian but in practice the two are not mutually comprehensible. The other official language, Swedish, is spoken by around 6% of the population, most of whom live in the south west and are also speakers of Finnish. Sami is a minority language in Scandinavia that is spoken by around 2,000 people living in the north of Finland, which is 0.03% of the Finnish population. Finnish Culture & Society Finland along with Iceland is Nordic rather than Scandinavian. This is reflected in their language which is not Germanic in origin. While many social values are the same, there are subtle differences with Scandinavians. Finnish Egalitarianism Finland is an egalitarian society, which is reflected in their language, which employs gender-neutral words. Finns are very modest and downplay their own accomplishments. They view being humble and modest as virtues. Finnish Behaviour Finns believe there is a proper way to act in any circumstance and always expect courteous behaviour. Talk in moderate tones and do not do anything to call attention to yourself. Serial conversation is the rule - i.e.

listen to the speaker, wait for them to finish and then reply. Interrupting is rude. Fancy a Sauna? The sauna has a special role in the domestic life of Finns. It is an experience shared with family and friends. Important business meetings may be followed by a sauna in which the conversation is continued on a more informal basis. Saunas are found everywhere: At the end of calendar year 2002, there were 1,212,000 saunas in private apartments and another 800,000 in summer cottages and public swimming pools. This translates to more than 2,000,000 saunas for a population of 5.2 million. Etiquette and Customs in Finland Finnish Meeting Etiquette Greetings are formal, with a firm handshake, direct eye contact, and a smile. It is common practice to repeat your first and surname while shaking hands. When greeting a married couple, the wife should be greeted first. Finnish Gift Giving Etiquette If you are invited to a Finn's home, bring flowers, good quality chocolates or wine to the host. Flowers should not be given in even numbers.

Do not give white or yellow flowers since they are used at funerals. Do not give potted plants. Gifts are opened when received. Finnish Dining Etiquette Thank the hosts for the hospitality before saying good-bye to the other guests. Table Manners Wait to be told where to sit. Table manners are Continental -- hold the fork in the left hand and the knife in the right while eating. Always keep your hands visible when eating. Keep your wrists resting on the edge of the table. Do not begin eating until the hostess invites you to start. Bread and shrimp are the only foods eaten by hand. Even fruit is eaten with utensils. Accept second helpings. When passing salt and pepper shakers, put them on the table within the person's reach. Do not give them directly. Men should keep their jacket on at meals unless the host removes his. Finish everything on your plate. Finns do not appreciate waste. When you have finished eating, place your knife and fork across your plate with the prongs facing down and the handles facing to the right. Finnish Business Etiquette and Protocol Relationships & Communication Finns are transactional and do not need long-standing personal relationships in order to conduct business.

The basic business style is formal - i.e. there is relatively little small talk and Finns prefer people to speak succinctly and to focus purely on business. Finns do not require face-to- face contact and, in fact, are quite comfortable using e- mail. Finns are excellent time managers who prefer to organize their workday in order to accomplish as much as possible. Finns are interested in long- term relationships. Relationship building often takes place outside the office: in a restaurant or the sauna. Never turn down an invitation to use the sauna, as it is an entrenched part of the Finnish culture. Finns place a great value on speaking plainly and openly. What someone says is accepted at face value and this is a culture where "a man's word is his bond" and will be treated as seriously as a written contract, so verbal commitments are considered agreements. Finns are direct communicators. Expect your colleagues to tell you what they think rather than what you want to hear. Professional differences are not viewed as personal attacks. Business Meeting Etiquette Appointments are necessary and should be made in advance by telephone, e- mail, or fax. It is extremely difficult to meet with people without a formal appointment.

Do not schedule meetings between June and August as many Finns take vacation during the summer. You should arrive at meetings on time or slightly early. Telephone immediately if you will be detained more than 5 minutes. Being punctual is a sign of respect and efficiency. Expect a bare minimum of small talk, if any, before getting into the business discussion. Send an agenda before the meeting as well as the biographies of your team. Meetings begin and end on time. Avoid hype, exaggerated claims, or bells and whistles in your presentation. Finns seldom ask questions. The presenter is expected to make his/her case with sufficient detail that their Finnish colleagues do not need to ask questions. There is no taboo on humour in the business environment. Dress Etiquette Business attire is stylish and conservative. Men should wear dark coloured, conservative business suits. Women should wear conservative business suits, trouser suits, or dresses. Business Card Etiquette Finnish language, alphabet and pronunciation Search Finnish (suomi) Finnish is a Finnic language spoken by about 5 million people in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Estonia, Canada and Russia. It is closely related to Estonian. Finnish starting to appear in writing during the 16th century.

