De viktigaste ordböckerna över finskt allmänspråk

Abstract

The article illustrates the origin and general significance of the most important general
dictionaries of the Finnish language. The first monolingual dictionary of standard
Finnish appeared on the initiative of politicians and it was published as late as in
1951--61. It was chiefly based on material collected in the early nineteen thirties and
consequently somewhat out of date even at the time of publication. For purposes of
illustrating current usage this work has now been superseded by Suomen kielen
perussanakirja (1990-94). Both these works were in the main financially sponsored
by the government. Of further importance are the numerous dictionaries published in
Finland dealing with the orthography of foreign-based words.