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Finland Swedish or Fenno-Swedish (Swedish: finlandssvenska; Finnish: suomenruotsi) is a variety of the Swedish language and a closely related group of Swedish dialects spoken in Finland by the Swedish-speaking population, commonly also referred to as Finland Swedes, as their first language.
Today, Finnish is one of two official languages of Finland (the other being Swedish), and has been an official language of the European Union since 1995. However, the Finnish language did not have an official status in the country during the period of Swedish rule, which ended in 1809.
Finnish belongs to the family of Uralic languages. That may sound cryptic, but it essentially means that linguists have classified Finnish and Swedish into entirely different language families. Finnish is not a Germanic language (like Swedish or English are). Furthermore, Finnish is not an Indo-European language.
May 23, 2024 · In Finland’s 1919 constitution both Finnish and Swedish were designated national languages. Finnish belongs to the Baltic-Finnic branch of the Finno-Ugric languages, being most closely related to Estonian, Livonian, Votic, Karelian, Veps, and Ingrian.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
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 as Finland-Swedish.
The Swedish spoken in Finland is called Finland Swedish (suomenruotsi). It is pronounced somewhat differently from the Swedish spoken in Sweden. If you apply for Finnish citizenship, you need a certificate of sufficient proficiency in the Finnish or Swedish language.
Finnish is an official language in Finland, along with Swedish, and is one of the official languages of the EU. Finnish is recognised as a minority language in Sweden, Norway and Russia. Relationship to other languages. Finnish belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic language family.
