Talk:Kven language

Kven is a language!

Here is a long comparison of kven vs finnish

• Variašuuni kväänin dialektejen välilä oon iso öystä kväänit praatathaan dialektii joka oon enämpi suomalainen ja suomalainen ymmärtääki paljo enämmen sitä ko länsi dialektei, Länsi kväänin dialektit oon pää dialektei ja niitä ossaa paljo enämpi ihmissii. Menneisyyđessä myöski praatathiin kväänin dialektei ryssämassaa mutta tääpänä net oon kuollu. Länsi kväänin dialekteissa oon paljo lainasanoi norjan kielen bokmålista ja saamelaissii elementei.

• Ero kveenin murteiden välillä on iso itä kveenit puhuvat murretta joka on enempi suomalainen ja suomalainen ymmärtääkin niitä paljon enemmän sitä kuin länsi murteita, länsi kveeni murteet on pää murteet ja niitä osaa paljon enempi ihmisiä menneisyydessä myöskin puhuttiin kveevin murteita venäjässä mutta tänäpäivänä ne ovat kuollut. länsi murteissa on paljon lainasanoja norjan kielen kirjanorjasta ja saamelaisia elementtejä

Seems very diffirend eh? -Palmtree222

Kven definitely has many differences from Finnish. However, the point of Wikipedia is to show what can definitely be proven true, and the only thing that can be proven true here is that some people consider it to be a dialect and some people consider it to be a language. As long as many experts consider it to be a dialect, we should probably describe the disagreement here and not make a judgement either way. Gbear605 (talk) 01:15, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

They are mostly just finnish nationalists and suursuomi peeps who consider it a dialect, It has the official status of a language and differs from finnish enough. -Palmtree222 —Preceding undated comment added 16:59, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

RFMF

{{RFMF}} Is the dialect mutually intelligble from Standard Finnish? The fact that not even SIL has given them their own language makes me skeptical to the classification as a separate language.

Peter ^Isotalo 01:56, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I now see that there is in fact a separate Ethnologue/ISO 639-3 entry, "fkv", (Ethnologuue, ISO 639-3). Adding this to the article. Lukas ^(T.|@) 08:08, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Ok, but what about mutual intelligibility? The article says nothing about it. There should also be more information about Kven itself.

Peter ^Isotalo 12:16, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

The Ethonologue entry has a bit on mutual intelligibility. I agree the article should be fleshed out with some real linguistic information. You should have seen the mess it was in before I did that makeshift tidy-up! Typical result of people writing language articles who are more interested in national ideology than in the language itself... Lukas ^(T.|@) 12:31, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

The idea that Kven and Finnish are two separate languages is a peculiar one. Today, Kven is mostly spoken in places like Bugøynes and Vadsø. The ancestors of the Kvens here only came in the 1860ies, during the great famine in Finland. Obviously, they mix in Norwegian words, like varmalinki (from Norwegian værmelding=weather forecast), but apart from that it is Finnish in structure and pronounciation. Dialects spoken further west, in Børselv, Alta and Nordreisa differ more, since the immigration took place around 1740 onwards. Still, people from Finland have no trouble understanding them. Languages like English, French and Spanish differ far more in the various countries where they are spoken than Finnish. It is rather strange that speakers of Finnish in Norway and Sweden are so eager to distance themselves from the language of Finland, that is after all at their doorstep.

Reference 2 (http://odin.dep.no/kkd/norsk/dok/andre_dok/rapporter/043041-220005/dok-bn.html) is a report written by a Swedish linguist(?) about whether Kvensk is a language or a dialect. The report was written for the Norwegian governement, who used the conlusions in the report to decide that Kvensk was a language. I haven't read it througfully but the argument seems to be that: the criteria for deciding wheter it is a language or dialect is relative (e.g. the difference between the Norwegian and Swedish languages), but Kvensk has evolved in a different historical and sosialcultural(?) environment than Finnish, and therefore it can be called a language.--Labongo 18:36, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Kven (and Meänkieli are mutual intelligible with Finnish. When Kvens are interviewd in Finnish TV there are no subtitles or dubbing (note that there is no Finnish article about this "language"). The reason why they are marketed as differend languages are historical. In the 1920's Norway and Sweden were afraid that Finland could have similar agressive demands toward them that it had towards Soviet-Russia regarding Eastern Karelia and the Finnic people there. That's why Finns (and the Sami) in Sweden and Norway were so forcefully integrated. In recent year this attitude has fortunately subsided, but it still lingers. I'm not supriced that the Kvens would rather have Kven "language" than nothing at all. Also there is a strong movement in Finland (and other European countries) to strenghten the other dialects that have been neglected and towards regionalism not toward Greater-Finlandism. Call it Zeitgeist. 213.243.180.4 20:47, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

If this was true, why did the Norwegian government wait so long to state it as a language? These threats are no longer even close to realistic today, and neither in 2005, when Kven was confirmed as a "real" language... 195.1.147.94 23:37, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Because: "..not supriced that the Kvens would rather have Kven "language" than nothing at all" Before the Finns or Finnish in Norway were not recogniced at all as a minority. The tail of discrimination of Finns in Norway (and Sweden) is old and sad, and as you point out, there never was a point to it. No matter what the Norwegian government says, the fact is that "Kven" is mutual intelligible with Finnish and isn't recogniced as a seperate language in Finland (f.ex. see Fi-Wikipedia where this subject is under "Ruijan murteet" (dialects of Ruija). Norway is in no way the supreme authority of Finnic languages (and yes, the oppening chapter of this article should be changed to reflect this). 82.181.150.151 19:51, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I copied some text from Meänkieli to make it clearer that from a linguistic point of view it may be considered as a dialect, but for political reasons it has status as a minority language in Norway. However I am no expert on languages, so someone with the knowledge should probably make sure everything in the article is correct.Labongo 08:59, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Note that a Kven language board has been established http://www.sprakrad.no/Aktuelt/Kvensk-sprakrad-er-dannet/. They are working on creating rules(?) for written Kven. Their argument is that Kven cannot be a dialect of Finnish, since they were separated before Finnish had such rules http://www.sagat.no/?article=6418&cat=Ledere. Labongo 09:04, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

