Languages of Finland

Languages of Finland
OfficialFinnish (1st: 84%, 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

The two main official languages of Finland are Finnish and Swedish. There are also several official minority languages: three Sami languages, as well as Romani, Finnish Sign Language, Finland-Swedish Sign Language and Karelian.[2]

Finnish

Main article: Finnish language

Finnish is the language of the majority, with 84.1% of the population speaking it as a first language as of 2024.[3] It is a Finnic language closely related to Estonian and less closely to the Sami languages.

Swedish

Main articles: Finland Swedish and Åland Swedish

Swedish is the main language of 5.1% of the population as of 2024[3] (85.2% in the Åland autonomous province),[4] down from 13% at the beginning of the 20th century.[5] In 2012, 44% of Finnish citizens with another registered primary language other than Swedish could hold a conversation in this language.[6] Historically, Swedish was the sole language of the administration under both Swedish and Russian rule, until Tsar Alexander II's language decrees of 1863 and 1902 made Finnish official in the Grand Duchy of Finland.[7] 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,[8][9] 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 mainland Finland, in absolute numbers, are those of Helsinki, Espoo, Porvoo and Vaasa,[10] 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.[11]

The Swedish dialects spoken in mainland Finland 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.[12] Runeberg is considered Finland's national poet[13] and wrote the national anthem "Vårt land"[12]: 312  in Swedish; it was only later translated to Finnish.

Official minority languages

Sami languages

Main article: Sámi languages

The Sami languages are a group of related languages spoken across Sápmi.[14] Since they are Uralic languages, they are distantly related to Finnish.[15] The three Sami languages spoken in Finland, Northern Sami, Inari Sami and Skolt Sami, have a combined native speaker population of 2,077 in 2024,[3] although there are more than 10,000 Sami people in Finland.[14] The Government of Finland has a history of aiming to assimilate the indigenous Sámi people to the Finnish-speaking majority.[16]

Romani

Main article: Finnish Romani language

The Romani language in Finland is called Kalo or Kàlo.[17][18][19] It has been spoken in Finland for roughly 450–500 years.[20][21] It has been significantly influenced by other languages in Finland, such as Finnish and Swedish.[20] Finnish Romani is spoken by about 3,000–4,000 people,[a][17][22][23] and the number of its speakers has dropped by almost 40% over the past fifty years.[17] The number of speakers diminished drastically after World War II. Most Finnish Romani speak Finnish or Swedish in their day-to-day life.[24]

Finnish municipalities may organize education in Finnish Kalo, if there is a sufficient number of Romani children to form a group.[25] A significant challenge to this is the lack of Finnish Kalo teachers.[26]: 29  According to the Finnish constitution, Finnish Romani have the right to practise their language and culture.[27]

Karelian

Main article: Karelian language

Until the Winter War, Karelian was spoken in the historical Border-Karelia region (Raja-Karjala) on the northeastern shore of Lake Ladoga; after the war, evacuated Karelian speakers were settled all over Finland.[28] 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. In 2011, Karelian speakers in Finland amounted to roughly 5,000 speakers, with another 20,000 claiming some knowledge or comprehension skills in the language.[29] Unofficial estimates place the total size of the language community at roughly 30,000 people.[30]

Karelian was recognized in a regulation by the then president Tarja Halonen in November 2009, in accordance with the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.[31]

Sign languages

Main articles: Finnish Sign Language and Finland-Swedish Sign Language

In Finland, two sign languages are recognized: Finnish Sign Language and Finland-Swedish Sign Language. Both belong to the Swedish Sign Language family.[32]

Finnish Sign Language is the most commonly used sign language in Finland. The Finnish Association of the Deaf (Kuurojen liitto) estimates that 5,500 people use Finnish Sign Language as their mother tongue, 3,000 of whom are deaf.[33] Finland-Swedish Sign Language has around 300 signers, and is severely endangered.[32][34][35]

Other languages

As of 2017, 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.[36]

English

Most Finns are able to have a conversation in English.[37] English is the first language of 0.7% of the Finnish population.[3]

