How to Tear Your Nation Apart in One Easy Step: Here's my Finnish acquaintance's reply to questions...

» GeorgeP_6 - Here's my Finnish acquaintance's reply to questions...

posed by Pseudoerasmus:

> Author: pseudoerasmus
>
> I don't even understand what the point of the article is. Without
> multingualism, doom? Is that the point? Why should western Canadians,
> who have no need or desire to learn French, learn it?

In Finland all schoolchildren have to study "the other domestic". In
fennophone schools students start taking Swedish in the 7th grade and it
continues all the way through high school and many take some swedish in
college. In svecophone schools they start taking Finnish already in the
5th grade. Most students in all schools start taking English in the 3rd
grade.

Maybe only 6% of Finns speak Swedish natively, and many if not most of
them speak Finnish fluently. Moreover, the Swedish-speaking population
is concentrated on the coast-line of Finland. So many Finnish-speakers
ask the same question: why must I study Swedish even if I have no need
or desire to learn it.

The purposes of forcing all schoolchildren to study the other domestic
language are:

1. National unity. The government doesn't want Finland to split into
two ethnic groups that don't speak each other's language. Even
though that is a rather remote possibility at the moment, some
local animosity and even violence exists between the language
groups.

2. Enforcing the Constitution. The Finnish constitution guarantees
state services in Finnish and Swedish to all citizens everywhere in
the country. Thus all state officials must speak both languages
rather fluently. Even though this rule is not always strictly
enforced, it would become completely unenforceable if everybody
were monolingual.

3. Nordic cooperation. Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland
are in close economic and political relations. Swedish is
understood everywhere except Iceland. So Finnish-speakers have more
job opportunities by learning Swedish.

Even though I understand the rationale laid out above, I still think it
would be better to make the other domestic language optional and
replaceable with some other foreign language.

> Why on earth should a Mexican learn an aboriginal language?

The real reason the Swedish language has such a strong status in Finland
is historical. For six centuries Finland was a province of Sweden, and
even during most of the Russian rule (1807..1917) Swedish was the
official language in Finland even though 85% of the people spoke
Finnish. (The situation was very much analogous with that in Ireland in
the 19th century.)

> Well, those 5% or so of the Finnish population who are Swedish
> speakers just might have taken up arms had it not been Finland's
> policy of two official languages! Anyway, has Finland truly a
> bilingual policy? Are all official documents in both Finnish and
> Swedish?

When Finland's Constitution was drafted, most politicians had received
their education in Swedish. The novelty then was rather the adoption of
Finnish as an official language.

Yes, all state documents are available in both Finnish and Swedish. You
have the right to get all state and court services in either language.
However, that doesn't apply to cities, which may be mono- or bilingual
depending on a census-based rule. So there are completely svecophone
cities and completely fennophone cities. In addition, one city in
Lapland, where virtually everybody speaks Lappish natively, has an
exceptional right to use Lappish (Saami) as language of government.

The schools (from preschools to high-schools) are all monolingual. Only
in bilingual cities are there schools for both language groups. Most
universities are monolingual as well.

The roots of Finland's independence are very much in the language
question. Finland, which was an autonomous Grand-Duchy under the Russian
Emperor, was being targeted by the influential Panslavist movement in
Russia who wanted to remove Finland's special status. One of their most
hated programs was the adoption of Russian as the only permitted school
language around the turn of the century. So while the Americans cherish
the freedom of speech and religion for historical reasons, Finns
generally understand the role of language in every person's identity. So
Finns grant elementary public school education in _any_ language as long
as twelve pupils speak the language. So I hear that there is a school in
the middle of Finland where there is a Vietnamese class.

The Swedish-speaking minority is gradually diminishing in size because
of cross-marriages and bilingualism. Some Swedish-speakers are resentful
because of it, but I don't think that counts as a flaw in the
governmental language policies.

Marko

--
Marko Rauhamaa mailto:marko.rauhamaa@iki.fi http://www.iki.fi/pacujo/
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-- posted by GeorgeP_6