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The 'Finnish alphabet' is based on the Latin alphabet, and especially its Swedish extension. It comprises 29 letters:
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, Å, Ä, Ö

Contents

Summary of the main characteristics

Writing Finnish

The extra letters "Ä" and "Ö"

Non-native letters in the Finnish alphabet

See also

External links

Summary of the main characteristics

In the following table, the letters of the Finnish alphabet are supplemented with IPA compatible spelling instructions:

Glyph	Spelling	Notes on usage
A	/ɑː/
B	/beː/	Occurs only in relatively unestablished loanwords (often pronounced as /p/).
C	/seː/	Occurs only in unestablished loanwords (usually pronounced as /k/ or /s/).
D	/deː/	Historically used to stand for voiced dental fricative /ð/, which has since disappeared from Finnish. In present standard language, letter "D" stands for /d/ but the pronunciation in dialects varies a lot.
E	/eː/
F	/æf/, occasionally /ef/	Occurs only in relatively unestablished loanwords (often pronounced as /v/ but in some dialects as /f/).
G	/geː/	Occurs natively in the digraph "ng", which marks long velar nasal /ŋː/. Otherwise letter "G" occurs only in unestablished loanwords (often pronounced as /k/).
H	/hoː/
I	/iː/
J	/jiː/
K	/koː/
L	/æl/, occasionally /el/
M	/æm/, occasionally /em/
N	/æn/, occasionally /en/
O	/oː/
P	/peː/
Q	/kuː/	Occurs only in unestablished loanwords (pronounced as /k/ or /kv/).
R	/ær/, occasionally /er/
S	/æs/, occasionally /es/
T	/teː/
U	/uː/
V	/veː/
W	/veː/, /kaksoisveː/	May occur natively as an archaic variant of "V", but otherwise only in unestablished loanwords (usually pronounced as /v/).
X	/æks/, occasionally /eks/	Occurs only in unestablished loanwords (pronounced as /ks/).
Y	/yː/
Z	/tset(ɑ)/	Occurs only in unestablished loanwords (usually pronounced as /ts/ or sometimes as /s/).
Å	/oː/, /ruotsɑlɑinen oː/	Carried over from the Swedish alphabet and retained especially for writing Finland-Swedish proper names.
Ä	/æː/
Ö	/øː/

Writing Finnish

The Finnish orthography strives to represent all morphemes phonologically and, roughly speaking, the sound value of each letter tends to correspond with its value in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) – although there do remain some discrepancies. When writing Finnish, the foundational principle is that each letter stands for one sound and each sound is always represented by the same letter, within the bounds of a single morpheme. The most notable exception to this rule is the velar nasal [ŋ], which do not have an allotted letter; instead, it is written with digraph "NG" when geminated, and otherwise with "N" that is followed by "K".
In Finnish, the vovels and consonants may be short or long, and the difference is significant. A short sound is written with a single letter, while a long sound is written with a double letter. It is necessary to recognize the difference between such words as ''tuli'' (fire), ''tuuli'' (wind) and ''tulli'' (customs) or ''tapaan'' (I meet) and ''tapan'' (I kill).

The extra letters "Ä" and "Ö"

The main peculiarities of the Finnish alphabet are the two extra vowel letters "Ä" and "Ö", which are added to the end (accompanied by the Swedish "Å", which actually is not needed for writing Finnish). In Finnish, these extra letters are collectively referred to as the ''ääkköset'' (a somewhat playful modification of ''aakkoset'', which is the Finnish word for the alphabet as a whole) when they need to be distinguished from the basic Latin alphabet.
Unlike the similar looking German umlauted letters (from which the glyphs are derived), the ''ääkköset'' are considered letters in their own right and thus alphabetized separately (after "Z"). The dots above the base glyph are not modifications but essential parts of each letter, much like the hook in "Q" distinguishes "Q" from "O". As Finnish is unrelated to Germanic languages, the Germanic umlaut or convention of considering "Ä" and "AE", and "Ö" and "OE" equivalent is inapplicable in Finnish. Moreover, in Finnish, both "AE" and "OE" are vowel sequences, not single letters, and have independent meanings, e.g. ''hän'' (he, she) vs. ''haen'' (I seek).
In handwritten text, the actual form of the extra marking may vary from a pair of dots to a pair of short vertical bars, to a single horizontal bar, or to a figure resembling a tilde (in practice, almost any diacritic mark situated above the base glyph would probably be interpreted as a carelessly written pair of dots), but in computerized character sets, if the correct graphemes are available, these alternatives are incorrect.
If the proper letters are not available, "Ä" and "Ö" must be replaced with "A" and "O", respectively. Although the distinction is phonemic, the resulting graphical shape does not differ greatly from the correct word, and the correct meaning can usually be reconstructed. Nevertheless, there are lots of minimal pairs, e.g. ''saari'' (island) vs. ''sääri'' (leg), or ''vaara'' (danger) vs. ''väärä'' (wrong), which may be confused.

