Edited sentence: "kainulaiset"), the Finnish-speaking populace was well established in what is now northern Sweden long before the current Swedish-Finnish border was drawn in 1809, the two countries having previously been parts of the same realm for some six centuries.Although probably not directly related to the mediaeval Kvens (Finn.However, the Swedish Kvens have no distinct culture, have not been known as an ethnic group in recent history, and there is no evidence that they are the descendants of the medieval Kvens.In Sweden, some Tornedalians call themselves Kvens, claiming to be the direct descendants of the medieval Kvens.It should be noted, on the other hand, that there is a relatively large minority of Finnish-speaking people living in northern Sweden, particularly in the Torneå River Valley, and that their language, meänkieli (literally "our language", a slightly pidginized version of the Finnish spoken on the east bank of the Torneå/Tornionjoki), is now an official minority language in Sweden.Julku has also been the main protagonist for claims about existence of a large Kven territory covering Finnmark, all of Lapland and even northern Ostrobothnia which would have been known as "Kainu(u)" and existed already in the Viking Age.This group is attempting to get the Kvens recognized as the indigenous people in Northern Sweden in order to get the same rights to the land as the Sami people are predicted to get if Sweden accepts the ILO 169 convention about the rights of indigenous people (see also: Finnmark Act)