The article examines the language policy developments of Finnish higher education in historical and contemporary perspective. It is part of an Academy of Finland funded project (2011-2013) on the role of language in Finnish higher education internationalisation. The article first presents an historical overview of the language policy developments in Finnish universities and then goes on to discuss the latest developments in Finnish university and language legislation. Two cases illustrate the role of language in internationalisation strategies on one hand, and the ideologies made visible by hierarchisations of English as native and non-native on the other. The article concludes by discussing the implications of the complex role of English in the setting of the equally complex Finnish constitutional bilingualism.