In this book I have endeavoured to give a simple and clear account of the Finnish language, chiefly of that form of it which is now recognised as the ordinary vehicle of literary composition, and have thought it better to set aside as far as possible scientific disquisitions. I now proceed to briefly discuss from a purely theoretical point of view some of the phenomena presented by this curious tongue, in doing which I must express my special obligations to the various works of Professors Donner and Setälä, and also to the account of Die Sprachen der Uralischen Völker in the second volume of Dr. Friedrich Müller’s Grundriss der Sprachwissenschaft.
The phonetic system of Finnish is characterized by a great paucity of consonants and a correspondingly great development of vowels. The alphabet has but thirteen of the former: d, g, h, j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v. Of these it must be observed that d is in modern times only a literary invention, though as it exists in Esthonian and other cognate languages there is no reason to object to its use. It always represents a t which has been weakened by phonetic laws, but in the mouths of the peasantry the sound is either entirely omitted, or else replaced by a cerebral letter (represented in writing by l or r) or by v or j. G also is only found in the combination ng, which has exactly the same sound as in English. The letter h is apparently never original in the middle of words. It appears to me to have really two sounds—as an initial or between vowels, it is simply the English h, but before t and k, it is χ. The other consonants offer no remarkable peculiarities; v appears to be pronounced as in English (labio-dental), and not to be a labio-labial (modern Greek β).
The simple consonants are pronounced much more lightly than in English. T and k in the middle of a word when pronounced naturally by a native, who is not trying to speak distinctly to a foreigner, often seem almost inaudible, and it is noticeable that in foreign words, with which the language is overrun, German and Swedish k, t, p (when not initial) are always represented by kk, tt, pp. It is highly probable that Finnish (like Esthonian) once had the sounds b, d, g. In Agricola are found such forms as näghe for näe, virdhat for virrat. On the other hand, everything points to the fact that the original tongue from which the Finno-Ugric languages were developed had only ten or eleven consonants: k, t, p, s, j, r, l, n, m, v, and perhaps h or χ. For the many curious sounds found in Lapp, Syrjenian, Ostiak, etc., all look as if they were degenerations from a simpler original.
Finnish has eight simple vowels: a, ä, e, i, o, ö, u, y (ü). All of these can be either short, or long, and in the latter case the letter is written double. These doubled letters appear to be genuine long vowels, and to contain no diphthongal element. There are no triphthongs, but sixteen diphthongs, though on the whole Finnish has more simple vowels than other languages of the same group, particularly Lappish.
Though no difference is made in writing between the different values of the vowel i, it appears that there really is a distinction between its value in words like otti, or oli, where the vowels are hard, and in words like näki where they are soft. The hard sound comes very near the Russian ы and the Turkish i̱ in such a word as اچملوايدكز achmali̱yi̱di̱ni̱z.
The vocalization of words is governed by three laws. The first is well known under the name of vowel harmony. The essence of this is that the hard (a, o, u) and soft (ä, ö, y) vowels cannot coexist in the same word. Not only the Finno-Ugric languages, but also Samoyede, Turkish, Mongolian, and Manchu, have this law at least in the rudimentary form that a root does not contain both hard and soft vowels; but there is much variety as to the degree in which the vowels of the suffixes are assimilated to those of the root to which they are added. The most highly developed form of the law is found in the Turkish dialects (particularly in Yakut), where the vowels of the root and suffix must not only not be discordant, but are as much as possible assimilated to one another. Thus پدريكز is pronounced pederiniz, your father, but دوستكز dostunuz, your friend. The same principle appears to prevail in Samoyede, from which are cited such forms as marg-an, tob-on, üg-ün, tšel-en. The other extreme, where the harmony prevails only between the vowels of the root but not between those of the root and the suffixes, is found in nearly all the Finno-Ugric languages except Finnish and Hungarian. In some languages (e.g. Mordvinian) the harmony is not rigorously observed even in the root. It is doubtful if such languages really represent a more primitive phonetic system than Finnish. They may have become affected owing to Russian influence by an inability to accurately distinguish the hard and soft vowels, particularly a and ä, for, though it is very probable that originally the vowel of the suffix was not necessarily the same as that of the root, one would expect those languages which retain the primitive system to distinguish the suffix more clearly than the others from the root, which does not seem to be the case. Finnish in this respect holds a midway position. The vowels of the suffixes are not assimilated, as in Turkish, but they are always of the same quality as those of the root. The suffix s—n or h—n, however, found in the illative and passive, seems to show an approach to the Turkish system, as its vowel is always the same as that which precedes it: kotihin, työhön, töihin, kylähän, talohon, saa(d)ahan, saatihin, saatanehen, saataisihin.
