Talk:Finnish phonology

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"However, it is common to hear these clusters eroded in speech ("resitentti") particularly, though not exclusively, by Finns who know little or no Swedish or English and who are not used to making sounds for letters such as d, c or x.

...

The letters b and g do occur in Finnish in loanwords, but more often than not, they are pronounced voiceless, /p/ and /k/ respectively."


Perhaps I should just edit the original article but I'm afraid my English wouldn't be good enough... Nevertheless, I found those two sentences a little strange. In my opinion every Finn (exept for some of those who are more than 70 years old) pronounces the word "presidentti" (and most other consonant clusters) correctly... and in Helsinki region hardly anyone ever replaces b's, d's and g's with voiceless consonants.

Contents

[edit] Doubled consonants

Shouldn't the pronunciation of double consonants be covered here? I don't think it's accurate to just gloss eg. the difference between mato and matto or kisa and kissa as phoneme length; the first has (as far as I understand it) a glottal stop, the second doesn't.

(And no, I don't want to plunge in and do it, because I don't know phonetics well enough to do it right.) Jpatokal 05:42, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Well, actually, it is a plain difference of length. See any textbook on Finnish phonetics for references. Glottal stop is something very different: it's the small "pause" you hear between the words if you pronounce very clearly and slowly a sequence like "tien-este" (not "tie-neste"). I modified the text on the /b d g/ question and consonant clusters to better correspond to modern reality. Malhonen 12:06, 14 August 2005 (UTC)


On consonant clusters:

I don't know how to improve this, but these sentences are really strange, false and should be removed. Especially the text about presidentti is made up by the author and not true.

"Originally, Finnish (outside the Southwestern area, roughly the triangle Helsinki-Turku-Kristiinankaupunki) had no initial consonant clusters" "More recent borrowings have retained their clusters, e.g. presidentti ← Swedish president ('president' as a head of state). In the past decades it used to be common to hear these clusters simplified in speech (resitentti), particularly, though not exclusively, by either rural Finns or Finns who knew little or no Swedish or English. "

The text doesn't include anything about the eastern dialects, nor about the numerous s-consanant clusters in the slang of Helsinki. Perhaps the introduction by Heikki Paunonen "Tsennaaks Stadii, bonjaaks slangii" has more useful information about consonant clusters in Finnish. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hemuli (talk • contribs) 18:01, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I've actually very much herd "resitentti" in use. You're right, tho, that "outside the SW area" is superfluous here & should be remoovd. The article Stadin slangi, BTW, does mention s-initial clusters briefly. See also Savo Finnish. --Tropylium (talk) 13:06, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] terminology

question:

"soft" D means fricative? or voiceless?

Thanks. — ishwar  (SPEAK) 22:29, 2005 Mar 22 (UTC)

hi again. any takers on this question?

what does the term soft in soft d refer to?

does it mean:

  • fricative?
  • voiceless?
  • flap/tap?
  • palatalized?

thank you – ishwar  (speak) 2005 July 6 15:43 (UTC)

I don't know where the writer got this term, but it is clear he meant a plosive. See the revised article for a better explanation. Malhonen 12:06, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] The nature of Finnish "s"

I doubt if Finnish s is the same as the sound described as voiceless alveolar fricative, which is known in English, German, French, Italian as well as in Hungarian (sz) etc. A native Finnish friend of mine once showed and explained to me that it's somewhere between [s] and [ʃ] (English s and sh). Would you please clarify and correct it in the article? Adam78 14:55, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

Was your native Finnish friend was drunk? The Finnish "s" is always pronounced as IPA [s], unless you're a comedian slurring on purpose. If anything, many Finns find š ([ʃ]) a little strange and pronounce it as [s] also. Ref: [1] Jpatokal 15:34, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

