also our in s collection book. -----> Also in our libraries

Derived words

Derivation is the process of forming new words from an existing word, often by adding an affix, i.e., an additional element placed at the beginning or end of a root, stem, word, or in the body of a word, to modify its meaning. The derived words may or may not change the part of speech of their base words.

Over 50% of all Finnish words are derived words. There are about 200 derivative endings, but only 75 are rulebound and fully productive. They

• • • come from any part of speech, e.g., verbs to nouns, verbs to adjectives, verbs to verbs, nouns to nouns, nouns to adjectives, etc.

    • are recursive, that is, several derivational elements can be added to the base word, one after the other:

puhua (to speak) > puhella (to speak back and forth, to chat) > puhelin (device to chat with, phone) > puhe (speech) > puhelias (talkative) etc.

suuri (big, large, great) > suurentaa (enlarge) > suurennus (enlargement) > suurennella (exaggerate)

The longest non-compound (a single stem with prefixes and suffixes) Finnish word recognised by the Guinness Book of Records is epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydellänsäkäänköhän, based on the stem järki (reason, sanity), and meaning: I wonder if – even using his/her unsystematic way.

There is hardly any järki in that!!

But there are single long derived words that would require several English words to convey the same meaning. Söisinköhän ...? for instance, would translate something like I wonder if I should eat...?

Rakastelisimmekohan?

This word means "I wonder if we should make love?". I just love that you can say it with one word. Here's how it works. You probably know the verb "rakastaa" meaning "to love". Well "rakastella" means "to love back and forth, to have sex".

So, then we have the "-isi-" part. This signals that the verb is in the conditional form. "rakastelisimme" means "we would make love back and forth "

"-ko" then makes it into a question and "-han" is like saying "maybe".

Therefore "rakastelisimmekohan" becomes "I wonder if we should maybe, possibly, make love".

Brilliant!

Compounded words

Compounding occurs when two or more words are joined to make one longer word. The first part modifies the second but neither part alone conveys the intended meaning, e.g., toothpaste, workday, moonshine, life-threatening, etc.

Finnish loves compound words. Over 50 percent of dictionary items are compounds which are also productively used in texts. Long compounds are characteristic of Finnish, e.g., asianajaja - attorney (asia=matter, ajaja=driver), huutokauppa – auction, literally “shouting trade/shop”, kirkollisveronkierto - evasion of church tax (kirkko=church, kirkollis- adjective of pertaining to church, vero=tax, kierto=going around).

Particles