Scandinavia

==== Finnish ====
[[File:Sami languages large 2.png|thumb|Historically verified distribution of the [[Sámi languages]]]]
The Scandinavian languages are (as a language family) unrelated to Finnish, [[Estonian language|Estonian]] and the [[Sámi languages]], which as [[Uralic languages]] are distantly related to [[Hungarian language|Hungarian]]. Owing to the close proximity, there is still a great deal of borrowing from the Swedish and Norwegian languages in Finnish and the Sámi languages.<ref name="Sapmi" /> The long history of linguistic influence of Swedish on Finnish is also due to the fact that Finnish, the language of the majority in Finland, was treated as a minority language while Finland was part of Sweden. Finnish-speakers had to learn Swedish in order to advance to higher positions.<ref>{{cite book| author = Suzanne Romaine| title = Bilingualism| url = https://books.google.com/books?id=zp5xiFa_TXQC| year = 1995| publisher = Wiley-Blackwell| isbn = 978-0-631-19539-9| page = 323| access-date = 23 April 2023| archive-date = 23 April 2023| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230423132203/https://books.google.com/books?id=zp5xiFa_TXQC| url-status = live}}</ref> Swedish spoken in today's Finland includes a lot of words that are borrowed from Finnish, whereas the written language remains closer to that of Sweden.

Finland is officially bilingual, with Finnish and Swedish having mostly the same status at national level. Finland's majority population are [[Finns]], whose mother tongue is either Finnish (approximately 95%), Swedish or both. The Swedish-speakers live mainly on the coastline starting from approximately the city of Porvoo (Sw: Borgå) (in the Gulf of Finland) up to the city of Kokkola (Sw: Karleby) (in the Bay of Bothnia).{{citation needed|date=April 2021}} The Swedish-speaking population is spread out in pockets in this coastal stretch. The coastal province of [[Ostrobothnia (region)|Ostrobothnia]] has a Swedish-speaking majority, whereas plenty of areas on this coastline are nearly unilingually Finnish, like the region of [[Satakunta]].{{citation needed|date=April 2021}} Åland, an autonomous province of Finland situated in the Baltic Sea between Finland and Sweden, are entirely Swedish-speaking. Children are taught the other official language at school: for Swedish-speakers this is Finnish (usually from the 3rd grade), while for Finnish-speakers it is Swedish (usually from the 3rd, 5th or 7th grade).{{citation needed|date=April 2018}}<ref>{{Cite web|last=Institute|first=Mercator|date=5 November 2020|title=The Swedish language in education in Finland|url=https://www.mercator-research.eu/fileadmin/mercator/documents/regional_dossiers/swedish_in_finland_2nd.pdf|access-date=5 November 2020|archive-date=14 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210414152840/https://www.mercator-research.eu/fileadmin/mercator/documents/regional_dossiers/swedish_in_finland_2nd.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>

Finnish speakers constitute a [[European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages|language minority]] in Sweden and Norway. [[Meänkieli]] and [[Kven language|Kven]] are Finnish dialects spoken in [[Lapland (Sweden)|Swedish Lapland]] and [[Finnmark|Norwegian Lapland]].