Jenni Tuominen
A FAST-US-1 (TRENPP2A)
Introduction to American English First Paper
The FAST Area Studies Program
Department of Translation Studies, University of Tampere
The Definition of Finglish
The term "Finglish" was coined in the late 1920s by Professor Martti Nisonen at Suomi College in Hancock, Michigan to describe a linguistic phenomenon he encountered in America. As the term implies, Finglish is a mixture of English and Finnish. In Finglish the English lexical items are being nativized and inserted into the framework of Finnish syntax and morphology. Finglish is spoken in daily linguistic contact between Finnish speaking immigrants and speakers of English. Finglish is found in any English-speaking country that has allowed largescale immigration from Finland.
History of the Finns in the USA
Finglish has been developing since the beginning of the 1900s. Finns began arriving in the 1890s and 1900s, usually going to mines and farms. Most of the 300,000 Finns moved to Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin. The largest clusters that formed were around lumber mill, mining, and smelter towns. That is why Finglish had lots of words concerning mining, lumber mills and also farming.
In Butte, Montana, the Finnish miners crowded into their own districts, with Slavs, Italians, and Irish as neighbors. The Finns created a town within a town. They ran big public sauna baths, boarding houses, and many bars, barbershops, and stores. Now in Butte there are only few Finns, due to the loss of jobs. The underground mining of copper has given way to open pit mining, turning the city into a giant crater and scattering its old residents. The Helsinki Bar is all that is left of once colorful Finntown.
The Finglish Speech Community
The main characteristic of immigrant speech communities is that the dominant language of the speakers is the language they brought with them from their country of origin. It is the language that English will, in time, transform in accordance with its own structure and the background of individual speakers. In Astoria, Oregon, for example, the speakers ranged from Finnish monolinguals (who did not speak enough English to cope with their daily lives) to English-dominant bilinguals whose knowledge of Finnish varied depending on their background.
The two defining features of a speech community are
- a shared language variety and
- homogeneous norms for its use.
Finglish is unique to this type of community because neither Finnish nor English speakers are able to comprehend it. As for shared norms, Finglish speakers use their speech variety within the community, but become very conscious of their speech when communicating with either Americans or Finns. On such occasions they try to shift respectively toward English or Finnish as much as possible
In 1979, the community in Astoria consisted of approximately 150 Finglish speakers. The social composition of the community reflected the realities of immigration in general. A typical immigrant in Astoria had come to America to seek the material success of which he was deprived in the Old Country due to a lack of education or professional training. Therefore most of them neither spoke English nor had an opportunity to study before their arrival. Since Astoria afforded only limited opportunities for those who did not speak English, it was natural that the newcomers mainly worked in plywood mills or canning factories.
Among the Finnish immigrants, the ethnic bond was strengthened both by social activities in Astoria (such as dances at Suomi Hall) and memberships in the Finnish-American Society, which arranged charter flights to Finland and sponsored visits by Finnish entertainers. Since most members of the community subscribed to Finnish newspapers and magazines, it was not unusual to hear recent Finnish events being discussed in Finglish.
Characteristic of Finglish is that
- almost all voiced consonants in English are replaced by their voiceless counterparts in Finglish, e.g.:
- lumperi — 'lumber'
- piiri — 'beer'
- rapoli — 'trouble'
- karpetsi — 'garbage'
- three contiguous vowels are not allowed. They are broken up by inserting either a back or front glide depending on the phonetic environment, e.g.
- leijata — 'to play'
- sauveri — 'shower'
- syllabic consonants are modified by inserting a vowel in front of them, e.g.:
- kaluna — 'gallon'
- rapoli — 'trouble'
- words should end in a vowel. The preferred word-final vowel is / i / but / a / is also encountered, e.g.:
- reimi — 'frame'
- kaara — 'car'
- heerkatti — 'haircut'
- loijari — 'lawyer'
- when the word in English begins with two or three consonants, all but the last consonant must be deleted before the word is acceptable for Finglish, e.g.:
- raikki — 'strike'
- touvi — 'stove'
- raippi — 'stripe'
- rosseri — 'grocery'
A Brief Finglish-English VocabularyNouns:
| aiskriimi | 'ice cream' | länketti | 'blanket' |
| äpyli | 'apple' | naffiksi | 'enough' |
| autvitti | 'outfit' | paarti | 'party' |
| haartätäkki | 'heartattack' | paatitamppu | 'bathtub' |
| jaarti | 'yard' | petiruuma | 'bedroom' |
| käretsi | 'carrot' | piltinki | 'building' |
| keeki | 'cake' | piutipaalari | 'beauty parlor' |
| pörttei | 'birthday' | siisonki | 'season' |
| raatsi | 'garage' | soopa | 'soap' |
| reisi | 'crazy' | suutti | 'suit' |
| rekvesti | 'breakfast' | tentisti | 'dentist' |
| resletti | 'bracelet' | tineri | 'dinner' |
| ressinki | 'dressing' | tormi | 'storm |
| riisari | 'freezer' | toustari | 'toaster' |
| rippi | 'trip' | veikeisseni | 'vacation' |
| rontti | 'front' | vö rnitseri | 'furniture' |
Verbs
| hairata | 'hire' | miitata | 'meet' |
| hengata | 'hang' | moukata | 'smoke' |
| huntata | 'hunt' | pätsätä | 'patch' |
| känslätä | 'cancel' | tartata | 'start' |
| koolata | 'call' | tötiä | 'study' |
| läänätä | 'plan' | vyllätä | 'fill' |
| Pussaa se peipiboki kitsistä petiruumaan! | 'Push the baby buggy from the kitchen to the bedroom!' |
The Future of Finglish
Due to the nature of the speech community, it is obvious that most speakers do not remain static on the scale, but rather continue to evolve toward the bilingual scale if they are capable of increasing their knowledge of English. If the speakers leave the immigrant community, they will gradually become English-dominant bilinguals and thereby lose their Finglish. And should they marry Americans, their children would no longer have the opportunity to learn Finglish. For these two reasons it is necessary to have constant influx of immigrants from Finland. That is the only way to keep Finglish alive.
Note (added 2001)
- For further detail on Finglish, see also Selma Siiri Sahlman's The Finnish Language in the United States, published in 1949 in American Speech, volume 24, pages 14-24.
Bibliography:
- Ferguson & Heath (1981): Language in the USA. Cambridge University Press.
- Hellström, Robert Wilhelm (1979): Finglish. Ann Arbor (Mich.) University Microfilms International.
- Sariola, Sakari (1982): Amerikan Kultalaan. Tammi, Helsinki.
- Wasastjerna, Hans R. (1957): Minnesotan Suomalaisten Historia. Minnesotan suomalais-amerikkalainen historiallinen seura. Superior, Wisconsin.