Languages of Sweden
The Sami people (formerly known as Lapps) are a people indigenous to all of northern Scandinavia (see Sápmi (area)) who speak a closely related group of languages usually grouped together under the name "Sami", but at least three separate Sami languages are spoken in Sweden. They are, like Finnish and Meänkieli, Uralic. Prolonged exposure to Germanic-language-speaking neighbors in Sweden and Norway causes them to have a large number of Germanic loanwords not normally found in other Uralic languages like Finnish, Estonian, or Hungarian. Between 15,000 and 20,000 Sami people live in Sweden of whom 9,000 are Sami-language speakers. Worldwide, between 20,000 and 40,000 people speak Sami languages (most Sami now speak Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, or Russian as their first language, depending on the country in which they reside). In Sweden, the largest concentrations of Sami-language-speaking Sami are found in the municipalities of Arjeplog, Gällivare, Jokkmokk and Kiruna, and its immediate neighbourhood.
Nordic countries
The combined area of the Nordic countries is . Uninhabitable icecaps and glaciers comprise about half of this area, mostly in Greenland. In January 2013, the region had a population of around 26 million people. The Nordic countries cluster near the top in numerous metrics of national performance, including education, economic competitiveness, civil liberties, quality of life and human development. With only four language groups, the common linguistic heterogeneous heritage is one of the factors making up the Nordic identity. The languages of Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic, and Faroese are all rooted in Old Norse and Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are considered mutually intelligible. These three dominating languages are taught in schools throughout the Nordic region. For example, Swedish is a mandatory subject in Finnish schools, since Finland by law is a bilingual country. Danish is mandatory in Faroese and Greenlandic schools, as these insular states are a part of the Danish Realm ("Rigsfællesskabet"). Iceland also teaches Danish, since Iceland too was a part of the Danish Realm until 1918. Beside these and the insular Scandinavian languages Faroese and Icelandic, which are also North Germanic languages, there are the Finnic and Sami branches of the Uralic languages, spoken in Finland and in northern Norway, Sweden and Finland, respectively; and Greenlandic, an Eskimo–Aleut language, spoken in Greenland. All the Nordic countries have a North Germanic official language, commonly called a Nordic language in the Nordic countries. The working languages of the Nordic region's two political bodies are Danish, Norwegian and Swedish.