The two main official languages of Finland are Finnish and Swedish. There are also several official minority languages: three Sámi languages, as well as Romani, Finnish Sign Language, Finland-Swedish Sign Language and Karelian.
Official languages
Finnish
Finnish is a Finnic language which is part of the broader Uralic language family. It is one of the two national languages along Swedish; its official status is granted by Section 17 of the Constitution of Finland. It is the main language of education, media, and administration. , it is spoken as a first language by 84.1% of the population.
Excluding transcontinental countries, Finland is one of the four European countries whose majority language is not Indo-European. As a Finnic language, Finnish is closely related to the Estonian and Karelian languages. As a Uralic language, it is also more distantly related to the Sámi languages and Hungarian. It has been influenced the most by Swedish, historical stages of other Germanic languages, and—to a lesser extent—by Baltic languages and Russian. The language displays systematic vowel harmony, with a set of front and back vowels. It is an agglutinative language, and its unmarked sentences most typically follow the subect–verb–object word order. As is typical in Uralic languages, grammatical gender is absent.
Finnish has a high degree of linguistic variation. It has regional dialects and informal spoken varieties () that are distinct from the standard register, known as —or, when written, as , .
Swedish
Swedish is a North Germanic language which is part of the Indo-European language family. It holds co-official status with Finnish, as stated in Section 17 of the Constitution.
Swedish, along with Finnish, is a compulsory subject in all schools, and all students must start studying Swedish in sixth grade at the latest.
The national Finnish broadcaster Yle has a dedicated Swedish-language department called . There are nine Swedish-language newspapers in Finland—of which is the only national daily, and some of them are part of the Minority Dailies Association. Public authorities, especially in bilingual municipalities, are required to provide services and information in both languages, and Swedish-speakers may use Swedish with all state bodies, including courts and emergency services. Public TV broadcasting in Åland is handled by Ålands Radio and TV. Åland has two newspapers, and .
, 5.1% of the population of Finland speaks Swedish as its first language, down from 13% at the beginning of the 20th century. In 2012, 44% of Finnish citizens with another registered primary language other than Swedish could hold a conversation in this language.Europeans and their languages, situationen 2012 , p. 21 First-language Swedish speakers are mostly concentrated in the Ostrobothnia and Uusimaa regions, as well as Åland and the area around Turku (Åboland). The region with the highest percentage of first-language Swedish speakers is Åland (), where Finnish (spoken by ) is not official. The four largest Swedish-speaking municipalities in mainland Finland, in absolute numbers, are those of Helsinki, Espoo, Porvoo and Vaasa.Statistics Finland. Table 11s2 – Finnish-speaking and Swedish-speaking population by age and sex and by area, 1990–2024. StatFin database. Retrieved 12 March 2026, from https://pxdata.stat.fi/PXWeb/pxweb/en/StatFin/StatFin__vaerak/statfin_vaerak_pxt_11s2.px In Helsinki, currently 5.5% of the population are native Swedish speakers and 18.3% are native speakers of languages other than Finnish and Swedish.
The Swedish varieties of mainland Finland (known as Finland Swedish, ) have been influenced by Finnish in phonology and some vocabulary. Standard Swedish in Finland closely follows the written standard in Sweden, although it has phonetic differences due to Finnish influence. Most notably, Finland Swedish lacks tone, voiceless plosive aspiration, retroflex consonants, and the sj- and tj-sounds are pronounced and respectively. These differences are not present in most Åland dialects, which are closer to Central Swedish.
There is a rich Finland-Swedish literature, including authors such as Tove Jansson, Johan Ludvig Runeberg, Edith Södergran and Zacharias Topelius. Runeberg is considered Finland's national poet and wrote the national anthem "Vårt land" in Swedish; it was only later translated to Finnish.
History
Historically, Swedish was the sole language of the administration under both Swedish and Russian rule, until Tsar Alexander II's language decrees of 1863 and 1902 made Finnish official in the Grand Duchy of Finland. Russian served as a third co-official language with Finnish and Swedish between 1900 and 1917, although practical use was limited.
Minority languages Sámi languages
The Sámi languages are a group of Uralic languages spoken by the indigenous Sámi people in an area that traditionally covers northern Fennoscandia; this area is known as Sápmi. Three Sámi languages are spoken in Finland: Northern Sámi, Inari Sámi and Skolt Sámi. The Sámi languages are recognized as indigenous by Section 17 of the Constitution of Finland, which grants them the right to "maintain and develop their own language and culture."
The Basic Education Act of 1998 grants the right to have Sámi languages as media of instruction in grades 1–9 within the Sámi homeland. Total-immersion programmes for ages 1–6, known as language nests (), are active for all three Sámi languages in Finland; there are twelve nests in total. They have been particularly successful for revitalization of Inari Sámi.
