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Languages of Finland

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Languages of Finland
OfficialFinnish (1st: 86%,2nd: 13%)
Swedish (1st: 5%,2nd: 44%)
Minorityofficially recognized:Sami,Romani,Finnish Sign Language,Finland-Swedish Sign Language,Karelian
ImmigrantEstonian,Russian,Arabic,Somali,English,Kurdish,Albanian,Persian,Chinese,Vietnamese,Thai,Tagalog,Turkish,Spanish
ForeignEnglish (70%)
German (30%)
French (10%)[1]
SignedFinnish Sign Language,Finland-Swedish Sign Language
Keyboard layout
QWERTY
Basic Finnish/Swedish

Finnish Multilingual
Source[1] (europa.eu)

The two main officiallanguages of Finland areFinnish andSwedish. There are also several officialminority languages: three variants ofSami, as well asRomani,Finnish Sign Language,Finland-Swedish Sign Language andKarelian.[2]

Finnish

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Municipalities of Finland:
  unilingually Finnish
  bilingual with Finnish as majority language, Swedish as minority language
  bilingual with Swedish as majority language, Finnish as minority language
  unilingually Swedish
  bilingual with Finnish as majority language, Sami as minority language
Main article:Finnish language

Finnish is the language of the majority, 85.7% of the population in 2022.[3] It is aFinnic language closely related toEstonian and less closely to theSami languages.

Swedish

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Main articles:Finland Swedish andÅland Swedish

Swedish is the main language of 5.2% of the population in 2022[3] (92.4% in theÅland 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.[4]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 arecompulsory 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 ofHelsinki,Espoo,Porvoo andVaasa, where they constitute significant minorities. In Helsinki, currently 5.5% of the population are native Swedish speakers and 18.3% are native speakers of languages other than Finnish and Swedish.[3]

The Swedish dialects spoken in Finland mainland are known asFinland-Swedish. There is a rich Finland-Swedish literature, including authors such asTove Jansson,Johan Ludvig Runeberg,Edith Södergran andZacharias Topelius. Runeberg is considered Finland'snational poet and wrote the national anthem, "Vårt land", which was only later translated to Finnish.

Within language policy making in Finland,Taxell's paradox refers to the notion that monolingual solutions are essential to the realization of functional bilingualism, with multilingual solutions ultimately leading to monolingualism. The thinking is based on the observation of the Swedish language in environments such as schools is subordinated to the majority language Finnish for practical and social reasons, despite the positive characteristics associated with mutual language learning.[5][6]

English

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English is spoken as aforeign language by most Finns. Official statistics from 2012 show that at least 70% ofFinns can speak English.[7] English is the native language of 0.5% of the Finnish population.[3]

Sami languages

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Traffic signs in Utsjoki, written in Finnish and in Northern Sámi, marking the municipal border.

TheSami languages are a group of related languages spoken acrossSápmi. They are distantly related to Finnish. The three Sami languages spoken in Finland,Northern Sami,Inari Sami andSkolt Sami, have a combined native speaker population of only 2,035 in 2022 albeit there are more than 10,000 Sami people in Finland.[8] The state of Finland has a history of aiming to assimilate the indigenousSámi people to the Finnish-speaking majority.

Romani

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The Romani language in Finland is calledFinnish Kalo. It has been spoken in Finland for roughly 450 years. It has been significantly influenced by other languages in Finland, such as Finnish. Of the around 13,000Finnish Romani, only 30% speak and understand the language well. The number of speakers diminished drastically after WW2. Most Finnish Romani speak Finnish or Swedish in their day-to-day life.[9]

Finnish municipalities have the possibility to organize education in Finnish Kalo, if there are a sufficient amount of Romani children to form a group. A significant challenge to this is the lack of Finnish Kalo teachers. According to the Finnish constitution, Finnish Romani have the right to practise their language and culture. The number of Romani language speakers is estimated to have decreased by 40% over the past 50 years.[10]

Karelian

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UntilWorld War II,Karelian was spoken in the historical Border-Karelia region (Raja-Karjala) on the northeastern shore ofLake Ladoga. After the war, evacuated Karelian speakers were settled all over Finland. In 2001, the Karelian Language Society estimated that the language was understood by 11,000–12,000 people in Finland, most of whom were elderly. A more recent estimate is that there are around 5,000 first language speakers in Finland, but the size of the language community is 30,000.[11]

Karelian was recognized in a regulation by the then presidentTarja Halonen in November 2009, in accordance with theEuropean Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.[12]

Russian

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A trilingual museum street sign in Helsinki with Russian, Finnish and Swedish represented.

