epä-

See also: Appendix:Variations of "epa"

Finnish

Etymology

From Proto-Finnic *epä. Originally active present participle (-pä) of the negative verb stem *e-; see ei. Cognate with Estonian eba-, Livonian äb, Moksha аф (af), Erzya апак (apak).

The original use of this prefix was in words like epäkelpo (originally “that does not suffice”) and epänäköinen (from näkö (“vision”), “that does not see, that has no vision”). Its use as a general negating prefix is inspired by foreign examples, such as Swedish o-, German un- and Latin in-.[1]

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈepæ-/, [ˈe̞pæ-]

Particle

epä- (as a modifier in compounds)

  1. Used to invert the meaning of a word: in-, non-, un-, dis-, mis-, mal-
    ‎epä- + ‎selvä (“clear”) → ‎epäselvä (“unclear”)

Derived terms

compounds

References

  1. ^ Lauri Hakulinen (1955), “Suomen kielen käännöslainoista”, in Virittäjä‎[1] (in Finnish), volume 59, number 4, Kotikielen Seura, page 313 of 305–318

Further reading

Ingrian

Etymology

From Proto-Finnic *epä-. Cognates include Finnish epä- and Estonian eba-.

Pronunciation

Prefix

epä-

  1. Used to invert the meaning of a word: un-, non-

Derived terms

Ingrian terms prefixed with epä-
epäjumala
epäsurma
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