Finnish | |
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suomen kieli | |
Pronunciation | IPA: [ˈsuomi] |
Native to | Finland, Sweden, Norway (Only very small parts in Troms and Finnmark), Russia |
Native speakers
|
5.4 million (2009–2012) |
Latin (Finnish alphabet) Finnish Braille |
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Signed Finnish | |
Official status | |
Official language in
|
1 Country Finland 1 Organisation European Union |
Recognised minority
language in |
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Regulated by | Language Planning Department of the Institute for the Languages of Finland |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-1 | fi |
ISO 639-2 |
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ISO 639-3 |
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Glottolog | finn1318 |
Linguasphere | 41-AAA-a |
Official language.
Spoken by a minority.
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Finnish ( suomi , or suomen kieli [ˈsuomen ˈkieli]) is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. It is one of the two official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden. In Sweden, both standard Finnish and Meänkieli, a Finnish dialect, are spoken. The Kven language, a dialect of Finnish, is spoken in Northern Norway by a minority group of Finnish descent.
Finnish is the eponymous member of the Finnic language family and is typologically between fusional and agglutinative languages. It modifies and inflects nouns, adjectives, pronouns, numerals and verbs, depending on their roles in the sentence.