Languages of Åland
| Languages of Åland | |
|---|---|
| Official languages | Swedish |
| Minority languages | Finnish |
| Main foreign languages | English, Finnish |
Åland, an autonomous region of Finland, has the largest Swedish-speaking majority in Finland, with about 88% of the province, or about 25,500 people, speaking Swedish as their first language (specifically the Åland Swedish dialect). Swedish is also the sole official language of the province.[1] Finnish, of course, also has a presence, although it is small; only 5% of Ålanders are Finnish-speaking.
The ten most spoken languages in 2014 (with a total population of 28,916):[2]
- Swedish: 25,531 (88.29%)
- Finnish: 1,399 (4.84%)
- Latvian: 295 (1.02%)
- Romanian: 295 (1.02%)
- Estonian: 194 (0.67%)
- Russian: 139 (0.48%)
- Thai: 135 (0.47%)
- English: 111 (0.38%)
- German: 96 (0.33%)
- Kurdish: 67 (0.23%)
While the number of Swedish-speakers grew from 24,169 in 2000 to 25,531 in 2014, their percentage has dropped from 93.7% in 2000 to 88.3% in 2014. For Finnish, the percentage and number of speakers has been same (from 1,238 to 1,399; 4.8%). The percentage of speakers of other languages grew from 1.5% in 2000 to 6.9% in 2014.[2]
External links
- (French) Languages of Åland
References
- ↑ Självstyrelselag för Åland 16.8.1991/1144 - 36 §. Retrieved 2010-06-30.
- 1 2 Population by language 31 December 2014