kuka

See also kúka

Finnish

Etymology

From the pronominal stem ku- + the suffix -ka/kä. See also kuin.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ukɑ
• Hyphenation: ku‧ka
• Rhymes: muka, suka
• IPA: [ˈkukɑ]

Pronoun

kuka

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

Synonyms

• (who): ken ( the nominative singular is archaic, see "Inflection" section below)
• (whoever): 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 In modern Finnish the other cases have been replaced by the corresponding cases of the interrogative pronoun ken, which has the exactly same meanings as kuka.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".

Declension of kuka noun case singular plural adverbial form singular plural nominative kuka / ken (kutka) ketkä superessive – – genitive (kunka) kenen (kuiden) keiden (kuitten) keitten delative – – partitive (kuta) ketä (kuita) keitä sublative – – accusative (kunka) kenet (kutka) ketkä lative (kun*) – inessive (kussa) kenessä (kuissa) keissä temporal – – elative (kusta) kenestä (kuista) keistä causative (kuten*) (kutenka*) – illative (kuhun) keneen (——) kehen (kuihin) keihin multiplicative – – adessive (kulla) kenellä (kuilla) keillä distributive – – ablative (kulta) keneltä (kuilta) keiltä temp. dist. – – allative (kulle) kenelle (kuille) keille prolative – – essive (kuna) kenenä (kuina) keinä situative – – translative (kuksi) keneksi (kuiksi) keiksi oppositive – – instructive – (kuin, kuinka*) (—) abessive (kutta) kenettä (kuitta) keittä comitative – –

Usage notes

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

Related terms

Pronouns with same stems:

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

See also

• Kukapa tietää?

Anagrams

• akku

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Hungarian

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈkukɒ/
• Hyphenation: ku‧ka

Etymology 1

Origin uncertain; perhaps an Italian loan word, compare Northern Italian cuco (“goofy”).

Adjective

kuka

1. dumb (as a fish), tongue-tied (not saying a word)

Etymology 2

Via Czech, from German KUKA, short for Keller und Knappich Augsburg, a German firm which was manufacturing and supplying orange refuse collection vehicles. Today the company KUKA is producing industrial robots and automation technologies.

Noun

kuka (plural kukák)

1. garbage can, refuse bin

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Pitjantjatjara

Noun

kuka

1. animal
2. meat

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Serbo-Croatian

Noun

kȕka f. (Cyrillic spelling ку̏ка)

1. hook

Declension

    declension of kuka

	singular	plural
nominative	kȕka	kuke
genitive	kuke	kȗkā
dative	kuki	kukama
accusative	kuku	kuke
vocative	kuko	kuke
locative	kuki	kukama
instrumental	kukom	kukama

Related terms

• kȕk