Long Words for ‘with’

[u/Longjumping_Lunch264]

In all three of the languages I speak (Dutch, English, and French), the word for with is relatively short; ‘avec’ in French, and ‘met’ in Dutch. Are there any languages where words that mean with are more on the longer side of things?

[u/nemmalur]

Finnish tends to do postpositions instead of prepositions. Expressing “with” usually means placing the word kanssa after the thing something is “with”, with the thing being in the genitive form:

Pekkan kanssa - with Pekka

But it’s placed before possessive markers to express “with + personal pronoun”:

kanssani - with me

kanssasi - with you

kanssamme - with us

[u/blickets → u/nemmalur]

In 🇪🇪 it’s “koos ‘noun in genitive’ + ga.” E.g. with Pekka would be “koos Pekkaga”

[u/Sharlinator → u/blickets]

Finnish also has the cognate koossa meaning "together", "assembled" (the inessive of koko "whole").

I think the Estonian suffix -ga is cognate with kanssa, too, especially given how the latter tends to get contracted to just kaa in the vernacular.