Hi! I’m Josh, a non-native learner of Finnish from the UK. When I was a wee bit under a year into learning Finnish, I fell down a rabbit hole of speaking in a very particular way: in the South Ostrobothnian dialect – Eteläpohjanmaan murre. More than a year and a half later, I’m yet to have found a way back to the standard language, and I’ve come to adore this dialect and study it intensely. Very kindly, Inge has even agreed for me to write an article about it here on her website! So here goes…

1. Background

The South Ostrobothnian dialect (Etelä-Pohjanmaan murre) is a dialect (murre) of the Finnish language, spoken mostly in the region (maakunta) of South Ostrobothnia (Etelä-Pohjanmaa), as well as some parts of coastal Ostrobothnia (Pohjanmaa) and the municipality (kunta) of Karvia in Satakunta.

It is one of Finland’s so-called Western dialects (länsimurteet) and is notable for having relatively clear geographical boundaries (that is, you’ll definitely know whether you’re in a South Ostrobothnian -speaking region or not) and being more internally consistent (yhtenäinen) than most other Finnish dialects, which form a more varied continuum. For this reason, the terms “dialect” and “dialects” are used interchangeably, which is highly unusual for other regional varieties of Finnish.

That said, there are still some differences depending on where in South Ostrobothnia you are. As I’m most familiar with how the dialect is spoken in Seinäjoki, the regional capital (maakunnan pääkaupunki) of South Ostrobothnia, I have tended to focus on variants of the dialect found in the vicinity of Seinäjoki: that is, as it is spoken in Seinäjoki itself, in Lapua, in Ilmajoki and in “Kyrö” (by which I mean both Kyrönmaa and Isokyrö).

South Ostrobothnia and its dialect have perhaps the strongest reputation (maine) and image (mielikuva) in Finnish culture of any region. In the 19th century, it was associated with lawlessness (laittomuus) and knife-wielding desperados (häjy, puukkojunkkari). The region has long been associated with arable farming (peltoviljely) due to its flat plains (lakeus) making it suitable for agriculture (maanviljely). South Ostrobothnians (eteläpohjalainen) are generally seen as strong-willed (vahvatahtoinen), entrepreneurial (yritteliäs), direct (suorapuheinen), though sometimes brazen (röyhkeä) and rednecklike (juntti).

2. Phonological features

2.1 Epenthesis – epenteesi

Vowel epenthesis (epenteesi), also known as anaptyxis (anaptyksis), is the insertion of a schwa vowel (svaavokaali) into a word, usually to aid pronunciation. In South Ostrobothnian dialects, this occurs only in certain consonant clusters and only after a stressed syllable (painollinen tavu). This is almost always between the first and second syllable.

Vowel epenthesis can definitely occur in:

Note in the table that -d- becomes -r- in South Ostrobothnia, so -hd- becomes -hr- and so on. This is discussed in section 2.5.

Epenthesis is more pronounced in the dialects of Seinäjoki, Lapua and especially Ilmajoki. In Kyrö, it is somewhat more subtle, and occasionally speakers will insert a schwa-vowel of the type of the following syllable, rather than the preceding one, e.g. kylämä instead of kylymä.

2.2. Vowel changes: diphthong loosening

Certain diphthongs (diftongi), or more specifically vowel sequences (vokaaliyhtymä) can become widened (avartua) a.k.a. loosened (väljentyä). When we say a vowel widens or loosens, it means that the tongue is held further from the roof of the mouth when pronouncing the vowel. This can mean that the vowel moves from being close (suppea) to being open (väljä). In South Ostrobothnia, the vowel sequences -oa-, -öä-, -uo-, -yö-, -ie- and -eA- become -ua-, -yä-, -ua-, -yä-, -iA- and -iA- respectively, due to this diphthong loosening.

The -UO/UA- change is however not observed further south in South Ostrobothnia; it is not attested in the municipalities (kunnat) around Alavus, Ähtäri and the Suupohja.

2.3. Vowel changes: diphthong straightening

In unstressed (painoton) syllables, vowel sequences (vokaaliyhtymä) of the form -Vi- change.  The sequence undergoes straightening (oikeneminen) such that -Vi- becomes -VV-.

This can sometimes make the forms ambiguous, since the imperfect third person singular of certain verbs then looks the same as the present tense, like for sanoa as shown in the table: hän sanoo could equally mean “(s)he says” or “(s)he said” in South Ostrobothnia.

This differs from more mainstream colloquial Finnish, particularly dialects closer to Uusimaa and the Helsinki region, where the -i- tends instead to be dropped altogether. For instance, the suffix -kaltainen is often –kaltaanen in the South Ostrobothnian dialect, but –kaltanen in Uusimaa.

