Indefinite pronouns

[Woods]

According to Fred Karlsson's Finnish: An Essential Grammar, the pronoun (ei) kukaan has "some shorter alternative forms":

kukaan - ketkään
ketään - keitään (keitäkään)
kenenkään - keidenkään
kenessäkään (kessään) - keissäkään (keissään)
kenestäkään (kestään) - keistäkään (keistään)
keneenkään (kehenkään) - keihinkään
kenelläkään (kellään) - keilläkään (keillään)
keneltäkään (keltään) - keiltäkään (keiltään)
kenellekään (kellekään) - keillekään

In what register are those? Can one use the shorter forms in any kind of formal text?

By the way I think he missed some cases, at least the essive (-na) and translative (-ksi)?


PS Another strange thing is that he's listed all but one of the plural forms with ei in parentheses before the form: (ei) keidenkään, (ei) keitä(kä)än and so on, but next to the first one he's put eivät: (eivät) ketkään. Is there a particular reason for this so-typical-of-him inconsistency or does it just depend on the phrase whether ei or eivät will be used? Also, for this form "ei ketään" is not suggested, even though it also has "ä" - has he missed it or does it always keep the k to be distinguished from the partitive?

[Virankannos]

See Kielitoimiston ohjepankki and the page on pronoun kuka/ketä. There's also a full declension table. It states:

[...] Monista yksikön taivutusmuodoista on käytössä sekä pitempi että lyhyempi muoto, esim. kenelle ~ kelle, kenellekään ~ kellekään. Yleiskielisissä asiateksteissä pitempi on tavallisempi. Se onkin helpompi hahmottaa. (Monia monikon muotoja ei asiateksteissä juuri tapaa.)

Translation: "There is a long and short form of many singular inflectional forms in use, e.g. kenelle ~ kelle, kenellekään ~ kellekään. In standard language, the longer is more common. It is also easier to interpret. (Many of the plural forms are hardly attested in factual texts.)

Translative would be keneksikään / keiksikään, essive kenenäkään / keinäkään, although I think the translative pl. and essive forms are quite rare.

I think he uses (eivät) ketkään for the reason that the nominative pl. form is used as the subject and the negative verb agrees with it in number, e.g. Kukaan ei halunnut tulla 'Nobody wanted to come' vs. Ketkään eivät halunneet tulla 'Nobody (of many people) wanted to come'; the difference is hard to express in English. ketään is the partitive sg. form, it cannot be used as nominative pl.

[Woods]

According to Fred Karlsson's grammar, “molemma/t, muutama and usea appear in both singular and plural."

I could easily find the nominative, partitive and genitive forms of usea in Kielitoimiston Sanakirja for both singular and plural; however, it is not the case for molemmat and muutama.

I found some singular forms for muutamat/muutamia/muutamien here:

https://fl.finnlectura.fi/verkkosuomi/Morfologia/sivu2514.htm

They list muuan as the singular for muutamat, however is this the same or a different pronoun?

When searching for muuan in Kielitoimiston sanakirja, they give muuan as the nominiative, muuatta as partitive and muutaman as genitive. However, the abovementioned website gives muutamaa as an alternative form for the partitive and I think I saw muutama somewhere also. Do these two forms exist?

Edit: It seems that Fred Karlsson himself has listed muutama/muutamaa/muutaman as the singular forms for muutamat/muutamia/muutamien - but Kielitoimiston sanakirja says something else.

It seems like the meaning of muuan/muuatta (a certain) is different to the meaning of muutamat, muutamia, muutamien (a few) in the first three cases, but the remaining forms all have the second meaning regardless of number, and people prefer the singular when using the pronoun with another case? From where Karlsson has decided to leave out muuan/muuatta and give those alternative three singular forms of which I am yet to find if they exist? The Wiktionary people have given muuan as singular genitive as well.

I didn't find any single forms for molemmat/molempia/molempien though - do they exist or is that a mistake?

Wiktionary gives molempi, molempaa, molemman - but is that the same, is it official and if so - why is it not found in Kielitoimiston Sanakirja? I am getting the impression that someone just reconstructed these forms from the plural, but they are not part of the current Finnish language.

