Language in Finland
“A language is not just words. It’s a culture, a tradition, a unification of a community, a whole history that creates what a community is. It’s all embodied in a language.” Noam Chomsky.
The 21st February 2025 was International Mother Language Day. It is a day for everyone to celebrate, embrace, and rejoice in their own mother language. A mother language is a phenomenon that we all share - we all have at least one.
In this edition of Figuring Out Finland, we take a look at the languages spoken in Finland, language rights for foreigners in Finland, and the attitudes in Finland to speakers of other languages.
In this week’s edition:
International Mother Language Day
Mother, home, native or first language?
Languages in Finland
Attitudes to language in Finland
International Mother Language Day
International Mother Language Day, held annually on 21st February, is a worldwide day of awareness of linguistic and cultural diversity and serves to promote multilingualism. First announced by UNESCO on 17 November 1999, it was formally recognised by the United Nations in 2002.
The idea for International Mother Language Day was put forward by Bangladesh, the former Pakistani province of East Bengal, who fought for the recognition of the Bengali language on 21st February 1952.
International Mother Language Day is a national holiday in Bangladesh.
According to the United Nations:
Languages are the most powerful instruments of preserving and developing our tangible and intangible heritage. All moves to promote the dissemination of mother tongues will serve not only to encourage linguistic diversity and multilingual education but also to develop fuller awareness of linguistic and cultural traditions throughout the world and to inspire solidarity based on understanding, tolerance and dialogue.
Mother, home, native or first language?
There are various definitions for mother language, native language, and first language, and they have differences depending on context.
Mother language is often defined as the “language learned in childhood in the home environment". This would seem like a sensible definition, but there is considerable overlap with the term home language. In addition, the term first language is also used to refer to the language learned in childhood in the home environment.
In common parlance, the term native language is often used to refer to the language learned in childhood and is also defined in very similar terms. There are, however, some additions to the definition of native language used in certain contexts. Native language can be used to refer to the language spoken by the people of a certain country, region or ethnic group.
It would seem that all these terms are fraught with complexity.
If I think of my own linguistic upbringing, then I would say that Northern English is both my native language and first language, but my mother language and home language is the dialect spoken in my home town.
My home-town dialect is clearly a dialect of Northern English and not a separate language, but it differs from other Northern English dialects, and differs considerably from other Anglo-English dialects.
The term British English is such a broad umbrella term riddled with “all the ambiguities and tensions of the word 'British'“, to quote Tom McArthur, that it hardly seems useable.
Despite the differences in dialects and standards in my native UK, I was brought up in a very monolingual environment.
If I think of my own children’s linguistic upbringing, it is a very different situation that troubles the above definitions much more.
My children grew up in a linguistically rich environment. They refer to themselves as bilingual (Finnish & English), and indeed they are completely bilingual, but I don’t think that captures the whole truth and richness of their linguistic upbringing.
It is accurate to say that they grew up with an English-speaking English father and a Finnish-speaking Finnish mother, but they also grew up with my native Northern English dialect and the Southwestern-Finnish dialect of their mother. In addition, they spent their formative years in a Swedish-speaking area of Finland and were exposed to Finnish and Finland Swedish every day.
If I had to define their mother, home, and native languages, I would struggle. In addition, I don’t think it is useful to talk of first languages with multilingual individuals.
Linguistically speaking, however, my kids are not particularly unusual. There are much more complex and diverse linguistic communities around the world.
Languages in Finland
Finland has two official languages, Finnish and Swedish.
There are approximately 4.9 million people in Finland who speak Finnish as their mother language, and approximately 296 000 people speak Finland Swedish as their mother language.
The Finnish State also recognises three Sámi languages
Sámi Languages
“Northern Sámi”, pohjoissaame in Finnish or davvisámi in Northern Sámi, which is the mother language of approx 21 000 people
“Inari Sámi”, inarinsaame in Finnish or anarâškielâ in Inari Sámi, which is the mother language of only a few hundred people
“Skolt Sámi”, koltansaame in Finnish or sääʹmǩiõll in Skolt Sámi, which is the mother language of only a few hundred people.
