Meänkieli vocabulary, i.e., thevocabulary of theMeänkieli language, was influenced by many other language groups, particularlySwedish andSaami.

Meänkieli is aFinnic language, and speakers ofFinnish can understand large portions of Meänkieli. Meänkieli vocabulary is particularly similar to the vocabulary ofNorthern Finnish dialects, however Finnish dialects spoken farther away from the Swedish border has far fewer similarities with Meänkieli. However, Meänkieli words often have different meanings from how the word is used in Finnish, for example, the Meänkieli word 'pyörtyä' means 'to get lost', while the word 'pyörtyä' in Finnish refers to fainting.^[1] However, under Swedish influence, Finnic words in Meänkieli are often used in with Swedish idiomatic structures. For example, the Meänkieli phrasealusta jo reflects the Swedish expressionredan från början, meaning “from the beginning.”^[2]

Meänkieli has long been spoken alongsideSaami languages for long centuries, which is seen in the occurrence of a number of Saami words in Meänkieli, often containing phonological features that native Meänkieli words do not contain, such as the consonant cluster /tn/, seen in words such as katnanen 'hip bone'.^[3]

Meänkieli contains strong borrowingSwedish,^[4] particularly due to being separated from the development of the Finnish language for the last 200 years. This is even seen in cases where both standard Finnish and Meänkieli have adopted the same Swedish loanword, as Meänkieli often keeps the pronunciation of spoken Swedish more closely. For example, the word for 'resource' is borrowed from Swedish in both languages:, however Finnish renders it asresurssi, whereas Meänkieli retains the Swedish-influenced pronunciation asresyrssi.^[2]

• Meänkieli grammar
• Estonian Vocabulary

• Meänkieli
• Tornedalians
• Lexis (linguistics)
• Lists of words

• CS1 Swedish-language sources (sv)
• CS1 Finnish-language sources (fi)