Non-native letters in the Finnish alphabet

In the Finnish writing system, some basic Latin letters are considered redundant, and other letters generally represent sounds that are not inherent in the Finnish language. Thus, they are not used in established Finnish words, but they may occur in newer loanwords as well as in foreign proper names, and they are included in the Finnish alphabet in order to maintain ínterlingual compatibility. The pronunciation of these letters varies quite a lot.

★ The redundant letters are "C" (which is usually replaced with either "K" or "S"), "Q" (which is replaced with "K" or "KV"), and "X" (which is replaced with "KS" /ks/, or even just /s/).

★ The letters representing foreign sounds are "B", "F", and "G" (which, however, is also used to mark the inherent velar nasal [ŋ]). From historical point of view, even "D" could be said to belong to this group, but the /d/ sound is today considered an established part of standard language.

★ "W" and "Z" could be classified into both of the aforementioned groups. The English-style ''w''-sound is foreign to Finnish language, but historically "W" was used (as in German) to mark a /v/ sound. Although this is today considered archaic and "V" is used instead, "W" may still occur in some old surnames as a variant of "V". Likewise, voiced /z/ sound is not inherent in Finnish language, but "Z" was formerly used to denote /ts/. It is still often pronounced /ts/, but some speakers may pronounce it as /s/.
In addition to the alien letters shared with the basic Latin (and Swedish) alphabet, "Š" and "Ž" with special diacritics have been adopted, originally from the Czech alphabet, in order to represent two extra sounds, which are not inherent in Finnish. They may be seen in transcriptions and a few loanwords: ''Tšekki'' (Czech), ''Tšetšenia'' (Chechnya), ''Azerbaidžan'' (Azerbaijan), ''Tšaikovski'' (Tchaikovsky), ''Gorbatšov'' (Gorbachev), ''Brežnev'' (Brezhnev), ''datša'' (dacha), ''šakki'' (chess), ''šillinki'' (shilling). In less careful orthography, they are often replaced with "SH" and "ZH", but this may sometimes cause confusion (for example, ''pasha'' – where "S" and "H" are pronounced as two distinct sounds – is a traditional Russian Easter delicacy, while ''pašša'' – in English, pasha – is a Turkish rank or honorary title).
Diacritical or accent marks are never added to letters in Finnish words (since the dots above the Finnish graphemes "Ä" and "Ö" are not diacritics). Generally, diacritics are retained in foreign-language proper names, e.g. ''Vilén'', if possible, but when arranging words alphabetically, diacritics are usually ignored. A few foreign characters or glyphs may need closer scrutiny:

★ "Œ" is alphabetized as "OE", not as "Ö".

★ "Æ" may sometimes be replaced with "Ä", but when retained, "Æ" is alphabetized as "AE", not as "Ä".

★ "Ø" may sometimes be replaced with "Ö", but even if it is retained, these two glyphs are considered equivalent to each other.

★ Estonian "Õ" and Hungarian Ő are alphabetized as "Ö", not as "O", when the Portuguese "Õ" is alphabetized as "O".

★ "Ü" and "Ű" are alphabetized as "Y", not as "U".

★ "ß" is alphabetized as (and should be replaced with) "ss".

★ "Ð" is alphabetized as (and usually replaced with) "D".

★ "Þ" is alphabetized as (and usually replaced with) "TH".

See also

★ Finnish phonology

★ Estonian alphabet

★ Latin alphabet

★ Swedish alphabet

★ Norwegian alphabet

★ Letter Å, Letter Ä, Letter Ö

External links

★ Omniglot: writing systems and languages of the world: Finnish

★ Aakkostus Suomessa (the standard for Finnish alphabet, SFS 4600, explained in Finnish)

★ Letters in Finnish

★ Finnish orthography and the characters š and ž (official recommendation)