Everything about Helsinki Slang totally explained
Helsinki slang or
slangi is a local variation of the
Finnish language mainly used in the capital
Helsinki.
Helsinki slang is based on colloquial Finnish (
puhekieli, see
spoken Finnish). It's characterized by a large amount of words borrowed from originally Swedish and Russian, nowadays chiefly English,
etymologies replacing common everyday
nouns,
verbs and
adjectives.
The borrowed words may violate phonological rules of the Finnish language, such as
vowel harmony. They also include phonemes /b/, /d/ and /g/ and consonant clusters such as /sn/ rarely found in other dialects. Yet the words remain indisputably Finnish, incorporating Finnish grammar and mostly obeying
Finnish phonotactics. Some rather arbitrary, but creative and distinctly Finnish expressive constructions are often used, for example
päräyttävä.
Furthermore, arbitrary modifications are found — these make the resulting slang words alien both to the speakers of regular Finnish and the borrowing language. For example, Finland-Swedish (Sipoo dialect)
burk "cranky" is modified into
spurgu "wino", where the added 's' is arbitrary, as is the voicing change of 'k' to 'g'. Derivation of
fillari from
velociped is even more convoluted:
velociped in the Swedish language game
fikonspråk is
filociped-vekon, which became
filusari and further
fillari — only the 'l' is etymologically original. In fact, the newer abbreviation of
fillari to
fiude loses even the 'l'.
Helsinki slang dates back to the late
19th century, when Helsinki was about 50% Swedish-speaking and the capital of the
Grand Duchy of Finland of Imperial Russia. For these reasons, older slang words come from the three languages Finnish, Swedish and Russian — about 75–80% of "old slang" words have Swedish etymologies, 5% Russian and the rest Finnish. The slang was widely used especially in working class areas before the
Winter War, but it only became really popular in the
1950s among young men who wanted to rebel against their parents and impress young women. Today, Helsinki slang has all but lost its "tough guy" image, and thanks to a recent trend of media portrayal in good light and various slang books, it has become something of a cultural phenomenon and research interest.
Although like any local variation, Helsinki slang constantly evolves, most adult speakers of Helsinki slang still consider the 1950s version the "real" slang. By far the most of the slang words right up to the
1980s come from
Swedish and
Russian. Since the
1990s, because of globalisation and the prominence of the
Internet, new slang words have usually come from
English, but these are considered neologisms at best and sucking-up to
Americans at worst, by adult speakers who grew up with 1950s-style slang. Nevertheless, even if words are loaned, they're modified to conform to the phonotactics of the language, though as noted, the phonotactics are slightly different from typical colloquial Finnish.
Helsinki slang isn't to be confused with
Finglish, which is a completely different phenomenon, and doesn't originate in Helsinki.
Helsinkians themselves never refer to their slang as "Helsinki slang" but instead as "stadin slangi".
Stadi is a slang word, coming from the Swedish
stad (city), so taken literally, the name would mean "slang of the city", but Helsinkians have a steadfast opinion that
only Helsinki may be called "stadi", the other cities are referred to by the normal Finnish word for "city",
kaupunki. In addition, the only name Helsinkians use to refer to Helsinki itself is
stadi. Calling the city by its more obvious colloquial form,
Hesa, is taken as sign of non-Helsinkian, even rural, background. As a tardy counterstrike, the natives of the city
Espoo, the immediate western neighbour of Helsinki, colloquially refer to Helsinki as
Kaupunki.
Helsinki slang is a vivid phenomenon, and while many current loans come from
English, it's likely that in the future the
Russian and
Estonian influence, due to immigration, will again be remarkable. As many of the children of the Somali refugees, who immigrated in Helsinki in the early 1990s are now in their teens and early adulthood, also certain
Somali loans have found their way on the Helsinki slang vocabulary.
Distinctive marks
Helsinki slang originally began as a
pidgin language of Finnish, Swedish and Russian. During the rapid growth period in the late
19th century Helsinki was swollen with Finnish-, Swedish- and Russian-speaking immigrants, who seldom understood each other. The original slang was a
lingua franca which enabled people, especially children, to intercommunicate and be understood. It basically had Finnish grammar with heavy influence of Swedish and Russian vocabulary.
