Is Finnish Language Difficult (part 2)?

The previous time I wrote you about sounds and words in Finnish language and if they are extraordinary among the languages of the world. Now we are going to concentrate to the structure of the sentences in Finnish language.

Researches are the most interested in the sentences and their structure, for example the word order. When the researches study the word orders they want to know the order of subject, verb and object in a sentence. In Finnish language the subject and/or the object are marked with a case ending but for example in English the subject and the object are known how they are placed in a sentence.

                             The dog bit the man.

Here the dog is the subject and the man is the object. If we change the word order:

                             The man bit the dog.

Now the man is the subject and the dog is the object. In stead in Finnish language there is relatively free word order because subjects and/or objects are marked. The sentence ”the dog bit the man” can be expressed in different ways but the meaning is the same.

                             Koira puri miestä.

                             Miestä puri koira.

”Koira” means ”the dog” and it is the subject of the both of the sentences. ”Puri” means ”bit”. The word ”mies” means ”the man”. The bolded ending -tä is a case ending which implies that the word is the object of the sentence. So the both of these sentences mean ”the dog bit the man”. If we want to say ”the man bit the dog” we have to mark the dog as object.

                             Mies puri koiraa.

                             Koiraa puri mies.

The meaning of the bolded -a is now the same as the bolded -tä before. The ending looks different because of the structure of the word it is atteched to but it is the same case ending anyway. The both of these sentences mean ”the man bit the dog”.

In English the word order has to be: subject - verb - object. If we change the places of the words in the sentence the meaning of the sentence changes also. In Finnish we can change the places of the subject and the object without changing the meaning of the sentence because the object is marked with the case ending.

There are two special features in Finnish language. How to express ”someone has something” in Finnish differs from the most of the European languages. And negative in Finnish differs from the most of the languages in the whole world. There is no verb ”to have” in Finnish language. In stead the structures ”someone has something” and ”there is something in a place” are related. I give you examples:

                             Minulla on koira.                        I have a dog.

                             Pihalla on koira.                          There is a dog in the yard.

You remember that ”koira” means ”a dog”. The bolded -lla is a case ending. ”Minä” (changes into minu- before the endings) means ”I” and ”piha” means ”the yard”. The verb ”on” is a conjugated form of the verb ”olla” which means ”to be”. The similar structure is used for example in Russian and in Tamil which is spoken in India. One fifth of the languages in the world uses this kind of structure to express ”someone has something”.  The common European way to use a verb as ”to have” in English is only a little more common in the world. One fourth of the languages has a particular verb to express ”someone has something”.

Negative word like in Finnish language is very rare in the world. That is the Finnish negative word is a verb that has to be conjugated in persons. Only 9 % of the languages in the world uses similar negative verb. The most common way to make a negative sentence is to use a negative particle like ”not” in English, ”ne pas” in French or ”inte” in Swedish. The half of the languages in the world uses a negative particle.

So, what is the conclusion: is Finnish language exotic?

Compared to other languages in the world Finnish is not exotic in the way that there were features that none of the other languages wouldn’t have, even though there are some rare features. Finnish is not very exotic even if compared to other European languages. Finnish has been described to be quite typical European language. Language contacts between Europeans during hundreds of years has left marks to Finnish language. We have borrowed not only words but also structures from other languages.

Is a language difficult to learn? It depends on several causes: learning situation, teaching methods, the age of the learner and the languages the learner already knows. We have learned that the most complex feature in Finnish language is the rich case system but other than that Finnish is not any harder to learn than any other foreign language.

Let’s keep studying! You are able to do it. I will help you.

Source: the article "Suomi maailmankartalle" by Ritva Laury in the book "Kieltä kohti"