Cwen Cwen Cwenland Category="Ancient peoples"Category="Ethnic groups of Europe"Category="Nordic folklore"Category="Wikipedia articles needing factual verification"This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality

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Historical usage

Firstly, Cwens refers to a historical group of people or an alliance of fishermen, hunters and warriors, usually associated with a western Finnic people. The only historical sources of Cwens are Anglo-Saxon chronicles and Norse sagas where e.g. Orkneyinga saga it is stated that they ruled in Cwenland (presumably along the coast shore of Gulf of Bothnia) and their active period is estimated by historians to be ca. 800-1100 AD. Although findings are sparse, judging from grave findings in Ostrobothnia, there is some archaeological support of a class based hierarchy, presumably based on fur trade, where a leading class could have consisted of Swedish traders or an upper class of domestic origin, but they are dated to 6th century.

The term Cwen is first used in Account of the Viking Othere voyage to Northern Scandinavia (or Arctic Ocean) ca. 9th century, where "Cwenaland" was located above "Sweoland". The term was used to distinguish reindeer herders (called Fenni) from non-herders (called Cwen). The old viewpoint that Cwen is equal to (Finnish) "Kainulaiset" and "Kainuu" has not found etymological acceptance by some researchers. The spelling Quen is used in Latin texts from the 17th century. It was previously assumed by historians that regions in Southern Lapland and below were not inhabited by South Sami groups, and hence Cwens were the aboriginals of those regions. However, this statement is not supported by modern research.

Norwegian Finns

Secondly, the term Cwen (or Kven) refers to the Finnish minority people in north Norway, who settled there during the early 18th century. The second emigration golf of Kven in Northern Norway was in the beginning of the 19th century, reaching a peak during the famine in Finland in the 1860ies. They were poor farmers looking for land in the provinces Nordland, Troms and Finnmark. The first ones arrived to parishes like Alta, Nordreisa, Lyngen and Balsfjord. The later arrivals settled in the east of Finnmark, along the Varanger Fjord. They integrated quickly into the Norwegian society to live with the Norwegians and Sami people. For instance in places like Vadsø - where they were the majority of the population - they considered the Norwegian cultural identity as the standard.

At first, the authorities welcomed the Finnish immigrants, because their arrival stimulated the local economy, bringing new and more efficient methods for arctic agriculture. From around 1880 on they were treated as an minority and forced to use Norwegian instead of their own language. This was very common in the whole of Europe around this time and Norway had their Norwegiazation policy which was harder on the Sami because the Kven had a similar cultural identity and spoke more Norwegian. Around the 1970s they and the Saami were openly allowed to use Kven and teach it to their children at schools which took its form via special language laws for minorities. Today, most speakers of Kven Finnish are found in communities like Bugøynes and Neiden (Municipality of Sør-Varanger), Vestre Jakobselv and Vadsø (Vadsø Municipality) and Børselv (Municipality of Porsanger). A few older speakers may still be found in the municipalities of Nordreisa and Storfjord. Bugøynes remains the most vital Kven Finnish community.

Kven is considered as a Finnish dialect, although some linguists say it is a language. They speak a Finnish dialect. In the east, around the Varanger Fjord, the spoken Kven is more similar to standard Finnish, whereas the few remaining speakers in the West, from Alta to the Lyngen Fjord, speak a Finnish with more particularities due to isolation from Finland. Cwen Finnish is mostly like Finnish, but has many Norwegian loanwords, e.g. tyskäläinen ("German" Norw. tysk, Finn. saksalainen) and uses old Finnish words (not modern Finnish which is spoken in Finland). The Finnish Kainuu dialect (or people) is of the same origin. (See also: Tornedalians)