About us

Tervettulemaa! Welcome to Kven for Foreigners.

We are two Taiwanese language enthusiasts who are passionate about revitalizing languages through various media. On this website, you will find a wide array of resources to to learn the endangered Kven language.

We appreciate all the support we receive.

Our mission, our values

At Kven for Foreigners (KfF), we strive to make education in the endangered Kven language accessible to everyone, regardless of your background or where you come from. Since 2018, we’ve been working with minority and indigenous languages from around the world, including Kven (kvääni), Yonaguni (与那国物言), and most personally, our own heritage language, Taiwanese (臺語). We’ve been able to draw parallels between these languages and the challenges they face.

Through this website, we aim to raise awareness about the Kven language and present ways it can be used beyond academic circles. At KfF, we offer beginner courses, articles, media, and film posters in Kven as part of our mission. We’ve also chosen to make the site available in both Norwegian and English, in the hope that Kven, like other more widely recognized minority languages such as Irish, Ainu, and Sámi, can reach a broader audience. The Kven-speaking community is small, and much of what is happening within it remains unknown to the outside world; and that is understandable. Few people speak Kven, and even fewer are in a position to build a platform for English speakers. That’s exactly why we’re doing what we do. We believe that language revitalization shouldn’t be limited to scholars or institutions, it should be led by everyday people like you and me. While much of the effort comes from professionals with academic training and institutional support, which certainly has its value, we also believe that more voices and perspectives are needed from outside the academia.

As two individuals who weren’t born in Norway and who have no formal education in Kven or linguistics, we’ve still come a long way. We’ve encountered a lot of ups and downs, and we’ve learned that anyone can play a role in helping an endangered language survive. You don’t need a degree to prove your dedication or make a real impact. Through this website, our social media and other platforms, we’re working to make Kven a more approachable and achievable goal, and not just a language reserved for the academic world. This is what we stand for. This is what we believe in.

How is the website structured?

At Kven for Foreigners (KfF) you will find a wide variety of learning resources for those who have no prior knowledge of Kven. The "Learn" drop-down menu includes articles in Kven with Norwegian and English translations, an introductory Kven course at level A1, an introduction to Kvenland and its culture, and a comprehensive list of sources and literature references.

The section "Projects" contains all of our revitalization work, and is free and available to everyone. There you will find translated works of literature, film posters in Kven, as well as projects that were never realized.

The FAQ page lists the most frequently asked questions about Kven. We recommend taking a good look at this page before clicking on other pages because here you will get your burning questions answered.

We have also linked our social media such as Youtube, Instagram and Twitter on the website. There, we publish posts about Kven periodically.