Torne Valley dialects (, , Swedish: ) are a Finnic variant spoken in

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

and

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

. The form of the Torne Valley dialects in

are included as a part of the Peräpohjola dialect group, while the form in Sweden is included as the biggest one of the three variants of

Meänkieli (literally 'our language'), or Tornedalian is a Finnic language or a group of distinct Finnish dialects spoken in the northernmost part of Sweden, particularly along the Torne River Valley. It is officially recognized in Sweden as one of the ...

(also including Lannankieli and the Gällivare dialects), which in Sweden has an independent status from Finnish. Although the independent status of Meänkieli as a distinct

Finnic language The Finnic or Baltic Finnic languages constitute a branch of the Uralic language family spoken around the Baltic Sea by the Baltic Finnic peoples. There are around 7 million speakers, who live mainly in Finland and Estonia. Traditionally, ...

is sometimes disputed due to its high mutual intelligibility with Finnish.

History

The Torneo Valley dialects were once fully uniform and old standard Finnish was used by all speakers of the Torne Valley dialects. However, in 1809 when Russia annexed Finland, the dialects on the Swedish side of the border were separated from the ones spoken in Finland. This caused the Torne Valley dialects in Sweden to have been more strongly influenced by Swedish than the Torne Valley dialects in Finland.

In Sweden

The Torne Valley dialects spoken in

Pajala Pajala () is a locality and the seat of Pajala Municipality in Norrbotten County, Sweden, with 1,958 inhabitants in 2010. It is located in Swedish Lapland. Pajala is in part of the Meänmaa (Torne valley) region and was in past times unilingua ...

Övertorneå Övertorneå (; ) is a urban areas of Sweden, locality and the seat of Övertorneå Municipality in Norrbotten County, Sweden with 1,917 inhabitants in 2010. It is located at the shore of the Torne (Finnish and Swedish river), Torne River, oppos ...

and

Haparanda Haparanda (; Meänkieli and Finnish: ''Haaparanta'', ) is a locality and the seat of Haparanda Municipality in Norrbotten County, Sweden. It is adjacent to Tornio, Finland. Haparanda has a population of 9,166 inhabitants (2024). Haparanda is ...

form the basis of the standard Meänkieli literary language and the two other variants of Meänkieli are much more endangered than the Torne Valley dialects. Meänkieli is primarily considered a separate language in Sweden due to historical, sociological and political reasons arising from the creation of the 1809 border between Sweden and Finland. However, on purely linguistic grounds, it may be viewed as a dialect of Finnish as it is highly mutually integible with the dialects spoken in Finland, although it contains much stronger influences from Swedish and has conserved some archaic features which the dialects in Finland have lost.

In Finland

The Torne Valley dialects are spoken in

Enontekiö Enontekiö (; ; ; ; ) is a municipality in the Finnish part of Lapland with approximately inhabitants. It is situated in the outermost northwest of the country and occupies a large and very sparsely populated area of about between the Swedis ...

Kolari Kolari is a municipality of Finland at the Swedish border, which follows the Torne River, the longest free-flowing river in Europe. It is located in the region of Lapland. The municipality has a population of () and covers an area of of w ...

Muonio Muonio (previously called ''Muonionniska''; ) is a municipalities of Finland, municipality of Finland. The town is located in fell-region of far northern Finland above the Arctic Circle on the country's western border with Sweden, the Muonio ( ...

Pello Pello (formerly Turtola) is a municipality of Finland. It is located approximately north of the Arctic Circle in the western part of the province of Lapland, and is part of the Lapland region. The municipality is on the national border with ...

, and

Ylitornio Ylitornio (; ; ; ) is a municipalities of Finland, municipality of Finland. It is located in the provinces of Finland, province of Lapland, Finland, Lapland along the Torne (Finnish and Swedish river), Tornio River, opposite the Sweden, Swedish ...

in Finland. Unlike other Peräpohjola dialects, the aspiration of consonants is still regularly used in Finnish Torne Valley dialects.

References

{{Reflist Tornedalians Finnic languages Finnish dialects Languages of Sweden Languages of Finland