sinä

See also: Appendix:Variations of "sina"

Finnish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈsinæ/, [ˈs̠inæ]

• Audio:

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• Rhymes: -inæ
• Syllabification^(key): si‧nä
• Hyphenation^(key): si‧nä

Etymology 1

From Proto-Finnic *cinä, from Proto-Uralic *tinä. See the Proto-Finnic entry for more information on inflection.

Pronoun

sinä (stem sinu-)

1. (personal) you (second-person singular personal pronoun, used in familiar or neutral contexts), thou

   En nähnyt sinua siellä.

   I didn't see you there.

Usage notes

• Depending on the context, the pronoun can sometimes be omitted in written language if the text remains fluent – in spoken language, the pronoun is practically always used (compare the usage of te pl (“you”)).
• As in many other European languages, the second-person plural te is used in formal contexts or when addressing an unfamiliar elderly person (see teititellä). However, this custom is not anymore as usual as elsewhere in Europe in everyday life – there is from time to time discussion whether this custom is inconvenient in modern society. However, a safe way to start conversation with an unfamiliar person, especially with an elderly person, is to use te instead of sinä.
• When addressing another person in formal writing, sinä is often capitalized (Sinä).
• See this appendix for information on the dialectal variants of sinä.

Declension

• Irregular. The comitative and instructive forms do not exist; the abessive sinutta and teittä is hardly used.
• In addition to the standard set of cases, sinä and the other personal pronouns have a specific accusative form, in this case sinut. This form would have been the nominative plural form of the first stem if the word were not a personal pronoun.

Declension of sinä noun case singular plural nominative sinä te genitive sinun teidän partitive sinua teitä accusative sinut teidät inessive sinussa teissä elative sinusta teistä illative sinuun teihin adessive sinulla teillä ablative sinulta teiltä allative sinulle teille essive sinuna teinä translative sinuksi teiksi abessive – – instructive – – comitative – –

Alternative forms

• sä (colloquial)
• sa (archaic, poetic)
• sie (dialectal)
• siä (dialectal)
• sää (dialectal)
• snää (dialectal)
• nää (dialectal)

Derived terms

adjectives

• sinunlainen
• sinunlaisesi

verbs

• sinutella

compounds

• sinunkaupat
• sinä-muotoinen
• sinä-passiivi

Descendants

• Kven: sie

See also

Finnish personal pronouns

	first	second		third
		familiar	polite
singular	minä	sinä	Te	hän
plural	me	te		he

Further reading

• “sinä”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎ (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 1 July 2023

Etymology 2

Pronoun

sinä

1. (demonstrative) essive singular of se

Anagrams

• isän, nisä, säin

Livvi

Etymology

From Proto-Finnic *cinä, from Proto-Uralic *tinä. Cognates include Finnish sinä and Karelian sie.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈsinʲæ/
• Hyphenation: si‧nä
• Rhymes: -inʲæ

Pronoun

sinä

1. thou, you (singular)

Declension

This entry needs an inflection-table template.

See also

Livvi personal pronouns

	first	second	third
singular	minä	sinä	häi
plural	myö	työ	hyö

References

• N. Gilojeva; S. Rudakova (2009), Karjalan kielen Livvin murdehen algukursu [Beginners' course of Karelian language's Livvi dialect]‎ (in Livvi), Petrozavodsk, →ISBN, page 10
• Tatjana Boiko (2019), Suuri Karjal-Venʹalaine Sanakniigu (livvin murreh) [The Big Karelian-Russian dictionary (Livvi dialect)], 2nd edition, →ISBN, page 258

Veps

Etymology

From Proto-Finnic *cinä, from Proto-Uralic *tinä.

Pronoun

sinä (genitive sinun, partitive sindai)

1. you (singular)

Inflection

Inflection of sinä
nominative sing.	sinä
genitive sing.	sinun
partitive sing.	sindai
partitive plur.	teid
	singular	plural
nominative	sinä	tö
accusative	sinun	tö
genitive	sinun	teiden
partitive	sindai	teid
essive-instructive	—	—
translative	—	—
inessive	sinus	teiš
elative	sinuspäi	teišpäi
illative	sinuhu	teihe
adessive	sinai	teil
ablative	sinaipäi	teilpäi
allative	sinei	teile
abessive	sinuta	teita
comitative	sinunke	teidenke
prolative	—	—
approximative I	—	—
approximative II	—	—
egressive	—	—
terminative I	—	—
terminative II	—	—
terminative III	—	—
additive I	—	—
additive II	—	—

References

• Zajceva, N. G.; Mullonen, M. I. (2007), “ты”, in Uz’ venä-vepsläine vajehnik / Novyj russko-vepsskij slovarʹ [New Russian–Veps Dictionary]‎, Petrozavodsk: Periodika