Finnish

Adjective

kielinen ‎(not comparable)

1. being of a language; used mainly as head word in compound terms, independently mainly in questions:

   Minkä kielinen tuo sanomalehti on?

   What is the language of that newspaper?

   Se on ranskankielinen.

   It's in French.

2. -lingual; used as head in compound terms only

   kaksikielinen — bilingual

3. -tongued; used as head in compound terms only

   pitkäkielinen — long-tongued

4. -speaking, -phone; used to form adjectives and nouns that indicate a speaker of a certain language e.g. French-speaking, Francophone - for a list of words formed with "-phone" see derived terms -section of the entry -phone.
5. (music) -stringed; used as head in compound terms only

   Sitar on monikielinen soitin.

   Sitar is a multi-stringed instrument.

Declension

Usage notes

1. In Finnish the names of languages are often the same as that of the country or a geographic area where the language is spoken, only with a small initial letter:
   • France -> French = Ranska -> ranska (or, if necessary for avoiding confusion, ranskan kieli)
   • England -> English = Englanti -> englanti (id., englannin kieli)
2. Or, (like in English) the name of a language can be same as the word referring to a member of the nation, tribe, etc. that speaks the language:
   • Aztec -> Aztec = atsteekki -> atsteekki (id., atsteekin kieli).
3. Any name of a language can be combined with the adjective kielinen to produce an adjective which refers to that particular language. Note that the name of the language is in genitive:
   • englanti -> englanninkielinen = English (English-language)
4. The word kielinen can be used alone in cases where the language is not specified, such as in questions.
   • Minkä kielinen tämä teksti on?
     • In which language is this text?
5. The Finnish equivalent for the expression "in [Language]" is usually the translative case:
   • Kirjoitan mielelläni englanniksi.
     • I like to write in English
   • Onko Teillä tätä kirjaa englanniksi'?
   • Do you have this book in English?

Derived terms

• kaksikielinen
• monikielinen

See also

• kielellinen

Etymology 2

kieli ‎(“string”) +‎ -inen

Adjective

kielinen

1. (music) -string; used as head in compound terms

   12-kielinen kitara — 12-string guitar

   teräskielinen kitara — steel-string guitar

Declension

Etymology 3

Verb

kielinen

1. First-person singular potential form of kieliä.