Language policy

Language policy means the methods employed in society for supporting, planning and managing the status of languages. Language policy can be divided into four components:

1) planning the status of languages
2) developing languages
3) planning language teaching
4) language technology.

Legislation with effects on languages is an integral part of language policy. Many acts adopted in Finland mention language and languages. The most important ones are the Constitution of Finland and the Language Act, but many other legislative texts include passages addressing Finnish, Swedish and the minority languages of Finland.

The Institute for the Languages of Finland is one of the language policy institutions in Finland, alongside, among others, the Ministry of Justice, the Swedish Assembly of Finland, the Sámi Parliament and the National Advisory Board on Romani Affairs.

Our website contains information (in Finnish and Swedish) about the Institute’s language boards for Finnish, Swedish, Romani, Saami and sign language. Our webpages also present language policy programmes in Finland and global language policy organisations.