Meänkieli vocabulary

Meänkieli is a Finnic language, and speakers of Finnish can understand large portions of Meänkieli. Meänkieli vocabulary is particularly similar to the vocabulary of Northern Finnish dialects, however Finnish dialects spoken farther away from the Swedish border have far fewer similarities with Meänkieli. However, Meänkieli words often have different meanings from how the word is used in Finnish (false friends), for example, the Meänkieli word 'pyörtyä' means 'to get lost', while the word 'pyörtyä' in Finnish refers to fainting.^[1] However, under Swedish influence, Finnic words in Meänkieli are often used in with Swedish idiomatic structures. For example, the Meänkieli phrase alusta jo reflects the Swedish expression redan från början, meaning “from the beginning.”^[2]

Meänkieli has long been spoken alongside Saami languages for long centuries, which is seen in the occurrence of a number of Saami words in Meänkieli, often containing phonological features that native Meänkieli words do not contain, such as the consonant cluster /tn/, seen in words such as katnanen 'hip bone'.^[3]

Meänkieli contains strong borrowing from Swedish,^[4] particularly due to being separated from the development of the Finnish language for the last 200 years. This is even seen in cases where both standard Finnish and Meänkieli have adopted the same Swedish loanword, as Meänkieli often keeps the pronunciation of spoken Swedish more closely. For example, the word for 'resource' is borrowed from Swedish in both languages:, however Finnish renders it as resurssi, whereas Meänkieli retains the Swedish-influenced pronunciation as resyrssi.^[2]