The Sámi languages in Finland have had official status in the Sámi Homeland (the municipalities of Inari, Enontekiö, Utsjoki and the northern parts of Sodankylä) since 1992, and Sámi living in this area have the right to receive services from authorities in their mother languages.
Karelian
The Karelian language is a language indigenous to the western shores of Lake Ladoga in Karelia, formerly part of Finland (a large part of Karelia was lost to the USSR during the Winter War in 1940), and is the language most closely related to Finnish. It has been spoken in Finland for as long as Finnish, and is often mistakenly referred to as an eastern dialect of Finnish. However, Karelian is a separate language.
There are roughly 11 000 Karelian speakers in Finland, and since 2011 it is possible to register Karelian as one’s mother language in the Finnish Population Information System.
Finnish Romani
The Finnish Romani language has been spoken in Finland since the beginning of the 1500s. The Romani language is an Indo-Aryan language, which belongs to the Indo-Iranian sub-group of Indo-European languages.
The Romani language has primarily only been spoken within the Romani community in Finland, but an effort to both preserve and develop the language started in the 1970s. In 2012, it was estimated that only 30% of the 13 000 Romanis in Finland spoke the Romani language.
A major problem in maintaining the language has been the lack of qualified teachers. However, since 1989 Romani language and culture has been part of comprehensive education, and since 2012 the Romani language has been available for study as a minor subject in the University of Helsinki.
Finnish sign languages
There are two sign languages in use in Finland: Finnish Sign Language and Finnish-Swedish Sign Language with approximately 5 500 and 300 people using them as a mother language respectively.
Foreign languages & language rights in Finland
There are approximately half a million people in Finland who speak over 150 languages other than those listed above as their mother language.
The Finnish Constitution ensures that everyone residing in Finland has the right to maintain and develop their own mother language and culture.
This “own mother language”, oma äidinkieli in Finnish, was previously referred to as kotikieli or “home language”. In standard Finnish and in educational contexts, äidinkieli (literally “mother’s language) is the term used to refer to the Finnish language.
In practice, the right to maintain and develop one’s own mother language and culture means that every school goer whose mother language is something other than Finnish, Swedish or one of the Sámi languages has the right to receive supplementary language tuition in their own mother language.
Mother language tuition is free of charge and voluntary. However, if a pupil enrols in mother language tuition, they must attend the lessons regularly.
According to the Finnish National Agency for Education, in 2023 supplementary mother language tuition was provided in 59 languages to a total of 22 010 pupils in the spring term and 24 137 pupils in the autumn term.
The five largest mother language groups were Russian (6 100 students), Arabic (3 200 students), Somali (2 200 students), English (1 400 students) and Ukrainian (1 200 students).
Attitudes to language in Finland
This is a complex and often counter-intuitive topic!
In order to understand certain attitudes to foreign languages in Finland we need to understand something about the historical linguistic context.
Historical context
Finland is a country with a small native population sandwiched between larger and more powerful neighbours who speak unrelated languages.
Finland was part of Sweden for almost 700 years (approx. 1150 - 1809), during which Finnish was considered inferior to Swedish. Finnish speakers could only use Finnish as a spoken language and they were considered second-class members of society because they could not use their language in any official situations. There were even efforts to actively reduce the use of Finnish by attempting to teach Finnish speakers Swedish in parish clerk schools, using Swedish in church, and sending Swedish-speaking servants and maids to Finnish-speaking areas.
During Swedish rule, Swedish was the language of administration and higher education. In order to gain higher education, Finnish speakers had to learn Swedish. Indeed, Finnish was considered by the Swedish upper classes to be a "language of peasants”.
Finnish only became an official language of the Swedish administration in the Civil Code of 1734.
In 1809, Finland was annexed by Russia after it defeated Sweden in the Finnish War and it became the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland. Under Russian rule, the laws established during Swedish era remained largely unchanged, and Swedish continued to be used in administration.