No, he was absolutely sober. I'm sorry that you don't perceive this sound as different. Maybe you speak a different dialect, I don't know, or you find it average, which is not surprising if it's your mother tongue and you haven't dealt with it from a foreign point of view. – A "proof" that it exists in standard Finnish is that I have a teacher who examines students at the leading Hungarian language examination centre ([2]) in Finnish language, and when she pronounced a Finnish name at the class, she pronounced that [s] sound differently. (I wouldn't say so if I hadn't noticed the difference, since she doesn't use that sound in her native Hungarian speech, so she must have acquired it specifically for speaking correct Finnish.) Aha, I said to myself, that was the sound I also heard from my native Finnish friend. I clearly remember when I practiced this sound for a few minutes, until this friend said my pronunciation began to approach the native way. Obviously, it wouldn't have been difficult for me if Finnish people were to use the very same sound as exists in English, German etc. Anyway, I'll try to reveal the character of this sound. Adam78 20:17, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps this is ceceo or Helsinki lisp, part of the Helsinki slang. Furthermore, since Finnish doesn't really distinguish sh from s, the stridency of s is not as important in recognizing (and thus producing) the sound. It could be a difference between laminal and apical articulations, also. --Vuo 22:44, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Thank you! Do you mean this sound is not part of the received (standard) pronunciation of Finnish (if there is such)? If it isn't, can the standard variation of Finnish be localized in the country? Adam78 18:32, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Pretty much the only deviation from the standard language when it comes to pronouncing /s/ is the (feminine) Helsinki lisp. On the other hand, if you're going to compare to other languages, then the standard /s/ may sound "softer". This is because Finnish has only this fricative, and not much effort is required to distinguish from other sounds, unlike in e.g. English with both 's' and 'sh'. --130.233.243.228 01:42, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
This indeed is the case, Finnish s is softer than the English one, since Finnish doesn't need to distinguish s and š. The accurate pronunciation is between [s] and [ʃ]. --Fagyd 19:24, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
AIUI, in more technical terms this would be: Finnish, and generally languages with no /ʃ/, have a laminal [s̻], while languages that do have both sibilants, have an apical [s̺], assumably to maximize the contrast to the naturally laminal /ʃ/.
It could be relevant to note here that Germanic s-initial loans in Finnish that were acquired at a time when the sibilant situation was the reverse (one in G, two in F), indeed have nowadays an initial /h/ (deriving from a former /ʃ/). Two examples: huoma- "notice" from *sooman- (CF Old Norse sómi) hidas "slo" from *siiþaz (CF German seit). --Tropylium 18:14, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Open front unrounded or near-open front unrounded?

The article says that the Finnish vowel ä is the Open front unrounded vowel. To me (I'm a native speaker but not a phonetician) that vowel's sound file in the article on that vowel sounds nothing like ä. The Near-open front unrounded vowel however sounds exactly like ä and even the IPA symbol looks much more like the one used in the phonology article. Has there prehaps been some kind of a mistake? Ossi 22:28, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Artificial symmetry?

I removed this from the article:

Some phoneticians have also raised the question, whether it would be more appropriate to mark the open front vowel as /a/ instead of /æ/. This would make the Finnish phonological system seem more symmetric, since IPA [æ] is strictly speaking a little higher than the open front vowel [a]. Some acoustic studies seem to indicate that there is in fact no significant difference between the orthographical a and ä in terms of vowel closeness.

The perceived quality of /ä/ is [æ], and vice versa. I and the writer above can confirm this as native speakers. Trying to make /ä/ an [a] because it's more symmetric is prescribing, not describing. Real languages don't need to have perfectly symmetric vowel systems, and Finnish is a real language. --Vuo 22:09, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Just thought I might throw in that you are absolutely correct, and I can confirm this. On the other hand in the sense of speech-production the finnish /ä/ sometimes bleeds into what would be described as [a] (as opposed to [ɑ]). This is perhaps what the previous writer was getting at, on the other hand this does not reflect the situation in 'Standard Finnish', which is, to my understanding, what is being talked about here. ;) --Ryan 11:17, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
Well, when I listen to Helsinki area people, women in particular, I often hear a slightly nasal sound [a] for the phoneme /ɑ/. So, /sɑlille/ may be realized as [salille]. But I Am Not A Phonetician, so I'll leave the article alone. --Vuo 23:32, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
On the other hand, many people from the Helsinki area, such as myself (didn't realise it until it was pointed out to me), do the exact opposite: they pronounce /ä/ as [a]. I think what you are describing is not a linguistic trait of the Helsinki area but a recent phenomenon of trying to sound 'posh', found in many Finnish localities. --Oghmoir 09:46, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
If it involves language, it's linguistic. People trying to sound 'posh' is definately a sociolinguistic thing, too.  ;) Anyway [a] isn't necessarily more nasal than /ɑ/ unless you all mean something like [ã] (though Finnish wouldn't have things that nasalized). In Helsinki I noticed the sort of change in quality of the vowel represented by 'ä' to be not so much [æ], as [a]. Nasalization indeed does occur (at least in Helsinki Finnish) in nasalizing environments, although not all changes with these vowels are going to mean that nasalization is involved. If you do hear some sort of nasalization in non-nasalizing environments, please do mention it. --Ryan 17:46, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
Ryan, you're right. I wasn't saying what Vuo was talking about isn't linguistic, I was expressing my doubts about whether it is characteristic to the Helsinki area. :) And yes, slight nasalisation is quite common in the environment of nasal consonants, but also, nasalisation can be heard in non-nasalising environments, too, in the speech of the aforementioned people, especially girls (I see myself as neutral in gender issues, that is a neutral observation!), sometimes to annoying degrees. That is part of the stereotype about those types, but it is based on reality, I can verify that, hehe. --Oghmoir 18:00, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Diphthongs as sequences of vowel phonemes or as independent phonemes