[Linguaphile]

I didn't find any single forms for molemmat/molempia/molempien though - do they exist or is that a mistake?

Wiktionary gives molempi, molempaa, molemman - but is that the same, is it official and if so - why is it not found in Kielitoimiston Sanakirja? I am getting the impression that someone just reconstructed these forms from the plural, but they are not part of the current Finnish language.

The Wiktionary article for molempi has all the forms for molemmat (singular and plural) and explains the usage like this:

In standard language, only the plural forms are used independently (see molemmat). Yet, in colloquial language, the word is used with a full inflectional paradigm that distinguishes between singular and plural number, not unlike that of kumpikin (the standard-language equivalent for structures where the number distinction is useful).

So assuming that's correct, the singular forms would be not found in Kielitoimiston Sanakirja because they are only used in colloquial language, but in colloquial language they do exist.

[Naava]

According to Fred Karlsson's grammar, “molemma/t, muutama and usea appear in both singular and plural."
...
I didn't find any single forms for molemmat/molempia/molempien though - do they exist or is that a mistake?

All the sources I can find say that molemmat and kumpikin mean the same thing ("both"), but that molemmat is always plural and kumpikin is singular. It seems Karlsson must have made an error here.

You can say in puhekieli molempi parempi ("both are equally good") and molempi- is used in compounds both in puhekieli and kirjakieli (e.g. molempikätinen - ambidextrous), but I've personally never head anyone use molempi on its own. Google found some instances of partitive molempaa, essive molempana, and translative molemmaksi, though. These are not accepted in kirjakieli and they sound odd to my ear even in puhekieli, but it seems there are people who use them. Perhaps there's a regional difference here, or perhaps this is a new invention that has started to spread only recently. (In case you're not very familiar with language change and how it works, it tends to follow the S curve where at first the new form is used only by a minority (and often considered as an error by others). As the time goes on, it is adopted by more and more people, until one day it's used by the majority or all speakers and considered as the norm, while the old form is seen as dated or even incorrect.)

Muutama and usea do have both singular and plural forms like Karlsson says:
NOM muutama - muutamat
GEN muutaman - muutamien
ESS muutamana - muutamina
TRANSL muutamaksi - muutamiksi
...and so on.

NOM usea - useat
GEN usean - useiden
ESS useana - useina
TRANSL useaksi - useiksi
...and so on.

They list muuan as the singular for muutamat, however is this the same or a different pronoun?

Well, yes and no.

When used in the sense "a certain one", the paradigm looks like this:
NOM muuan - muutamat
PART muuatta - muutamia
GEN muutaman - muutamien
INE muutamassa - muutamissa
...etc.

When used in the sense of "a few", the paradigm looks like this:
NOM muutama - muutamat
PART muutamaa - muutamia
GEN muutaman - muutamien
INE muutamassa - muutamissa
...etc.

But I don't think it's a coincidence the plurals of muuan and muutama look the same. The arhaic/dialectal form of muuan is muudan, which shows us that there is an underlying -t- in the word and that's how we get muuTamat from muuan. But because muuan and muutamat look quite different and because muutamat is also used for "a few", I believe the word was reanalysed as a plural of muutama, which was then assigned the meaning of "a few".

Moreover, I personally find the use of "muutamat" for "certain" as strange. I could be wrong, but based on how I've learnt to speak and heard people use the language, muuan is "a certain" and muutamat is "a few". If you want to have a plural of "certain", you'd use "eräs : eräät" instead. If others feel the same as me, it could explain why we have a singular muutama - people just didn't see the connection between muuan and muutamat, and decided they must be two different pronouns.

[Woods]

They list muuan as the singular for muutamat, however is this the same or a different pronoun?

Well, yes and no.

When used in the sense "a certain one", the paradigm looks like this:
NOM muuan - muutamat
PART muuatta - muutamia
GEN muutaman - muutamien
INE muutamassa - muutamissa
...etc.

When used in the sense of "a few", the paradigm looks like this:
NOM muutama - muutamat
PART muutamaa - muutamia
GEN muutaman - muutamien
INE muutamassa - muutamissa
...etc.

