The oldest traces of human habitation in what became Finland date from about 7000 B.C. Over several thousand years, various immigration streams from different directions entered this sparsely settled, vast northern country. Little is known about the language of the early settlers, but at the dawn of the modern era, in the middle of the twelfth century A.D., the country had a population which spoke Finnish.

At this time, an influx of colonists from central Sweden began, originating mainly in the Mälardalen area, which had become overpopulated. This immigration appears to have been entirely spontaneous, although it was certainly encouraged by the Roman Catholic Church and, later, by the Swedish Crown, both of which saw this as an opportunity to extend their influence eastwards. The Swedish immigrants settled in the Åland islands and on narrow strips along the Gulf of Finland and the Gulf of Bothnia, which were uninhabited at the time. This wave of largely peaceful colonization ebbed at the beginning of the 14th century. Ever since then, Finnish and Swedish speakers have lived side by side in Finland.

Over the centuries, the Swedish realm, of which Finland was an integrated and equal part, fought many wars with Russia, whose might and striking power gradually became overwhelming; in 1808, indeed, in the context of the Napoleonic Wars, Finland was torn from Sweden and made part of the Russian Empire.

In 1815, there were an estimated 160,000 Swedish speakers in Finland, about 15% of the population. Swedish had been the dominant language of government, business and culture throughout Swedish rule, and its standing weakened only towards the end of the Russian era, in the early 1900s. By this time, Finnish - which had lacked the features of a language of culture only fifty years earlier - had achieved equal status with Swedish.

The Finnish national awakening in the mid-nineteenth century was the result of members of the Swedish-speaking upper classes choosing to promote Finnish and to speak it themselves. However, another faction of the Swedish-speaking elite did not wish to abandon Swedish, as they felt it was a guarantee that Finland would remain within the sphere of West European culture.

Inevitably, this situation made for conflict between the languages. To begin with, the conflict only involved the upper social strata, but the population at large became drawn into it after the breakthrough of democracy at the beginning of the 20th century.

Following Finland's independence in 1917, attitudes to the language issue sharpened, and it was a prominent feature of internal politics during the 1920s and '30s. It should be pointed out, however, that the language conflict in Finland never claimed any lives; it was fought almost entirely on a verbal level, and the rare occasions when physical violence occurred produced nothing worse than a few black eyes.

Finland's heroic struggle against crushing odds in the Winter War against the Soviet Union in 1939-1940 united the Finnish nation. Finns and Swedish-speakers fought side by side, creating a new understanding between the language groups.

After 1945, the language conflict became a thing of the past, and the language situation has been good throughout the post-war period, although there are always those who persist in viewing bilingualism as a burden rather than a resource. While Finland's Swedish aspects were attacked by leading circles during the 1930s, any negative views expressed since then have come from less exalted levels. According to a research report published in 1997, 70% of Finland's Finnish-speaking population feel that Swedish is an essential part of Finnish society, and 73% believe it would be a pity if the Swedish language and culture were to die out completely in Finland.