Editing Demographics of Finland (section)

=== Official and national languages ===

[[File:Languages of Finnish municipalities (2016).svg|thumb|200px|Languages of Finnish municipalities as of 2016.
{{legend|#EEEEC1|unilingually Finnish}}
{{legend|#37ABC8|bilingual with Finnish as majority language, Swedish as minority language}}
{{legend|#0055D4|bilingual with Swedish as majority language, Finnish as minority language}}
{{legend|#000080|unilingually Swedish}}
{{legend|#800033|bilingual with Finnish as majority language, Sami as minority language}}]]
Finland has two official languages (national languages): [[Finnish language|Finnish]] and [[Swedish language|Swedish]]. In addition, there are other languages that are officially recognised by the authorities, but are not national languages. The [[Sámi languages]] are those of Finland's indigenous people. Indigenous languages with a long history in Finland include [[Finnish Kalo language|Finnish Romani]] (Kalo), [[Finnish Sign Language]], [[Finnish-Swedish Sign Language]] and [[Karelian language|Karelian]]. Finnish, which belongs to the [[Uralic languages]], is spoken by approximately 4.9 million people in Finland as a first language and by more than 0.5 million as a second language. It is also spoken in Sweden, [[Norway]], [[Eastern Karelia]], [[Ingria]] (Russia), the [[United States|USA]] and [[Australia]], with various dialects. Written Finnish dates back 500 years.<ref name="kotus-languages-of-finland">{{cite web |url=https://www.kotus.fi/en/on_language/languages_of_finland |title=Languages of Finland |publisher=The Institute for the Languages of Finland |access-date=4 October 2023 |language=en }}</ref>

Swedish, an [[Indo-European language]] within the [[North Germanic languages|North Germanic branch]], is spoken by approximately 9 million people worldwide, including 285,360 (2024) speakers in Finland. [[Finland Swedish]] is a regional variety that aims to remain similar to the Swedish spoken in Sweden. The Sámi languages, which are indigenous to Europe and closely related to the Finnic languages, have approximately 60,000-100,000 speakers, of whom 10,000 live in Finland. There are three Sámi languages in Finland: [[Inari Sámi language|Inari Sámi]], [[Skolt Sámi]] and [[Northern Sámi]], each with its own written form. Since 1992 they have had official status in certain areas of Lapland.<ref name="kotus-languages-of-finland"/>

Karelian, spoken in Finland and Russia, is the closest linguistic relative of Finnish. There are fewer than 100,000 speakers of Karelian, with approximately 5,000 in Finland. Romani, an Indo-European language, belongs to the Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-Iranian branch. Finnish Romani is one of the [[Northern Romani dialects]] and has been spoken in Finland for approximately 450 years. Efforts to preserve it as a literary language began in the 1970s. Finnish Sign Language serves as the primary language for 4,000-5,000 deaf Finns and is used as a first or second language by 6,000-9,000 hearing Finns. Finnish-Swedish Sign Language, on the other hand, is endangered, with only 90 users left.<ref name="kotus-languages-of-finland"/>

All mainland [[Municipalities of Finland|municipalities]] are monolingual in Finnish or bilingual in Finnish and Swedish. None is monolingual Swedish. However, Swedish is the only official language on the autonomous island of [[Åland]].<ref name="um-status-of-aland">{{cite web |url=https://um.fi/the-special-status-of-the-aland-islands |title=The special status of the Åland Islands |publisher=Ministry for Foreign Affairs |access-date=4 October 2023 |language=en }}</ref>