Appendix:Finnish alphabet

The Finnish language is written using the Latin alphabet with three extra letters also used in Swedish, for a total of 28 letters.

Letters and letter names edit

#			letter name(s)	IPA value
1	A	a	aa	IPA^(key): [ɑ̝], [ɑ̈]
2	B	b	bee	IPA^(key): [b̥], [b], [p]
3	C	c	see	IPA^(key): [k], [s]
4	D	d	dee	IPA^(key): [d̥], [d], [t̪]*
5	E	e	ee	IPA^(key): [e̞]
6	F	f	äf, äffä	IPA^(key): [f], [ʋ]
7	G	g	gee	IPA^(key): [ɡ̊], [ɡ], [k]
8	H	h	hoo	IPA^(key): [h], [ɦ]
9	I	i	ii	IPA^(key): [i]
10	J	j	jii	IPA^(key): [j]
11	K	k	koo	IPA^(key): [k]
12	L	l	äl, ällä	IPA^(key): [l]
13	M	m	äm, ämmä	IPA^(key): [m]
14	N	n	än, ännä	IPA^(key): [n]
15	O	o	oo	IPA^(key): [o̞]
16	P	p	pee	IPA^(key): [p]
17	Q	q	kuu	IPA^(key): [k]
18	R	r	är, ärrä	IPA^(key): [r]
19	S	s	äs, ässä	IPA^(key): [s̠]
20	T	t	tee	IPA^(key): [t̪], [t]
21	U	u	uu	IPA^(key): [u]
22	V	v	vee	IPA^(key): [ʋ]
23	X	x	äks, äksä	IPA^(key): [ks]
24	Y	y	yy	IPA^(key): [y̠]
25	Z	z	tseta, tset	IPA^(key): [ts]
26	Å	å	ruotsalainen oo	IPA^(key): [o̞]
27	Ä	ä	ää	IPA^(key): [æ]
28	Ö	ö	öö	IPA^(key): [ø̠̞]

Letters only used in loanwords edit

Letters considered to only appear in loanwords are B, C, F, G (except for ng; see below), Q, W (also an archaic variant for V), X, Z and Å (appears only in Swedish names and recent borrowings). D is sometimes included as well, as in native words, the letter can only appear in specific environments.

Other letters edit

W (kaksoisvee, tuplavee, [ʋ]) is recognized as part of the Finnish orthography, but not the alphabet; it is considered a variant of V.

Š (hattu-s, suhu-s, [ʃ]) and Ž (hattu-z, [ʒ]) appear in loanwords and are recognized as part of the Finnish orthography. They are, however, not considered letters of the Finnish alphabet. They are often replaced with the digraphs sh and zh for technical reasons.

Pronunciation edit

Finnish has high phonemic correspondence: spelling of words is, for the most part, simply the pronunciation of the individual letters one after each other. Notable exceptions are the velar nasal, usual pronunciation of np as [mp], gemination of h and v after certain diphthongs and the presence of a glottal stop after certain words, such as infinitives of verbs.

Velar nasal edit

The velar nasal [ŋ] (äng-äänne) appears in certain letter combinations: ng is pronounced as [ŋː] rather than [nɡ̊] and nk as [ŋk] rather than [nk].

Long vowels and gemination edit

Vowel length and gemination are both phonemic in Finnish. Long vowels and geminated consonants are represented by doubling the vowel or consonant letter. For example, a represents [ɑ] but aa represents [ɑː], and k represents [k] but kk represents [kː].

Collation edit

Å, Ä and Ö are treated as independent letters and are collated after Z in their respective order. In the older collation order, W was considered a variant of V and collated after V only when the words would otherwise be equal (va, wa, ve, we). However, in more recent practice, W is sorted after V like in English. Some modified letters have specific sorting rules:

Modified letters with exceptional collation rules in Finnish
Sorted as	Letter	Used in
Ö ö	Õ õ	Estonian
	Ø ø	Danish, Norwegian
	Ő ő	Hungarian
Y y	Ü ü	Estonian, German, Hungarian
Y y	Ű ű	Hungarian
Ae ae	Æ æ	Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic
Oe oe	Œ œ	French
ss	ß	German
D d	Ð ð	Icelandic, Sami
Th th	Þ þ	Icelandic
N n	Ŋ ŋ	Sami
L l	Ł ł	Polish

Other letters with diacritics are alphabetized as their non-diacritic counterparts (including those of Š and Ž, which are treated as S and Z respectively), coming after only in case there is no other difference.

Most punctuation marks are ignored during collation, such as hyphens and apostrophes.