Languages of Sweden
In 2009, the Riksdag passed the Language Law recognizing Swedish as the "main" and "common" language of society as well as being the official language in "international contexts", the five national minority languages, and Swedish sign language .
Languages of Finland
Swedish is the main language of 5.3% of the population (92.4% in the Åland autonomous province), down from 14% at the beginning of the 20th century. In 2012, 44% of Finnish citizens with another registered primary language than Swedish could hold a conversation in this language. Swedish is a North Germanic language, closely related to Norwegian and Danish. As a subbranch of Indo-European, it is also closely related to other Germanic languages such as German, Dutch, and English.