Kainu

I removed all mentions of Kainu as an official name for the Kven language. This is not true. The Norwegian Kven Organization uses kvenske språket (the Kven language). All Norwegian parliament reports use the Kven/Finnish language. Only wikipedia seems to be using Kainu.--Labongo 02:51, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

According to Eira Söderholm in her Kainun kielen grammatiikki (English: Kven language grammar), the Kven people themselves used to use the term kainu, such as in kainun kieli (English: Kainu language) and kainulainen (English: something related to the Kainu people or their language), while kven or kvensk are the terms adopted in the Norwegian language, and therefore also used by the Norwegian parliament, logically. Also, some prefer to call it kväänin kieli, kveenin kieli or meiðänkieli, the latter literally meaning our language. I don't think it is right that you have removed all mentions of kainu, as it is one of the names of the language. I do however think that the article should be built up around the term Kven, as that is the name adopted in the English language, most likely from Norwegian, and the name used in most literature. -- Llonydd (talk) 09:23, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

And I removed the reference that Kainuu dialect in Finland would be the closest relative of the Kven language. In fact, they belong to altogether different dialect groups. --Drieakko 10:32, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Correction to the below

The below statement is wrong by a small margin:

"For example, in 2005, the number of students choosing to study the Kven language at the Northern Norwegian University of Tromsa was three times that of those who chose Finnish."

That shoud say: "... four times that of ..."

--Stimulator 17:07, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I changed the article. Do you have a reference for these numbers? Labongo 20:27, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

That was just Art Dominique again. Fresh from messing Kings of Kvenland. --Drieakko 20:34, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I removed the entire sentence. A citation need to be provide.Labongo 06:12, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Torne Valley, Northern Norway and today's Kainuu were all part of Kvenland

Torne Valley, the extreme Northern Norway and today's Kainuu were all part of Kvenland. That is why the languages and accents spoken in those areas at the present day are so closely related to each others.

This is not - and was not - changed considerably by the fact that migration to the historic Kvenland areas from the modern-day areas of Häme and Savo in Finland took place.

As in other cases of migration usually, the newcomers acquire the language and/or the accent of the locals, not the other way around. - - Stimulater 13:11, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

To please all parties, the beginning of the Kven language text was modified as follows:

The Kven language - Kainu by its Kven language name - is a Northern Norwegian Finno-Ugric - or more precicely, Finnic - language, spoken mostly by the area's Finnic Kven population (Finnic is a subgroup of Finno-Ugric, a.k.a. Fenno-Ugric). Once considered a dialect of Finnish language, it received a legal minority language status in 2005, within the framework of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

The Kven language is closely related to three other official modern-day Finnic languages spoken in Northern Scandinavia and Northwest Russia, in areas once forming the historic Kvenland: The Meänkieli language (spoken in today's Northern Sweden), the Karelian language (spoken in today's Northwestern Russia) and the Finnish language.

The speakers of Kven, Meänkieli, Karelian and Finnish can understand each others' languages without too much difficulty. Much of this is due to the fact, that the vast majority of the migration to Northern Norway from the 16th century up to the end of the 19th century originated from the areas of the historic Kvenland in the modern-day Sweden and Finland.

The related Finno-Ugric Sami language differs considerably from the four other Finno-Ugric languages of the area. Historically, the Sami language has been widely spoken by the Sami population of the Northern Scandinavian historic Kvenland territories and in Northwestern Russia, and today it still continues to be used and taught in schools in Northern Scandinavia, Finland and in Northwestern Russia.

Among the dialects of the Finnish language within the boundaries of the modern day Finland, Kven language is most closely related to that of the Kainuu dialect, as the two share a common background. The past migration waves to the Kvenland territories from the modern-day areas of Häme and Savo in Finland are known to have left some effects to the spoken languages and dialects of the area. ... - - Steve Wondering 10:31, 12 August 2006 (UTC

Please stop reverting this article to your several month old version. The current version is better written, referenced, and has fewer obvious errors.Labongo 15:15, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Kven language board and recent development

Some useful links (if you understand Norwegian) [[1]] [[2]] Brief summary of the status of Kven in 2007: The University of Tromsø offers a Kven language study from 2006. Connected to the Kven institute, the Kven language board was opened. The language board got state funding, and will work on written Kven language in the coming years. Kven written language will probably differ more from Finnish when this work is done. They will use Finnish ortography for Kven, but the so-called Kven you read today (like in ruijan kaiku) is more simular to Finnish as the written language probably will be after the Kven language board has finished it's work making an own written language. Also it's worth mentioning that sources of written Kven today are mostly based on the Børselv dialect, if the Kven language board chooses to base the written language on more Kven dialects there might be additional changes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.27.196.236 (talk) 19:18, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the links. Why don't you add this information to the article, or to the Kven people article which has a short description about the Kven language board. Labongo (talk) 01:32, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

The vowel quality of the grapheme <v>

I have added some information on the phonology of Kven, based on the information given in Söderholm (2007). However, it is not clear what the vowel quality of <v> is, so I have chosen to use /ʋ/ as in Finnish and Norwegian, as the latter is surrounding the Kven language, although it not genetically related. It would be great if somebody could verify or falsify this. -- Llonydd (talk) 11:08, 31 December 2009 (UTC)