Hm, so the plural muutamat can also mean "a certain one", not necessarily a few? Like when you combine it with a pair of something or something that's always plural like Linguaphile was saying in the other thread - muutamat häät, muutamat kasvot, muutamat kengät etc. (a certain marriage, a certain face, a certain pair of shoes?)

Google found some instances of partitive molempaa, essive molempana, and translative molemmaksi, though. These are not accepted in kirjakieli and they sound odd to my ear even in puhekieli, but it seems there are people who use them. Perhaps there's a regional difference here, or perhaps this is a new invention that has started to spread only recently.

I asked one person and he gave me this example as sounding perfectly fine to him:

Käytän molempaa polkupyörää.

So I guess that's Helsinki slang?

[Woods]

kukin

Fred Karlsson presents only singular versions (kukin, kutakin, kunkin, ku/ssa/kin, ku/sta/kin, ku/hun/kin, ku/lla/kin, ku/lta/kin, ku/lle/kin, kunakin, kuksikin), and Kielitoimiston Sanakirja does as well (kukin, kunkin, kutakin, kuhunkin - they usually go with those four forms only, but if they have plural equivanents, they give them as well). However, Wiktionary gives also plulrals (kutkin, kuitakin, kuidenkin, kuissakin, kuistakin, kuihinkin, kuillakin, kuiltakin, kuillekin, kuinakin, kuiksikin). Do you think there's a justification for the omission - like those are old-fashioned, or slang, or not used for any reason - or did he just forget to include it in his book?


I found some examples:

Ensinnäkin nimen pitää tulla antiikin Kreikan tai Rooman mytologiasta. Ja koska Pluto oli roomalaisten manalan jumala, täytyy kuidenkin nimien liittyä antiikin alamaailmaan. (Iltalehti - I don't know how reliable that newspaper is and how good the quality of the language skills of its writers are?)

First, the name must come from ancient Greek or Roman mythology. And since Pluto was the Roman god of manala, all six names must be related to the ancient underworld. (Google Translate - it's becoming increasingly good at Finnish!)


Nykyisellä koulutustasolla kansanmusiikki on määritelty monin kerroksin ja kansanmusiikkia harjoittaville on kehittynyt tietyt raamit, joiden sisällä kuitakin tyylilajeja esitetään. (Yle)

At the current level of education, folk music is defined in many layers, and those who practice folk music have developed certain frameworks within which certain genres are presented. (Google Translate)


Välillä oli motivaatiovaikeuksia ja työ polki paikallaan, eikä takais- kuiltakaan voinut välttyä. (Somebody's diplomityö at Tampere University)

Sometimes there were motivational difficulties and the work was stagnant, and setbacks could not be avoided. (Google Translate)


So I guess the plurals are legitimate and should have been included?

It's actually super hard to find those rare forms in search results, because the Internet is flooded with dictionaries and language materials trying to include every form ever conceived, without any information as of whether they're actually used (and official).


The last phrase I quoted also gives me the occasion to ask: how common and acceptable is it to use 3rd person singular instead of 3rd person plural? Here we have partitive plural, so I guess "olivat" would have been more correct? Or "on"/"oli" is just a fixed expression like "il y a" in French or the invariable "there is", which is becoming more and more popular in English (although supposedly incorrect)? I don't have examples in mind, but I've noticed 3rd person singular verbs used when they should be conjugated in the plural (and I actually like it better this way - it sounds simpler and more clear!)

[Naava]

I found some examples:

Unfortunately, not all of these were valid examples of kukin.

Ensinnäkin nimen pitää tulla antiikin Kreikan tai Rooman mytologiasta. Ja koska Pluto oli roomalaisten manalan jumala, täytyy kuidenkin nimien liittyä antiikin alamaailmaan.

kuidenkin nimien = "the names of the moons, too" (plural genitive of kuu, 'moon', with the clitic -kin)
Full sentence: Firstly, the name has to originate from Ancient Greek or Roman mythology. And since Pluto was a Roman god of the underworld, the names of the moons must have a connection to the underworld of the Ancient Rome as well.

Välillä oli motivaatiovaikeuksia ja työ polki paikallaan, eikä takais- kuiltakaan voinut välttyä.

