Finland Swedish - History

History

From the 16th century, Swedish was the main language of jurisdiction, administration, and higher education in Finland (which was then a part of Sweden), but the majority of the population in the Finnish inland spoke Finnish outside of these sectors of society, i.e. in normal, daily life. In 1809, when Finland was conquered by the Russian Empire became an autonomous Grand Duchy, Swedish remained the only official language. In 1863, both Finnish and Swedish became official languages with equal status, and by the time of Finland's independence in 1917, after a fennicization campain by the Fennoman movement, Finnish clearly dominated in government and society. See further: Finland's language strife.

Finland has since then been a bilingual country with a Swedish-speaking minority (5.5% of mainland Finland's population in 2006) living mostly in the coastal areas of southern, south-western, and western Finland. During the 20th century, the urbanization following the Industrial Revolution has led to large majorities of Finnish speakers in all major cities. The capital Helsinki (in Swedish Helsingfors) became predominantly Finnish speaking as recently as around 1900. A large and important part of the Swedish-speaking population nevertheless lives in the capital.

The autonomous island province of Åland is an exception, being monolingually Swedish speaking according to international treaties. It is a matter of definition whether the Swedish dialects spoken on Åland are to be considered a kind of Finland Swedish or not. Most Swedish-speaking Finns and linguists consider them to be closer to some of the dialects spoken in nearby parts of Sweden.