Alphabet

1   Letters

The Finnish alphabet has 29 letters: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y, z, å, ä ja ö. The letters š and ž can occur only in loan words.

2   Inflection and Pronunciation

Letters are declined in 15 cases like other nominals, too. A letter or a letter combination that is pronounced letter by letter are separated from a case ending and a possible plural marker by a colon, e.g. A:sta B:hen 'from A to B', LP:iden ja CD:iden myynti 'sale of LPs and CDs', EU:ssa 'in the EU', WC:hen 'into the WC', WC:istä 'from the WCs', and tv:ssä 'in the TV'. If the vowel in the case ending is a part of a long vowel, both vowels are written after the colon. This applies to the partitive and illative of some letters, e.g. n:ää 'n' (partitive) and s:ään 'into s' (illative).

The nominative singular forms of the letters are listed in the following table. The pronunciation is shown in the brackets. All cases and their pronunciation are on separate pages. The guideline for pronunciation follows the system of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).

Letter	Pronunciation
a	[a:]
b	[be:]
c	[se:]
d	[de:]
e	[e:]
f	[æf]
g	[ge:]
h	[ho:]
i	[i:]
j	[ji:]
k	[ko:]
l	[æl]
m	[æm]
n	[æn]
o	[o:]
p	[pe:]
q	[ku:]
r	[ær]
s	[æs]
t	[te:]
u	[u:]
v	[ve:]
w	[ve:], [kaksoisve:]
x	[æks]
y	[y:]
z	[tset]
å	[o:], [ruotsalainen o:]
ä	[æ:]
ö	[ø:]