The word here is takaiskuiltakaan = "not from the setbacks, either" (plural ablative of takaisku, 'setback', with the clitic -kaan). It's been hyphenated at the syllable break (ta-ka-is-ku-il-ta-kaan) probably because the word got cut at the end of a line.
Full sentence: Occasionally I* had problems with motivation and the work did not progress, and I could not avoid [facing] some setbacks either.
*The subject is not clear from the context, but I think the writer is speaking about their own experience.

This, however, is a genuine example of kukin:

Nykyisellä koulutustasolla kansanmusiikki on määritelty monin kerroksin ja kansanmusiikkia harjoittaville on kehittynyt tietyt raamit, joiden sisällä kuitakin tyylilajeja esitetään. (Yle)

Full sentence: At the current level of education, folk music has been defined within many layers, and certain limits have developed in regards of how the practitioners of folk music should perform each style.
But: this text was a pakina or a causerie ("short informal, often humoristic, writing on a current topic"). As a text, it is a less serious and less professional than what you'd otherwise see in Yle's website, which also means the language is less formal.

I also managed to find these examples online:

On määriteltävä, mikä tieto parhaalla mahdollisella tavalla palvelee kuitakin organisaation tavoitteita ja johtamisen funktioita.
--
Virolaisia, saksalaisia ja itävaltalaisia on kaksi, suomalaisia, italialaisia, kazakstanilaisia ja tshekkejä kuitakin yksi.
--
Esimerkiksi kanadalaisia oli 18 ja italialaisia, kiinalaisia ja yhdysvaltalaisia kuitakin 8.
--
Tulevaisuuspaja-paketin voi ottaa käyttöön sellaisenaan tai siitä voi hyödyntää niitä osia, jotka kuitakin opiskelijoita eniten hyödyttävät.
--
Bulgarialaisia, makedonialaisia, serbialaisia, ukrainalaisia, valkovenäläisiä ja venäläisiä nimiä translitteroidaan kuitakin oman käytäntönsä mukaisesti.
--
Junalla, bussilla, useammalla kuin yhdellä kulkuneuvolla ja vaihtelevalla kulkuneuvolla kulkevia on kuitakin 5.
--
Aikuisella kissalla on noin 250 makunystyä, joissa kuissakin on 40–40 000 aistinsoluista koostuvat makusilmut.
--
EU:n keskiarvoa kuissakin vaaleissa kuvastaa violetti vaakaviiva.

Based on this, it seems people are more likely to use plurals of kukin when there are groups consisting of several people/objects and when using singular in those words would result in ungrammatical forms or change in meaning/tone, or require rewriting several words in the sentence. In short, it looks like they're thinking "I want to write this phrase in plural, so kukin must be in plural, too..."

To your question, then:

So I guess the plurals are legitimate and should have been included?
It's actually super hard to find those rare forms in search results --

,
I can't find any instructions on it online, so I must rely on my own intuition. Since both you and I managed to find authentic examples of the plural kuitakin, we can say this form does exist and is used by (some) people.

Is it part of standard Finnish, though? Here I'm not quite convinced yet. 1) You yourself said it's super hard to find examples and described it as a rare form, and that's usually not a good sign. It also makes it hard to say anything for sure. 2) Kielitoimiston ohjekirja nor VISK do not mention the plural forms at all. 3) We cannot know how good the people who wrote the quotes above were at writing standard Finnish, nor if they all felt it necessary to write in "pure" standard Finnish. 4) All the examples are from online, where the language is not proofread before publishing (I have seen some really shocking misspellings and non-standard grammar even in Yle's articles!) 5) I tried testing VISK, which is a Big Authority in language related questions, and they had not used kuitakin at all in their explanations (and we're talking about a brick of a book here). It also looks like Kotus has not used it either in any of their articles.

Because of this, I don't think it's standard Finnish. If it is, then it must be an extremely rarely used form, and singular is clearly much more common and preferred over the plurals. But, like I said, I couldn't find any official source for anything I've said, so it's all speculation and I could be wrong.

The last phrase I quoted also gives me the occasion to ask: how common and acceptable is it to use 3rd person singular instead of 3rd person plural? Here we have partitive plural, so I guess "olivat" would have been more correct?

