Wiktionary

hän

See also: haen, -hän, and Appendix:Variations of "han"

Finnish

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Etymology

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From Proto-Finnic *hän, from Proto-Finno-Ugric *sän.[1] Cognates include Erzya сон (son).

In practically all dialects (except potentially Ingrian Finnish), se is the most common third-person pronoun for people, and this is also reflected in colloquial Finnish. hän was most often used in indirect speech (as a logophoric pronoun), potentially with a nuance of doubt or disbelief, although in southwestern, southeastern and far northern eastern dialects it was used more widely in subordinate clauses.[1] The use of hän as a general third-person pronoun may thus be a literary feature.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /ˈhæn/, [ˈhæn]
  • Audio:(file)
  • Audio:(file)
  • Audio:(file)
  • Rhymes: -æn
  • Syllabification(key): hän
  • Hyphenation(key): hän

Pronoun

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hän

  1. (personal) he, she, one, they sg (only of a human being; gender-neutral)
    • 1988 September 22, J. Karjalainen, “Hän”, in Lumipallo, performed by J. Karjalainen ja Mustat Lasit:
      Hän, sai mut uskomaan, hän
      Sai mut toivomaan, hän
      Ja vielä enemmän
      She made me believe, she
      made me hope, she
      and even more than that
  2. he, she, one, they, it (in indirect speech: referring to the subject of the main clause, regardless of whether they are a human being or not, i.e. logophoric pronoun)

Usage notes

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  • In standard Finnish, hän is generally not omitted, despite the verb showing both the person and the number (compare the usage of he (“they pl”)). This is in contrast to the first and second person pronouns which may freely be omitted, with the person being implied by the verb form.
  • In colloquial and dialectal Finnish, the inanimate (demonstrative) pronoun se is mostly used instead of hän, the latter being reserved for certain particular uses such as to indicate that another speaker is being paraphrased. Yet in some others (such as Kven), both pronouns are used in the same role.

Declension

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  • Irregular. The comitative and instructive forms don't exist; the abessive is hardly used. To be more precise: the singular stem is declined like type 32 (sisar) in the singular cases, except for the accusative singular form hänet (see following note).
  • In addition to the standard set of cases, hän and the other personal pronouns have a specific accusative form, hänet. This form would have been the nominative plural form of the first stem, if the word were not a personal pronoun.
  • The shorter forms hällä, hältä and hälle exist for the adessive, ablative and allative respectively, but these are dated or jocular except in poetic use and some set phrases.
Declension of hän
noun case singular plural
nominative hän he
genitive hänen heidän
partitive häntä heitä
accusative hänet heidät
inessive hänessä heissä
elative hänestä heistä
illative häneen heihin
adessive hänellä heillä
ablative häneltä heiltä
allative hänelle heille
essive hänenä heinä
translative häneksi heiksi
abessive hänettä heittä
instructive – –
comitative – –

Synonyms

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  • se (colloquial)

Derived terms

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compounds

Descendants

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  • Kven: hän

See also

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Finnish personal pronouns
first second third
familiar polite
singular minä sinä Te hän
plural me te he

References

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  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Junttila, Santeri, Kallio, Petri, Holopainen, Sampsa, Kuokkala, Juha, Pystynen, Juho, editors (2020–), “hän”, in Suomen vanhimman sanaston etymologinen verkkosanakirja‎[1] (in Finnish), retrieved 2024-01-01

Further reading

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Ingrian

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Pronunciation

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Pronoun

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hän

  1. (dialectal) Alternative form of hää
    • 1936, N. A. Iljin and V. I. Junus, Bukvari iƶoroin șkouluja vart, Leningrad: Riikin Ucebno-pedagogiceskoi Izdateljstva, page 46:
      Toisille hän lapsille esimerkin näyttää.
      He sets an example for the other children.

References

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  • Ruben E. Nirvi (1971) Inkeroismurteiden Sanakirja, Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura, page 84
  • Arvo Laanest (1997) Isuri keele Hevaha murde sõnastik, Eesti Keele Instituut, page 41

Kven

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Etymology

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From Finnish hän, from Proto-Finnic *hän.

Pronunciation

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Pronoun

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hän

  1. he, she (animate)

Declension

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Declension of hän
singular plural
nominative hän het
genitive hänen heiđän, heän
partitive häntä heitä
accusative hänen heiđät, heät
illative hänheen heihin
inessive hänessä heissä
elative hänestä heistä
allative hänele, hänelet,
hälle, hället 		heile, heilet
adessive hänelä, hällä heillä
ablative häneltä, hältä heiltä
translative hänenä heinä
essive häneksi heiksi
abessive hänettä heittä

Synonyms

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See also

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Kven personal pronouns
first second third anim third anim or inan
singular mie sie hän se
plural met tet het net

References

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  • Eira Söderholm (2017) Kvensk grammatikk‎[3], Tromsø: Cappelen Damm Akademisk, →ISBN, page 276

Swedish

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Etymology

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From Old Norse héðan, with influence from Middle Low German hen (“away”), both ultimately related to Proto-Germanic *hiz (“this”).

Adverb

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hän

  1. (often somewhat solemn) away, hence (and often by implication to somewhere else)
    Han gick hän
    He walked away/hence (also a euphemism for died)
    Vi åkte hän till Säffle
    We went away/hence to Säffle (redundant, somewhat poetic or jocular)
    Hän mot nya mål!
    Away towards new goals!
  2. (Southern) to (direction, location)
    Vart gick han hän?
    Where did he go [to]?
    Synonym: någonstans

Synonyms

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See also

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Further reading

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Veps

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Etymology

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From Proto-Finnic *hän, from Proto-Finno-Ugric *sän. Cognate to Hungarian ő. False cognate with Swedish han.

Pronoun

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hän (genitive hänen, partitive händast)

  1. he, she

Inflection

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Inflection of hän
nominative sing. hän
genitive sing. hänen
partitive sing. händast
partitive plur. heid
singular plural
nominative hän hö
accusative hänen hö
genitive hänen heiden
partitive händast heid
essive-instructive — —
translative — —
inessive hänes heiš
elative hänespäi heišpäi
illative hänehe heihe
adessive hänel heil
ablative hänelpäi heilpäi
allative hänele heile
abessive häneta heita
comitative hänenke heidenke
prolative — —
approximative I — —
approximative II — —
egressive — —
terminative I — —
terminative II — —
terminative III — —
additive I — —
additive II — —

References

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  • Zajceva, N. G., Mullonen, M. I. (2007) “он”, in Uz’ venä-vepsläine vajehnik / Novyj russko-vepsskij slovarʹ [New Russian–Veps Dictionary]‎[4], Petrozavodsk: Periodika
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