Helsinki slang
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Helsinki slang or slangi is a local variation of the Finnish language mainly used in the capital Helsinki.
Helsinki slang is based on colloquial Finnish (puhekieli, see spoken Finnish). It's characterized by a large amount of words borrowed from originally Swedish and Russian, nowadays chiefly English, etymologies replacing common everyday nouns, verbs and adjectives.
The borrowed words may violate phonological rules of the Finnish language, such as vowel harmony. They also include phonemes /b/, /d/ and /g/ and consonant clusters such as /sn/ rarely found in other dialects. Yet the words remain indisputably Finnish, incorporating Finnish grammar and mostly obeying Finnish phonotactics. Some rather arbitrary, but creative and distinctly finnish expressive constructions are often used, e.g. päräyttävä.
Furthermore, arbitrary modifications are found — these make the resulting slang words alien both to the speakers of regular Finnish and the borrowing language. For example, Finland-Swedish (Sipoo dialect) burk "cranky" is modified into spurgu "wino", where the added 's' is arbitrary, as are the voicing changes of 'b' to 'p' and 'k' to 'g'. Derivation of fillari from velosiped is even more convoluted: velosiped in the Swedish language game fikonspråk is filosiped-vekon, which became filusari and further fillari — only the 'l' is etymologically original.
Helsinki slang dates back to the late 19th century, when Helsinki was about 50% Swedish-speaking and the capital of the Grand Duchy of Finland of Imperial Russia. For these reasons, older slang words come from the three languages Finnish, Swedish and Russian — about 75–80% of "old slang" words have Swedish etymologies, 5% Russian and the rest Finnish. The slang was widely used especially in working class areas before the Winter War, but it only became really popular in the 1950s among young men who wanted to rebel against their parents and impress young women. Today, Helsinki slang has all but lost its "tough guy" image, and thanks to a recent trend of media portrayal in good light and various slang books, it has become something of a cultural phenomenon and research interest.
Although like any local variation, Helsinki slang constantly evolves, most adult speakers of Helsinki slang still consider the 1950s version the "real" slang. By far the most of the slang words right up to the 1980s come from Swedish and Russian. Since the 1990s, because of globalisation and the prominence of the Internet, new slang words have usually come from English, but these are considered neologisms at best and sucking-up to Americans at worst, by adult speakers who grew up with 1950s-style slang. Nevertheless, even if words are loaned, they are modified to conform to modern Finnish phonotactics, as in pidgins in general. Helsinki slang is not to be confused with Finglish, which is a completely different phenomenon, and does not originate in Helsinki.
Helsinkians themselves never refer to their slang as "Helsinki slang" but instead as "stadin slangi". Stadi is a slang word, coming from the Swedish stad (city), so taken literally, the name would mean "slang of the city", but Helsinkians have a steadfast opinion that only Helsinki may be called "stadi", the other cities are referred to by the normal Finnish word for "city", kaupunki. In addition, the only name Helsinkians use to refer to Helsinki itself is stadi. Calling the city by its more obvious colloquial form, Hesa, is taken as sign of non-Helsinkian, even rural, background. As a tardy counterstrike, the natives of the city Espoo, the immediate western neighbour of Helsinki, colloquially refer to Helsinki as Kaupunki.
Helsinki slang is a vivid phenomenon, and while many current loans come from English, it is likely that in the future the Russian and Estonian influence, due to immigration, will again be remarkable. As many of the children of the Somali refugees, who immigrated in Helsinki in the early 1990s are now in their teens and early adulthood, also certain Somali loans have found their way on the Helsinki slang vocabulary, emphasizing its Pidgin nature.
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[edit] Distinctive marks
Helsinki slang originally began as a pidgin language of Finnish, Swedish and Russian. During the rapid growth period in the late 19th century Helsinki was swollen with Finnish-, Swedish- and Russian-speaking immigrants, who seldom understood each other. The original slang was a lingua franca which enabled people, especially children, to intercommunicate and be understood. It basically had Finnish grammar with heavy influence of Swedish and Russian vocabulary.