2.4. Vowel changes: –tOn → –tOOn

The negating suffix -tOn lengthens in the South Ostrobothnian dialect to –tOOn. This is really the Proto-Finnic form –tOin. In standard Finnish, the –i– from –tOin disappeared, while in South Ostrobothnia the –Oi– diphthong has undergone straightening rather than just disappearing, as discussed in section 2.3.

This lengthening of the –O– only takes place when the preceding –t– is in the weak grade; namely, in the nominative singular, partitive singular and the genitive plural ending –ten. Otherwise, the inflected forms have the same endings as in the standard language. For example, in the standard language ajaton becomes ajattomat in the nominative plural. In South Ostrobothnia, the nominative singular is ajatoon, but the plural is still ajattomat; there is no ajattoomat.

2.5. Consonant changes: –d- → –r-

As discussed here, most dialects do not pronounce -d- as it is in standard Finnish. South Ostrobothnian dialects are no exception; –d- is instead –r-.

2.6. Consonant changes: -ts- → -tt-

Like in many dialects, particularly Western dialects (länsimurteet), -ts- can be replaced by -tt-. Be careful: -st- doesn’t change.

In South Ostrobothnia, this -tt- does not undergo consonant gradation when words like this get inflected. So for example, mettä becomes mettän in the genitive singular and mettästä in the elative singular, since in the standard language the –ts– wouldn’t gradate either. This is different to some other dialects, where the –tt– does in fact gradate to –t-.

2.7. Consonant changes: preserved –h-

If we go back in the history of the Finnish language, we can trace the features of Finnish back to when it was only Proto-Finnic: the common ancestor of the Finnish, Estonian, Livonian and Karelian languages. From this we know, that certain words used to contain an -h-, which it has since largely disappeared. For example, we can reliably say that the word vene used to actually be veneh.

Nowadays, most Finns associate the preservation of the -h- with the dialects of Lapland (Lappi), but it has also mostly endured in South Ostrobothnia. It is preserved in:

You may ask why homeeseen becomes homeesehen rather than homehesehen, and why väsyneeseen became väsyneesehen rather than väsynehesehen. This is deliberate. The -h- has been partially deleted even in South Ostrobothnia in many people’s speech when it would be expected to appear. In my experience, people always drop the first -h- and opt to retain the final one, the one which arises due to the illative. I suppose homehesehen became too much of a mouthful even for the South Ostrobothnians. There are some historical sources (e.g. from 1871) where forms like this are mentioned as current features of the dialect, e.g. venehesehen.

2.8. Consonant changes: –j- → –i-

A lot of the time, words written with –j- in the standard language are pronounced as though they were written with –i-. This is why, as we noted in section 2.1, the consonant cluster -lj- doesn’t undergo epenthesis like many similar clusters, because it undergoes this consonant change instead.

2.9. More general spoken language features present in the South Ostrobothnian dialects

Here are some features which are present in the South Ostrobothnian dialects, but mostly because they are common features of spoken Finnish more widely:

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3. Grammatical features

3.1. Inessive forms (S-missä)

The inessive case is marked in the standard language by the suffix -ssA. In South Ostrobothnian dialects, this does not have to be the case. The standard -ssA can often be replaced by the clipped suffix -s, though this is more rare in the last word of a clause, or in a word which the speaker chooses to stress.

3.1.1. Inessive with possessive suffixes

When a noun in the inessive also receives a possessive suffix, the historical marker -snA is used instead of -ssA or, much more rarely, -hnA.

3.1.2. Additional exceptions

You may realise that these excptions are all instances of the rare -hnA inessive suffix, where the -hn- is broken up by an epenthesis (epenteesi). There’s some more discussion of this suffix (and about inessive suffices in general) on this webpage.

*the variant forms johnakuhna/johonakuhuna are considerably rarer but are also attested.

3.1.3. Inessive plural of words ending in -i

Words ending in -i in Kotus types 5 and 6 inflect differently in the inessive plural (monikon inessiivi). The plural inessive of these words ends in -iis(sA).

As you see in the table, words ending in -i which decline like ovi, i.e. those which belong to Kotus type 7, inflect in the inessive plural (monikon inessiivi) in the same way that they do in the standard language; ovi becomes ovissa and so on. This wordtype is the ones that have an -e- in a lot of their singular forms: e.g. ovi inflects as ovet, oven, ovessa and so on.

3.2. Adessive adverbs of location

The adverbs of location siellä, täällä and (less frequently) tuolla can often be replaced by siälä, täälä and tuala respectively. This is an example of syncope (sisäheitto), and is not used more widely outside these particular adverbs.

