Colloquial Finnish (suomen puhekieli) is the "dialectless" colloquial standard of the Finnish language. It is spoken in the Greater Helsinki region, and in urbanized areas in the Tavastian and Central Finland dialectal areas, such as the cities of Tampere, Jyväskylä, Lahti, Hyvinkää, and Hämeenlinna. In addition, this applies also to the coastal cities, such as Vaasa and Porvoo, which have been traditionally Swedish-speaking, and have experienced an influx of Finnish speakers from a variety of dialectal areas.
The standard language takes most of its features from these dialects, i.e. most "dialectal" features are reductions with respect to this form of language. The combination of the common spoken Finnish and a dialect gives a regional variant (aluepuhekieli), which has some local idiosyncrasies but is essentially similar to the common spoken Finnish.
The basics of Finnish needed to fully understand this article can be found in pages about Finnish phonology and Finnish grammar.
Read more about Colloquial Finnish: Introduction, Personal Pronouns, Numerals, Questions, Possessive Suffix, Omission of The Negative Verb, Important Regional Variations
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