When I renewed the section about diphthongs I introduced the view that diphthongs should best be viewed as sequences of vowel phonemes rather than phonemes of their own. This is the view I learned at the lectures on the phonology course I attended during my studies of linguistics at the university, and as far as I remember, it is based on the fact that a) it is sufficient to analyse the diphthongs as sequences of monophthong phonemes as it can be done; for all diphthongs there can easily be found a respective sequence, which in standard speech even reflects the pronunciation, and b) it is preferable to do so according to the principle of economy: the less phonemes you need to represent the phonology of a language, the better. (There might have been additional reasons but my mental lecture notes are not that accurate after a few years.) Hence, the diphthongs are best analysed as sequences of vowel phonemes.

However, User:Vuo edited the section to present the view that the diphthongs should be viewed as their own phonemes. In his edit summary he wrote, "This is a very dangerous statement because it implies an insertion of a glottal stop," concerning my statement about diphthongs being phonologically vowel sequences. Unfortunately, I don't understand at all what he means. I am not familiar with a phonological model of Finnish that dictates that between every sequence of two vowels there is automatically inserted a glottal stop (as his wording implies), and I don't see it as being useful. I have contacted the user Vuo on the matter and I hope he can clarify his view so the matter can be settled. --Oghmoir 17:15, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

In the context of several other languages, the "separation of vowels into monophthongs" unambiguously means separation with a glottal stop, hiatus or stress. In particular, I'm thinking Japanese. Phonologically, dipththongs are defined as phones that glide from one vowel position to another during articulation, and this is what the Finnish diphthongs are. Calling them something different for grammatical reasons is going to mislead a lot of readers. In phonemics, it is appropriate to analyse the diphthongs as phoneme sequences. This does not mean they are physically speaking diphthongs. --Vuo 17:27, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
When you say, "Phonologically, dipththongs are defined as phones that glide from one vowel position to another during articulation," you are wrong. Phonetically that is true. You seem to be confusing phonology with phonetics (in phonology there are no phones but phonemes, phones are the units of phonetics). It is exactly my point what you say here: "In phonemics [=phonology], it is appropriate to analyse the diphthongs as phoneme sequences. This does not mean they are physically speaking diphthongs." Phonology is specifically about analysing sounds as phonemes. Physically, ie. phonetically speaking, the beginning of a diphthong does gradually glide to the end part, so there doesn't seem to be a sequence of two sounds, but what I'm talking about is that they don't constitute their own phonemes, ie. phonologically speaking, they are not single sounds but sequences of vowel phonemes.
I am going to make this clear in the article. If you have something to add to that, please do so. --Oghmoir 17:41, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Phonetic realization of /d/

I thought I'd point this out because I'm unsure as to how exactly to best edit this. The realization of the Finnish /d/ indeed varies from dialect to dialect, but that is more of an underlying representation to surface representation variation, and /d/ isn't necessarily altered in place of articulation so much as manner. It pops up as either nothing or /d ð l r j/ and probably a couple other sounds. On the other hand, if there is so much variation, why does it need to be placed in the "dental" category with /t/?

On the other hand, Finnish does have a [d], particularly in Swedish-influenced dialects, and Helsinki slang that is much more back than /t/, and in fact back enough that I would almost say it's retroflex. What should the consonant chart include exactly? Those of you who are native speakers, try pronouncing it as dental if you can, and comparing that to what you might actually say, if you say something like duuni, diggaan, doka and ihQdaa. ;) So my main point is, is that if it's going to be in that chart, it needs to be further back, because that is (as far as I'm concerned) how it turns up in Standard Finnish, when it isn't produced as a flap, fricative, approximant, or anything else. --Ryan 23:50, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I think the two columns should be joined anyway, since this POA difference is not distinctiv. If a good sorce can be found, we can discuss realization details separately then.
FWIW, I have dental /t l nt ntt/ but alveolar /d n r s tr rt ts st ln nl ls lss sl/; and /tn tr rtt rl lr/ are mixed-POA. Some of the clusters might have free variation, actually. This should serve as an example that the issue is far from trivial. (I tested those out just now — I was surprized especially by /rtt/ being [r̳t̪ː] but /rt/ [r̳t̳].) --Tropylium 17:30, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
Addendum: actually, my /l/ seems to vary between laminal and apical alveolar, not dental and alveolar; in somewhat random variation but generally laminal at least in the vicinity of /j i y/. --Tropylium (talk) 12:03, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] O

