Sweden’s Five National Minorities

Five national minorities enjoy a special status in Sweden. They are Tornedalians, Jews, Sami, Roma and Sweden Finns. In recent years, is has become common to represent each national minority by its own flag.

Since 1999, Swedish law recognizes five national minorities: Sweden Finns, Sami, Jews, Roma and Tornedalians. The minorities shall have the opportunity to maintain and develop their culture, and their languages shall be protected and promoted.

The five national minority languages are: Finnish, Sami (all variants), Yiddish, Romani (all variants) and Meänkieli (all variants). Members of the national minorities have a right to some level of school education in their own language.

If a Swedish citizen belongs to one of the five national minorities, he or she also has special rights and possibilities when in contact with Swedish authorities and social welfare. Depending on the municipality in question, this may include the right to child, elder and health care in Finnish, Sami, Yiddish, Romani and Meänkieli.

In the illustration above are five flags for the national minorities in Sweden, from left to right:

1. Tornedalians live along the Torne River (Torneälven in Swedish) on the border between Sweden and Finland. They speak Meänkieli, or Torne Finnish, a Finnic language distinct from Finnish. The Tornedalian flag (Meänflaku in Tornedalian, Tornedalsflaggan in Swedish) is from 2007.

2. Jews were permitted to live and work in Sweden in the late 18th Century. Today, only a small part of Swedish Jews speak or have knowledge of Yiddish, a language derived from High German and spoken historically by Ashkenazi Jews in Europe.

The Jewish flag in the illustration is not official. It has a Star of David (Magen David in Hebrew) and a menorah lamp; white and blue are the traditional colours of the Jewish prayer shawl (tallit in Hebrew). Sometimes the Jewish minority is represented by the flag of the State of Israel, sometimes by a flag like the one above, but without the menorah.

3. The Sami are indigenous people living in northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. They speak several different Sami languages. Sweden recognized the Sami nation in 1989 and the Sami parliament of Sweden (Sametinget in Swedish) was established in 1993. The Sami flag was adopted in 1986.

4. The Roma have been in Sweden since the 16th Century. Romani people speak several different Romani languages. The flag of the Roma is an international flag approved by the World Romani Congress in 1971.

5. Sweden Finns are the largest of the national minorities. They descend from Finns historically living in Sweden and from Finns who immigrated to Sweden. Finland was part of the Kingdom of Sweden till 1809. The flag of Sweden Finns, a Nordic Cross flag in the colours of the flags of Sweden and Finland, was designed in 2007 and became the official symbol of the national minority in 2014.