The colloquial language has mostly developed naturally from earlier forms of Finn

ish, and spread from the main cultural and political centres. The standard langu
age, however, has always been a consciously constructed medium for literature. I
t preserves grammatical patterns that have mostly vanished from the colloquial v
arieties and, as its main application is writing, it features complex syntactic
patterns that are not easy to handle when used in speech. The colloquial languag
e develops significantly faster, and the grammatical and phonological simplifica
tions also include the most common pronouns and suffixes, which sum up to freque
nt but modest differences. Some sound changes have been left out of the formal l
anguage, such as the irregularization of some common verbs by assimilation, e.g.
tule- tuu- ('come', only when the second syllable is short, so the third person
singular does not contract: hn tulee 'he comes', never *hn tuu; also mene- mee-).
However, the longer forms such as tule can be used in spoken language in other
forms as well.
The literary language certainly still exerts a considerable influence upon the s
poken word, because illiteracy is nonexistent and many Finns are avid readers. I
n fact, it is still not entirely uncommon to meet people who "talk book-ish" (pu
huvat kirjakielt); it may have connotations of pedantry, exaggeration, moderation
, weaseling or sarcasm (somewhat like heavy use of Latinate words in English: co
mpare the difference between saying "There's no children I will leave it to" and
"There are no children unto whom I shall leave it".). More common is the intrus
ion of typically literary constructions into a colloquial discourse, as a kind o
f quote from written Finnish. It should also be noted that it is quite common to
hear book-like and polished speech on radio or TV, and the constant exposure to
such language tends to lead to the adoption of such constructions even in every
day language.

A prominent example of the effect of the standard language is the development of

the consonant gradation form /ts : ts/ as in mets : metsn, as this pattern was or
iginally (1940) found natively only in the dialects of southern Karelian isthmus
and Ingria. It has been reinforced by the spelling 'ts' for the dental fricativ
e [], used earlier in some western dialects. The spelling and the pronunciation en
couraged by it however approximate the original pronunciation, still reflected e
.g. in Karelian / : / (me : men). In spoken language, a fusion of Western /tt : tt/ (
t : mettn) and Eastern /ht : t/ (meht : metn) has been created: /tt : t/ (mett : metn)
.[19] It is notable that neither of these forms are identifiable as, or originat
e from, a specific dialect.
The orthography of the informal language follows that of the formal language. Ho
wever, sometimes sandhi may be transcribed, especially the internal ones, e.g. m
enenp menemp. This never takes place in formal language.
Examples
formal language
collo uial language
meaning
he menevt ne menee
"they go" (loss of distinction of animacy and th
e difference between the plural and the singular)
onko teill
o(n)ks teil(l)
"do you (pl.) have?" (apocope)
(me) emme sano
me ei sanota
"we don't say" or "we won't say" (the fi
rst person plural is replaced with the passive voice)
(minun) kirjani
mun kirja
"my book" (possessive suffix not used)
kuusikymmentviisi kuuskyt()viis "sixty-five" (abbreviated forms of numbe
rs)
min tulen m tuun
"I'm coming" or "I will come" (irregular verb, no pro-dr
opping)
punainen
punane(n) or punaine
"red" (unstressed diphthong becomes a sh
ort vowel)
korjannee kai korjaa
"probably will fix" (absence of the potential mo
od)
hyv huomenta
huomenta
good morning

Note that there are noticeable differences between dialects. Also note that here
the formal language does not mean a language spoken in formal occasions but the
standard language which exists practically only in written form.
Phonology
Main article: Finnish phonology
Characteristic features of Finnish (common to some other Uralic languages) are v
owel harmony and an agglutinative morphology; owing to the extensive use of the
latter, words can be uite long.
The main stress is always on the first syllable, and it is articulated by adding
approximately 100 ms more length to the stressed vowel.[20] Stress does not cau
se any measurable modifications in vowel uality (very much unlike English). How
ever, stress is not strong and words appear evenly stressed. In some cases, stre
ss is so weak that the highest points of volume, pitch and other indicators of "
articulation intensity" are not on the first syllable, although native speakers
recognize the first syllable as a stressed syllable.
There are eight vowels, whose lexical and grammatical role is highly important,
and which are unusually strictly controlled, so that there is almost no allophon
y. Vowels are shown in the table below, followed by the IPA symbol. These are al
ways different phonemes in the initial syllable; for noninitial syllable, see mo
rphophonology below. There is no close-mid/open-mid distinction, with true mid o
r open-mid being used in all cases.