Names of European Countries in Finnish

The names of many European countries in Finnish may not be so easy to recognize. They are often quite different from their names in other languages. Here is a list of twelve European countries with their names in Finnish:

Kreikka (Greece)

Liettua (Lithuania)

Norja (Norway)

Puola (Poland)

Ranska (France)

Ruotsi (Sweden)

Saksa (Germany)

Suomi (Finland)

Sveitsi (Switzerland)

Tanska (Denmark)

Unkari (Hungary)

Venäjä (Russia)

The word for France begins with R because F is rare in Finnish, and the word for Greece begins with K because G is rare. The name for Switzerland is similar to the German word Schweiz and the name for Norway is similar to the Norwegian word Norge. Though the word for Finland is very different from that of other languages, in Estonian it is Soome.

Finnish is not an Indo-European language. It is a Uralic language and differs significantly from Indo-European languages. The names of European countries in Finnish are often quite different from the names in Indo-European languages.