In Finland the Swedish language is our second official language, because between the years 1150-1808 Finland was a colony of Sweden, started with their crusaders that came here to turn this nation into a Christians. (After that period we where under the Russian rule until in 1917 we got our independency.)Punde kirjoitti:It's not an official language there, but I think it is an official minority language there. Lots of Sweden Finns in Sweden.Oh1one kirjoitti:Question: I'm too lazy to check for myself...Is Finnish a 2nd Official or widely spoken Language in Sweden?
edit: but not as many as there are Swedish-speaking Finns (Finland-Swedes) in Finland (about 6% of the population, most of the bilingual too, so they speak Finnish too)
Today about 5,5% of Finns are "finnish-swedes" and they tend to live on a spesific areas of Finland, so by living outside of those areas you really don't meet any of them at all. Even though Swedish is still taught in Finnish schools, a majority of Finns don't really speak Swedish. Our society is basically bilingual only in theory. And because of the history, many Finns don't like swedish or finnish-swedish people nor do they even like to try and speak in Swedish. In fact, statistics show that vast majority of Finns wouldn't even like to be taught the Swedish language, and there's a constant argument going on that why we have to learn Swedish in Finland.
Now, the thing in Sweden is different. Many Finnish people left to Sweden to have a better life as Sweden has always been the wealthiest of the Nordic countries. In Sweden Finnish people are immigrants. Even though there are quite many of them, Finnish language is not an official second language of Sweden, but Finnish is an official minority language there.
