Finglish

This article is about Finnish mixed with English. For Persian (Farsi) mixed with English, see Fingilish.

The term Finglish was introduced by professor Martti Nisonen in 1920s in Hancock, Michigan, to describe a linguistic phenomenon he encountered in America. As the term describes, Finglish is a mixture of English and Finnish. In Finglish the English lexical items are nativized and inserted into the framework of Finnish morphology and syntax. The Finnish immigrants to USA and Canada are one group that speak Finglish, but Finglish is also found in any place in Finland, where international contacts and popular culture exists, including Finnish language learners. The history of Finglish may be divided between Old Finglish and New Finglish.

History

Old Finglish originated amongst the first and second generation Finnish immigrants in US and Canada. Since few of them had any higher education or language skills, many of them ended up in menial and industrial jobs, where they learned English through practice. The language skills of the first generation American Finns remained always limited; second and third-generation American Finns usually were more or less bilingual. Finglish emerged as a pidgin with something they already knew (Finnish) and something they were bound to learn (English).

Most of the Finnish immigrants were from the provinces of Savonia, Tavastia and Ostrobothnia, and the grammar also reflected those dialects. The most common characteristic of Old Finglish were (in descending order):

Phenomenon	Finglish	Finnish	English
almost all voiced consonants in English are replaced by their voiceless counterparts in Finglish; /f/ is likewise replaced with /v/	lumperi	puutavara	lumber
	piiri	olut, kalja	beer
	rapoli	ongelma	trouble
	karpetsi	roska(t)	garbage
	vörnitseri	huonekalu	furniture
three contiguous vowels are not allowed. They are broken up by inserting either a back or front glide depending on the phonetic environment	leijata	pelata, soittaa	to play
	sauveri	suihku	shower
syllabic consonants are modified by inserting a vowel in front of them:	kaluna	gallona	gallon
	hanteli	kahva	handle
words should end in a vowel (the preferred word-final vowel is /i/ but /a/ is also encountered)	reimi	kehys	frame
	kaara	auto, vaunu, kärry	car
	heerkatti	hiustenleikkuu	haircut
	loijari	lakimies	lawyer
when the word in English begins with two or three consonants, all but the last consonant are dropped before the word is acceptable for Finglish	raikki	isku, lakko	strike
	touvi	hella, liesi	stove
	rosseri	kauppa	grocery
vowels are written phonetically, as in Finnish	reitti	suora	straight
	raippi	raita, juova	stripe
disappearance of possessive suffix, as in spoken Finnish	meitin haussi	meidän talomme	our house

Words used in US Finglish often have completely different meanings in Finnish; they have become expressive loans: ruuma (room; in Finnish "cargo hold"), piiri (beer; "district"), leijata (to play; "to hover"), reisi (crazy; "thigh") or touvi (stove; "halyard"). US Finglish compound words can produce combinations completely incomprehensible to native Finnish speakers, like piirikäki (beer keg; "district cuckoo") or ilmapiika (flight attendant; "air maid").

Old Finglish is not bound to survive, and its native speakers are now in their 80s and 90s. The descendants of most American Finns are today either completely monolingual, or, if they have kept their ties to their foreparents' language, speak ordinary Finnish beside English.

Example of old Finglish:

Frank ja Wilbert oli Saran kanssa kaaralla käymäs vilitsis. Ne kävi haartveerstooris ostamas loonmouverin ja Sara kävi ottaan heerkatin piutisaluunasa. Kun ne tuli haussiin, niin mamma laitto äpylipaita.

which translates as

Frank and Wilbert were with Sara visiting the village by car. They went to hardware store to buy a lawn mower, while Sara had a haircut at beauty salon. When they came back to home, mom served apple pie.

For comparison, without Anglicisms:

Frank ja Wilbert olivat Saran kanssa käymässä autolla kylässä. He kävivät rautakaupassa ostamassa ruohonleikkurin ja Sara kävi laitattamassa kampauksen kauneushoitolassa. Kun he tulivat kotiin, äiti laittoi omenapiirakkaa.

Relatively few words from old Finglish have become standard Finnish, but note kämppä "log cabin", "(temporary) accommodation" from English camp and mainari "miner".

Current situation

New Finglish originates in Finland. Its sources are technology, popular culture, various sub-cultures and fandom. It differs from slang in the sense that it also uses some English linguistic structures. Examples of some popular culture Finglish expressions include vörkkiä (to work), biitsi (beach), spreijata (to spray), hengailla (to hang out), kruisailla (to cruise with an automobile) and hevijuuseri (heavy user). While Old Finglish was distinctively a lower-class migrant language, New Finglish is used by youth in contact with the English language. New Finglish is considered a transitional phase of absorption of new terms and ideas from English into Finnish before the full nativization of the words, especially in situations where English expresses a concept with one word, while Finnish would require several of them. New Finglish is not to be confused with Helsinki slang, though its modern variant has absorbed some English loan words too.

