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.
Languages of Sweden
In medieval Sweden, the Low German language had a very important role as a commercial language and the lingua franca of the Hanseatic league. As such, the Low German language influenced Swedish and other languages in the region considerably. In medieval Stockholm, half of the population were Low German speakers. Low German was also the language spoken in the 17th-century Swedish territories in northern Germany i.e. Swedish Pomerania, Bremen-Verden, Wismar and Wildeshausen (as well as the rest of northern Germany) and by the German minority in Estonia and Swedish Livonia. Livonia was also inhabited by Latvians, Estonians and Livonians.