Language tensions mount in bilingual Finland

[Loorberitega Pärjatu]

I once asked a Finland-Swede: what IF (and I mean really IF) there would be a war between Finland and Sweden, on whose side would you be? He answered: no question at all, Finland of course! And we had this conversation in Finnish.

[Weltschmerz]

I have been reading up on the debate between Wilpuri and Mynydd, on language tensions as well as in the Norden thread, and I think it may be of interest to sum it up briefly, and for me to drop a few comments that also sum up my perspective and the material provided in this thread.

I don't know if anyone made the mistake, but ethnocide and genocide are not one and the same. Genocide refers to the killing of a people, while ethnocide refers to the outrooting of an ethnicity or a unique part thereof, by other means. The problem with Finnish unilingualism is that Finlandswedes, who did not immigrate to be guests in a Finnishspeaking state, will probably abandon Swedish along with essential parts of their heritage, just like it happened in similar cases elsewhere in the world. The Finlandswedish ethnic will face extinction - hence the call for such a strong word as ethnocide. Finlandswedes, a Germanic ethnic group, will be at risk to become disintegrated into the dominant Finnish ethnicity of Finland (and into the Fenno-Ugrian meta-ethnicity).

This problem may not apply so much to those who see themselves merely as Swedish speakers, without being ethnically Finlandswedish, nor perhaps to those who are rather insignificantly Finlandswedish by ancestry and heritage. Ethnic Finlandswedes may be rare now, but their marginalization in Finland was and is an extended process with fennification, staggering bilingualism (tending towards unilingualism) and Finlandswedes moving out to Sweden proper as partial processes, for example.

I have debated questions regarding Finlandswedes before, and I'm not really surprised, but at the same time I find it rather shocking that this issue has been adressed here - in some of the posts - as if it was the most insignificant bagatelle. Naturally though, I don't expect agreement to follow. As it was said before, this is a forum for discussion, not just for agreement.

[Kalevi]

Originally Posted by Seekers

The problem with Finnish unilingualism is that Finlandswedes, who did not immigrate to be guests in a Finnishspeaking state, will probably abandon Swedish along with essential parts of their heritage, just like it happened in similar cases elsewhere in the world. The Finlandswedish ethnic will face extinction - hence the call for such a strong word as ethnocide.

Well, since you find the Finnish tendency towards unilingualism as a problem, I would be interested what you have to say about the other European states with linguistic minorities - including Sweden and the position of it's Finnish minority. Aren't they far worse off in this regard than Finland is?

And secondly, do you have any suggestions about what we should do about the situation?

[Weltschmerz]

Originally Posted by Kalevi

Well, since you find the Finnish tendency towards unilingualism as a problem, I would be interested what you have to say about the other European states with linguistic minorities - including Sweden and the position of it's Finnish minority. Aren't they far worse off in this regard than Finland is?

To begin with, the situation in Sweden for the Finnish minority cannot be compared on equal grounds. Most of them are recent immigrants who came to Sweden in the 20th century, and many more of them also immigrated to a state where Swedish was already the official language.

We have a separate thread to deal with these questions:

Shared Ethnic Minorities between Sweden and Finland

[wilpuri]

Originally Posted by Seekers

To begin with, the situation in Sweden for the Finnish minority cannot be compared on equal grounds. Most of them are recent immigrants who came to Sweden in the 20th century, and many more of them also immigrated to a state where Swedish was already the official language.

And we already have a thread that deals with these questions:

Shared Ethnic Minorities between Sweden and Finland

I understand that the historical aspect is different, but we live in the present. I don't see why the status of Finns in Sweden is less important than that of Finland-Swedes in Finland, considering that there has been Finnic presence in Sweden (and Norway) since pre-historic times.

What I would support is a localized version of bilingualism, in other words that the linguistic policy of every municipality would be co-ordinated according to the realities on the ground. The Finland-Swedes are a rather heterogenous group, imo. The Finland-Swedes of the Greater Helsinki Metropolitan Region have for a long time now been advocates of cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism, while the rest of the south-coast is slightly more traditional and community-orientated. Ostrobothnians again differ somewhat from us southerners, in both language and mentality. Ålanders are a chapter on to themselves.

The issue is complex.

[Weltschmerz]

Originally Posted by Kalevi

Can you pinpoint the relevant facts you have in mind?

...