The characteristics of New Finglish, in descending order, are

Phenomenon	Finglish	Finnish	English
preservation of voiced consonants /b/, /d/ and /g/ and /f/	biitsi	hiekkaranta	beach
	bugi		bug, as programming error
	dellata	poistaa	to delete
	delata	kuolla	to die
	digata	tykätä	to dig, in sense "to feel affection"
	giikki		geek
	fleimi		an Internet flame, a nasty Internet reply
	fleimata		to write/send a nasty Internet reply or to burn
preservation of consonant clusters in the beginning of the words as in Southwestern Finnish dialects	kreisi	hullu	crazy
	printteri	tulostin	printer
	skipata	jättää väliin	to skip, to pass something
	steissi	asema; (esiintymis)lava	station or stage
	trabeli	ongelma	trouble
word ending in a vowel as in Old Finglish, almost exclusively in /i/. Duplication of the English final consonant before the final /i/	keissi	tapaus	case
	disketti	levyke	diskette
	floppi		flop, failure
Vowels written out phonetically as in Old Finglish, umlaut denoting frontal vowel	staili	tyylikäs	stylish
	bändi	yhtye	band, orchestra
	nörtti		nerd
	räppi		rap music
	nevöhööd		never heard
replacement of English /c/ with /k/ or /s/ /ch/ with /ts/ /th/ with /d/ /x/ with /ks/ /j/ as /ds/ /w/ with /v/	klikata		to click
	tsekata	tarkistaa	to check
	fiksata	korjata	to fix
	biifdsööki	kuivaliha	beef jerky
	pätsätä	paikata	to patch, as in updating software
	vörkkiä	toimia	to work, to function
conceptual switch of Finnish instructive "mene" (go with) as "ota" (take)	ota juna	mene junalla
	ota itäreitti	mene itäreittiä
you-impersonal (sinä-passiivi); using sinä (you) as the formal subject of an impersonal sentence. This may actually be an older phenomenon than English influence, as it also has appeared in certain Karelian dialects.	Jos sinä et syö, sinä et elä.	Jos ei syö, ei elä.	If you don't eat, you don't live.

An example of today's Finglish might be

Mä lainasin faijan autoo ja me mentiin Mikan, Jennin ja Hannan kanssa kruisaamaan. Ensin haettiin gasoo, sitten käytiin syömässä Mäkissä bögöt ja lopulta mentiin biitsille.

which translates as

"I borrowed Dad's car and we went together with Mika, Jenni and Hanna cruising around. We first went to get some gasoline, then went to McDonald's (Mäkki < Mäkdonalds < McDonalds) to have burgers and in the end we went to the beach."

For comparison, without Anglicisms, but still colloquial:

Mä lainasin faijan autoo ja me mentiin Mikan, Jennin ja Hannan kanssa ajelulle. Ensin haettiin löpöö, sitten käytiin syömässä [pikaruokalan] purilaiset ja lopulta mentiin rantsuun.

And, in literal Finnish:

Lainasin isäni autoa ja menimme Mikan, Jennin ja Hannan kanssa ajelulle. Ensin haimme polttoainetta, sitten kävimme pikaruokalassa syömässä hampurilaiset ja lopulta menimme rannalle.

Techspeak

Finglish is today used most commonly in technology speech, where the majority of the loans originate in English. Since the English and Finnish language morphologies are vastly different and English pronunciation seldom fits in the Finnish speech immediately, the loan's orthography and pronunciation are nativized. Direct Finglish teknopuhe (techspeak) expressions include printteri ("printer" - it is currently being ousted by the native word tulostin), modeemi ("modem") and prosessori ("processor", there is even a puristic word, suoritin, which is heard often enough, but is still less common than prosessori or prossu). Acronyms in Finglish include seepu (CPU; Central Processing Unit, in Finnish suoritin or prosessori), and dimmi (DIMM; Dual In-Line Memory Module). Finglish is usually considered a transitionary phase from literal loans into translationary loans (calques). Examples of Finglish calques are emolevy (motherboard), näyttö (display), ulkoistaa (to outsource) and sähköposti (electronic mail - the Finglish word eemeli [male name!], iimeili or meili is still quite common). An example of a word where the transition is partial, is webbiselain (web browser), where the word web has not yet been translated into Finnish verkko.

An example of Finnish techspeak:

Mä tsekkasin sen serverin. Siinä oli täys snafu päällä. Siitä oli poveri kärtsännyt ja se oli sitten krässännyt totaalisesti. Kun sitä ei oltu ajettu hallitusti alas, siitä oli käyttispartitio korruptoitunut eikä se enää buutannut. Mä fiksasin siihen uuden poverin ja buuttasin sen korpulta.

which would translate in English:

"I checked the server. It was in a complete SNAFU. Its power supply had burnt out and it had then crashed totally. As it was not shut down in an orderly manner, its operating system partition was corrupted and it no longer booted. I fixed it with a new power supply and booted it from a floppy disk."

and in a less Anglicised, but still colloquial Finnish:

Mä tarkistin sen palvelimen. Se oli täysin hajalla. Siitä oli virtalähde kärtsännyt ja se oli sitten mennyt aivan jumiin. Kun sitä ei oltu ajettu hallitusti alas, siitä oli käyttisosio pilalla eikä se enää käynnistynyt. Mä hoidin siihen uuden virtalähteen ja käynnistin sen korpulta.

In literal Finnish:

Tarkistin sen palvelimen. Se oli täysin hajalla. Siitä oli virtalähde kärähtänyt ja se oli sitten mennyt aivan jumiin. Kun sitä ei ollut ajettu hallitusti alas, siitä oli käyttöjärjestelmäosio pilalla eikä se enää käynnistynyt. Hoidin siihen uuden virtalähteen ja käynnistin sen levykkeeltä.

Neologisms

Sometimes English words are used as basis of Finnish conceptual neologisms, like nörtti, computer enthusiast, from English "nerd" or nyypiö, nyyppä (or noobi) beginner, from English "newbie"; influenced by the native Finnish "hyypiö" meaning a freak or eccentric person).

Since most New Finglish speakers are fluent in both Finnish and in English, direct translations are sometimes used in humorous or oxymoronic concepts, such as julkinen talo (public house) for pubi or käytännöllinen pila (practical joke, shenanigan) for native Finnish kepponen.

English loans that originate in Latin are usually amalgamated in Finnish by using the Latin and not English orthography and grammar.

See also

• tankero

External links

• Finglish by Kent Randell
• The bluffer’s guide to Finglish Six Degrees (No. 6, 2008)