Also, be careful: tualla still exists in the sense of “tuolla on… – that person has…”; here the syncope does not take place. The syncopal “tuala” is strictly reserved for the adverbial form. So “that man, the one standing over there, has a peculiar name” is “tualla miähellä, joka tuala seisoo, on erikoonen nimi.”

3.3. Genitive plural forms

The genitive plural (monikon genetiivi) form of certain types of nouns has two possibilities: –iden and –itten. Given that –itten is generally seen as the more dialectal of the two forms, it may be surprising that South Ostrobothnian dialects exclusively choose –iden. That said, remember from section 2.5, this will become -iren in our dialect, and from section 2.3. that unstressed diphthongs undergo straightening.

3.4. Partitive plural forms: variant pattern

A variant dialectal partitive plural form for wordtype B words ending -e (hame-types), -as and -is (is-ii types) and NUT-participles evolved in South Ostrobothnia at some point alongside the standard –itA ending, of the form –hiA.

3.5. Degrees of comparison: variations

3.5.1. Comparative adjectives

The nominative singular form of comparative adjectives differs from standard Finnish in the South Ostrobothnian dialects. The more recognisable –mpi ending is instead –VV(t), usually –ee(t). In the dialects of Lapua and Kyrö, the –ee form is preferred, whereas in those of Seinäjoki and Ilmajoki, –eet is more common.

These variant patterns do not continue when the adjectives are further declined; the genitive singular of parempi (pareet) is paremman in the dialects as well, and so on.

3.5.2. Superlative forms

Most words use the superlative forms as they exist in standard Finnish. The word pitkä inflects as pitkä – piree(t) – pisin, and the word mukava inflects as mukava – mukavee(t) – mukavin. There are however three notable exceptions in South Ostrobothnia.

3.6. Third person possessive suffix

In standard Finnish the suffixes -nsA and -An both indicate 3rd person possession. In South Ostrobothnia however, the -An suffix is never used.

3.7. Third person singular conjugation: –ee → -OO

Type 3, type 5 and type 6 verbs and the type 2 verbs nähdä and tehdä see their third person singular present tense ending shift from -ee to -OO.

3.8. Plural verb conjugation

3.8.1. First and second person plural: -mme and -tte

In the dialects of Seinäjoki and Lapua, the first and second person plural verb endings become -mmA and -ttA respectively. In the dialect of Kyrö, the second person plural verb ending is traditionally -jA. In addition, the me-passiivi from other dialects is also in active use in South Ostrobothnia.

Like in the standard language, some type 3 verbs often see the consonant after their first syllable elide, so you may often here meemmä instead of menemmä, tuumma instead of tulemma, etc.

3.8.2. Third person plural

The third person plural verb forms can vary considerably depending on the region.

3.9. The imperfect tense

The imperfect tense describes the simple past: events that happened in the past and are now completely over. Its usage is the same in the standard language, but it can sometimes have different conjugation patterns in South Ostrobothnia.

3.9.1. Doubling of the imperfect’s –i–

For verbs where the present and imperfect forms mostly look the same in the standard language, the imperfect can have a second -i-. These verbs are Kotus type 61.

This feature means that most of the forms are no longer ambiguous, except in the third person singular, where the present and imperfect forms are now ambiguous.

I’ve left out the second and third person plural forms from this table because they can vary so much in their endings, as we saw in section 3.8. They do still undergo this change, however.

Historically, the short -ida verbs (voida, soida, uida) are attested to have undergone this change as well, so we had fun forms like mää voiin for I was able. These have since sadly fallen out of use.

3.9.2. Changes to the imperfect’s –si–

In standard Finnish, there are certain verbtype 1 verbs whose imperfect stem has or can have the suffix –si. This imperfect conjugation pattern is believed to have come through the Eastern dialects (itämurteet) of Finnish, and as such is not traditionally Western.

In South Ostrobothnian dialects, forms without -si are quite common, even for those verbs such as löytää for which such a form didn’t make it into standard Finnish. However, contact with the standard language means some of the –si forms are slowly replacing their dialectal variants; many now opt for vihelsin instead of vihellin, for example. The one exception I’m aware of where – even in the South Ostrobothnian dialects – the ti > si change does take place is tietää. This verb does actually conjugate as tiäsin rather than the fictitious “tiärin” that we might expect. I don’t know why this is an exception.

*So far as I am aware, the long -ii- in löyriin is a standalone exception for a verb whose present and imperfect stems are not the same.