A significant contribution to the importance and status of the Finnish language came from the Fennoman movement during the second half of the 19th century. Johan Vilhelm Snellman, a Swede who wished to increase education in Finland, became a chief initiator of conflict referred to as Finland’s language strife due to his concern about the changing language use among the educated classes, many of whom were using Russian or Finnish.
Indeed, he wrote to Finnish author Zacharias Topelius in 1860 stating:
"My view is this: Whether Russian or Finnish will win, only God knows. I dare not hope for anything. But that Swedish will lose - that I do know."
Snellman became a leading figure in the Fennoman movement which comprised mostly Swedish-speaking upper classes deliberately choosing to promote Finnish culture and language. These Finnish Swedes, known as the Fennomans, Fennicized their family names, learned Finnish, and made a point of using Finnish both in public and at home.
The Finnish language only gained equal status to Swedish in 1863 when Tsar Alexander II ruled that Finnish could be used in an official capacity in legal and state office matters. Within a generation, the Finnish language use gained predominance in the government and the society of Finland.
Towards the end of Russia rule in Finland there were two attempts (1899–1905 and 1908–1917) to fully integrate Finland into the Russian Empire. This Russification of Finland, as it became known, aimed at limiting the special status of the Grand Duchy of Finland and also the termination of its political autonomy and cultural uniqueness.
Tsar Nicholas II attempted to change the official language to Russian (Language Manifesto of 1900), but Russification was halted by the general strike of 1905.
Finland finally gained its independence from Russia in 1917.
Finland has had to suffer derogatory and aggressive attitudes towards the Finnish language for centuries, and it has had to fight tooth and nail to defend and maintain its language for nearly a millennium.
The Finnish language has been considered incomprehensible, unimportant, and inferior for centuries, and yet it remains.
Contemporary attitudes
This historical context is important when we consider certain contemporary attitudes towards foreign languages in Finland, and also some of the demands made of foreigners in Finland regarding competence in the Finnish language.
The fact that the Finnish language still exists is testament to the people who fought for it over the years, and we who speak Finnish are in their debt.
Finnish is a beautiful, rich, and incredibly expressive language that is the mother language of some five million people.
Finnish speakers are proud of their language, and they are also aware of its complexity and difference from Indo-European languages. They know it is inaccessible to many, and they also know that they have to ensure that it remains for future generations.
They can joke about its grammatical complexity, but they will defend it with the same rigour as if it were still under threat of eradication.
Finland may have been a sovereign, independent nation since 1917, but the threat from Russia never disappeared. Virtually everyone in Finland has a family member who was affected in some way by the Winter War and Continuation War with Russia.
The threat of the loss of sovereignty and independence is a lived experience for almost every Finn. And if that threat were about to die with the last of the war veterans, it is now very much alive after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
This sense of existential threat extends to the language too.
The Finnish language plays a huge role in Finnish identity, and the importance of the language in Finnish society is not taken lightly.
As previously mentioned, the maintenance and development of one’s mother language(s) is guaranteed by the Finnish constitution. It is also widely understood and accepted in Finland that knowledge of other languages is crucial to international relations and the economic development of the country.
Indeed, the current president of Finland, Alexander Stubb (a Swedish-speaking Finn), has been widely praised for his multilingual language ability (Stubb speaks Swedish, Finnish and English fluently, and also has a high level of competence in French, German, and Italian).
Finnish children start to learn the second official language of the country (Finnish or Swedish depending on their mother language) in grades 1 and 2 of comprehensive school, and the first foreign language (usually English) is introduced from grade 3.
Clearly the idea of the benefit of foreign languages is well established in Finland, but it cannot be at the expense of the Finnish language. This tension is not explicitly stated by most Finns, but it definitely exists at the very least on a subconscious level.
So how is this tension expressed in every day life?
The Finnish language requirement
For as long as I have been in Finland (26+ years) there has been both an implicit and explicit demand for Finnish language competence in many areas of life - most noticeably work life.
Many job descriptions include a clause stating that the Finnish language is required in order to carry out the role successfully. In some roles, particularly Finnish-speaking-customer-facing jobs this is certainly the case. Also, official public-sector positions naturally require a very high level of competence in both Finnish and Swedish.