It's definitely an open-mid back unrounded vowel.. try for yourself. The IPA [o] sounds more like "ooh" than the "real" O to me.. I'm not even going to argue, I speak Russian as my native tongue: there the O is realized as a close-mid back rounded vowel (IPA: [O]). In layman terms, comparing Russian vowels to Finnish vowels, Finns pronounce it more deeply, lower voiced, in the back, whereas Russian pronoun it more in the front. Seriously. Also, I'm not really sure about the e, either. Sounds more like an open-mid front unrounded vowel. --84.249.253.201 00:21, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm a nativ speaker and I agree with these observations, at least as far as my own idiolect goes. Close-mid [o] is a sound I don't think Finnish uses at all; proper mid [o̞] is common, but so is open-mid [ɔ], especially in the /uo/ difthong and in the speech of peeps like me who have a fronted /ɑ/. This results in a slightly raised /e/ too, however; but for those with a backed /æ/ insted, I think this might be reversed. --Tropylium 17:05, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnische_Sprache#Phonologie - The German Wikipedia seems much more accurate to me, and even ö doesn't sound like the IPA [ö] exactly (when I heard some German, the ö the person pronounced sounded more like [y] to me, but it's the [ö] ö, not the [œ] ö I thought was the "real" one as a Finn". The Finnish phonology involves a more open mouth (less rounded) from what I can tell. Since OR is not allowed, I suggest using the German article's sources on phonology. :) --nlitement [talk] 02:09, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] voiceless velar fricative? voiceless palatal fricative?

The article and its consonant chart mention neither the voiceless velar fricative nor the voiceless palatal fricative even though those pages have "lahti [lɑxt̪i]" and "vihko [ʋiçko̞]" . --Espoo (talk) 14:56, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

fixed. --Tropylium (talk) 13:06, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Could you please also add them to the consonant chart?
Since these are allophones only they don't belong in the consonant phoneme chart.
Please also explain what happens between the other vowels and a consonant, "intermediate" is no help for non-experts like myself.
It's in the literal sense. I don't think there are any appropriate technical terms. Nothing "happens" tho, it is entirely standard for /h/ to take on features from the adjacent sounds (vowels, in this case). Eg [ʍ] is just the closest consonantal counterpart to a voiceless vowel [u̥], and [xʷ] is the same except with more friction. The reason, I think, why the article should be concerned with the exact articulation of Finnish /h/ anyway is exactly the friction appearing in some environments, not the general "voiceless approximant" quality. Maybe this should be stated more clearly.
Did i correct the pronunciation of Pohja accurately?
[h] is probably still the best approximation. The velar place of articulation corresponds to close back vowels only, of which Finnish only has the basic /u/. I suppose uvular [χ] might have some link to [o], but that consonant usually has a very harsh, strongly fricated articulation, and here the folloing /j/ 1) keeps the articulation soft (I think, I seem to notice friction occuring mostly before /t/ and /k/? might need a quote here, going to OR territory otherwise...) and 2) nudges it forwards - but along the middle, ie. the vowelspace portion of the mouth, not the palate. (I don't think "vowelspace" is an official linguistic term but I hope the meaning is clear enuff.)
And are [ʍ] and [xʷ] really correct? I thought the former is the sound of "wh" in UK English "whine", which doesn't seem to exist in Finnish, and the article on voiceless velar fricative uses /x/ after /u/. --Espoo (talk) 16:58, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Far as I gather, it is the same sound, just obfuscated by the fact that it only appears syllable-initial (before a vowel) in English, and syllable-final (before a consonant) in Finnish. Try dropping the /l/ from "juhlat" but keeping the articulation of the /h/, and see if you can hear the resemblance with "you what?" :)
I was using slightly wider transcription on the [x] article, rounded vowels such as /u/ and /o/ very commonly labialize adjacent consonants but this usually left untranscribed unless the distinction is phonemic or one wishes to draw special attention to the fact. --Tropylium (talk) 11:17, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] raa'an?

Gradation of single k leads sometimes into long vowel groups (e.g., raaka → raa'an, ruoko → ruo'on). Could someone explain how they're described in IPA? At least in the colloquial speech there is no glottal stop in the normal speech. A change of tone, or what?

An unrelated comment, shouldn't it be shown in the IPA chart that t is normally dental [t̪]? And secondly, are you sure that maha is really [mɑhɑ] instead of [mɑɦɑ]?

Oh, and please do add some references. — JyriL talk 20:32, 2 April 2008 (UTC)