The first piece of Finnish literature was a translation of the New Testament by Michael Agricola which was published in 1548. Until 1809 Finland was a part of Sweden and Swedish was the official language. From 1863 the Finnish language could be used along with Swedish when dealing with authorities. Civil servants were obliged to use the Finnish language and issue documents in Finnish from 1883. In 1892 Finnish became an official language and gained a status comparable to that of Swedish. Today Finland is officially bilingual in Finnish and Swedish. Finnish alphabet (suomen aakkoset) The letters in blue are only used in names and foreign loanwords The letter g appears in native Finnish words in combination with N as ng [ŋ] c = [k] when it appears before a, o and u, and [s] when in front of e, i, y, ä and ö Stress always falls on the first syllable of words. Vowels and consonants can be short (written with one letter), or long (written with two letters). Finnish has a system of vowel harmony.

There are three types of vowels: front vowels (ä, ö, y), back vowels (a, o, u) and neutral vowels (e, i). Front and back vowels cannot co-exist in the same word. Neutral vowels can be used with either of the two other types. For more details, see: #Finnish Information about the pronunciation of Finnish compiled by Wolfram Siegel Sample text Kaikki ihmiset syntyvät vapaina ja tasavertaisina arvoltaan ja oikeuksiltaan. Heille on annettu järki ja omatunto, ja heidän on toimittava toisiaan kohtaan veljeyden hengessä. Hear a recording of this text Translation All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. (Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) Finland: Maps, History, Geography, Government, Culture, Facts, Guide & Travel/Holidays/Cities Opposition Wins 2015 Election, Ousts Prime Minister Geography Finland is three times the size of Ohio.

It is heavily forested and contains thousands of lakes, numerous rivers, and extensive areas of marshland. Except for a small highland region in the extreme northwest, the country is a lowland less than 600 ft (180 m) above sea level. Off the southwest coast are the Swedish-populated Åland Islands (581 sq mi; 1,505 sq km), which have had an autonomous status since 1921. Government Republic. History The first inhabitants of Finland were the Sami (Lapp) people. When Finnish speakers migrated to Finland in the first millennium B.C. , the Sami were forced to move northward to the arctic regions, with which they are traditionally associated. The Finns' repeated raids on the Scandinavian coast impelled Eric IX, the Swedish king, to conquer the country in 1157. It was made a part of the Swedish kingdom and converted to Christianity. By 1809 the whole of Finland was conquered by Alexander I of Russia, who set up Finland as a grand duchy. The period of Russification (1809–1914) sapped Finnish political power and made Russian the country's official language.

When Russia became engulfed by the March Revolution of 1917, Finland seized the opportunity to declare independence on Dec. 6, 1917. The USSR attacked Finland on Nov. 30, 1939, after Finland refused to give in to Soviet territorial demands. The Finns staged a strong defense for three months before being forced to cede to the Soviets 16,000 sq mi (41,440 sq km). Under German pressure, the Finns joined the Nazis against Russia in 1941, but they were defeated again and forced to cede the Petsamo area to the USSR. In 1948, a treaty of friendship and mutual assistance was signed by the two nations. Finland continued to pursue a foreign policy of nonalignment throughout the cold-war era. Running on a platform to revitalize the economy, Martti Ahtisaari, a Social Democrat, won the country's first direct presidential election in a runoff in Feb. 1994. Previously, presidents had been chosen by electors. Finland became a member of the European Union in Jan. 1995. On Jan.

1, 1999, Finland, along with ten other European countries, adopted the euro as its currency. In 2000, Tarja Halonen, who had been Finland's foreign minister, became its first woman president. The Netherlands, Holland, and the Dutch: Why some countries have so many different names The Netherlands, Holland, and the Dutch: Why some countries have so many different names A country by any other name... (Thinkstock) April 29, 2014 10 things you need to know today Today's best articles The week's best photojournalism Daily business briefing A person from Germany walks into a room. So does a person from Allemagne, a person from Deutschland, a person from Saksa, a person from Tyskland, and a person from Niemcy. At least how many people are in the room? One. Germany is one of several countries that have completely different names in different languages. In French, Germany is Allemagne; in German, it's Deutschland; in Finnish, it's Saksa; in Danish, it's Tyskland; in Polish, it's Niemcy. Why is this? And what other countries have this quirk?

It's all a story of tribes, dynasties, foreign domination, and rivers… Germany A long time ago, when people in part of what is now Germany spoke what we call Old High German, their word for "popular" or "of the people" was diutisc. This has been handed down over history, altered by the general sound patterns of different languages, as the modern German Deutsch, the Danish (and other Scandinavian) Tysk, and the Italian tedesco. Quite a few languages have names for Germany based on this, including most Germanic languages, as well as Korean, Chinese, and Vietnamese. But not everyone who had contact with the Germans felt inclined to call them what they called themselves. The Gauls, a Celtic people who were in France before the Romans arrived, called their neighbors to the east Germani, which seems to come from a Gaulish word meaning "neighbor" or another meaning "noisy." Think of the Germans as the noisy neighbors of the French. Many languages use a name based on this foreign term. But the French don't. They call it Allemagne, which comes from Allamanni, which was the name of a Germanic tribe.

