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" (Ostrobothnians) and "Kainuu" (Ostrobothnia) 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.

Secondly, the term Cwen (or Kven) refers to the Finnish minority people in north Norway, who settled there during the 16th century. The second emigration golf of Kven in Nothern Norway was in the beginning of the 19th century. They were poor farmers looking for land in the provinces Nordland, Troms and Finnmark. They integrated quickly into the Norwegian society to live with the Norwegians and Saami people. For instance in places like Vädsö - where they were the majority of the population - they considered the Norwegian cultural identity as the standard.

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 Saami 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.

Kven is considered as a Finnish dialect, although some linguists say it is a language. They speak a Finnish dialect. 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)