Basic information on the spoken languages and the educational system:

Swedish

Swedish is the official language of Sweden and, with Finnish, one of the two official languages of Finland. The total number of speakers of Swedish is about 9 million. Swedish belongs to the East Scandinavian branch of North Germanic languages, it is closely related to Danish and Norwegian.

The earliest history of Swedish is known predominantly from numerous runic inscriptions. During the 14th and 15th centuries a number of radical changes took place in the language partly under influence from Low German. The completion of the translation of the New Testament in 1526 is seen as marking the beginning of the Modern Swedish period. A standard spoken language began to emerge in the 17th century, formed mainly on the dialects spoken in Stockholm and around Lake Mälar. Swedish has a pitch accent, described by outsiders as a singsong rhythm. The vocabulary contains many loanwords, especially from Low and High German, French, Latin and English.

Finnish

Immigrants to Sweden are registered only by country of origin, not by language nor ethnicity, thus one does not know exactly how many Finnish-speakers there are in Sweden. Between 200.000 and 300.000 Finnish-speakers appears to be a reasonable estimate. Swedish Finns are mainly an urban population: the proportion living in cities is above 90% (one third of all are estimated to live in the Greater Stockholm area). The bulk of these people went to Sweden for economic reasons during the 19th and 20th centuries. It seems that there is some decrease both in the number of speakers and members of the community caused by a large group of people that returned to Finland during the 80s and later.

Meänkieli: Tornedal Finnish

The bilingual area of Tornedalen is located in the northernmost part of Sweden, in Norrbotten province (270.000 inhabitants). Meänkieli is spoken in five communes located in the most northern part of Norrbotton (along the Finnish border).

Tornedalers, like their Roma- and Saami counterparts, have the right to mother-tongue instruction where the language is part of their environment. With all immigrant languages in Sweden a minimum of five pupils is necessary for home language instruction but for Meänkieli, Romani Chib and Saami the municipality has to offer mother tongue instruction even if the number of pupils is less than five. The number of pupils receiving mother tongue instruction is steadily decreasing and the language is in competition with other foreign languages in school. There is only one Finnish medium school (in Haparanda). In other schools in the region the language is a subject on the curriculum like any other and is allocated between one to two hours per week at primary and secondary level.

Saami

Saami is spoken by the Saami, indigenous population living in the northernmost part of Scandinavia and Russia. There are between 70.000 and 100.000 Saami people and some of them speak the language as a mother tongue. The main bulk of speakers are in Northern Norway (in Finmarken), i.e. some 40.000. There are some 17.000 Saami in Sweden, of whom approximately 7.000 individuals have mastery in Saami. The largest number of Saami live in the northern municipalities of Kiruna (2.500), Gällivare (1.800), JokkMokk (900) and Arvidsjaur (700). There are some 1.000 Saami living in the surroundings of Stockholm, but most of them do not usually speak the language.

Saami is a Finno-ugric language, related to Balto-finnic languages (like Finnish and Estonian). According to a widely accepted theory, both Saami and Balto-finnic languages were derived from a common protolanguage. From this protolanguage it is thought that proto-Saami developed around 1.000 BC and maintained apparently uniform until around 800 AD; thereafter it developed into the current dialects.

Despite the efforts to standardize the language, there are six different orthographies for Saami. Most of these were created by linguists and have a lot of diacritics which is a strong barrier for a lot of Saami-speakers wishing to learn to write and read their own language.

There are six schools run by the State where children are taught the Saami language and culture. For those who do not attend these special schools the mother tongue programme provides tuition in Saami language and culture. In addition the Saami School Board funds integrated Saami education in non-Saami primary and secondary schools. Up to 140 pupils take part every year. At upper secondary level it is also possible to take special Saami subjects where there is a demand. The University of Uppsala has been offering courses in Saami studies for over one hundred years.

Eurostat surveys showed that 77% of the population of Sweden can take part in a conversation in English and 24% in German.

On 09-02-00 Sweden has ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, to apply to the Saami, Finnish, Meänkieli (Tornedal Finnish), the Romani Chib and Yiddish languages, as well as on the same day the European Framework Convention of National Minorities for Saami, Swedish Finns, Tornedalers, Roma and Jews.

Websites: