Minority languages of Sweden

In 1999, the Minority Language Committee of Sweden formally declared five official minority languages: Finnish, Sami, Romani, Yiddish, and Meänkieli (Tornedal Finnish).

The Swedish language dominates commercial and cultural life in Sweden but did not officially become the country's main language until 2009, when a new language law entered into effect. The need for this legal status had been the subject of protracted debate and proposed legislation was narrowly defeated in 2005.

The minority languages have been legally recognized to protect the cultural and historical heritage of their respective speech communities. These communities are given certain rights on that basis, such as school education in their language, and its use in dealing with governmental agencies.

These are the criteria established by the Minority Language Committee, influenced by the directives from the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in 1997.

To be accorded official minority status, a language must have been spoken in Sweden for a significant amount of time. A precise figure has not been revealed, but qualified estimations consider 100 years to be reasonable, based on the included and excluded languages. A significant immigration to Sweden did not start until after World War I, and many languages currently spoken by a large number of people in Sweden are excluded, among them Arabic and Persian.

It is also required that the language be spoken by a significant number of people and be centred in a specific geographical region (the latter, however, not applied for Romani and Yiddish).

Furthermore, it is a condition that the granting of official minority language status should be of cultural benefit to the group speaking it. It is allegedly for this reason that Swedish Sign Language was not included – even though it is a unique language with a history dating back to the 18th century, it was considered to have a sufficiently stable basis already in Swedish culture.

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