Good. But if it was just about having to study Swedish in school I wouldn't personally even mind..

Kalevi, I'm sure you know how to extract facts from the previous debate yourself.

And as an answer to your cryptic adress of the question: What then do you mind?

[Kalevi]

Originally Posted by Seekers

Kalevi, I'm sure you know how to extract facts from the previous debate yourself.

You referred to facts that make the case for dropping Swedish as an official language 'notoriously weak'. Please argue your point.

Originally Posted by Seekers

And as an answer to your cryptic adress of the question: What then do you mind?

While I personally don't mind having to study Swedish, there are lots of others living in a totally monolingual environment who mind. What I do mind about official bilinguality is that it has a great cost with the bureaucracies having to work every single document in dublicate, the state jobs require Swedish skills from applicants, and there's disproportionate quotas for Swedish speakers in education (which means affirmative action). And the end line is that it doesn't even work: it has failed to stop the decline of Swedish, and it's not even efficient enough in serving the population with their language of choice. All we get is negative attitudes towards everything Swedish.

[Weltschmerz]

Originally Posted by Kalevi

And the end line is that it doesn't even work: it has failed to stop the decline of Swedish, and it's not even efficient enough in serving the population with their language of choice.

What that means is, as I have hinted before, that Finland isn't bilingual in actual practice already as we speak. Finland is breaking its own law. No wonder there are Finlandswedes who aren't content with that.

[wilpuri]

I've met my share of monolingual Finland-Swedes, so its not only the Finns who have difficulty 'maintaining bilingualism'. I think it perfectly illustrates the need to decentralize the bilingualism policy and work it according to the realities on the ground.

[Aptrgangr]

In Finland, a battle of the tongues

Law about Swedish grates on majority


By Lizette Alvarez
Published: SUNDAY, DECEMBER 25, 2005


EKENAS, Finland: In most parts of the world, language is usually a fiery and divisive issue, one that pits the powerless against the powerful, the small against the big.
The Basques battle the Spanish. The Flemish tussle with the Walloons. The Québécois scuffle with the rest of Canada.
But Finland, a country with an unshakable sense of fair play, offers a counterbalance to that sort of acrimony. If anything, Finland bends over backward, with little dissent and at great cost, to make its 260,000 Swedish speakers feel comfortable.

No sooner did Finland win its independence from Russia in 1917 than it ensured in its Constitution that Swedish speakers, who still controlled much of Finland, would be granted equal rights culturally, educationally and socially. It was a gesture of comity and pragmatism that overlooked the fact that for five centuries Sweden had controlled Finland and scorned the Finnish language, which the Swedes deemed mysterious and second-class.

The result of that constitutional mandate, few would disagree, is that Finland is home to the world's most pampered minority group, the endangered Swedish-speaking Finn. Even as their numbers and influence dwindle - from a high of 14 percent of the population in 1880 to 5 percent today - their rights, for the most part, continue to flourish.

"We have it very good here," concedes Henrik Creutz, a Swedish-speaking Finn and a board member of the Swedish People's Party, who is quick to note that almost all Swedish speakers also speak Finnish, most of them very well. "There are lots of language minorities in Europe, but they don't have a lot of power."
Finland has two official languages, Swedish and Finnish. One language takes precedence over the other, depending on how many of the people living in a given community speak Finnish or Swedish as their mother tongue. Mostly, the country is made up of Finnish-language communities; only about 4 percent of the 432 Finnish communities are considered Swedish only.

Another 10 percent are bilingual, 21 of them with a Finnish-language majority and 23 of them with a Swedish-language majority, like Ekenas, a coastal jewel of 14,500 residents.
Wander the streets, cafés, marinas, schools, health centers and government buildings of Ekenas, and the chitchat is all Swedish - actually a dialect of Swedish. More than 80 percent of the residents in Ekenas speak Swedish. As in all other bilingual communities, the government offers Swedish speakers their own schools, day care centers, health care centers, local government councils, newspapers and television and radio shows. Signs are all written in Swedish at the top, Finnish at the bottom.
Swedish speakers also have their own political party in the Finnish government and a host of cultural institutions. Walk into a courthouse, a women's shelter, a nursing home or a government office in any bilingual community, and Swedish speakers, by law, must be served in Swedish, if they request it. A 2004 law requires it. All documents and brochures must be translated into Swedish.