In spoken Finnish: extremely common, but there can be variation based on the background of the speakers, and there could be contexts where the plural is still favoured.

In standard Finnish: most of the time it's incorrect, but there are a few rules that allow it. You can read more about it here. Click through the links to other articles at the end, too. The sentence you had found follows the rule of existential sentences. You can read more about that here and here.

[Woods]

I found some examples:

Unfortunately, not all of these were valid examples of kukin.

Well, as we all know, with Finnish sometimes guessing the actual word under the conjugation is a challenge 😁

But thanks very much for your detailed explanation!


Actually, when it comes to determining if something can be included in standard language or if it can't, I think in areas where even educated Finns (like you 🙂) are not sure, the answer is rather yes (because if nothing is telling you it sounds wrong, you most likely accept it as legitimate, don't you)?

The challenge is more to know how much less-formal language you could include in your speech in a given register (like for example, if I go to a Finnish exam, do I use mä in the speaking part, passive instead of 1st person plural, 3rd person singular for plural subjects - does this sound informal or does using the "preferred" equivalents sound stiff.

I had one Finnish girl tell me how awful she feels when one of the politicians goes on TV and says "juuri". But I guess to other speakers "just" would sound uneducated and belonging to the speech of someone unqualified for the position of a politician?



Should those phrases simply be written:


Nykyisellä koulutustasolla kansanmusiikki on määritelty monin kerroksin ja kansanmusiikkia harjoittaville on kehittynyt tietyt raamit, joiden sisällä kutakin tyylilajia esitetään. (Yle)

At the current level of education, folk music has been defined within many layers, and certain limits have developed in regards of how the practitioners of folk music should perform each style. (Naava)


On määriteltävä, mikä tieto parhaalla mahdollisella tavalla palvelee kuitakin organisaation tavoitteita ja johtamisen funktioita.

(well, here the noun that follows is singular, so that looks like a mistake to me - why would they want to use a plural pronoun?)

It is necessary to define which information best serves each organization's goals and management functions. (Google Translate)


Virolaisia, saksalaisia ja itävaltalaisia on kaksi, suomalaisia, italialaisia, kazakstanilaisia ja tshekkejä kutakin yksi.

Esimerkiksi kanadalaisia oli 18 ja italialaisia, kiinalaisia ja yhdysvaltalaisia kutakin 8.

Tulevaisuuspaja-paketin voi ottaa käyttöön sellaisenaan tai siitä voi hyödyntää niitä osia, jotka kutakin opiskelijaa eniten hyödyttävät.

The Future Workshop package can be used as it is, or you can use the parts of it that benefit each student the most.


Bulgarialaisia, makedonialaisia, serbialaisia, ukrainalaisia, valkovenäläisiä ja venäläisiä nimiä translitteroidaan kuitakin oman käytäntönsä mukaisesti. (Wikipedia)

Well, I guess here we do need plural because otherwise it sounds like there is only one name per language? How would you redo this sentence if we supposed that the plural forms were not accepted in standard language?


Junalla, bussilla, useammalla kuin yhdellä kulkuneuvolla ja vaihtelevalla kulkuneuvolla kulkevia on kuitakin 5.

This is such a complicated phrase - so the idea is:

Traveling by train, by bus, by using more than one means of transportation or by changing means of transportation - those things are done by five people each. 😳

I guess it's still fine if we use kutakin?


Aikuisella kissalla on noin 250 makunystyä, joissa kuissakin on 40–40 000 aistinsoluista koostuvat makusilmut.

An adult cat has about 250 taste buds, each of which has 40-40,000 I-don't-know-what consisting of sensory cells.

(Apparently to the author makunysty and makusilmu are two different things, but to Google Translate they are both taste buds, but either way - it sounds wrong to use kuissakin and I don't see why the plural would be used?


EU:n keskiarvoa kuissakin vaaleissa kuvastaa violetti vaakaviiva.

The EU average in each election is reflected by the purple horizontal line. (Google Translate)

I guess vaalit is always used in the plural, but then can we just replace kuissakin by kussakin and keep the plural after that? That would sound wrong to my non-Finnish ear.