The second vocalic law of Finnish is the exact opposite of the vowel harmony—viz. vowel differentiation. The occurrence of incongruous vowels in one word is discordant, but the excessive repetition of the same vowel is disagreeably monotonous. To avoid this a is often changed into o in words where a is the dominant vowel (pp. [9], [10] for the details), patoja for pataja, annoin for annain; but otin, sotia for ota-in, sota-ia. So also in the Eastern dialect kaloa for kalaa. On the same principle a and ä change to e in comparatives and passives, and thus we have vanhempana and tapetaan instead of such monotonous forms as vanhampana and tapataan. Also two i’s meeting generally become ei.
The third rule relates to the disappearance of final or medial e, and the consequent shortening of words. The chief accent of Finnish, as now pronounced, is on the first syllable of a word, and it is therefore very natural that final vowels should be omitted. In the dialect spoken about S. Petersburg this phenomenon is very frequent and such forms as miss for missä, yks, kaks for yksi and kaksi are common in the mouths of the peasantry. This may, however, be due to the influence of Esthonian and Russian. In correct Finnish final e is omitted only in the nominative singular of polysyllabic stems, the consonantal groups which remain being simplified if the laws of euphony require it: so sisare, tantere, kysymykse become sisar, tanner, and kysymys. In the middle of words the final e of a stem disappears before nominal suffixes beginning with t (and sometimes n) and before verbal suffixes beginning with k or n, and this rule applies to dissyllables also. Now one would suppose on a priori grounds that the invariable accent on the first syllable is not original, but has replaced some older and less simple system, just as the variable accentuation of Russian is older than the stereotyped system of Polish. Even in modern Finnish I doubt if the rule that every word is accented on the first syllable is really true. An educated Finn will always maintain that in a word like revitään the main accent is on the first syllable, but to my ear it appears to be distinctly on the last (-tään), indeed, it is hard to see how this long syllable could be pronounced without an accent. What is undoubtedly true is that no syllables are slurred over as in Russian and English. There is, as far as I know, no historical proof that some of the suffixes were accented in Finnish; but it is highly probable on general grounds and explains many phenomena presented by both vowel and consonantal changes. For instance, the termination of the first infinitive, ta (representing an original tak or takse), when added to the stem tule, produces tulla, which is quite natural if the original form was tuletá, as the light vowel would drop out before the accented syllable; similarly syöksenén becomes syösnen for syöksnen. Sometimes a whole syllable is omitted, e.g. alenetá becomes aleta. For some reason the e is generally not omitted if it is preceded by k, p, v, or m. This is not an absolute rule, as one finds forms like tointa (st. toime), nähdä, tehdä (st. nähe, teke), but it is hard to see why if tule-tá becomes tulla, luketá should not become luhda. The length of the first vowel has nothing to do with the matter, as nouse makes nousta. A and ä occasionally disappear in much the same way. Thus vieras stands for vierasa, löynnyt, tiennyt are formed from löytä, tietä; and superlatives regularly lose final a; suurin, for suurimpa.
The rules for the changes of consonants fall into three main groups. Firstly only n, r, s, or t are admitted as finals and only a few simple combinations occur in the middle of words. When the loss of a vowel produces groups which are euphonically disagreeable, they are simplified; veitstä, kolmant, suurimp, säkenöitstä become veistä, kolmas, suurin, säkenöitä.
The second group of changes concerns the letters t, k, s, h. The group ti has always a tendency to become si in syllables which never had the accent. The letter h, which is suspected of never being original when a medial, represents t, k, and s. S between two vowels immediately before a termination always becomes h. Vierasa makes in the nominative vieras, a being lost owing to the accent being on the first syllable. But the genitive vierasan becomes vierahan, and in the ordinary language this is contracted to vieraan. So too t becomes h under similar circumstances, perhaps having passed through s. The nominatives kevät, terve, and vene appear to represent stems kevätä, tervete, and venete (for the partitives are kevättä, tervettä, venettä) and form the genitives kevähän, venehen, tervehen. The same change appears in the declension of past participles ending in -nyt or -nut. Again, kt before a termination which was presumably once accented becomes ht—a combination of which the language is very fond. Thus the roots, haakte, ykte, kakte produce such forms as haahden, yhtä, kahtena, in all of which the first syllable was probably not accented. But in the nominative the first syllable was accented and the words became first haakti, ykti, kakti (rule [15]), and then haaksi, yksi, kaksi (rule [37]).