3.10. Conjugation of the verb olla

The verb olla has its own conjugation pattern in the South Ostrobothnian dialects. Also, the personal pronouns can elide (elisio) with the verb forms. This is variably marked with or without an apostrophe in different sources, so the last column could equally as well have read m’oon, s’oot and so on.

Elision of the personal pronouns is a general phenomenon in South Ostrobothnian dialects, among others, and can occur with any verb, not just olla. It can in principle arise in any tense and mood.

3.11. Verbs ending in -istA → -AjAA

The ending of verbs in verbtype 5, Kotus type 66, whose third person singular present form ends in -Cisee (C denoting a consonant, so we exclude verbs like laukaista which ends with -aisee) can change to -AjAA in South Ostrobothnian dialects. This specifically happens to verbs which are onomatopoeic or sound-symbolic. These -AjAA verbs can be created on the fly – the suffix is productive in the spoken dialectal language of South Ostrobothnia.

This form is considered both the infinitive and the third person singular present tense, and it can be conjugated; “it started to shake” could be se alakoo täräjämähän.

3.12. Verbs ending in -OidA

Long verbtype 2 verbs, which end in –OidA in standard Finnish, follow a variant pattern in South Ostrobothnian dialects. They have the ending -OOttiA instead. This pattern is not attested in short verbs – voida, soida and uida are just voira, soira and uira.

The –OidA ending can still be used for the infinitive, so a South Ostrobothnian could say tupakootten for the first person singular present but still say tupakoida (rather than tupakoottia) for the infinitive, for example.

It may appear unusual that the present tense endings have an –e– (tupakootten) and the imperfect (tupakoottin) has an –i-. This is due to the fact that tupakoottia ends in –ia because of a phonological diphthong loosening of the type discussed in section 2.2, rather than a grammatical change. So tupakootten is I smoke, and tupakoottin is I smoked. Also, the –tt– doesn’t undergo consonant gradation, which might also surprise you; this is because the –tt– is also a phonological change, of the type discussed in section 2.6, whereby –ts– becomes –tt-.

If we suspend the phonological features of our dialects for a moment, we’ll see tupakoottia is in fact the same form as tupakoitsea. This is why our present endings have an –e– rather than an –i-, and why the –tt– doesn’t gradate. A similar form is attested in dialects outside of South Ostrobothnia, and even made it indirectly into standard Finnish, in the derived noun tupakoitsija, which people still use today.

3.13. Clitics and the second person singular

When the clitics (liitepartikkeli) –pa/-pä, –ko/-kö, –ka/-kä or –kin/-kaan/-kään are added to the second person singular, the consonant cluster (konsonanttiyhtymä) -tp- or -tk- undergoes cluster reduction and becomes -pp- or -kk- respectively.

It is quite common to drop the –n from the –kin/-kaan/-kään clitics in South Ostrobothnian dialects.

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4. Analysis of some single words

Throughout this article there are words which undergo multiple changes. I have tried to highlight the change relevant to the section each word is in, so you can focus on the task at hand. Here, I have taken a sample of such words and completely untangled them, so you can break down everything that’s happening.

5. Vocabulary typical for the South Ostrobothnian dialect

Here is a list of vocabulary used in South Ostrobothnia. Most words do not appear at all in the standard language; in a few cases, the word appears in both, but with different meanings. In my experience, typically Finns outside South Ostrobothnia rarely understand any of these words just from context!

Disclaimer: My native dialect is British English and so I have used that in writing the English translations. I’m aware this is not necessarily the most common localisation among L2 English speakers, so I’ve added a ‘standard Finnish’ translation column to help avoid confusion. Hopefully this is a nice addition for our native Finns reading this as well 🙂

*kaikales is a form of wood used for fire-starting (sytyttää tuli). It’s smaller than a billet (klapi, halko), but a bit rougher and coarser than conventional tinder (sytyke).

**toosa was relatively common in sources from roughly around the mid-20th century, when radio and later the television first became popular. Nowadays, this word has rather more vulgar connotations in colloquial Finnish, so it’s largely fallen out of use for the meaning listed in the table.

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6. Example sentences

Here are some example sentences which make use of the phonological and grammatical changes we’ve studied and the vocabulary we’ve learnt. They all come from native speakers across South Ostrobothnia.

A South Ostrobothnian saying (sanonta): “En mää täyrellinen oo, musta puuttuu kaikki viat.”
Meaning: “I am not perfect, for I lack all faults.”  Typical South Ostrobothnian self-confidence!

Related links

Related posts:

Traktori Raktori – Stressi Ressi – Consonant Clusters in Finnish Spoken Language Passive Overview Finnish Spoken Language Pronunciation Spoken Language Articles Overview