ELL: Minority languages in Sweden

[Leena Huss]

Dear Friends,
I would like to inform you that the Swedish Parliament agreed on December 2
1999  on the ratification of the Council of Europe Framework Convention on
the Protection of National Minorities and the Council of Europe Charter for
Regional or Minority Languages. The officially recognized national
minorities of Sweden will be the Jews, the Roma, the Sami, the Sweden Finns
and the Tornedalians, and the languages recognized will be Finnish,
Me”nkieli (also called 'Tornedalian Finnish'), Romani, Sami, and Yiddish.
The ratifications will come into force on April 1(!) 2000. Sami, Finnish
and Me”nkieli will get a special status as official languages some (four
for Sami, five for Me”nkieli and Finnish) of the northern municipalities.
This is a significant reorientation on the part of the Swedish State, as
Sweden has in the past concentrated its efforts on immigrant languages and
largely ignored its historical minorities.
Leena Huss


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Dr. Leena Huss
Centre for Multiethnic Research
Uppsala University
Box 514
S-75120 Uppsala          Sweden

Phone: +46-18-471 2361
Fax:   +46-18-471 2363
http://www.multietn.uu.se/
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