The Kven language (also called Cwen, Quen or Kveeni) is the variety of Finnish spoken by the Kven, a minority population in Norway. The number of Kven speakers is estimated to between 2,000 and 8,000, living in the two northernmost counties of Norway, Troms and Finmark. While Kven has traditionally been regarded as a dialect of Finnish, there has been a movement to secure recognition for it as a separate language in the interests of minority language protection. In this, the situation of Kven resembles that of Meänkieli, a variety of Finnish spoken in Sweden. Wheras Norway has up to now not provided schooling or any other services in either Kven or Standard Finnish, it has officially recognized Kven, under that name, as a minority language within the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages since 2005. Northern Europe is marked in dark blue Northern Europe is a name of the northern part of the European continent. ... Current distribution of Human Language Families Most languages are known to belong to language families. ... Geographical distribution of Samoyedic, Finnic, Ugric and Yukaghir languages The Uralic languages form a language family of about 30 languages spoken by approximately 20 million people. ... Approximate geographical distribution of areas where indigenous Finno-Ugric languages are spoken. ... The Finno-Permic languages are a large branch of the Finno-Ugric languages. ... Finno-Volgaic languages include the Mari language(s) and the two Mordvinian languages the Moksha language and the Erzya language. ... Geographical distribution of Finno-Ugric (Finno-Permic in blue, Ugric in green). ... Baltic-Finnic languages are a subgroup of Finno-Ugric languages, spoken around the Baltic Sea by about 6 million people. ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2:1998 Codes for the representation of names of languages — Part 2: Alpha-3 code Twenty-two of the languages have two three-letter codes: a code for bibliographic use (ISO 639-2/B) a code for terminological use (ISO 639-2/T). ... ISO 639-3 is in process of development as an international standard for language codes. ... The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is a system of phonetic notation devised by linguists to accurately and uniquely represent each of the wide variety of sounds (phones or phonemes) used in spoken human language. ... Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone = sound/voice) is the study of sounds (voice). ... Technical note: Due to technical limitations, some web browsers may not display some special characters in this article. ... // The people The term Kven (a. ... Troms is a county in northern Norway, bordering Finnmark and Nordland. ... Meänkieli (Meänkieli: lit. ... The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML) is a European treaty (CETS 148) adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages in Europe. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Kven should not be confused with the Sami language, which like Finnish is a Finno-Ugric language but not mutually intelligible with it, and which is spoken by a different minority in Norway. The Kvens are also distinguished from the Skogfinns, another Finnish-speaking group of a few hundred speakers, who live in parts of Norway bordering on Sweden. Sami is a general name for a group of Finno-Ugric languages spoken in parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia, in Northern Europe. ... Geographical distribution of Finno-Ugric (Finno-Permic in blue, Ugric in green). ...

The present-day Kven population are the descendants of several waves of migrants from the southern parts of today's Finland, between the 15th and the 19th centuries. The different waves have shaped the dialectal variety within the Kven language. In north-easten Norway, mainly around Varanger Fjord, the spoken Kven is quite similar to a standard Finnish, whereas the few remaining Kven speakers in the west, from Alta to the Lyngen Fjord, speak Finnish with more particularities, due to a deeper isolation from Finland. Among the dialects of Finnish within Finland, Kven is most closely related that of Kainuu. The Varangerfjord, in the county of Finnmark, is the easternmost fjord in Norway. ... Kainuu (Swedish: Kajanaland) is a region (maakunta / landskap) of Finland. ...

Kven has many Norwegian loan words, e.g. tyskäläinen ('German', from Norwegian tysk, cf. Standard Finnish saksalainen . Kven also uses some old Finnish words which no longer are used in Finland.

References

• Council of Europe: European Charter for Regional or Minority Language, Third periodical report, Norway. April 2005. [1]
• Kenneth Hyltenstam & Tommaso Maria Milani: Kvenskans status: Rapport för Kommunal- og regionaldepartement och Kultur- og kirkedepartement. 2003. [2]
• Norwegian Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development: Second periodic report on the implementation of the Council of Europe's framework convention for the protection of national minorities. October 2005. [3]