List of English words of Finnish origin

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For a list of words with Finnish language origins, see the Finnish derivations category of words in Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Rather few words of Finnish origin have entered other languages. On the contrary, the language is a rather a net importer of words.

[edit] Words loaned to the English language

Finnish has only loaned a handful of words to the English language. The most commonly used Finnish word is sauna, and has been loaned to many other languages including Russian (сауна), Spanish (la sauna), Portuguese (a sauna), etc. There are also words derived from Finnish in more specialized fields: rapakivi granite in geology and aapa mire (a marsh type) in biology.

In English, Finnish words such as motti (a Finnish military tactic) and puukko (a Finnish knife) are also used with reference to the Finnish culture, but these words are not nativized in English and they are not used in other contexts.