| Kven | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kainun kieli Kveenin kieli Kväänin kieli Meiðän kieli |
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| Spoken in | Norway | |||
| Native speakers | 2000–8000[1] (2005?) | |||
| Language family | ||||
| Official status | ||||
| Official language in | Norway (Minority language) |
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| Regulated by | Kven language board | |||
| Language codes | ||||
| ISO 639-3 | fkv | |||
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The Kven language is a Finnic language spoken in Northern Norway by the Kven people. For political and historical reasons it received the status of a minority language in 2005 within the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Linguistically, however, it is seen as a mutually intelligible dialect of the Finnish language, and grouped together with the Peräpohjola dialects, such as Meänkieli, spoken in Torne Valley in Sweden.
Contrary to popular belief, the dialects spoken by the Kvens and Kainuu peoples are not closely related. The Kainuu dialect is one of the Savonian dialects that was formed from the 16th century onwards, when immigrants from Savonia started to settle in the northern wastelands.
The Kven language has come to incorporate many Norwegian loanwords, such as tyskäläinen (from the Norwegian word tysk, meaning German) instead of standard Finnish saksalainen. The Kven language also uses some old Finnish words that no longer are used in Finland.
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From the 1860s onwards the Norwegian government attempted to assimilate the Kvens. For example, the use of the Kven language became forbidden in schools and government offices, and Kven town names were replaced by Norwegian names. From 1970s onwards, the Kvens and the Sami in Norway have openly been allowed to use their original mother tongues, the Kven language and the Sami languages, respectively, and to teach them to their children in schools. Despite its recent gain of status as a minority language, there is still a major discussion among the Kven about whether the Finnish orthography should be applied to the language or if a new orthography should be devised.
Since 2006 it has been possible to study the Kven culture and language at the University of Tromsø,[2] and in 2007 the Kven language board was formed at the Kven institute, a national centre for Kven language and culture in Børselv, Norway. The council will work out a written Kven language, but use Finnish orthography to maintain inter-Finnish language understanding.[3]
Today, most speakers of the Kven language are found mostly in Northeastern Norwegian communities such as Bugøynes, Neiden, Vestre Jakobselv, Vadsø, and Børselv. Also a few older speakers may still be found in the municipalities of Nordreisa and Storfjord. Bugøynes perhaps remains the most vital of all the remaining Kven communities in Norway.
In Northeastern Norway, mainly around Varanger Fjord, the spoken language is quite similar to the standard Finnish, whereas west of Alta the few remaining Kven speakers speak Finnish with more particularities, due to a deeper isolation from Finland.
In a 2005 government report, the number of people speaking the Kven language in Norway is estimated to be between 2000 and 8000, depending on the criteria used. However, today there are very few young people who speak the language, making it an endangered language.[1]
The phonology of Kven is basically the same as that of Finnish. It is however worth noting that while Standard Finnish has been replacing /ð/ by /d/, it is retained in Kven. For instance, the word meiðän ('our') in Kven is meidän in Standard Finnish.
Kven has 16 vowels, if one includes the vowel length:
| Front | Back | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unrounded | Rounded | Unrounded | Rounded | |
| Close | i iː | y yː | u uː | |
| Mid | e eː | ø øː | o oː | |
| Near-open | æ æː | |||
| Open | ɑ ɑː | |||
In writing, the vowel length is indicated by doubling the letter, e.g. <yy> /yː/ and <öö> /øː/.
The graphemes representing /ø/, /æ/ and /ɑ/ are <ö>, <ä> and <a>, respectively.
Kven has 14 consonants found in native vocabulary, and four consonants found in loanwords:
| Bilabial | Labiodental | Dental | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | ||||||
| Plosive | voiceless | p | t | k | |||||
| voiced | b | d | ɡ | ||||||
| Fricative | voiceless | f | s | ʃ | h | ||||
| voiced | ð | ||||||||
| Trill | r | ||||||||
| Approximant | ʋ | l | j | ||||||
/b, d, ɡ, ʃ/ are only found in loanwords.
/ʋ/ and /ʃ/ are represented in writing by <v> and <š>, respectively.
/ð/ is represented in writing by either <ð> or <đ>.
/ŋ/ is represented in writing by <n> if followed by /k/, and <ng> if geminated, i.e. <nk> /ŋk/ and <ng> /ŋː/
Gemination is indicated in writing by doubling the letter, e.g. <mm> for /mː/ and <ll> for /lː/
| Kven:[4]
Kvääninkieli oon se kieli mitä kväänit |
Standard Finnish:
Kveenin kieli on se kieli, jota kveenit |
Literal English translation:
The Kven language is the language which the Kvens |
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