By the way the word tyylilajeja in the first phrase reminded me of when you told me we say "urheilulajeja" when talking about individual sports. Can you think of other examples of things whereby we'd use a plural word in English (styles, sports), but which are uncountable in Finnish?

[Naava]

Actually, when it comes to determining if something can be included in standard language or if it can't, I think in areas where even educated Finns (like you 🙂) are not sure, the answer is rather yes (because if nothing is telling you it sounds wrong, you most likely accept it as legitimate, don't you)?

Generally, I think it's best to be safe than sorry: if you don't know if something is standard Finnish or not and you can't find any guidelines to help you, use something else. There have been times I've thought a word or a form is standard but it wasn't, and times where I've thought a word or a form isn't standard but it was. I prefer not to take any risks.

I did find this after writing the previous post: "Kukin taipuu niin kuin jokin (» asetelma 53): kutakin, kullakin, kussakin jne." There is a figure that shows the paradigm of jokin, which includes the plurals... But all their examples in that sentence I quoted are singular. In any case, it still seems to be rare to use plurals for kukin.

The challenge is more to know how much less-formal language you could include in your speech in a given register (like for example, if I go to a Finnish exam, do I use mä in the speaking part, passive instead of 1st person plural, 3rd person singular for plural subjects - does this sound informal or does using the "preferred" equivalents sound stiff.

Informality is not a problem, but if you're taking a Finnish test and your teacher wants to test your standard Finnish skills, speaking in spoken language could be a bad choice. If I were you, I'd ask the teacher in advance.

Otherwise, it's fine to use spoken Finnish everywhere. It is common to use standard Finnish when reading a text or speaking of something you have written down first, though (e.g. politicians giving a speech, news anchors). When a specialist or a politician is interviewed on TV, they also tend to steer towards more standard Finnish, but it's still common to use f.ex. mä. For example, here's a clip from a plenary session where you can hear the minister use standard Finnish forms that are not common in most speech ("me tiedämme", "meidän metsiimme") but then she also uses non-standard forms ("metsät on", "meidän metsänhoito", "iso riski et [pro että] miten", "ja mä uskon"). Here's another clip of another minister, who is also speaking in a variety close to standard Finnish, yet he also says "teijän" (pro teidän) and the whole phrase "ei tää oo etusivu ku tää on sähkönen versio" (ei tämä ole etusivu, koska tämä on sähköinen versio) when he notices his slip of tongue (he described it as 'front page' but then remembered he was holding a screenshot, not the first page of a paper).

I had one Finnish girl tell me how awful she feels when one of the politicians goes on TV and says "juuri". But I guess to other speakers "just" would sound uneducated and belonging to the speech of someone unqualified for the position of a politician?

I don't know what that was about. Juuri is standard Finnish, just would be spoken Finnish. A politician could use both juuri and just without sounding unqualified or uneducated.

How would you redo this sentence if we supposed that the plural forms were not accepted in standard language?

I'd use kutakin for these:

Nykyisellä koulutustasolla kansanmusiikki on määritelty monin kerroksin ja kansanmusiikkia harjoittaville on kehittynyt tietyt raamit, joiden sisällä kutakin tyylilajia esitetään. (Yle)

Tulevaisuuspaja-paketin voi ottaa käyttöön sellaisenaan tai siitä voi hyödyntää niitä osia, jotka kutakin opiskelijaa eniten hyödyttävät.

Virolaisia, saksalaisia ja itävaltalaisia on kaksi, suomalaisia, italialaisia, kazakstanilaisia ja tshekkejä kutakin yksi.

Esimerkiksi kanadalaisia oli 18 ja italialaisia, kiinalaisia ja yhdysvaltalaisia kutakin 8.

[i]Aikuisella kissalla on noin 250 makunystyä, joissa kuissakin kussakin on 40–40 000 aistinsoluista koostuvat makusilmut.

EU:n keskiarvoa kuissakin vaaleissa kussakin vaalissa kuvastaa violetti vaakaviiva.

On määriteltävä, mikä tieto parhaalla mahdollisella tavalla palveleekuitakin organisaation tavoitteita ja johtamisen funktioita kutakin organisaation tavoitetta ja johtamisen funktiota.

