Central and Northern Ostrobothnian dialects (Finnish : Keski- ja Pohjois-Pohjanmaan murteet) are Western Finnish dialects spoken in Northern and Central Ostrobothnia, as well as in the Ranua municipality in Lapland. [1] The dialects have been influenced by the Savonian dialects, the influence is weaker at the coasts and stronger in the inland areas. [2]
While the letter D in standard Finnish makes the sound /d/, this sound is not used in most dialects of Finnish outside of loanwords. In the central and northern Ostrobothnian dialects, D is not pronounced - lehdet (leaves) is pronounced lehet. In some occasions, a /ʋ/, /j/ or /h/ may be inserted in its place, such as syvän, meijät and saaha (as opposed to standard sydän, meidät, saada).
The dialects of Kaustinen, Halsua and Veteli use an /r/ sound in the place of /d/, for example lehdet is pronounced like lehret. This is likely South Ostrobothnian influence, from the times before the Savonian expansion.
The Northern Ostrobothnian dialects use tt in its place, e.g. metsä (forest) is pronounced mettä. Consonant gradation does not affect it, therefore the genitive of mettä is mettän. The dialects of Utajärvi, Vaala and Ylikiiminki have consonant gradation for this sound, making the genitive in those dialects metän.
The Central Ostrobothnian dialects use the Savonian-like ht-pronunciation, e.g. mehtä. In the western parts of this dialect area, it is unaffected by consonant gradation (genitive mehtän), in the eastern parts it is affected (genitive metän).
The dialects of Kaustinen, Halsua and Veteli use a non-gradated ss here: messä, messän.
These diphthongs are pronounced as ua, yä and iä (e.g. nuari tyämiäs instead of nuori työmies, "young workman") in the city of Oulu and its surroundings all the way to Muhos, Kiiminki and Haukipudas. In this area, the feature is not as strong as it is in the Tavastian dialects, suggesting that this is a fairly late development.
Other Central and Northern Ostrobothnian dialects simply use the same pronunciations as the standard language.
Most central and northern Ostrobothnian dialects use the standard pronunciations for these diphthongs. However, reduced forms of these diphthongs (e.g. koira "dog" can be pronounced as koera) may be encountered in an area from Haapajärvi to Ylikiiminki near the Savonian dialectal area, making this an example of Savonian influence. [3]
An epenthetic vowel, usually called välivokaali or loisvokaali in Finnish, is present in all central and northern Ostrobothnian dialects, e.g. kylmä (cold) and lehmä (cow) are pronounced as kylymä, lehemä.
The h-sound after unstressed syllables can only be found in the southwesternmost parts of the dialect area. In Lohtaja, Himanka, Kannus and Toholampi it appears as lampahat, tupahan (standard lampaat, tupaan). A syncope form appears in Veteli, Kaustinen, Halsua and Ullava, e.g. lamphat, tuphan.
While in standard Finnish the inessive suffix is -ssa or -ssä depending on vowel harmony, a large part of the central and northern Ostrobothnian dialects use a shorter form -sa, -sä e.g. maasa, kyläsä instead of maassa, kylässä (in a/the land/ground, in a/the village).
Dialects on the eastern edges of the group, such as the dialect spoken in Haapajärvi, do not use this feature and simply use the standard-like maassa and kylässä.
These two vowels in the end of a word are most notably used to end various adjectives. In central and northern Ostrobothnia, these are pronounced as -ia and -iä instead, e.g. korkia and pimiä instead of korkea and pimeä (respectively "high" and "dark").
The dialects of Pudasjärvi and Ranua, however, use the -ea/-eä pronunciations. This may be influence from the dialects of Kainuu.
A shared possessive suffix -nna and nnä, for the first-person and second-person plural exists in some of these dialects, talonna, standard: talomme, talonne "our house, your (plural) house". [2]
In the city of Oulu the pronoun "nää" is used instead of the standard Finnish second person singular pronoun "sinä" . [4]
In grammar, the inessive case is a locative grammatical case. This case carries the basic meaning of "in": for example, "in the house" is talo·ssa in Finnish, maja·s in Estonian, куд·са in Moksha, etxea·n in Basque, nam·e in Lithuanian, sāt·ā in Latgalian and ház·ban in Hungarian.
Colloquial or spoken Finnish is the unstandardized spoken variety of the Finnish language, in contrast with the standardized form of the language. It is used primarily in personal communication and varies somewhat between the different dialects.
Unless otherwise noted, statements in this article refer to Standard Finnish, which is based on the dialect spoken in the former Häme Province in central south Finland. Standard Finnish is used by professional speakers, such as reporters and news presenters on television.
