Publications

The Institute has a lot of publication activities, including web services such as a website (www.kotus.fi) and guidelines database (www.kielitoimistonohjepankki.fi). The Institute publishes two linguistic journals: Kielikello (in Finnish) and Språkbruk (in Swedish). In addition, the Institute publishes dictionaries, books on grammar and language use and other linguistic issues (monographs, article collections, articles and papers), mostly on the web.

Some of the publications are available only in print; others are also available online. Our dictionaries are listed under “Dictionaries”.

Journals

The Institute publishes two linguistic journals: Kielikello in Finnish and  Språkbruk in Swedish.

Kielikello

Kielikello is a journal for Finnish language planning. Its topics include language and name use issues within the Institute’s scope of expertise, as well as linguistic research and other language-related phenomena. The journal addresses basic questions of language use, topical issues from plain-language work to neologisms, language use recommendations, and dialects.

Kielikello is published online. The journal’s free digital archive contains articles published since 1968.

Språkbruk

Språkbruk is a journal dedicated to talking about language and linguistics in an intelligible way. The journal includes articles by researchers, interviews with people working with language, and news about language and linguistics. It also gives language use guidance and presents new literature on linguistics.

Språkbruk is published online.

Books on grammar and language planning

The Institute publishes works on grammar and language planning. Some publications are descriptive of the Finnish language and usage, whereas others are normative guidelines.

Examples of works in Finnish

Iso suomen kielioppi (Comprehensive Grammar of Finnish, 2004) is an exhaustive description of the structure and use of Finnish. It is a descriptive grammar, not prescriptive, and it is available online.

Kielitoimiston oikeinkirjoitusopas (Spelling Guide of the Language Office, 2012) contains the official recommendations on punctuation, compound words, capitalisation, etc. Today, the updated spelling guidelines are published in the Language Office’s guideline database (Kielitoimiston ohjepankki).

Kielitoimiston kielioppiopas (Language Office’s Grammar Guide; 2015) provides answers to questions about grammatical variation. It also explains the reasons why there is variation and helps writers to choose an appropriate form for the intended purpose. Some of the instructions are also included in the Language Office’s guideline database.

Name publications

The Institute’s experts on name planning edit publications, both in print and online, on Finnish and foreign proper names and toponyms. The publications also contain useful guidelines for the spelling, inflection and use of names.

Publications on proper names deal with first names, surnames, naming systems relating to immigrants, and Russian proper names. Publications on toponymy describe names of municipalities and their inflection, as well as the history of place names. Outside Finland, our topics cover the names of countries and capitals and, for instance, place names in Greece. The Institute has also hosted web exhibitions about names.

Genre publications

The Institute focuses on various aspects of spoken and written language and its genres. Our experts have published numerous works on spoken language, written texts and genres. The most comprehensive publications on genre analysis are the handbook Genreanalyysi – tekstilajitutkimuksen käsikirja (2012) and the online publication Genreanalyysi – tekstilajitutkimuksen käytäntöä (2012).

Publication Series

The Institute for the Languages of Finland publishes its research results in various publications series. The Publications of the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland, launched in 1978, includes material from the Institute’s entire scope as dictionaries, guides, monographs and article collections. In 2005, the Institute launched an online publication series, Kotimaisten kielten verkkojulkaisuja.