------
(well, here the noun that follows is singular, so that looks like a mistake to me - why would they want to use a plural pronoun?)

The noun that follows was not singular but plural in the original quote. Singular: tavoite : tavoitetta, funktio : funktiota. Plural: tavoitteet : tavoitteita, funktiot : funktioita.

These are more difficult because I think changing the nouns into singulars would change the intended meaning too much:

1) Bulgarialaisia, makedonialaisia, serbialaisia, ukrainalaisia, valkovenäläisiä ja venäläisiä nimiä translitteroidaan kuitakin oman käytäntönsä mukaisesti.

2) Junalla, bussilla, useammalla kuin yhdellä kulkuneuvolla ja vaihtelevalla kulkuneuvolla kulkevia on kuitakin 5.

I'd rewrite 1 as "nimiä translitteroidaan kunkin kielen oman käytännön mukaisesti".
2 I'm not so sure. I'd probably end up rewriting the whole sentence.

This is such a complicated phrase - so the idea is:

Traveling by train, by bus, by using more than one means of transportation or by changing means of transportation - those things are done by five people each. 😳

Yeah, it sounds like there was a study and the writer is reporting the results: 5 people said they use a train, 5 people say they use a bus, 5 people said they always use the same means of transportation, 5 people said their choice of transportation varies. (Actually, that's probably how I'd rewrite it in Finnish. It's longer, but IMO it's easier to understand.)

(Apparently to the author makunysty and makusilmu are two different things, but to Google Translate they are both taste buds, but either way - it sounds wrong to use kuissakin and I don't see why the plural would be used?

As far as I know, they both mean taste buds. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I guess vaalit is always used in the plural, but then can we just replace kuissakin by kussakin and keep the plural after that? That would sound wrong to my non-Finnish ear.

You can change vaalit into singular in this case (kussakin vaalissa), but it looks like there are people who prefer keeping it plural (kussakin vaaleissa). Languages are weird like that. I'm not sure if there's any official recommendation for it, but since both are used, you can choose either or.

By the way the word tyylilajeja in the first phrase reminded me of when you told me we say "urheilulajeja" when talking about individual sports. Can you think of other examples of things whereby we'd use a plural word in English (styles, sports), but which are uncountable in Finnish?

I'm not sure what you mean since tyylilajeja is plural and countable.

[Woods]

Actually, when it comes to determining if something can be included in standard language or if it can't, I think in areas where even educated Finns (like you 🙂) are not sure, the answer is rather yes (because if nothing is telling you it sounds wrong, you most likely accept it as legitimate, don't you)?

Generally, I think it's best to be safe than sorry: if you don't know if something is standard Finnish or not and you can't find any guidelines to help you, use something else. There have been times I've thought a word or a form is standard but it wasn't, and times where I've thought a word or a form isn't standard but it was. I prefer not to take any risks.

But what's the problem with deviating (slightly) from the standard - especially when things are on the borderline between standard or not? And in a country where almost no one speaks the standard?

The challenge is more to know how much less-formal language you could include in your speech in a given register (like for example, if I go to a Finnish exam, do I use mä in the speaking part, passive instead of 1st person plural, 3rd person singular for plural subjects - does this sound informal or does using the "preferred" equivalents sound stiff.

Informality is not a problem, but if you're taking a Finnish test and your teacher wants to test your standard Finnish skills, speaking in spoken language could be a bad choice. If I were you, I'd ask the teacher in advance.

I don't take lessons. I was thinking one of those exams that the government organises. But it could be a good idea to drop them an e-mail and ask. Although I'm pretty sure they wouldn't mind standard language, whereas they might (or not) have a problem with the spoken forms.

Otherwise, it's fine to use spoken Finnish everywhere

Really? What if you call your lawyer? If you talk on TV? If you meet complete strangers or older or more educated people? Aren't there situations where using less formal registers makes you sound inappropriate?

For example, here's a clip from a plenary session where you can hear the minister use standard Finnish forms that are not common in most speech ("me tiedämme", "meidän metsiimme") but then she also uses non-standard forms ("metsät on", "meidän metsänhoito", "iso riski et [pro että] miten", "ja mä uskon").