When the children grew up, they incorporated certain aspects of pronunciation and linguistic in their speech. Early slang was expressively a male phenomenon: it was inherited from fathers to sons. Since
World War II, girls and women have picked slang just as well in their speech, and today there's no gender difference or distinction between the speakers. Slang is most vivid in those districts where children and youth are most abundant: the youth keep it living.
Some distinctive aspects in Helsinki slang are:
- Very swift pace of pronunciation and speech
- The voiced consonants /b d ɡ/, which are rare in Standard Finnish, are abundant: budjaa (to dwell), brakaa (to break), dorka (dork), duuni (work), gimma (girl), goisaa (to sleep). Many speakers, though, use several of these words with voiceless /p t k/: prakaa, kimma, koisaa.
- Consonant clusters in the beginning of words, which appear natively only on south-western Finnish dialects, are commonplace, like Stadi (Helsinki), glesa (sick), skeglu (knife), flinda (bottle)
- Shortened or diminutive forms of words. Common noun endings used include -is (fleggis 'open fire', kondis 'condition'), -ari (Hesari 'the street Helsinginkatu' or 'the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat', snagari 'sausage stand') and -de (krunde and klande 'heads and tails' (< Standard Finnish "kruuna" and "klaava" 'ibid.'))
- Slang and foreign word roots don't conform to vowel harmony, although their suffixes do (Sörkka, Sörkasta pro Sörkkä, Sörkästä < Sörnäinen), Tölika pro "Tölikä"' < Töölö, byysat pro "byysät" (trousers)). This doesn't affect native Finnish words.
- With some speakers this goes even further; Standard Finnish /æ/ and /ɑ/ appear to be merging as /a/.
- Surplus S appearing in beginning of words, forming consonant clusters: stoge (train), skoude (policeman)
- Disappearance (optional) of the negation ei in negative expressions: Te mihkää mee pro "Ette te mihinkään mene" (You won't go anywhere!)
- Ceceo or lisp on /s/, pronouncing it as a sharp, dental /s̪/, or even /θ/ as in English thing. This is considered an effeminate feature, but appears sometimes also on males' speech.
Usage and examples
Slang words in Helsinki slang obey normal Finnish grammar, regardless of their etymology. However, Helsinki slang is always both spoken and written as colloquial Finnish,
never as properly grammatical
kirjakieli (see
spoken Finnish). For example, "can you put that in order?" is "
voitsä duunaa ton kondiksee?" in Helsinki slang, where
duunaa (to do, to make) and
kondis (condition, order, working) are slang words. Trying to write the sentence in "properly grammatical" form, as *"
voitko (sinä) duunata tuon kondikseen?", would be erroneous.
Due to its pidgin origins and nature, Helsinki slang has also been used by the Swedish speaking minority in Helsinki, often spoken in the same manner and mixing it into the Swedish language. The earlier example "can you put that in order?" would be "
kan du duuna dendä' kondiksee?" when spoken by a Swedish speaking Finn. This kind of mixing nowadays also extends to Finnish-Swedish bilingual speakers in the metropolitan area who don't speak Helsinki slang proper, and is then known as 'grani-speak', the name deriving from the municipality of
Kauniainen (
Grankulla in Swedish) with a larger proportion of Swedish speakers than in the cities of Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa.
Some literary works in Helsinki slang can contain long sentences with a large density of slang words. Examples include "
Hei sporakuski, stikkaa dörtsi posee, tääl on galsa blosis, bonjaatsä?" (meaning "Hey, tram driver, close the door, it's a cold wind in here, you understand?", from the
Viivi & Wagner comics) and "
Kelaa,
snadi jeesaaja, kui
iisii täl ois
stedaa" (meaning "Think, little helper, how easy it would be to clean with this", from
Sami Garam's slang version of
Donald Duck). (Helsinki slang words are shown in
bold, the rest are "generic colloquial" Finnish).
Further Information
Get more info on 'Helsinki Slang'.
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