The Russian language is the most spoken immigrant language in Finland (1.7%).[3] Nonetheless, the Russian language has no official minority status in Finland, although historically it served as a third co-official language with Finnish and Swedish between 1900 and 1917.

Sign languages

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In Finland, two sign languages have official status, theFinnish Sign Language and theFinland-Swedish Sign language, both of which belong to theSwedish Sign Language family.[13]

Finnish Sign Language is thesign language most commonly used inFinland. There are 5,000 Finnishdeaf who have Finnish Sign Language as a first language. As the Finnish system records users by theirwritten language, not theirspoken alone, nearly all deaf people who sign are assigned this way and may be subsumed into the overall Finnish language figures. However,Finland-Swedish sign is today only spoken by around 300 people, and is severely endangered.[13][14]

Territorial bilingualism

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For example, in some regions road signs are written first in Finnish and then in Swedish or even in some areas vice versa.

All municipalities outsideÅland 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 ofOstrobothnia region,Southwest Finland (especially inÅboland outsideTurku) andUusimaa. 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 theOstrobothnia region, which is also the onlyregion on the Finnish mainland with a Swedish-speaking majority (52% to 46%).

TheSami languages have an official status in the northernmost Finland, inUtsjoki,Inari,Enontekiö and part ofSodankylä, 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, seeNames of places in Finland in Finnish and in Swedish.

Statistics

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Population by mother tongue (2023)[15]
  1. Finnish (84.89%)
  2. Swedish (5.1%)
  3. Russian (1.78%)
  4. Estonian (0.9%)
  5. Arabic (0.74%)
  6. English (0.6%)
  7. Somali (0.46%)
  8. Other (5.53%)
Knowledge offoreign languages and Swedish assecond language in Finland, in percent of the adult population, 2005
Knowledge of the English language in Finland, 2005. According to the Eurobarometer,[16] 63% of the respondents indicated that they know English well enough to have a conversation. Of these 23% (percent, not percentage points) reported a very good knowledge of the language whereas 34% had a good knowledge and 43% basic English skills.

93% of Finns aged 18–64 can speak a foreign language, and 78% can speak two or more. 2,184,000 or 66% can speak both Swedish and English, while 1,003,000 (30%) can speak German and English and 882,000 (27%) Swedish and German.[17]

Residents of Finland by native language
(2011 and 2021)[18]
LanguageSpeakersPercentage
of total
population
(2021)
(2011)(2021)
Finnish4,863,3514,800,24386.52%
Swedish291,219287,9335.19%
Russian58,33187,5521.58%
Estonian33,07650,2320.91%
Arabic11,25236,4660.66%
English13,80425,6380.46%
Somali14,04523,6560.43%
Persian5,62316,4990.30%
Kurdish8,62315,8500.29%
Chinese8,25714,7800.27%
Albanian7,40813,8300.25%
Vietnamese6,06012,3100.22%
Thai6,34210,8310.20%
Turkish5,72010,0390.18%
Spanish4,9889,8910.18%
Ukrainian1,5007,2780.13%
German5,5927,2580.13%
Romanian2,0186,3260.11%
Polish3,1395,9820.11%
Tagalog1,6385,9340.11%
French3,1525,3520.10%
Bengali2,0075,1310.09%
Nepali1,4755,0480.09%
Serbo-Croatian3,6764,9580.09%
Urdu1,4324,1630.08%
Portuguese1,7853,8370.07%
Italian1,8063,3560.06%
Bulgarian1,3773,2640.06%
Hindi1,3603,2450.06%
Hungarian2,1813,2430.06%
Latvian9663,0230.05%
Swahili9982,6750.05%
Tamil1,0802,4090.04%
Dutch1,2812,0290.04%
Sami1,8702,0230.04%
Greek7921,8660.03%
Tigrinya2391,8420.03%
Lithuanian7961,7960.03%
Japanese1,1521,7380.03%
Amharic1,0461,7180.03%
Pashto6131,5270.03%
Kinyarwanda4561,3080.02%
Uzbek1201,2690.02%
Telugu7031,2420.02%
Punjabi7701,2400.02%
Yoruba4991,1450.02%
Igbo4371,0460.02%
Residents of Finland by language family (2019)[19]
FamilyNo. of speakersPercentage
Finno-Ugric4,877,16188.27%
Germanic320,0165.79%
Slavic102,1611.85%
Afroasiatic57,8441.05%
Indo-Iranian47,8040.87%
Romance24,8020.45%
Sino-Tibetan13,7600.25%
Turkic11,6510.21%
Austroasiatic11,4590.21%
Tai10,2430.19%
Niger-Congo8,8410.16%
Austronesian5,6780.10%
Dravidian4,0360.07%
Baltic3,8840.07%
Greek,Latin1,7160.03%
Japonic1,6170.03%
Caucasian9320.02%
OtherIndo-European12,1410.22%
Other Asian9580.02%
Other8,5880.16%
Residents of Finland aged 18–64 that have some knowledge of foreign languages in 2017.[20]
LanguagePercentage
English90%
Swedish67%[21]
German31%
French11%
Finnish10%[21]
Spanish10%
Russian8%