Sounds like good taste to me. I would have probably done the same. At the end, who decides what's going to be the future official Finnish if not the speakers? Do we have to wait for Kotimaisten kielten keskus to come up with the next grammar before we can use the forms we prefer, if they are already common and accepted by everybody? Isn't it better like in English - no authorities, everyone competes and each individual speaker decides whom to listen to? I mean, I would never say "en mä tiä", but I wouldn't say "raitiovaunu" either. Neither would I like to write that clumsy old word. But I'd like to keep some clear, almost standard grammar that shows some knowledge and taste. Shouldn't everyone do something similar?

Here's another clip of another minister, who is also speaking in a variety close to standard Finnish, yet he also says "teijän" (pro teidän) and the whole phrase "ei tää oo etusivu ku tää on sähkönen versio" (ei tämä ole etusivu, koska tämä on sähköinen versio) when he notices his slip of tongue

Well, that one must have been awkward - like admitting to having put on a fake persona the whole time and to reading everything from a pre-written speech?

I had one Finnish girl tell me how awful she feels when one of the politicians goes on TV and says "juuri". But I guess to other speakers "just" would sound uneducated and belonging to the speech of someone unqualified for the position of a politician?

I don't know what that was about. Juuri is standard Finnish, just would be spoken Finnish. A politician could use both juuri and just without sounding unqualified or uneducated.

She just mentioned how when they say "juuri", it sounded posh to her and like trying too hard. She dislikes it.

I guess vaalit is always used in the plural, but then can we just replace kuissakin by kussakin and keep the plural after that? That would sound wrong to my non-Finnish ear.

You can change vaalit into singular in this case (kussakin vaalissa), but it looks like there are people who prefer keeping it plural (kussakin vaaleissa). Languages are weird like that. I'm not sure if there's any official recommendation for it, but since both are used, you can choose either or.

It may be used, but doesn't it sound wrong to you - singular pronoun followed by a plural noun? (linguistically speaking, is kussakin still a pronoun here or an adjective or some other kind of attribute? 🤔) Maybe that's the kind of case that prompts people to come up with plurals?

I've noticed with some other pronouns/attributes/ whatever they are called, singular nouns are sometimes used when referring to multiple objects (I think muutama would be an example of that, or something close to it).

So maybe it depends on the speaker's habits, willingness to compromise with the logic in order to obey the grammar or with the grammar in order to express a certain idea more clearly?


I'm actually trying to figure out the matter with singular pronouns denoting plural entities - like muutama and usea - does it have something to do with the fact that nouns come singular after numerals?

Here are the examples from Fred Karlsson's grammar:

Työ on valmis muutamassa minuutissa.
Selitän asian muutamalla sanalla.
Ostin takin muutamalla eurolla.

(you can count minutes, words and Euros)

but then:

Muutamat ihmiset väittävät, että…
muutamia vuosia sitten

(well, you can count also people and years, but I guess the plural adds some emphasis?)

Of course, being a speaker of non-Fennic languages, I'd always use the plural, as I don't have that feeling that numerals should be followed by a singular, but I guess for Finns it works in a different way and the distinction between singular and plural makes a difference?

With usea however, he has only given examples in the plural - does that mean that singular here is less common or not as good?

(useissa tapauksissa, useiden mielestä, useat ihmiset sanovat, että...)

As a reminder, that is the guy who had said molemmat had a singular form, which we then found to be unofficial.

Kielitoimiston sanakirja has singular examples however:

Hän osaa useaa kieltä, useita kieliä.

(but note, in the same example they have noted the plural equivalent as well, while they have not done the same in the opposite direction.)

In some examples they have given only singular however:

Asia voidaan selittää usealla tavalla.
Myöhästyi useana aamuna peräkkäin.
Yritin sitä useaan kertaan.

By the way the word tyylilajeja in the first phrase reminded me of when you told me we say "urheilulajeja" when talking about individual sports. Can you think of other examples of things whereby we'd use a plural word in English (styles, sports), but which are uncountable in Finnish?

I'm not sure what you mean since tyylilajeja is plural and countable.

I mean that you can't say tyylejä (or at least, you couldn't say urheiluja).