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On this page, you will find all content related to the languages in the Nordic countries.
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.
A member of the Finno-Ugric language group and thus related to Finnish, Sami consists of three branches, sufficiently different from each other to be considered as separate languages.
Linguistic minorities have existed for centuries, such as the Finns and Sami in Sweden. Since 1960s minority languages have often been associated with immigration. Since 2000 and even before, policies with regard to minority languages have ranged from assimilation on the one hand, where the majority language is a necessity, to multicultural pluralism on the other, where minority languages are encouraged.
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