This section deals with loanwords that are new in the sense that their form is not completely adapted to Finnish phonetic and writing system. Their age varies considerably. Their spelling and pronunciation were mostly established in the early 20th century, with some later modifications. The rules have been taught at Finnish schools and in language guides, but the situation is still partly unstable. It constitutes an important part of the differences between spelling and pronunciation in Finnish.
Two major issues with new loanwords are the length of vowels and doubling of consonants. The rules for them, described in the next two sections, are somewhat complicated and cause variation in the spelling of pronunciation of interrelated words, e.g. demokratia (democracy) but demokraattinen (democratic).
The rules are important to native speakers, since they often learn these words first in spoken form and then need to learn the written form. The formulation of the rules more or less requires some understanding of Swedish, since the problem often revolves around adapting Swedish words into Finnish. To a non-native speaker, these rules are less important, since you can check the spelling from a dictionaries and you can mostly pronounce these words as written (it is mostly accepted, though not always most natural).
The presentation of the basic rules in this book is more explicit than traditional Finnish grammars about the association with Swedish and more realistic about actual pronunciation. Yet, the presentation is partly incomplete. The correspondence between written and spoken form is not always predictable. Glossaries of international words, sivistyssanakirja in Finnish, may indicate the pronunciation, but often just the normatively correct one. A small online glossary by the author of this book, Pienehkö sivistyssanakirja, describes the pronunciations of the most common international words in Finnish.
The letter š is a somewhat artificial addition to the Finnish language, originally adopted from the Czech language to denote the “sh” sound in relatively new loanwords, such as šeikki (sheikh). The rules for using it have been changed a few times, and the rules are often broken. In particular, sh is very often used instead of š.
In most situations, š (or its replacement sh) is pronounced as [s]. In some contexts, an [š] sound is used for affective or prestige reasons. This may well happen even when the official spelling is s, if the word is recognized as having an [š] sound in foreign languages. For example, the recommended spelling and pronunciation is now samppanja (champagne; also incorrectly used for sparkling wine in general), but it is often pronounced šamppanja.
Currently the principles of using š in new loanwords are:
According to an old recommendation, š is replaced by sh, if š cannot be written. Such a replacement, e.g. sheriffi, is very common even in situations where it is possible to write š. This explains why the current official recommendations do not mention the replacement.
In some words, both š and sh are possible: š, if the word is used as loanword, sh if the word is used as a transliterated or transcribed foreign word. Examples: geiša ∼ geisha, šoguni ∼ shogun, suši ∼ sushi, šaria ∼ sharia. The form with sh is usually more common.
As a special exception, shakki is allowed as an alternate form of šakki (chess), as requested by organizations of chess players.
Most new loanword adjectives have been adapted to Finnish by adding the inen suffix, which replaces an ending corresponding to English “-ic” or “-ical”, e.g. klassinen : klassisen (classic). In older usage, the illinen suffix was used instead, but since the 1940s, it has mostly fallen into disuse, first in long words like romantillinen, now romanttinen (romantic). It is still retained to some extent in words like teknillinen, which is flagged as outdated in dictionaries but is still in common use to mean “technological”, as opposite to tekninen (technical). A few adjectives have kept the longer form, e.g. kristillinen (Christian).
However, there are many adjectives that have been derived with the llinen suffix from loanword nouns, instead of being based on an adjective in another language. Examples: kemiallinen (chemical) from kemia (chemistry), historiallinen, persoonallinen.
The nen suffix appears also after aali, aari, iivi, and some other Finnish versions of international forms corresponding to “-al”, “-ar”, “-ive”, etc. in English, e.g. bipolaarinen (bipolar). However, the nen suffix has often been omitted when it has no function, e.g. banaali (banal). The nen suffix remains in use especially when needed to distinguish an adjective from a noun, e.g. moraalinen (moral) vs. moraali (morals) and aktiivinen (active) vs. aktiivi (activist; active voice). In compositive forms, the nen suffix is omitted, e.g. aktiivipalvelus (active service).
Some international adjectives like “civil” do not have a direct counterpart in Finnish. The word siviili is as such only a noun (civilian). In compounds, it can be interpreted as having an adjectival meaning, e.g. siviilihallinto (civil administration).