Languages of Finland

The two main official languages of Finland are

Finnish and Swedish. There are also several official
Languages of Finland
minority languages: three variants of Sami, Romani, Official Finnish (1st: 94%, 2nd: 6%)
Finnish Sign Language and Karelian. Swedish (1st: 5%, 2nd: 44%)
Minority officially recognized: Sami,
Romani, Finnish Sign
Contents Language, Karelian language
Immigrant Russian, Estonian
Finnish
Foreign English (70%)
Swedish
German (18%)
Sami languages
French (10%)[1]
Karelian
Signed Finnish Sign Language,
Russian Finland-Swedish Sign
Territorial bilingualism Language
Statistics Keyboard layout QWERTY
See also Basic Finnish/Swedish

References
External links
Finnish Multilingual

Finnish
Finnish is the language of the majority, 89%[2] of the
population. It is a Finnic language closely related to Source [2] (https://web.archive.org/web/
Estonian and less closely to the Sami languages. The 20160106183351/http://ec.euro
Finnic languages belong to the Uralic language pa.eu/public_opinion/archives/e
family, so Finnish is distantly related to languages as bs/ebs_386_en.pdf)
diverse as Hungarian (a Ugric language) and Nenets
(europa.eu)
(a Samoyedic language) in Siberia.

Swedish
Swedish is the main language of 5.3% of the population[2] (92.4% in the Åland autonomous province),
down from 14% at the beginning of the 20th century. In 2012, 44% of Finnish citizens with another
registered primary language than Swedish could hold a conversation in this language.[3] Swedish is a North
Germanic language, closely related to Norwegian and Danish. As a subbranch of Indo-European, it is also
closely related to other Germanic languages such as German, Dutch, and English.

Swedish was the language of the administration until the late 19th century. Today it is one of the two main
official languages, with a position equal to Finnish in most legislation, though the working language in most
governmental bodies is Finnish. Both Finnish and Swedish are compulsory subjects in school with an
exception for children with a third language as their native language. A successfully completed language test
is a prerequisite for governmental offices where a university degree is
required.

The four largest Swedish-speaking communities in Finland, in absolute

numbers, are those of Helsinki, Espoo, Porvoo and Vaasa, where they
constitute significant minorities. Helsinki, the capital, had a Swedish-
speaking majority until late in the 19th century. Currently 5.9%[4] of the
population of Helsinki are native Swedish speakers and 15% are native
speakers of languages other than Finnish and Swedish.[5]

The Swedish dialects spoken in Finland mainland are known as

Finland-Swedish. There is a rich Finland-Swedish literature, including
authors such as Tove Jansson, Johan Ludvig Runeberg, Edith Södergran
and Zacharias Topelius. Runeberg is considered Finland's national poet
and wrote the national anthem, "Vårt land", which was only later
translated to Finnish.

Sami languages
Municipalities of Finland:
The Sami languages are a group of related languages spoken across
unilingually Finnish
Lapland. They are distantly related to Finnish. The three Sami
languages spoken in Finland, Northern Sami, Inari Sami and Skolt bilingual with Finnish as
Sami, have a combined native speaker population of roughly 1,800.[6] majority language, Swedish as
minority language
bilingual with Swedish as
Karelian
majority language, Finnish as
minority language
Up to World War II, Karelian was spoken in the historical Border-
unilingually Swedish
Karelian region on the northern shore of Lake Ladoga. After the war,
immigrant Karelians were settled all over Finland. In 2001 the Karelian bilingual with Finnish as
Language Society estimated that the language is understood by 11,000– majority language, Sami as
12,000 people in Finland, most of whom are elderly. A more recent minority language
estimate is that the size of the language community is 30,000.[7]

Karelian was recognized in a regulation by the President in November 2009, in accordance with the
European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.[8]

Russian
The Russian language is the third most spoken native language in Finland (1%).[9] The Russian language
has no official status in Finland, though historically it served as the third co-official language with Finnish
and Swedish for a relatively brief period between 1900 and 1917.

Territorial bilingualism
All municipalities outside Åland where both official languages are spoken by either at least 8% of the
population or at least 3,000 people are considered bilingual. Swedish reaches these criteria in 59 out of 336
municipalities located in Åland (where this does not matter) and the coastal areas of Ostrobothnia region,
Southwest Finland (especially in Åboland outside Turku) and Uusimaa. Outside these areas there are some
towns with significant Swedish-speaking minorities not reaching the criteria. Thus the inland is officially
unilingually Finnish-speaking. Finnish reaches the criteria everywhere but in Åland and in three
municipalities in the Ostrobothnia region, which is also the only region on the Finnish mainland with a
Swedish-speaking majority (52% to 46%).

The Sami languages have an official status in the northernmost Finland, in Utsjoki, Inari, Enontekiö and part
of Sodankylä, regardless of proportion of speakers.

In the bilingual municipalities signs are in both languages, important documents are translated and
authorities have to be able to serve in both languages. Authorities of the central administration have to serve
the public in both official languages, regardless of location, and in Sami in certain circumstances.

Places often have different names in Finnish and in Swedish, both names being equally official as name of
the town. For a list, see Names of places in Finland in Finnish and in Swedish.