Finland has fewer Sámi-language print media outlets than Norway or Sweden, and most Northern Sámi-language media is published or broadcast within Norway. , the national broadcasting company in Finland, handles most online news, television and radio and in the Sámi languages, and its Sámi-language projects are often in collaboration with national broadcasting companies in Norway and Sweden. The first Sámi-language publication in Finland was the Northern Sámi magazine (1936–2011). The regional newspaper has included Sámi-language news in its print and online editions since 2012. Other currently active Sámi-language publications in Finland include the Inari Sámi periodical , and the academic journal .
The use of the Sámi languages in administration is regulated by the constitution and the Sámi Language Act of 2003, whereby Sámi speakers have the right to use their language before authorities in the Sámi homeland, as well as nationwide bodies like Kela, the Finnish Tax Administration and DVV. They also have the right to official documents in their Sámi language when dealing with a government office. Additionally, authorities in the homeland must ensure customer service and interpretation in Sámi. However, due to insufficient funding, outdated legislation and lack of awareness among staff, these rights are not always guaranteed.
, the total number of Sámi speakers in Finland is 2,077, or of the population, out of an estimated total of 8,000–10,000 Sámi people living in Finland. The municipalities where Sámi is recognized as 'native' are Enontekiö, Inari, Utsjoki and Sodankylä. Northern Sámi is spoken in all Sámi municipalities of Finland, and it is the most widely spoken Sámi language, both in Finland and worldwide. Inari Sámi is the only Sámi language spoken exclusively within the borders of Finland, around Lake Inari. Skolt Sámi is also spoken in the Inari municipality. Inari and Skolt Sámi are estimated to be spoken by roughly 400 and 300 people, respectively.
Northern Sámi is classified as a Western Sámi language, while Inari and Skolt Sámi are Eastern. As Uralic languages, they are distantly related to Finnish. All three have had extensive contact with Proto-Germanic, Proto-Norse and Scandinavian languages, as well as Finnic languages; they have also had some influence from Baltic and Slavic languages. Sámi and Finnish have borrowed words from one another throughout their history. The Sámi languages are typologically similar to Finnish, although they tend to have richer consonant gradation and vowel alternation, and fewer noun cases (nine at most).
The Government of Finland has a history of assimilating the indigenous Sámi people into the Finnish-speaking majority. Systematic language assimilation began in the 17th century, and teaching and speaking Sámi in schools was forbidden until the 1970s.
Karelian
Karelian is a Northern Finnic language. It is recognized as a non-regional () language under Part II of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages since November 2009. The language is not taught in schools, although it has been offered as elective courses at the University of Eastern Finland since 2009. Yle provides some online content and limited TV programming in Karelian, and occasional private publications exist, such as the bilingual magazine . Local authorities do not recognize Karelian as a separate language due to its lack of recognition in the constitution.
Statistics Finland does not register Karelian as a separate language. State bodies (Kotus, Ministry of Justice) indicate that the number of Karelian speakers in Finland is approximately 5,000. According to Anneli Sarhimaa, the Karelian Language Society estimated in 1995 that there are around 5,000 fluent speakers and another 20,000 with at least some knowledge of the language, while her 2017 estimates place the number of fluent speakers at 11,000. She also states that "the standard assumption is that the majority of the speakers of Karelian in Finland are elderly people".
Karelian, although described as autochthonous, is now recognized as non-regional because there is no significant concentration of Karelian speakers within a specific region due to the evacuation of Finnish Karelia in the 1940s. Until the Winter War, Karelian was spoken in the historical Border Karelia region on the northeastern shore of Lake Ladoga. The Greater Helsinki area and Joensuu have been identified as significant centres in 2017. The latter city functions as the national hub for Karelian-language research, teaching and events, thanks to state funding to the University of Eastern Finland.
As a Northern Finnic language, Karelian is closely related to Finnish. The two languages are mutually intelligible at elementary levels of everyday communication. Before World War II, the Karelian varieties traditionally spoken in Finland were Southern Karelian and Livvi-Karelian; refugees from Russia who moved to Finland before World War II also spoke Northern Karelian. , Livvi-Karelian was the most widely spoken variety in Finland, although Northern and Southern varieties were also present. Karelian has had extensive contact with Russian, which has had a significant influence on the language.
The Karelian language is different from dialects of the Finnish language that are sometimes labelled South Karelian.
Romani
The Romani language traditionally spoken in Finland is called Kalo or Kàlo. It has been spoken in Finland for roughly 450–500 years, with the earliest attestation dating to 1559 in Åland. It belongs to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European language family, and it is thought to be derived from Sanskrit. Finnish Romani is classified as a Northern Romani dialect; within that grouping, it is labelled Northwestern or considered a dialect of its own.
Finnish Romani is spoken by about 3,000–4,000 people, and the number of its speakers has dropped by almost 40% over the past fifty years. Most Finnish Roma speak Finnish or Swedish in their day-to-day life.