Utility of Finnish Vocabulary of Indo-European Origin for Learning Finnish

Latin and Greek are the major donor languages to most European languages including Finnish, which does not belong to the Indo-European but Uralic language family. The present study conducted a vocabulary survey to examine the utility of frequently used Finnish vocabulary of foreign origins and their English equivalents for learning Finnish as a foreign language. The Oxford 3000 list was used as the primary reference of high-frequency English words and their Finnish equivalents. Approximately 190 loanwords of Latin or Greek origin are included in the most frequently used 3,000 Finnish words and approximately 80 loanwords can be used with a similar pronunciation in English and French. Therefore, the present study concluded that knowledge of high-frequency Finnish vocabulary of Greek or Latin origin could assist speakers of English and French in learning Finnish.