Kven people

Kvens (kveeni in Kven language/Finnish; kvener in Norwegian, and kveanat in Northern Sami) are an ethnic minority in Norway who are descended from Finnish peasants and fishermen who emigrated from the northern parts of Finland and Sweden to Northern Norway in the 18th and 19th centuries. In 1996 the Kvens were granted minority status in Norway, and in 2005 the Kven language was recognized as a minority language in Norway.

Name

The origin of the term Kven is disputed as is the fate of the medieval Kvens. There is little evidence that modern Kvens are direct descendants of Kvenland mentioned in a few ancient Norwegian and Icelandic sources. As a result of Norway signing the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities in 1999, the term Kven became for the first time an official name, the name of Finnish descendants with a long history in Norway who view themselves as a member of that particular protected ethnic minority group of Finnish descendants.

There is a theory among some academic groups that due to the discrimination and suppression by the Norwegian authorities the term Kven became derogatory in the late 19th century. Therefore, many Kvens preferred to be called 'suomalaiset' (finns). But with the revitalization of the Kven culture in the 1970s, Kvens themselves started using the term. However, even in the 1990s there was a debate whether the Norwegian terms 'finne', 'finsk', or 'finskætted' (respectively a Finnish person, Finnish, and of Finnish origin) should be used instead. However, today the term Kven is accepted and used, for example, in the name of the Kven organization in Norway (Norske Kveners Forbund).

Kvenland

Kvenland, known as Cwenland, Kænland or similar terms in medieval sources, is an ancient name for an area in Fennoscandia and Scandinavia. Kvenland, in that or nearly that spelling, is known from an Old English account written in the 9th century, which used the information provided by the Norwegian adventurer and traveler Ohthere, and from Nordic sources, primarily Icelandic. One possible additional source was written in the modern-day area of Norway — all the known Nordic sources date to the 12th and 13th centuries. Other possible references to Kvenland by other names or spellings are also discussed on this page.

Old English Orosius

A Norwegian adventurer and traveler named Ohthere visited England around 890 CE. King Alfred of Wessex had his stories written down and included them in his Old English version of a world history written by the Romano-Hispanic author Orosius. Ohthere's story contains the only contemporary description about Kvenland that has survived from the 9th century: