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On this page, you will find all content related to the languages in the Nordic countries.
Ingria is the historic name for the isthmus between the Baltic Sea and Lake Lagoda, connecting modern-day Finland with modern-day Estonia. Today, this region is dominated by the city of St Petersburg. Over the last four hundred years, Ingria has seen numerous invasions, annexations and changes to state boundaries, reflecting the major historical events of early modern Northern Europe. Ingria can be characterised as a region of political and ideological borders – at various times, constructed as the dividing line between Finland and Russia, capitalism and communism, East and West. These changes have had profound impacts on the Ingrian Finns, the seventeenth century Finnish-speaking settlers in the region and their descendants.
In this short video, Lill Tove Fredriksen, Associate Professor in Sámi Literature at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, discusses the Sámi language pre-, during and after Norwegianisation, taking four generations of her family’s women as a starting point.
Rinkebysvenska or Rinkeby Swedish is a contemporary urban vernacular (CUV) which has developed in multi-ethnic urban areas of Sweden including a suburb of Stockholm called Rinkeby. This speech variety is mainly used by young people in addition to other languages and language varieties depending on context, and its use is reflected in rap and fiction.
The scientific study of language form and meaning, including the specialised branch of runology, has been a prominent academic pursuit in the Nordics since the Middle Ages.
Yoik is the native Sami musical expression which is reminiscent of singing. It has layers of meaning as it holds identity markers and was traditionally very significant in how social interaction took place within Sami communities (and still is to a certain extent). It also had more practical purposes, such as calming reindeer.
Finland has two official languages, Finnish and Swedish, as a result of its more than 600-years as part of the Kingdom of Sweden (until 1809). While the Swedish-speaking minority has remained relatively small, the Finnish Constitution and other relevant legislation guarantee them the same language rights as Finnish speakers. This has resulted in bilingual public and private services and organisations, and the relationship between the two language groups has led to both friction and been a source of artistic inspiration.
From a global point of view, few people speak the Nordic languages. Translation is therefore an everyday necessity for many Nordic people who do business and exchange ideas with those outside (and to some extent inside) the region. This has led to a healthy translation industry. Often up to 60% of books published by Nordic publishers are translated texts. Membership associations and certification bodies have grown up to support translators and verify their work, and further education institutions provide relevant theoretical and practical courses. Outside the region, Nordic literature in translation remains limited, often to the genre of crime fiction.
There has been much more official involvement with the Nordic languages than with English. That is true even of the well-established Danish, Icelandic and Swedish standards. Each language exists under the watchful eye of a language ‘committee’, ‘board’ or ‘council’, for the most part state-sponsored, semi-autonomous bodies. A wide spectrum of interested parties participates, including academics, schoolteachers, writers, journalists and terminological experts.
A descendant of Old Norse, Faroese has had to contend with Danish but remains the principal language spoken and written in the Faroe Islands.
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