Meänkieli

Proper noun

Meänkieli

1. A language spoken by some 40,000–70,000 people mainly in Northern Sweden. It is a variant of Finnish with a structure and grammar similar to Finnish, but the vocabulary considerably influenced by Swedish.
   • The County Board of Education worked out simple textbooks in Meänkieli and started to promote the vernacular in mother tongue instruction (henceforth MTI). Meänkieli was perceived as a bridge between Swedish and St Fi.2006, Robert B. Kaplan, Richard B. Baldauf, Language Planning and Policy in Europe, →ISBN, page 242
   • The Tornedalians call their speech meän kieli ("our language"). Meänkieli was banned from schools until 1992 (see Huss 1999, 80ff. for an historical outline). Since then, the Tornedalians' mother tongue has been taught alongside Swedish. The Meänkieli, however, is not often used in writing outside...2005, Ulrich Ammon, Sociolinguistics: An International Handbook of the Science of Language and Society, Language Arts & Disciplines, →ISBN, page 1547

   Synonyms:

   North Finnish, Torne Valley Finnish, Tornedalen, Tornedalen Finnish, Tornedalsfinska