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Meänkieli
(literally 'our language'), or Tornedalian is a Finnic language or a group of distinct Finnish dialects spoken in the northernmost part of Sweden, particularly along the Torne River Valley. It is officially recognized in Sweden as one of the country's five minority languages and is treated as a separate language from Finnish. According to the National Association of Swedish Tornedalians, 70,000 individuals understand Meänkieli, at least to some level. Meänkieli is particularly similar to the Kven language and the Peräpohjola dialects of Finnish spoken in Finland, and it is strongly mutually intelligible with them. Its status as an independent language is sometimes disputed due to this high degree of mutual intelligibility. However, Meänkieli contains strong influences from Swedish and has preserved some archaic features that even the Northern Finnish dialects have lost. It also differs from Standard Finnish because it does not include the language changes and new words ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tornedalians
Tornedalians (; ; ) are an Ethnicity, ethnic Minority group, minority native to the Torne Valley (Meänmaa) region in northern Sweden and Finland. Tornedalians were officially recognized as a national minority in Sweden in 2000. Tornedalians divide themselves into three distinct groups: Tornedalians, Kvens, and Lantalaiset. Etymology The English word ''Tornedalian'' derives from the Swedish name for the Torne Valley, ''Tornedalen''. The Swedish word Tornedalen derives from the archaic Finnic word ''tornio'' meaning ''spear'' and the Swedish word ''dal'' which means valley. Language Meänkieli, or Tornedalian, is the language or dialect spoken by Tornedalians. While Meänkieli is recognised in Sweden as one of the Official minority languages of Sweden, country's five minority languages, its status as an independent language is sometimes disputed due to its high mutual intelligibility with Finnish. It belongs to the Uralic language family. History Finnic populations first be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Official Minority Languages Of Sweden
In 1999, the Minority Language Committee of Sweden formally declared five official minority languages: Finnish, Sámi languages, Romani, Yiddish, and Meänkieli (Tornedal Finnish). The Swedish language dominates commercial and cultural life in Sweden but did not officially become the country's main language until 2009, when a new language law entered into effect. The need for this legal status had been the subject of protracted debate and proposed legislation was narrowly defeated in 2005. The minority languages have been legally recognized to protect the cultural and historical heritage of their respective speech communities. These communities are given certain rights on that basis, such as school education in their language, and its use in dealing with governmental agencies. Criteria for inclusion These are the criteria established by the Minority Language Committee, influenced by the directives from the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in 1997. To be ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minority Languages Of Sweden
In 1999, the Minority Language Committee of Sweden formally declared five official minority languages: Finnish, Sámi languages, Romani, Yiddish, and Meänkieli (Tornedal Finnish). The Swedish language dominates commercial and cultural life in Sweden but did not officially become the country's main language until 2009, when a new language law entered into effect. The need for this legal status had been the subject of protracted debate and proposed legislation was narrowly defeated in 2005. The minority languages have been legally recognized to protect the cultural and historical heritage of their respective speech communities. These communities are given certain rights on that basis, such as school education in their language, and its use in dealing with governmental agencies. Criteria for inclusion These are the criteria established by the Minority Language Committee, influenced by the directives from the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in 1997. To be a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Finnish Language
Finnish (endonym: or ) is a Finnic languages, Finnic language of the Uralic languages, Uralic language family, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. Finnish is one of the two official languages of Finland, alongside Swedish language, Swedish. In Sweden, both Finnish and Meänkieli (which has significant mutual intelligibility with Finnish) are official minority languages. Kven language, Kven, which like Meänkieli is mutually intelligible with Finnish, is spoken in the Norway, Norwegian counties of Troms and Finnmark by a minority of Finnish descent. Finnish is morphological typology, typologically agglutinative language, agglutinative and uses almost exclusively Suffix, suffixal affixation. Nouns, adjectives, pronouns, Numeral (linguistics), numerals and verbs are inflection, inflected depending on their role in the Sentence (linguistics), sentence. Sentences are normally formed with subject–verb–object word order, alth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gällivare Dialects
Gällivare dialects (Meänkieli: ), alternately Gällivare Finnish ( Swedish: , Finnish: ) or, in more colloquial Swedish, village Finnish (), are a dialect group of Meänkieli (which also includes the Torne Valley dialects and Lannankieli), which is recognized in Sweden as an independent Finnic language for political, sociological and historical reasons, but it is sometimes considered as a group of Peräpohjola dialects of Finnish due to their close mutual intelligibility. The Gällivare dialects are spoken around Gällivare, but also in Killivaara and Nattavaara. Features of the dialects are absence of Vowel harmony: ''kyla'' 'village' (Meänkieli and Finnish: ), and the passive being used for the third person plural ending: ''äijät poltethin'' ( Finnish: ). The dialect is also heavily influenced by Swedish and many loanwords have entered the Gällivare dialects. A Gällivare dialect dictionary was made in 1992 by Birger Winsa. Features * Passive being used for the t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Torne Valley Dialects
