Languages Of Finland

Information about Languages Of Finland

Languages of Finland
Official languagesFinnish 92%, Swedish 6%
Minority languagesSami, Romani, Finnish Sign Language
Main immigrant languageRussian
Main foreign languagesEnglish 63%, Swedish 41%1, German 18%, French 3%Source: [1]
notes1Swedish is spoken by about 6% of the population as native language and by 41% as a second language.


The two official languages of Finland are Finnish and Swedish. The official minority languages include Sami languages, Romani and sign language.

Finnish

Finnish, the national language of the Finnish people, is the native tongue of 94% of the population. It is a Baltic-Finnic language and as such related to e.g. Estonian. The Baltic-Finnic languages belong to the Uralic languages so Finnish is distantly related to languages as diverse as e.g. Hungarian (an Ugric language) and the Sami languages.

Swedish

Swedish is the native tongue of 5.5% of the population (92.4% in the Åland autonomous province), down from 14% at the beginning of the 20th century. It is a North Germanic language, closely related to Norwegian and Danish; as such it is also an Indo-European language, distantly related to languages as diverse as Hindi, German and Russian. Its importance in Finland is greater than this percentage suggests, however, for historical reasons and because a large fraction of Finns are competent in it.

Sami languages

The Sami languages are a group of related languages spoken across the region known in English as Lapland. They are distantly related to Finnish and have a combined speaker population of roughly 5,200 in Finland[2].

See also

Finnish ( suomi  , or suomen kieli) is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland (91.
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Swedish}}} 
Official status
Official language of:  European Union
 European Union (in Noarootsi along with Estonian) [1]
 Finland
 Sweden (de facto)
Nordic Council
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Sami or Saami is a general name for a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Sami people in parts of northern Finland, Norway, Sweden and extreme northwestern Russia, in Northern Europe. Sami is frequently (and erroneously) believed to be a single language.
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Romani or Romany (native name: rromani ćhib) is the language of the Roma and Sinti. The Indo-Aryan Romani language should not be confused with either Romanian (spoken by Romanians), or Romansh (spoken in parts of southeastern Switzerland), both of which
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Finnish Sign Language is the sign language most commonly used in Finland. There are 5000 (estimate) Finnish Deaf who have Finnish Sign Language as a mother tongue.
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Russian}}} 
Writing system: Cyrillic (Russian variant)  
Official status
Official language of:  Abkhazia (Georgia)
 Belarus
 Commonwealth of Independent States (working)
 Crimea (de facto; Ukraine)
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English}}} 
Writing system: Latin (English variant) 
Official status
Official language of: 53 countries
Regulated by: no official regulation
Language codes
ISO 639-1: en
ISO 639-2: eng
ISO 639-3: eng  
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Swedish}}} 
Official status
Official language of:  European Union
 European Union (in Noarootsi along with Estonian) [1]
 Finland
 Sweden (de facto)
Nordic Council
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German language (Deutsch, ] ) is a West Germanic language and one of the world's major languages.
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French (français, pronounced [fʁɑ̃ˈsɛ]) is a Romance language originally spoken in France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Switzerland, and today by about 300 million people around the world as either
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Finnish ( suomi  , or suomen kieli) is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland (91.
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Swedish}}} 
Official status
Official language of:  European Union
 European Union (in Noarootsi along with Estonian) [1]
 Finland
 Sweden (de facto)
Nordic Council
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A minority language is a language spoken by a minority of the population of a country. Such people are termed "linguistic minorities".

In Europe and in some other parts of the world, like in Canada, minority languages are often defined by legislation or constitutional
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Sami or Saami is a general name for a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Sami people in parts of northern Finland, Norway, Sweden and extreme northwestern Russia, in Northern Europe. Sami is frequently (and erroneously) believed to be a single language.
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Romani or Romany (native name: rromani ćhib) is the language of the Roma and Sinti. The Indo-Aryan Romani language should not be confused with either Romanian (spoken by Romanians), or Romansh (spoken in parts of southeastern Switzerland), both of which
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sign language (also signed language) is a language which uses manual communication, body language and lip patterns instead of sound to convey meaning—simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to
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Finnish ( suomi  , or suomen kieli) is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland (91.
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Finns and Finnish people (Finnish: suomalaiset, Swedish: finländare) are used in English to mean "a native or inhabitant of Finland", they are also used to refer to the ethnic group historically associated with Finland or Fennoscandia, and
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Baltic-Finnic languages, also known as Finnic languages, are a subgroup of the Finno-Ugric languages, and are spoken around the Baltic Sea by about 7 million people.
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Estonian}}} 
Official status
Official language of:  Estonia
 European Union
Regulated by: Institute of the Estonian Language / Eesti Keele Instituut (semi-official)
Language codes
ISO 639-1: et
ISO 639-2: est
ISO 639-3:
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Uralic languages (pronounced: /jʊˈɹælɪk/) constitute a language family of about 30 languages spoken by approximately 20 million people.
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Hungarian (magyar nyelv listen  ) is a Finno-Ugric language (more specifically an Ugric language) unrelated to most other languages in Europe.
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Ugric can refer to:
  • Ugric languages
  • Ugric peoples

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Sami or Saami is a general name for a group of Uralic languages spoken by the Sami people in parts of northern Finland, Norway, Sweden and extreme northwestern Russia, in Northern Europe. Sami is frequently (and erroneously) believed to be a single language.
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Swedish}}} 
Official status
Official language of:  European Union
 European Union (in Noarootsi along with Estonian) [1]
 Finland
 Sweden (de facto)
Nordic Council
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Motto
none
Anthem
Ålänningens sång


Capital
(and largest city) Mariehamn

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North Germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages, a sub-family of the Indo-European languages, along with the West Germanic languages and the East Germanic languages.
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Norwegian}}} 
Official status
Official language of:  Norway
Nordic Council
Regulated by: Norwegian Language Council
Language codes
ISO 639-1: no — Norwegian
nb — Bokml
nn — Nynorsk
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Danish}}} 
Official status
Official language of:  Denmark
 Greenland
 Faroe Islands
 European Union
Nordic Council
Regulated by: Dansk Sprognævn ("Danish Language Committee")
Language codes
ISO 639-1: da
ISO 639-2:
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Indo-European languages comprise a family of several hundred related languages and dialects [1], including most of the major languages of Europe, the northern Indian subcontinent (South Asia), the Iranian plateau (Southwest Asia), and much of Central Asia.
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