Global InformationFinland Swedish information
| Finland Swedish | |
|---|---|
| Fenno-Swedish | |
| finlandssvenska | |
 Unofficial flag of the Swedish-speakers in Finland | |
| Region | Western and southern coast of Finland, Åland |
| Ethnicity | Finland Swedes |
Language family | Indo-European
|
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | east2303 |
| IETF | sv-FI |
Finland Swedish or Fenno-Swedish[1] (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.
For the most part, these dialects and the dialects spoken in Sweden are mutually intelligible, although some archaic dialects in Ostrobothnia are practically unintelligible to Swedish-speaking people in southern Finland (and in Sweden). Most Swedish-speaking Finns emphasize that Finland Swedish is not a separate language from the Swedish of Sweden. The Swedish dialects in Finland are considered varieties of Swedish, and the norm for written Standard Swedish is completely applicable also for Finland Swedish. Today, Swedish dialects are spoken in four different regions in Finland: Ostrobothnia, Åland, Southwest Finland and Uusimaa.
Swedish as spoken in Finland is regulated by the Swedish Department of the Institute for the Languages of Finland. This regulation includes the officially stated aim of keeping Finland Swedish close to the Swedish as spoken in Sweden and strongly phrased advice against loanwords and calques from Finnish, which are usually incomprehensible to Swedes.
It is said that the municipality with the highest proportion of Swedish speakers in the world, Larsmo (93% as of 2017[update]), is located in Finland. Korsnäs has also been cited as such. However, as there are no official statistics on the mother tongue of inhabitants of Sweden, this is impossible to verify. In addition bilingualism is very common for immigrants in Sweden, so the term Swedish-speaking may be deceptive in that sense.
In the spoken vernacular, especially among young people in Finnish-dominated areas, Finnish loanwords as well as calques from Finnish are frequently incorporated into Finland Swedish. There are also some words in Finland Swedish that would be considered slightly archaic in Sweden. Some government and public service terms that have been created in recent centuries also differ. The same is true of other new words, notably loanwords from English.
A common misconception among many Swedes is that Finland Swedish is simply Swedish spoken with a Finnish accent, something that can be a considerable source of frustration to most native Swedish-speakers in Finland.[weasel words][citation needed] Any language adopts features, especially pronunciation habits, from dominant languages it comes in touch with, but many of the traits of Finland Swedish exist also in monolingual areas and some are in fact preserved features of Old Swedish, as with Scots in comparison with English or Afrikaans in comparison with Dutch.
- ^ "Professor Catherine O. Ringen". The University of Iowa. May 11, 2011. Archived from the original on 26 October 2014. Retrieved 27 October 2014.