Russian

The Russian language is the most spoken immigrant language in Finland (1.8%).[3] Finland applies Part II of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages to Russian,[38] though this does not grant protected status in Finland.[39]: 38  This is despite the fact that Russian served as a third co-official language with Finnish and Swedish between 1900 and 1917, although practical use was limited.[7][40]

Estonian

As of 2024, there were 49,563 people in Finland who spoke Estonian as their native language, making up approximately 0.9% of the total population.[3]

Arabic

As of 2024, 43,534 people speak Arabic in Finland, representing approximately 0.8% of the total population.[3]

Territorial bilingualism

Except for Åland, a municipality is considered bilingual when either 8% or 3,000 of its residents speak both Finnish and Swedish. Swedish meets these criteria in 33 out of 308 municipalities, mostly located in the coastal areas of the Ostrobothnia region, Southwest Finland (especially in Åboland outside Turku) and Uusimaa. Finnish reaches the criteria everywhere but in Åland.[41]

The Sami languages have an official status in the northernmost Finland, in Utsjoki, Inari, Enontekiö and part of Sodankylä, regardless of proportion of speakers.[42]

In the bilingual municipalities signs are in both languages, important documents are translated and authorities have to be able to serve in both languages.[43] National-level administration has to serve the public in both official languages, regardless of location,[43] and in Sami in certain circumstances.[44]

Places often have official names in Finnish and Swedish, or Finnish and Sami, both names being equally official as name of the town.[45] For a list, see Names of places in Finland in Finnish and in Swedish.

Statistics

Nationwide

Population by mother tongue (2024)[3]
  1. Finnish (84.1%)
  2. Swedish (5.06%)
  3. Russian (1.82%)
  4. Estonian (0.88%)
  5. Arabic (0.77%)
  6. English (0.65%)
  7. Somali (0.48%)
  8. Sami languages (0.04%)
  9. Other (6.22%)
Residents of Finland by native language
(2011 and 2021)[47]
Language Speakers Percentage
of total
population
(2021)
(2011) (2021)
Finnish 4,863,351 4,800,243 86.52%
Swedish 291,219 287,933 5.19%
Russian 58,331 87,552 1.58%
Estonian 33,076 50,232 0.91%
Arabic 11,252 36,466 0.66%
English 13,804 25,638 0.46%
Somali 14,045 23,656 0.43%
Persian 5,623 16,499 0.30%
Kurdish 8,623 15,850 0.29%
Chinese 8,257 14,780 0.27%
Albanian 7,408 13,830 0.25%
Vietnamese 6,060 12,310 0.22%
Thai 6,342 10,831 0.20%
Turkish 5,720 10,039 0.18%
Spanish 4,988 9,891 0.18%
Ukrainian 1,500 7,278 0.13%
German 5,592 7,258 0.13%
Romanian 2,018 6,326 0.11%
Polish 3,139 5,982 0.11%
Tagalog 1,638 5,934 0.11%
French 3,152 5,352 0.10%
Bengali 2,007 5,131 0.09%
Nepali 1,475 5,048 0.09%
Serbo-Croatian 3,676 4,958 0.09%
Urdu 1,432 4,163 0.08%
Portuguese 1,785 3,837 0.07%
Italian 1,806 3,356 0.06%
Bulgarian 1,377 3,264 0.06%
Hindi 1,360 3,245 0.06%
Hungarian 2,181 3,243 0.06%
Latvian 966 3,023 0.05%
Swahili 998 2,675 0.05%
Tamil 1,080 2,409 0.04%
Dutch 1,281 2,029 0.04%
Sami 1,870 2,023 0.04%
Greek 792 1,866 0.03%
Tigrinya 239 1,842 0.03%
Lithuanian 796 1,796 0.03%
Japanese 1,152 1,738 0.03%
Amharic 1,046 1,718 0.03%
Pashto 613 1,527 0.03%
Kinyarwanda 456 1,308 0.02%
Uzbek 120 1,269 0.02%
Telugu 703 1,242 0.02%
Punjabi 770 1,240 0.02%
Yoruba 499 1,145 0.02%
Igbo 437 1,046 0.02%
Residents of Finland by language family (2019)[48]
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%
Indo-Iranian 47,804 0.87%
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%
Dravidian 4,036 0.07%
Baltic 3,884 0.07%
Greek 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%
Residents of Finland aged 18–64 that have some knowledge of foreign languages in 2017.[49]
Language Percentage
English 90%
Swedish 67%[50]
German 31%
French 11%
Finnish 10%[50]
Spanish 10%
Russian 8%

By region

Percentage of language speakers by region (2024)[51]
Region Finnish Swedish Sámi Foreign
Åland 4.5% 85.2% 0.0% 10.3%
Central Finland 94.4% 0.2% 0.0% 5.5%
Central Ostrobothnia 86.4% 8.7% 0.0% 4.9%
Kainuu 94.0% 0.1% 0.0% 5.9%
Kanta-Häme 93.0% 0.4% 0.0% 6.6%
Kymenlaakso 91.4% 0.7% 0.0% 7.9%
Lapland 94.1% 0.3% 0.9% 4.7%
North Karelia 93.3% 0.1% 0.0% 6.6%
North Ostrobothnia 95.1% 0.2% 0.0% 4.6%
North Savo 94.6% 0.1% 0.0% 5.3%
Ostrobothnia 39.9% 49.4% 0.0% 10.7%
Päijät-Häme 91.8% 0.4% 0.0% 7.8%
Pirkanmaa 92.2% 0.4% 0.0% 7.4%
Satakunta 93.7% 0.4% 0.0% 6.0%
South Karelia 90.4% 0.2% 0.0% 9.4%
South Ostrobothnia 95.3% 0.3% 0.0% 4.3%
South Savo 94.0% 0.2% 0.0% 5.8%
Southwest Finland 83.4% 5.6% 0.0% 11.0%
Uusimaa 73.7% 7.2% 0.0% 19.0%
Mainland Finland 84.5% 4.6% 0.0% 10.8%
Finland 84.1% 5.1% 0.0% 10.8%

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Estimates on the number of Roma people living in Finland range from 10,000 to 12,000 people. Of these, a third speak Romani.

References

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  5. ^ Saarela, Jan (May 2021). "Finlandssvenskarna 2021 - en statistisk rapport" (PDF) (in Swedish). Swedish Assembly of Finland. Retrieved 12 March 2026.
  6. ^ Europeans and their languages, situationen 2012 Archived 2016-01-06 at the Wayback Machine, p. 21
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  9. ^ "Subjects at General Upper Secondary". Opetushallitus. Retrieved 12 March 2026.
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  12. ^ a b Schoolfield, George C., ed. (1998). A history of Finland's literature. Histories of Scandinavian literature. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press in cooperation with the American-Scandinavian Foundation. ISBN 978-0-8032-4189-3.
  13. ^ Mahlamäki, Tiina; Mansikka, Tomas (2010-01-01). "Remarks on Swedenborgian Elements in the Literary Production of Johan Ludvig Runeberg". Temenos - Nordic Journal for the Study of Religion. 46 (1). doi:10.33356/temenos.6942. ISSN 2342-7256.
  14. ^ a b "About us". The Sámi Parliament of Finland. Retrieved 2026-03-14.
  15. ^ "Uralic". Ethnologue. Dallas, Texas: SIL Global. 2026. Retrieved 14 March 2026.
  16. ^ Heikel, Kirsi (4 December 2025). "Finland Committed Decades of Injustices Against Indigenous Sami People". Bloomberg. Retrieved 14 March 2026.
  17. ^ a b c "Other languages". Ministry of Justice. Retrieved 12 March 2026.
  18. ^ "Kalo Finnish Romani [rmf]". ISO 639-3. Archived from the original on 2025-12-03. Retrieved 2026-03-14.
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  20. ^ a b Granqvist, Kimmo (2002-01-01). "Finnish Romani Phonology and Dialect Geography". Finnish Journal of Linguistics (15): 61–84. ISSN 2814-4376.
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  42. ^ "The Sámi Language Act". The Sámi Parliament of Finland. Retrieved 2026-03-16.
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  50. ^ a b As a second language.
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