Swedish was not formally declared the official language of Sweden until 2009! Before that, there was no actual national language for the country, even if most people spoke Swedish as their native tongue. What’s even more surprising is that Finland declared Swedish as one of its country’s official languages before Sweden did! When Sweden finally did formalize its national language, it also recognized Finnish, Meänkieli, Sami, Romani, and Yiddish as minority languages. Today, many Swedish people speak Finnish, and many Finnish people speak Swedish, due to their economic and geographic proximity. Many native Swedish speakers therefore grow up speaking Swedish and Finnish, and they can easily understand both Norwegian and Danish. This certainly promotes multilingualism!