See also

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References

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  1. ^La langue française dans le monde 2014(PDF) (in French). Nathan. 2014. pp. 13–19.ISBN 978-2-09-882654-0. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 12 April 2015. Retrieved5 April 2015.
  2. ^"De finlandssvenska teckenspråkiga – en osynlig minoritet".svenska.yle.fi (in Swedish). Retrieved2024-05-06.
  3. ^abcde"Number of foreign-language speakers grew by nearly 38,000 persons". Statistics Finland. 2022. Retrieved12 September 2023.
  4. ^Europeans and their languages, situationen 2012Archived 2016-01-06 at theWayback Machine, p. 21
  5. ^Valkonen, Eero (2020)."En- eller tvåspråkiga lösningar? : diskursanalys om användning av begreppet "den taxellska paradoxen" i Vasabladets debattinlägg 2013–2018".University of Jyväskylä (in Swedish).
  6. ^"Taxell om sin paradox".svenska.yle.fi (in Swedish). Retrieved2022-05-17.
  7. ^"Europeans and their languages". Special Eurobarometer 386. June 2012. p. 21. Retrieved27 August 2021.
  8. ^"Tietoa meistä".Saamelaiskäräjät (in Finnish). Retrieved2024-02-13.
  9. ^"Romanikieli on vaarassa kadota" (in Finnish). YLE. Retrieved2 December 2022.
  10. ^"Muut kielet" (in Finnish). Ministry of Justice. Retrieved2 December 2022.
  11. ^"Etusivu Kielitieto Kielet Karjala".
  12. ^Change in the regulation by the president of Finland about European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, 68/2009 27.11.2009(in Finnish)
  13. ^ab"Suomen viittomakielet".Kotimaisten kielten keskus (in Finnish). Retrieved2024-05-12.
  14. ^"De finlandssvenska teckenspråkiga – en osynlig minoritet".svenska.yle.fi (in Swedish). Retrieved2024-04-29.
  15. ^"Language according to age and sex by region, 1990-2023".stat.fi. Retrieved25 May 2024.
  16. ^"Eurobarometer".europa.eu. Retrieved2021-06-20.
  17. ^"Tilastokeskus - 3. Useampaa kuin yhtä vierasta kieltä osaa 78 prosenttia suomalaisista".
  18. ^"Befolkning 31.12. efter Område, Språk, Kön, År och Uppgifter".Tilastokeskuksen PX-Web tietokannat (in Swedish). Retrieved2021-06-20.
  19. ^"Väestö 31.12. muuttujina Maakunta, Kieli, Ikä, Sukupuoli, Vuosi ja Tiedot".Tilastokeskuksen PX-Web tietokannat (in Finnish). Retrieved2021-06-20.[permanent dead link]
  20. ^"Englantia, ruotsia ja saksaa osataan eniten" (in Finnish). Statistics Finland. Retrieved2 December 2022.
  21. ^abAs a second language.

External links

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Media related toLanguages of Finland at Wikimedia Commons

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