However, there are many cases where the role does not actually require a high level of Finnish, and in many cases the role does not require Finnish at all.
There has been a long and highly polarised conversation in Finland amongst both foreigners and native Finns about this Finnish language requirement in job descriptions.
The Finnish language requirement has certainly been used in some cases as a first-line filter for applicants. Supply almost always outweighs demand on the Finnish job market, so employers can afford to be a little picky. There’s nothing wrong with wanting the best candidate for the job, but using the Finnish language requirement as a filter if Finnish is not actually required seems unfair.
As a foreigner in Finland, I have experienced this Finnish language requirement from both sides. I have been successful in job applications when fellow candidates have not; the only difference between us has been the fact that I can speak Finnish. This has been proven to me on a few occasions when I have been doing the job I applied for and realised that I do not need the Finnish language at all to carry out my tasks.
I have, however, benefitted greatly from my Finnish language skills when chatting with Finnish colleagues. The (in)famous “coffee table” conversations that we were made to believe were so utterly essential before COVID have taken place primarily in Finnish.
I find myself in two minds over this.
It is, of course, beneficial that colleagues can talk about things using the majority language, but it is also restrictive simply because many foreigners do not learn Finnish to a sufficiently high level.
Any company - any country - benefits from new ideas, new ways of thinking about things, and new ways of doing things. Innovation and progress often come from the outliers. If the outliers are not invited to the party, we are potentially at the risk of groupthink.
I understand the desire to stay in one’s comfort zone, but the discomfort of having to speak English at the coffee table is simply not a good enough reason.
There seems to be a disconnect in some circles in Finland between the benefits of opening up to new ideas and the necessary measures to make it happen. New ideas, innovation, and progress often come from the outliers - the foreigners - and the languages, cultures, and experiences that they bring with them.
Change is always uncomfortable. I get it.
But nothing ventured, nothing gained.
There are always two sides to every story, and the problem is not only on the Finnish side of this employment equation. We foreigners also need to understand that we cannot expect special treatment just because Finland needs to supplement its workforce with people from abroad.
We also need to make the effort to learn the language and culture, and integrate into Finnish society as best we can. And let’s be clear, many foreigners do learn the language to an extent, some learn it very well.
The challenge seems to be a cultural one rather than a purely linguistic one.
Many foreigners start learning the language, but fail to adopt important cultural behaviours. Learning the Finnish language is just the first step on a long and challenging journey to life in Finland.
You may be able to speak Finnish well, but if you are consistently late or do not do what was agreed, that is going to be a deal breaker for the Finnish employer.
I speak from experience.
I have lost jobs in the past not because of my lack of Finnish language skills, but because of my lack of Finnish cultural skills.
This is a large part of the hesitance of Finnish employers when it comes to choosing foreigners for roles. I have heard it directly from Finnish employers. I have been in meetings where we have been discussing open roles and candidates, and a common concern has been that foreigners don’t know how to work in Finnish companies and with Finnish people.
Language competence is not the biggest concern, cultural competence is.
But you cannot stipulate a Finnish cultural requirement on a job description.
Hence the Finnish language clause.
I am not going to get into potential solutions to these challenges; that would be a book, not a newsletter.
My hope is that those Finnish employers who use the Finnish language requirement as a first-line filter would consider the actual challenges in employing foreigners and provide linguistic and cultural support and training. They would most certainly benefit from that investment.
I also hope that foreigners in Finland would learn the Finnish language, Finnish culture and history, and try to understand the reasons for the hesitance some Finnish employers have towards them.
As with everything, the answers probably lie somewhere in the middle ground.
Whichever side you find yourself on, be kind and understanding. It’s too easy to get defensive and point fingers.
Everything has a context.
One thing is for sure, learning and welcoming the language and culture of others is always a good investment.
Have a great week!
Rob
It's always fascinating to hear elaborate accounts about navigating these kinds of language issues in Finland. Thanks!
Some small quibbles:
“Finnish children start to learn the second official language of the country (Finnish or Swedish depending on their mother language) in grades 1 and 2 of comprehensive school, and the first foreign language (usually English) is introduced from grade 3.”
