Why does Finland have two official languages?

The Government’s new strategy put together under the leadership of Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen, stressed the need for both national languages to be clearly visible, heard and used in order to reinforce Finland as a bilingual country.

Does Finland have two official languages?

The Language law of Finland stipulates that Mainland Finland has two national languages, Finnish and Swedish. In the Åland Islands, the official language is Swedish only. In four Sami populated municipalities of Northern Finland, Sami is recognized as official language.

How many languages are spoken in Finland?

More than 150 different first languages are spoken in Finland. The official languages (national languages) of Finland are Finnish and Swedish. In addition to Finnish and Swedish, there are other languages in Finland whose users’ rights are laid down in law.

What languages do they speak in Finland?

Finnish
Swedish
Finland/Official languages

Can Finland speak English?

English. The English language is spoken by most Finns. Official statistics in 2012 show that at least 70% of Finnish people can speak English.

What is the second official language of Finland?

Is Finnish a Scandinavian language?

Yes, even though Finland is part of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Finnish is not a Scandinavian language. This is because it belongs, together with Estonian, to a different language family, namely Finno-Ugric. Finnish is a Nordic language, but definitely not a Scandinavian language.

Is Finland a rich country?

Finland is the third most prosperous country in the world. Legatum Institute, The Legatum Prosperity Index 2018: Finland. Protection of property rights in Finland is the best in the world.

Is Finland English speaking country?

English is quite widely spoken in Finland, though not quite as prevalent as the other Scandinavian countries. Just under three quarters of Finns report being able to speak English, many of them fluently, which is a very high proportion in itself and compares favorably to most other countries outside of Scandinavia.

Is Finnish like Russian?

Many people assume that Finnish is closely related to either Swedish or Russian, as Sweden and Russia are both important neighbouring countries. However, that is not the case. Swedish and Russian are both Indo-European languages, whereas Finnish belongs to the Finno-Ugric branch of the Uralic family of languages.

Is Finnish hard to learn?

Compared to these tongue-twisters, Finnish is somewhat easier – but still not among the easiest, as FSI estimates it would take 44 weeks or 1100 hours before a learner would feel confident enough join the conversation at the office coffee machine. The FSI ranking also lists the easiest languages to learn.

Is Finnish closest to Russian?

Are there any other languages spoken in Finland?

Which is the majority language Finnish or Sami?

bilingual with Finnish as majority language, Sami as minority language. Finnish is the language of the majority, 91% of the population. It is a Finnic language closely related to Estonian and less closely to the Sami languages.

How many people in Finland speak Swedish as their mother tongue?

About 9 million people in the world speak Swedish as their mother tongue. In Finland, about 290,747 people speak the language which is equivalent to 5.31% of the country’s total population. About 92.4% of Swedish speakers in the country hail from the autonomous province of Åland.

Do you have to learn both Finnish and Swedish?

Some jobs require both Finnish and Swedish skills. In Finnish schools, both Finnish and Swedish are studied. Pupils whose first language is Finnish study Swedish at school. Pupils whose first language is Swedish study Finnish.