Statistics
Residents of Finland by native language (2019)[11]
No. of speakers
Language Percentage
(>5,000)
Finnish 4,822,690 87.62%
Swedish 287,954 5.21%
Russian 81,606 1.48%
Estonian 49,427 0.89% Knowledge of foreign languages and
Swedish as second language in
Arabic 31,920 0.58%
Finland, in percent of the adult
English 22,052 0.40% population, 2005
Somali 21,920 0.40%
Kurdish 14,803 0.27%
Persian 14,118 0.26%
Chinese 13,064 0.24%
Albanian 11,806 0.21%
Vietnamese 11,094 0.20%
Thai 10,179 0.18% Knowledge of the English language
Turkish 8,840 0.16% in Finland, 2005. According to the
Eurobarometer,[10] 63% of the
Spanish 8,598 0.16%
respondents indicated that they know
German 6,559 0.12% English well enough to have a
conversation. Of these 23% (percent,
Polish 5,567 0.10%
not percentage points) reported a
⋮ very good knowledge of the
Sami 2,004 0.04% language whereas 34% had a good
knowledge and 43% basic English
Other 101,091 1.83% skills.
 Residents of Finland by language family (2019)[12]
Family No. of speakers Percentage
Finno-Ugric 4,877,161 88.27%
Germanic 320,016 5.79%
Slavic 102,161 1.85%
Afroasiatic 57,844 1.05%
Proportions of main languages in
Indo-Iranian 47,804 0.87% Finland, 2007
Romance 24,802 0.45%
Sino-Tibetan 13,760 0.25%
Turkic 11,651 0.21%
Austroasiatic 11,459 0.21%
Tai 10,243 0.19%
Niger-Congo 8,841 0.16%
Austronesian 5,678 0.10%
Number of speakers of the largest
Dravidian 4,036 0.07% unofficial languages in Finland, 2007
Baltic 3,884 0.07%
Greek, Latin 1,716 0.03%
Japonic 1,617 0.03%
Caucasian 932 0.02%
Other Indo-European 12,141 0.22%
Other Asian 958 0.02%
Other 8,588 0.16%

See also
Finland's language strife
Languages of Åland
Names of places in Finland in Finnish and in Swedish

References
1. OIF 2014, pp. 13–19.
2. "THE LANGUAGES OF FINLAND 1917–2017" (http://www.ling.helsinki.fi/~fkarlsso/Language
s%20of%20Finland_1917-2017.pdf) (PDF). Lingsoft Language Library publications. Retrieved
15 December 2018.
3. Europeans and their languages, situationen 2012 (http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/
ebs/ebs_386_en.pdf) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20160106183351/http://ec.europa.
eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_386_en.pdf) 2016-01-06 at the Wayback Machine, p. 21
4. [http://worldpopulationreview.com/world-cities/helsinki-population/
5. "Decrease in the number of persons speaking national languages as their native language
accelerated" (https://www.stat.fi/til/vaerak/2017/vaerak_2017_2018-03-29_tie_001_en.html).
Retrieved 15 December 2018.
 6. "Population according to language and the number of foreigners and land area km2 by area"
(http://pxweb2.stat.fi/Dialog/varval.asp?ma=060_vaerak_tau_107_fi&ti=V%E4est%F6+kielen+
mukaan+sek%E4+ulkomaan+kansalaisten+m%E4%E4r%E4+ja+maa%2Dpinta%2Dala+alueitt
ain++1980+%2D+2007&path=../Database/StatFin/vrm/vaerak/&lang=3&multilang=fi). Statistics
Finland's PX-Web databases. Helsinki: Statistics Finland. 2008-12-31. Retrieved 21 June
2009.
7. Burtsoff, Ari. "Karjalaa osaavien yhteisö on suuri" (http://www.ksml.fi/mielipide/mielipidekirjoituk
set/karjalaa-osaavien-yhteiso-on-suuri/2065961). Ksml.fi. Retrieved 23 August 2017.
8. Change in the regulation by the president of Finland about European Charter for Regional or
Minority Languages, 68/2009 27.11.2009 (http://www.finlex.fi/fi/sopimukset/sopsteksti/2009/20
090068) (in Finnish)
9. "National Survey on the English Language in Finland : Uses, meanings and attitudes" (http://w
ww.helsinki.fi/varieng/series/volumes/05/evarieng-vol5.pdf) (PDF). Helsinki.fi. Retrieved
2017-08-23.
10. [1] (http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_243_en.pdf)
11. "Väestö" (https://www.tilastokeskus.fi/tup/suoluk/suoluk_vaesto.html#v%C3%A4est%C3%B6ki
elenmukaan). Stat.fi: Statistics – Population structure. Statistics Finland. 2017. Retrieved
26 November 2018.
12. http://pxnet2.stat.fi/PXWeb/pxweb/fi/StatFin/StatFin__vrm__vaerak/statfin_vaerak_pxt_11rl.px/?
rxid=726cd24d-d0f1-416a-8eec-7ce9b82fd5a4

External links
Media related to Languages of Finland at Wikimedia Commons

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