Introducing Lannankieli - a Finnic language of Northern Sweden, published on the 23/12/2025 (unrelated to the Narvik dialect article this month and its mentions of Lannankieli)

Photo above: golden light on Lake Torneträsk taken in July, in the midnight sun, in the early hours of the morning. The Lannankieli language has historically been spoken around parts of this beautiful, majestic lake. Indeed for me it is one of the most majestic places in the World. 

Sweden has a lot of languages spoken within its borders. What we call Swedish, Svenska, only became the main language of Sweden as a whole in relatively recent times. The other, attested, languages in Sweden, belong to three families: the Nordic languages (includes Swedish and many other languages,including for example the Scanian language in the south, and the Bondska languages in the North), the Sámi languages (indigenous languages of the Sámi branch of Uralic languages), spoken primarily in northern and central Sweden, including for example Southern Sámi, Northern Sámi and others - and the Finnic languages. And, the Finnic languages in Sweden being languages which are closely related to the Finnish language in Finland, and which form another branch of the Uralic language family.

The Finnic languages in Sweden can be roughly divided into two main, general groups. Firstly, we have the Finnic dialects of the Forest Finns, skogsfinnar, who's languages or dialects correspond to dialects of Finnish within Finland to various degrees, depending on the group of skogsfinnar in question, one example of which is Värmlandic Finnish. Secondly, in the north of Sweden, there are a group of languages or dialects referred to as Meänkieli. Meänkieli is still quite widely spoken in certain parts of Northern Sweden, alongside the Northern and Lule Sámi languages, Bondska languages and Swedish. 

If you look up Meänkieli online, you will likely be presented with what is also known as Tornedalian Finnish in English. Meänkieli, generally speaking, refers to what we might call Tornedalian Finnish, that is the Finnic language spoken on the western side of the Torne River and in the surrounding lowland forest areas. This is the language I have generally discussed and described as Meänkieli, and sometimes Meänkieli refers specifically to these dialects. 

However, there are also two other dialect groups, or Finnic languages in Northern Sweden, which are sometimes referred to as Meänkieli. One of these is the Finnic dialect or language spoken around Gällivare, sometimes referred to as Jälivaaranmurre in the Gällivare dialect, and referred to as: Jellivaaranmurre in more general Meänkieli. Many might consider this a dialect of Meänkieli, but still, Meänkieli generally refers to the Tornedalian Finnish of the lower, lowland areas of the Torne Valley, and the variant or Finnic language of Gällivare is sometimes not called under the title Meänkieli. 

The third Finnic language of Northern Sweden, sometimes referred to as a dialect of Meänkieli, also goes by its own name: Lannankieli. The term Lannankieli refers to the Finnic language spoken along the northern parts of the Torne River, around Kiruna, Jukkasjärvi, Kurravaara, Nikkaluokta, Rautas, and it was originally spoken northwards to Bergfors and the eastern shores of Lake Torneträsk, or in Lannankieli: Torniojärvi. 

Lannankieli is probably the least-discussed, and to me, most-mysterious of the Finnic languages in Northern Sweden. The fact that it was originally spoken around the eastern shores of Lake Torneträsk is attested in place-names. Furthermore, the related Kven language, or languages of Northern Norway was once spoken around parts of Narvik, a short distance across the water and over the mountains from eastern Lake Torneträsk, and I suspect that perhaps the Kven language spoken near Narvik may have connected to, and formed a continuum with Lannankieli in some way. 

One might say that Lannankieli is not Meänkieli, because these people can refer to their language specifically by its own name: Lannankieli, and refer to themselves by their own name: lantalaiset. These names may contain a root word which in some way corresponds to the common Germanic root word: *land, which means "land", but this is speculative and not certain. 

Speakers of Kven languages, the Forest Finns, and speakers of Meänkieli, Jällivaaranmurre and Lannankieli are - in my opinion, indigenous people, who, like the Sámi, have ancestry and language going back thousands of years in their current lands. This is actually quite a common belief among speakers of these languages. However, sadly, "mainstream" academic studies and general knowledge create a false identity for these people, and often describe them as being immigrants from Finland, who only arrived in Sweden in recent history in order to farm, fish and do "slash and burn" agriculture. Considering that it took until 1977 for Sweden to officially recognise the Sámi peoples as indigenous - perhaps we should not be surprised that recognising Finnic speakers in Sweden as indigenous is far overdue. 

Furthermore, my research has given me many reasons to suspect that these Finnic speakers are ancient in Sweden, and that perhaps their original language was some kind of pre-Finnic, hence why Lannankieli and Meänkieli contain some words that are not found in Finnic languages, nor are they of Nordic nor Sámi origin. 

There are of course more localised variations of Lannankieli. One dialect area is spoken more northwest towards Nikkaluokta for instance, and even individual villages and towns, like Kiruna and Kurravaara, have slight variations between them. 

I personally do not yet know exactly how Lannankieli varies specifically from Meänkieli and the Gällivare Finnic dialect, although I do know and can speak some of the latter two dialects or languages. I am quite familiar with both Kiruna and Lake Torneträsk though, and I have noticed several Lannankieli names around eastern Lake Torneträsk, including for example: Nakerijärvi, a lake just south of Lake Torneträsk, Jiekajärvi - another lake directly south of Lake Torneträsk and connecting into it, and Vaasaari - an island in eastern Lake Torneträsk. Just northeast of Lake Torneträsk is the mountain of Kortovaara. All of these names are in the Lannankieli language, although I do not know the etymologies of certain elements of these names. 

The reason for this being that - as I implied - Lannankieli, Meänkieli and Kven are very close to the Finnish language, but there is a deep suggestion that these languages have been spoken in their present areas for a very long time. A certain "layer" of these languages, and also a large layer of the Sámi languages, if of unsure and unknown origin. Whilst the Finnic and Sámi languages may themselves have been spoken far back into prehistory, there were likely other languages that "connected" them in a sense. 

Some other Lannankieli place-names around Torneträsk, include: Korttojärvi and Paatsijärvi, Korttolahti and Latilahti on Lake Torneträsk itself. The westernmost Lannankieli names around the lake are perhaps the names Luohujärvi and the island name of Koijusaari. Whilst Lake Torneträsk is commonly associated with the Northern Sámi language and its speakers - and rightfully so, my own research indicates how, at one time at least, there must have been a strong presence of Lannankieli speakers on the lake too. Many of the Lannankieli names refer to features that are on, or close to and around the lake, probably in part because speakers of Lannankieli would have used boats to cross the lake, some of the names also serving as navigational names for the passage through the lake and perhaps towards the Norwegian border. 

From what I understand, the term lannanmaa also containing this lant- root word, also appears in some of the Northern Finnic languages as an old term for "Lapland", which is very interesting. I am not sure to what degree speakers of Lannankieli use the term lannanmaa to describe their own land, however.