Breakdown of Olen yksinäinen, koska kukaan muu ei ole hereillä.
olla
to be
koska
because
ei
no / not (en, et, ei, emme, ette, eivät)
muu
other, else
kukaan
anyone, nobody (with negation)
hereillä
awake
yksinäinen
lonely
Questions & Answers about Olen yksinäinen, koska kukaan muu ei ole hereillä.
The lesson is about ei kukaan, but here the sentence says kukaan muu ei. Why are the words separated and flipped?
In Finnish, kukaan means 'anyone'. To say 'nobody', you pair it with the negative verb ei. Because Finnish prefers the subject to come before the verb, when 'nobody' is the subject of the sentence, kukaan goes first. So kukaan muu ei ole literally translates to 'anyone else is not'.
How does muu fit into kukaan muu ei?
Muu means 'other' or 'else'. Just like in English, it goes directly after the pronoun. So kukaan muu means 'anyone else', and together with the negative verb ei, the whole phrase means 'nobody else'.
Why does the word for awake, hereillä, end in the location ending -llä?
In Finnish, physical or mental states are often expressed using location cases. The -llä ending usually means 'on' or 'at'. Hereillä comes from an old word root for waking, so literally it means 'at wakes'. You will see this pattern in other states too, like unessa for 'asleep' (literally 'in sleep').
As a quick review, why is it ole instead of on?
This is a reminder of how negative verbs work. When you use the negative verb ei, the main verb drops its personal ending and uses its negative form. For the verb 'to be', the basic 3rd-person form is on, but after ei it always becomes ole.
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