While one understands this by reading the part in parentheses closely, speaking of the “second official language” is maybe a bit confusing here. That is, it's usually “second” only in the sense that it's the “second domestic” one (toinen kotimainen, andra inhemska), i.e., either Finnish or Swedish, depending basically on your family (language), right? As a school subject, it's called “äidinkieli” (lit. mother tongue) and it's historically been the *first* language you study in school, although nowadays, you can start learning your first foreign language already in the 1st grade (such as English or any other “long one” where available at the school). This used to be possible only from the 3rd grade on, but considering how easily young kids learn languages, I think earlier is better — and this way, you can now start your *next* foreign language already on grade 3 (instead of 5 like in the past). Or this is the way it's now in Helsinki at least.
As for the perennial “pakkoruotsi” (and why not “pakkosuomi”...): Of course, in many schools, you can start your “non-native” Swedish straight from the first grade, but AFAIK you now have to start the mandatory minimum from grade 6 (historically, grade 7, but I think this has changed, too, or at least made possible).
By the way, one confusing topic is the so-called S2 Finnish (“Finnish as a ‘secondary’ [or ’another’] language”, I think) — or more pertinently, the way it's chosen and/or determined for the pupils whether they get to study full-fledged Finnish as their “äidinkieli” (or if not, then what, why, how, and so on...). I guess the idea of S2 is to have an eased and smoothed-out way to teach Finnish to pupils with varied language backgrounds and starting levels — I might be talking out of my ass here, but it might be that its origins go to teaching Finnish to kids from Swedish-speaking families in particular. The Finnish National Agency for Education has this 'splainer on it at least, but to be honest I really am unable to make sense much of it, although it's clearly in Finnish (formally): https://www.oph.fi/fi/koulutus-ja-tutkinnot/suomi-toisena-kielena-ja-kirjallisuus-s2
Anyhow, with the arrival of some larger, youthful language communities like speakers of Somali and Arabic, and without paying any particular attention to the topic, I've heard grumbling every now and then, increasingly it feels, about the ways in which this system fails the students. Now, I must admit that I'm not that knowledgeable about the details and actual practices or policies in schools or otherwise, but I've read about e.g. Somali-speakers born and living here complaining about the significant disservice (karhunpalvelus) being done to their further study prospects by placing them into an S2 group. Apparently, students in those groups tend to have way more variance in their skill levels than what'd be optimal, resulting in suboptimal learning.
Actually, there's the question whether many kids with an immigrant background belong in S2 in the first place, given they may effectively be *bilingual* or even more fluent in Finnish than in their family language. I recall but sadly can't seem to find this interview with a Somali youngster/teenager who said he felt pretty screwed in high school (lukio, gymnasium) because he had fallen badly behind in many general studying skills and routines due to missing proper Finnish classes. Those classes and a good grasp of written Finnish and its uses actually prepare you in so many ways to manage and graduate high school in general, irrespective of subject or all! A telling example was that he had to *ask* from his school buddy what an “essay” meant exactly, as a standard form of assignment or more generally, how to write one, etc.
I mean, how do kids like him even end up in S2 or similarly disadvantageous places? Didn't their parents and/or teachers understand or care enough? Is the decision or recommendation made based on the family/parents' language by default? Do officials overprioritize the learning of the family language? How common is this, anyway? *I don't know*, but I think we really should make sure we don't screw up things like these on a big scale, especially when it's about people who already face quite an uphill struggle to reach their full potential and flourish up here as respected, proud, reciprocal contributors, beneficiaries and members of the Finnish society!
What a lovely article, Rob! That’s a great point regarding cultural competence being as important, if sometimes not more, than the language itself.
That discussion of first language or mother language makes me always think of how my mother would be a bit vexed when I say French is my mother tongue, to which she replies: « No! It’s your father tongue, your mother tongue will always be English » 😂 Suffice to say that in a French speaking environment her language represented a drop in the ocean, French being used in 99,99% of the time, at least I got exposed to it sooner than others with some cultural insights too!