COLLOQUIAL KVEN

Colloquial Kven (kväänin puhetkieli), also known as fast-spoken Kven (noppeesti puhuttu kvääni), is the spoken variant of the Kven language used in daily conversations. Unlike in Finnish, where colloquial Finnish and written Finnish are so different that a form of diglossia is exhibited, Kven is fairly consistent in both spoken and written forms.

However, the Kven that native speakers use is sometimes different from the Kven we learn and read, especially in everyday conversations. Fortunately, these differences can mostly be reduced to contractions or simply shortened words. It is important to note that dialectal differences definitely play a role here, and that colloquial Kven differs from region to region and from person to person. The focus of this article is to help you understand the scope of spoken Kven.

Spoken Kven is not a monolith; it behaves more like a spectrum that corresponds to the tone, emotion, and speed with which you are speaking. There isn’t a set of rules on how or when these forms are used; one needs to learn them by heart. For example, the way you talk to someone on the street might be different from the way you speak at home. In the latter scenario, you will likely use more casual, fast-spoken language.

This guide provides an overview of some common traits of colloquial spoken Kven.

When possible, I will include audio examples in which such colloquial forms are used as references.

Pronouns

Personal pronouns in colloquial Kven are almost identical to those in written Kven, except for the third person singular. "Se" is sometimes used instead of "hän." The "-t" found at the end of plural pronouns can sometimes be dropped, especially when followed by a word starting with a consonant.

Verbs

We will look at a few verbs that are pronounced differently in colloquial Kven. The first one is "olla," which is often contracted with personal pronouns. In the present tense, we have:

Olla - To be

In the present tense, personal forms are shorter. The contracted forms are also found in meänkieli.

Here we can hear some examples of how these words are contracted in spoken Kven:

*It can take a while for the audio files to load.

And here are some more examples:

The negative verb form of "olla" in the present tense has a special contraction in the 3rd person singular.

In the imperfect tense, we can also observe similar patterns. Note that personal ending of first person singular "-n" can be droopped.

Ajatella - To think

In fast-spoken Kven, the verb "ajatella" can be pronounced as "aatella," and the rest of its conjugations follow the same sound change.

Häyttyyt - Must

In colloquial Kven, the personal forms of the verb "häyttyyt" are shortened. In spoken Kven, the letter "đ" is generally unpronounced, which makes forms such as "häyđyn" difficult to pronounce. You may see it written as "häy'yn" as well. 

As a result, these forms are typically shortened in colloquial speech.

Tarvita - To need

The verb "tarvita" is an interesting one. Normally, it is conjugated by changing the ending "-ita / -itä" to "-itte-" before adding the personal endings. In colloquial spoken Kven, however, the verb shifts to a type I verb, "tartteet." The following is its conjugation:

Cases

A few case endings are shortened in colloquial spoken Kven. This is usually done by removing the last vowel of the case.

The word "siinä" can be shortened as "siin."

The illative case is usually unchanged. However, here we can see how the phrase "siihen aikhaan" is shortened.