Other tribes included the Saxons, from which the Finns made Saksa. The Slavic languages, on the other hand, use a word based perhaps on the river Neman, which is near the western boundary of Russia. This is near the border between Poland and Russia, and yet the Polish word for "Germany" is Nemcy — a country on their west named after a river on their east. Nearly every language in the world uses a word for Germany based on one of those five origins, and you can generally tell which origin the name comes from by the first letter: D/T, G, A, S, or N. The Netherlands Meanwhile, there's another place that also gets one of the D/T words: people from the Netherlands are Dutch. You will surely recognize the resemblance to Deutsch. So, why are Hollanders Dutch? It goes back to the Middle Ages, when the national boundaries were not tidily drawn and Dutch was seen as a kind of Low German ("low" because of the area's low elevation — that's also what the nether in Netherlands means). The label stuck, even as Germans who moved to Pennsylvania came to be called Pennsylvania Dutch, because at the time they got that label, the distinction had still not been firmly made.

But did you notice how I called people from the Netherlands Hollanders? Holland used to be what English speakers normally called the Netherlands. Holland is actually just part of the Netherlands, one that lies along most of the coast and includes the country's three largest cities. So the Dutch people that English traders met were typically from Holland, which is how the name came to be generally used. But people from the rest of the country didn't like that so much, so we don't normally call it Holland anymore. China One of the world's great airlines is Cathay Pacific. What is Cathay? Another name for China. And what's China? The English name for Zhongguo. You know, the country the Russians call Kitai. Here's how that all came to be. About a thousand years ago, a nomadic people called the Khitan started a dynasty in northern China. They were ultimately overthrown and pushed westward, but the name stuck as a term for northern China and spread to a few languages — it's where the Russian Kitai comes from, and the word Cathay too. Marco Polo helped spread it.

Another dynasty, the Qin (formerly spelled Chin), gave us the word China, which shows up in slightly differing form in many languages, from Norwegian Kina to Afrikaans Sjina, as well as the Latin Sino that shows up in terms such as Sino-Tibetan relations. But in Mandarin Chinese, the country is called Zhongguo (pronounced like "jong gwo"), which translates to "Middle Country" or "Middle Kingdom" — reasonably enough, since from where they're sitting, it's the center of everything. India The Greeks used the name India for the place they had to cross the Indus River to get to — the name Indus comes from Sanskrit Sindhu, passed through Persian and Greek. Most of the world knows the country by a version of India. A few call it by another name that's used in India, especially for the north of the country: Hindustan. But the official name for the country in Hindi is Bharat. That is generally thought to have come from a king, who in turn took his name from the Sanskrit word for "carry, bear" — in fact, it's related to the English word bear (as in carry, not as in animal).

Japan Japan is another country where people in the country call it one thing and almost everyone else calls it another. In Japanese, Japan is Nippon or, more informally, Nihon — which means "where the sun comes from." Why do we call it Japan? Because Marco Polo (him again!) encountered some Chinese traders who called it by their words for "country where the sun comes from," which he wrote down as Cipangu. That got trimmed and changed a bit to make a word that first showed up in English as Giapan. Most of the world now calls the country Japan or something similar. Korea We know that Korea is currently two countries, North Korea and South Korea. But did you know that in Korean, they use two historically different names? In North Korea, the country name is Choson; in South Korea, it's Hanguk. Why does everyone else call it Korea or something similar? It comes (does this sound familiar?) from a dynasty that ran the country a millennium ago — the Goryeo. Finland Lest you think it's just an East Asian thing for a country to be called by something other than what its own people call it, Finland has the same problem.

Well, OK, the name Finland comes from Swedish, and Swedish is one of the two national languages of the country — for the same reason that English is one of the national languages of Ireland: They owned the place for a while and there are still lots of them there. But in Finnish (or Suomea, as they call their language) the name of the country is Suomi. Only a few other languages call it something based on Suomi. The rest go with versions of Finland. England We know that it can be a nuisance to look up England in an index, because it could be under United Kingdom (of which England is part) or Great Britain (the island England shares with Scotland and Wales). But add to that the fact that in Celtic languages, England is something else altogether: Sasana (Irish Gaelic), Sasainn (Scots), Bro-Saoz (Breton). Why? Well, England was colonized by the Angles and the Saxons (they took over from the Celtic Britons, some of whom fled to northern France). We take England from the Angles; the Celts took their names from the Saxons.

Except for the Welsh — they have their own word, Lloegr, which is something they called that part of the island long before the Angles and Saxons showed up. Does anyone else use a word based on Saxon? Yes — scroll back up to the top of the story: the Finns do (so do the Estonians)… but they use it for Germany, which is where the Saxons came from in the first place.

Question: Finland has two official languages. Finnish is one. What is the other?
Answer: SWEDISH