Veps, also known as Vepsian, is a Finnic language from the Uralic language family, that is spoken by Vepsians. The language is written in the Latin script, and is closely related to Finnish and Karelian.
Northern Bavarian is a dialect of Bavarian, together with Central Bavarian and Southern Bavarian. Bavarian is mostly spoken in the Upper Palatinate, although not in Regensburg, which is a primarily Central Bavarian–speaking area, according to a linguistic survey done in the late 1980s. According to the same survey, Northern Bavarian is also spoken in Upper Franconia, as well as in some areas in Upper and Lower Bavaria, such as in the areas around Eichstätt and Kelheim. Few speakers remained in the Czech Republic, mostly concentrated around Aš and Železná Ruda, at the time of the survey, but considering the time which has passed since the survey, the dialect may be extinct in those places today. If it still exists there, it would include the ostegerländische Dialektgruppe. Ethnologue estimates that there were 9,000 speakers of Bavarian in the Czech Republic in 2005, but does not clarify if these were Northern Bavarian speakers.
Ranua is a municipality of Finland. It is located in the province of Lapland. The municipality has a population of 3,599 and covers an area of 3,694.79 square kilometres (1,426.57 sq mi) of which 241.09 km2 (93.09 sq mi) is water. The population density is 1.04 inhabitants per square kilometre (2.7/sq mi).
Consonant gradation is a type of consonant mutation found in some Uralic languages, more specifically in the Finnic, Samic and Samoyedic branches. It originally arose as an allophonic alternation between open and closed syllables, but has become grammaticalised due to changes in the syllable structure of the languages affected.
Northern or North Sámi is the most widely spoken of all Sámi languages. The area where Northern Sámi is spoken covers the northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland. The number of Northern Sámi speakers is estimated to be somewhere between 15,000 and 25,000. About 2,000 of these live in Finland and between 5,000 and 6,000 in Sweden, with the remaining portions being in Norway.
The Finnic or Baltic Finnic languages constitute a branch of the Uralic language family spoken around the Baltic Sea by the Baltic Finnic peoples. There are around 7 million speakers, who live mainly in Finland and Estonia.
The Savonian dialects are forms of the Finnish language spoken in Savonia and other parts of Eastern Finland. Finnish dialects are grouped broadly into Eastern and Western varieties; Savonian dialects are of the Eastern variety.
Finnish is a Uralic language of the Finnic branch, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. Finnish is one of the two official languages of Finland, alongside Swedish. In Sweden, both Finnish and Meänkieli are official minority languages. The Kven language, which like Meänkieli is mutually intelligible with Finnish, is spoken in the Norwegian counties Troms and Finnmark by a minority group of Finnish descent.
Koillismaa is a subdivision of Northern Ostrobothnia and one of the Sub-regions of Finland since 2009.
Proto-Finnic or Proto-Baltic-Finnic is the common ancestor of the Finnic languages, which include the national languages Finnish and Estonian. Proto-Finnic is not attested in any texts, but has been reconstructed by linguists. Proto-Finnic is itself descended ultimately from Proto-Uralic.
Southwest Finnish dialects are Western Finnish dialects spoken in Southwest Finland and Satakunta.
Ostrobothnians are a subgroup of the Finnish people who live in the areas of the historical province of Ostrobothnia in the northwestern parts of Finland.
South Ostrobothnian dialect is a Western Finnish dialect. It is traditionally spoken in the region of South Ostrobothnia and parts of Coastal Ostrobothnia. The South Ostrobothnian dialect has many features that are unique to the region of South Ostrobothnia.
Värmland Finnish dialect is an extinct Savonian dialect spoken in Värmland by the Forest Finns. However some speakers also lived in Norway.
South Karelian dialects, Karelian dialects or Southeast Finnish dialects are Eastern Finnish dialects spoken in South Karelia, along with eastern parts of Kymenlaakso. Prior to the Winter War, the dialects were spoken along the Karelian Isthmus and Ingria. However, the South Karelian dialect speakers from the parts of Karelia taken by the Soviet Union were evacuated into the rest of Finland where their speech was assimilated into the new environment. Use of the Ingrian dialects is declining.
Tavastian dialects are Western Finnish dialects spoken in parts of Western and Southern Finland. The dialect spoken in the city of Tampere is part of the Tavastian dialects. The Tavastian dialects have influenced other Finnish dialects.
Kainuu dialect is a dialect of Finnish spoken in Kainuu, Vaala, Koillismaa, Posio and Ranua. It belongs to the Savonian dialects, or more broadly, the eastern dialects of Finnish. Due to the region's close ties to North Ostrobothnia, the dialect has been influenced in vocabulary by Central and Northern Ostrobothnian dialects and vice versa.