Pronoun

1. who; (when followed by a modifier in elative case, -sta/-stä) which one (of + a noun referring to people).
2. whoever.

Synonyms

• ken ( the nominative singular is archaic, see "Inflection" section below)

• kuka tahansa
• ken

Inflection

• All the cases of kuka, except for the nominative singular, have become old-fashioned. In modern Finnish the other cases have been replaced by the corresponding cases of the interrogative pronoun ken, which has the exactly same meanings as kuka. The nominative form ken is, however, used only in archaic or poetic language.
• Thus, "Kuta sinä rakastat?" could be translated "Whom do you love?" or "Whom lovest thou?".
• The adessive, ablative and allative singular cases of ken can be shortened by dropping -en from the stem; thus kenellä, keneltä, kenelle > kellä, keltä, kelle.
• Note that like personal pronouns, and unlike all other nominals, ken has a specific singular accusative form, kenet.
• Some cases of kuka/ken are hardly used. The inflection table below shows the archaic or otherwise disappeared/disappearing forms in brackets.
• The instructive plural kuin with the stem -ka*, the lative singular kun* and and the causative singular kuten* (also as the dated, archaic form: kutenka*) are used as adverbs with completely different meanings than "who".

Usage notes

• The singular forms are sometimes used colloquially instead of the actual plural forms. Ketä is particularly common for keitä.

Related terms

• joka
• jokin
• joku
• jompikumpi
• kukaan
• kukaties
• kukin
• kumpi
• kumpikaan
• kumpikin