Torne Valley dialects (, , Swedish: ) are a Finnic variant spoken in Sweden and Finland. The form of the Torne Valley dialects in Finland are included as a part of the Peräpohjola dialect group, while the form in Sweden is included as the biggest one of the three variants of Meänkieli (also including Lannankieli and the Gällivare dialects), which in Sweden has an independent status from Finnish. Although the independent status of Meänkieli as a distinct Finnic language is sometimes disputed due to its high mutual intelligibility with Finnish. History The Torneo Valley dialects were once fully uniform and old standard Finnish was used by all speakers of the Torne Valley dialects. However, in 1809 when Russia annexed Finland, the dialects on the Swedish side of the border were separated from the ones spoken in Finland. This caused the Torne Valley dialects in Sweden to have been more strongly influenced by Swedish than the Torne Valley dialects in Finland. In Sweden Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lannankieli
Lannankieli is one of the three variants of Meänkieli, including the Torneo valley variant and the Gällivare dialects. Lannankieli is mutually integible with the two other variants of Meänkieli, however there exists some lexical differences. Details Lannankieli is spoken around the towns of Jukkasjärvi, Kurravaara and Kiruna (; ; ; ) is the northernmost Stad (Sweden), city in Sweden, situated in the province of Lapland, Sweden, Lapland. It had 17,002 inhabitants in 2016 and is the seat of Kiruna Municipality (population: 23,167 in 2016) in Norrbotten County. The c ..., and there have been efforts to support the variant of Meänkieli. And there have been attempts to create Meänkieli literature specifically in the Lannankieli variant. However, despite this, Lannankieli alongside Gällivare dialects are more vulnerable than the Torneo Valley variant of Meänkieli. References {{Reflist Meänkieli Languages of Sweden Kiruna Municipality ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meänmaa
, or sometimes Torne Valley or Torne River Valley (; ) lies at the border of Sweden and Finland. It is named after the Torne River flowing through the valley and into the Gulf of Bothnia. Geographically the townships and municipalities that make up the area are Haparanda, Övertorneå, Pajala and Kiruna in Sweden, and Tornio, Ylitornio, Pello, Kolari, Muonio and Enontekiö in Finland. Culturally the highland Swedish municipality Gällivare is sometimes also considered part of Meänmaa due to the large share of Meänkieli-speaking population in it. Meänkieli surnames and village names are common on the Swedish side of the border to this day, in spite of the dominance of the Swedish language in the area. The Finnish side of the border has standard Finnish as the sole spoken language. History and culture The cultural environment around the Torne River is characterized by agriculture, reindeer farming and fishing. Meänmaa was one of the oldest inhabited areas in northern F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peräpohjola Dialects
The Peräpohjola dialects () are a group of Finnish dialects traditionally spoken in the regions of Lapland, Norrbotten and Finnmark. However, due to primarily historical, political and sociological reasons, some traditional Peräpohja dialects have been granted the status of independent Finnic languages in Sweden and Norway. These forms of speech are called Meänkieli in Sweden (Including the Torne Valley dialects, Lannankieli and the Gällivare dialects), while in Norway the traditional Ruija dialects were recognized as forming the Kven language, which both were isolated from the development of modern standard Finnish. However, the status of these two Finnic variants as their own languages is still sometimes disputed due to their close mutual integibility with Finnish. Features Like the Northern Ostrobothnian (Oulu) dialects, Peräpohjola dialects are Western dialects that show features from Eastern dialects. For instance the reflex to standard ''-ts-'' in ''metsä'' is ''m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Finnic Languages
The Finnic or Baltic Finnic languages constitute a branch of the Uralic language family spoken around the Baltic Sea by the Baltic Finnic peoples. There are around 7 million speakers, who live mainly in Finland and Estonia. Traditionally, eight Finnic languages have been recognized. The major modern representatives of the family are Finnish language, Finnish and Estonian language, Estonian, the official languages of their respective nation states. ''ö'' after front-harmonic vowels. The lack of ''õ'' in these languages as an innovation rather than a retention has been proposed, and recently resurrected. Germanic loanwords found throughout Northern Finnic but absent in Southern are also abundant, and even several Baltic examples of this are known. Northern Finnic in turn divides into two main groups. The most Eastern Finnic group consists of the East Finnish dialects as well as Ingrian, Karelian and Veps; the proto-language of these was likely spoken in the vicinity of Lake ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kven Language
Kven ( or ; or ; or ; ) is a Finnic language or a group of Finnish dialects spoken in the northernmost parts of Norway by the Kven people. For political and historical reasons, it received the status of a minority language in 2005 within the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. However, it is seen by some as a mutually intelligible dialect of the Finnish language, and grouped together with the Peräpohjola dialects such as Meänkieli, spoken in Torne Valley in Sweden. While it is often considered a dialect in Finland, it is officially recognized as a minority language in Norway and many Kven consider it a separate language. There are about 1,500 to 10,000 known native speakers of this language, most of whom are over the age of 60. Middle-aged speakers tend to have a passing knowledge of the language. They use it occasionally, but not frequently enough to keep it off the endangered list. People under the age of 30 rarely speak or know the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sweden
Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic country by both area and population, and is the List of European countries by area, fifth-largest country in Europe. Its capital and largest city is Stockholm. Sweden has a population of 10.6 million, and a low population density of ; 88% of Swedes reside in urban areas. They are mostly in the central and southern half of the country. Sweden's urban areas together cover 1.5% of its land area. Sweden has a diverse Climate of Sweden, climate owing to the length of the country, which ranges from 55th parallel north, 55°N to 69th parallel north, 69°N. Sweden has been inhabited since Prehistoric Sweden, prehistoric times around 12,000 BC. The inhabitants emerged as the Geats () and Swedes (tribe), Swedes (), who formed part of the sea-faring peopl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