When the children grew up, they incorporated certain aspects of pronunciation and linguistic in their speech. Early slang was expressively a male phenomenon: it was inherited from fathers to sons. Since World War II, girls and women have picked slang just as well in their speech, and today there is no gender difference or distinction between the speakers. Slang is most vivid in those districts where children and youth are most abundant: the youth keep it living.
Some distinctive aspects in Helsinki slang are:
- Very swift pace of pronunciation and speech
- The voiced consonants /b/, /d/ and /g/, which are rare in Finnish, are abundant. budjaa (to dwell), brakaa (to break), dorka (dork), duuni (work), gimma (girl), goisaa (to sleep). Many speakers, though, use several of these words with voiceless /p/, /t/ and /k/: prakaa, kimma, koisaa.
- Consonant clusters in the beginning of words, which appear natively only on south-western Finnish dialects, are commonplace, like Stadi (Helsinki), glesa (sick), skeglu (knife), flinda (bottle)
- Words are shortened to enable swift pronunciation (Hesari < street Helsinginkatu or the leading newspaper Helsingin Sanomat)
- Certain endings of nouns like -is (fleggis (open fire), kondis (condition)), -ari snagari (sausage stand) or -de krunde and klande (heads and tails) (< Standard Finnish "kruuna" and "klaava" 'ibid.')
- Slang and foreign word roots do not conform to vowel harmony, although their suffixes do (Sörkka, Sörkasta pro Sörkkä, Sörkästä < Sörnäinen)1, Tölika pro "Tölikä"' < Töölö, byysat pro "byysät" (trousers)). This does not affect native Finnish words.
- Surplus S appearing in beginning of words, forming consonant clusters: stoge (train), skoude (policeman)
- Disappearance (optional) of the negation ei in negative expressions: Te mihkää mee pro "Ette te mihinkään mene" (You won't go anywhere!)
- Ceceo or lisp on S, almost pronouncing it as /θ/ as in English "thing". This is considered an effeminate feature, but appears sometimes also on males' speech.
[edit] Usage and examples
Slang words in Helsinki slang obey normal Finnish grammar, regardless of their etymology. However, Helsinki slang is always both spoken and written as colloquial Finnish, never as properly grammatical kirjakieli (see spoken Finnish). For example, "can you put that in order?" is "voitsä duunaa ton kondiksee?" in Helsinki slang, where duunaa (to do, to make) and kondis (condition, order, working) are slang words. Trying to write the sentence in "properly grammatical" form, as *"voitko (sinä) duunata tuon kondikseen?", would be erroneous.
Due to its Pidgin origins and nature, Helsinki slang has also been used by the Swedish speaking minority in Helsinki, often spoken in the same manner and mixing it into the Swedish language. The earlier example "can you put that in order?" would be "kan du duuna dendä' kondiksee?" when spoken by a Swedish speaking Finn.
Some literary works in Helsinki slang can contain long sentences with a large density of slang words. Examples include "Hei sporakuski, stikkaa dörtsi posee, tääl on galsa blosis, bonjaatsä?" (meaning "Hey, tram driver, close the door, it's a cold wind in here, you understand?", from the Viivi & Wagner comics) and "Kelaa, snadi jeesaaja, kui iisii täl ois stedaa" (meaning "Think, little helper, how easy it would be to clean with this", from Sami Garam's slang version of Donald Duck). (Helsinki slang words are shown in bold, the rest are "generic colloquial" Finnish).
[edit] Notes
- Note 1: Whether "Sörkka" or "Sörkkä" is the true form of the name has been the subject of interminable and quite heated debate in the press, in pubs, in sauna dressing rooms as well as online. Anecdotes, personal experience, informal polls, and old song lyrics are cited as evidence for one side or the other. "Sörkka", violating vowel harmony, has a more nonstandard appearance that suggests authenticity, but equally well it may be the result of hypercorrection. On the other hand, "Sörkkä" sounds like "Sörkka" as a naive non-native speaker would say it. Some attempt a compromise, saying that one form should be used of the place and the other of the prison situated there, while some say one is merely more recent than the other. The question remains unresolved and it may well be that there is no answer; authoritative institutions such as the slang dictionary and the Helsinki City Museum take a neutral stand. In the meantime, outsiders should be aware that using either form is likely to invite protest or correction from the opposing camp.
