Short notes on Finnish

Finnish, the mother tongue of approximately 5 million people, belongs to the Finno-Ugric language family. Finnish is written with the Swedish variant of the Latin alphabet which includes the letters ä and ö, as well as other characters such as c, q, and, å, which are not used in native Finnish words. Finnish orthography is built upon the phonetic principle that each distinct sound of the language is represented by exactly one independent letter. This makes the language easy for its speakers to spell and facilitates learning to read and write. The rule of thumb for Finnish orthography is: write as you read, read as you write.

One distinguishing characteristic of Finnish is that it modifies and inflects the forms of nouns, adjectives, pronouns and verbs, depending on their roles in the sentence. Finnish has fifteen noun cases: six grammatical cases, six locative cases, and three marginal cases. As an example of the complexities of the Finnish declination system,
it is possible to form the Finnish noun “kauppa,” which means “shop” in English - or any other noun for that matter - in 2253 ways!

Short notes on English

British and American English are the reference norms for English as spoken, written and taught throughout. Although the English used in the former British Empire is based on standard British English, most of the countries concerned have developed their own unique dialects, particularly with respect to pronunciation, idioms, and vocabulary; chief among them are Canadian English and Australian English, which rank third and fourth in number of native speakers.

The American variety of English ranks first in number of native speakers. Like British English, it too has produced regional dialects with an unofficial standard called General American or Standard Midwestern English, the English that one most typically hears in national news broadcasts regardless of the region. Written American English is fairly well standardized across the United States and the overwhelming majority of its grammatical forms are in general agreement with standard written British English.

Noted among the distinct characteristics of English are its highly irregular spelling system; its complex system of 12 verb tenses; its complicated usage of articles; and its rich vocabulary estimated at half a million words to 1 million words if including scientific terminology.

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