Finland even has a kind of reverse system of quotas and affirmative action for Swedish speakers at the university level; reverse because Swedish speakers tend to be wealthier - Swedish speakers control many of the major industries - and healthier than Finnish speakers.
Swedish speakers have their own Swedish-language business school and their own quotas to study medicine and law at the University of Helsinki. For example, of the 230 laws students at University of Helsinki, at least 18 must be Swedish speakers.
On this point, at least, some Finnish speakers begin to grumble, arguing that Swedish speakers have an easier time getting into these fiercely competitive schools because of the quotas. Swedish speakers disagree: They maintain that without the quotas, Finland would be unable to abide by the law and produce the doctors, lawyers and business people to serve the Swedish-speaking population.
While the idea of peeling back the Swedish speakers' broad rights is almost unthinkable in Finland, a growing number of Finns are beginning to question, or at least complain about, other parts of the historic language law as well.

Heikki Tala, the chairman of the Finnish Alliance, which is fighting to make Finnish the sole official language of Finland, characterizes the status quo as a vestige of a bygone era. Finnish deference to it, he added, is a hangover from Finnish country-bumpkin days.
"There is still a feeling that Swedish speakers are the civilized ones and we are the peasants," Tala said.
Most upsetting to Finns is the fact that they are required to take Swedish in school. Last spring, irate Finnish-speaking students struck a first blow at the Swedish-language requirement, when the government, despite aggressive lobbying from powerful Swedish speakers, agreed to drop Swedish from the difficult matriculation exam that leads to university admissions.

Riita Uosukainen, a former speaker of the Finnish Parliament, argues that some laws simply go overboard. "People in Finland don't want to take rights away from Swedish speakers," she said. "It's in our Constitution. We are proud of it. But Finnish speakers don't want to be told that they must learn Swedish. Finnish people also have rights."

In Finland, a battle of the tongues - International Herald Tribune

[sachsenkoenig]

I honestly don't really consider Finland a traditional Scandinavian country. They are not ethnically the same and languistically the same. Finnish is far different to the Germanic lanuages and comes from the Finnic-Uralic peoples. I believe the reason why Swedish speaking Finns have it so great in Finland is because Finland is a very Scandinavian oriented nation(even though not traditional a Scandinavian country). They favor Scandinavia over Russia, just like the Baltic nation of Estonia(a near cousin to Finnish people). Those occupied by Russians are grasping further into the past to get away from Russia and closer to a more ideal ethnicity.

Also in any society, a person who speaks two languages is better then one who speaks one, especially in a country like Finland where their best friends speak Swedish.

[Blood Axis]

Originally Posted by sachsenkoenig

They are not ethnically the same and languistically the same. Finnish is far different to the Germanic lanuages and comes from the Finnic-Uralic peoples.

I don't see what that has to do with the topic, or anything else for that matter. Because they 'are not germanic', they should be given second-class status? Should they not be entitled to speak their own language and have their own identity?

[Phlegethon]

This is Fi(n)nish, not the end!

[Kalevi]

Originally Posted by sachsenkoenig

I honestly don't really consider Finland a traditional Scandinavian country.

Me neither. Despite the cultural similarity, a concept like Scandinavia stops making sense if Finland is included. Scandinavian languages are mutually intelligible (at least to some extent), and an ethnic border doesn't belong between Finland and Estonia either.

Though I'm given up the effort of correcting each and every foreigner on this long ago.

Originally Posted by sachsenkoenig

They favor Scandinavia over Russia, just like the Baltic nation of Estonia(a near cousin to Finnish people). Those occupied by Russians are grasping further into the past to get away from Russia and closer to a more ideal ethnicity.

"More ideal ethnicity", what's this supposed to mean? For me, Finnish is the one and only ideal ethnicity there is. We don't favour "Scandinavia over Russia", we favour independence and belonging to our own cultural sphere over Russia.

Originally Posted by sachsenkoenig

I believe the reason why Swedish speaking Finns have it so great in Finland is because Finland is a very Scandinavian oriented nation.

It's rather because the traditional upper class Swedish-speakers are still possessing wealth and political influence.

Originally Posted by sachsenkoenig

Also in any society, a person who speaks two languages is better then one who speaks one, especially in a country like Finland where their best friends speak Swedish.

True, the same is happening in Sweden with the offspring of Finnish business managers and the like.