Then there's Finland and Canada. Finland has some struggling official minority languages (the Same languages in Lapland) and one official minority language that's not struggling in the same way, Swedish. Besides these there are of course several unofficial ones. The problem in the language majority's eyes seems to be the Swedish. Their situation in Finland is apparently very much like the French language situation in Canada. It's a second official language of the country, so anyone should get service in any government offices in Swedish. Also, as Swedish speaking Finns have to study Finnish at school, Finnish speaking Finns have to study Swedish. And they hate it so much! In fact, this hatred sometimes envelopes all the Swedish speaking Finns too. They are happier than Finns, they seem to be richer than Finns (this is only true about a small part of Swedish speaking Finns, but since those are the very visible ones...) and they sing better and even write better than Finns (well, at least Tove Jansson, Bo Carpelan and Kjell Westö do in my opinion)!
People hate minorities that do as well, or sometimes better in their eyes, as the majority. Minorities should suffer. Minorities should content themselves with speaking the majority language.
Only, as majority language speakers we have no clue how hard minority languages are to maintain. At school cool kids sometimes speak Finnish on breaks. If they didn't have their own schools - or were in the same complex even as Finnish speakers - how long until Swedish would only be spoken during lessons? And how many of those kids would eventually speak Finnish to their kids?
I was raised in a Swedish speaking village and went to a Swedish speaking school. Obviously, I'm partial. But I'm partial for the rights of other minority languages too. And, incidentally, I think Spanish should be compulsory at school in America!
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I think Americans could all be far more multi-lingual. Still, I guess I'm not too sympathetic to minority language speakers in situations where it doesn't keep them from participating in larger society. While I know there is cultural value to preserving minority languages facing extinction (like Welsh or Gaelic), there is very little institutional value to preserving the languages. I think it's not a question of whether minority languages should be preserved, it's a practical question about who should be responsible for preserving it. I realize this borders on cultural imperialism, but hey, I'm American, what do you expect?
ReplyDeleteI don't think, at least here in Finland, that anyone thinks minorities should suffer. The rivalry between swedish speaking Finns and Finnish speaking Finns can't be blamed for just us Finnish speaking ones. Living my childhood and youth in Helsinki, surrounded by areas where many Swedish speaking lived (= the rich areas), having Swedish speaking classes in my primary school --- the experiences I had with those individuals made me feel that as a Finnish speaking person I was much lower caste and could never achieve any good things in life.
ReplyDeleteDidn't make me dislike the language though.
Sorry for all the horrible mistakes above, should read before posting.
ReplyDeleteTack, Tuittu.
ReplyDeleteI agree with mormoniäiti. I don't understand where all this hate talk is coming from. I personally don't think that teaching any given foreign language should be compulsory in any country in any part of the world. In Finland, for instance, I think there should be two compulsory foreigh languages, but students should be able to choose which foreign languages they would be. For this opinion, that has foundation in my strong belief in the freedom of choice I, personally, think that I've been hated for. If you're all for more freedom of choice for everyone in this matter, why is it considered a hate crime?? That is something I will not understand!
ReplyDeleteIf kids at swedish speaking schools speak finnish to one another then I don't see compulsory swedish as soloution to that problem. Hey, according to you the problem exists despite the fact that we have compulsory swedish.
If people do hate the language (swedish) then it may have roots deep in history where swedish language has, in fact, been a tool of oppression towards the finnish speaking. Like education in universities was available only in swedish. My husband has similar experiences like mormoniäiti from his childhood with the swedish speaking folks. I, on the other hand, have no experiences with them from my childhood growing up in city that had no swedish speaking people and where all the names of the streets are written only in finnish.
The will to speak a foreigh language usually comes from the need to speak it. And the need to speak it can not be manufatured. The need for swedish language is very regional in Finland and that's just one more reason that making it compulsory in every level of education (the ONLY subject in our schools that IS compulsory in every single level of education you can find yourself in) for every single finn in every region is just idiotic. Of course there are people like me, who just love studying languages wheather there's a need to use it or not. But people like me won't need compulsory language studies. We'll study them by choice, and personally I would have loved to progress in my swedish lessons a bit faster had there not been those people who had 0 motivation to study it.
Compulsory swedish is also very, very discriminative. Not only on finnish speaking folks but also on the immigrants. I've talked to number of immigrants who find it very overwhelming to have to study not one, but two languages to be able to get a job. Finding a job is hard for them as it is, even without the need to learn swedish.
One also needs to keep in mind that swedish is no way an endangered language like Welsh or Gaelic, since it is slightly bigger language group than finnish. There has never been any attempts on the finnish speaking people's part to restrict or even eliminate the swedish language. However, there has been such attempts on their part to restrict the use of or eliminate finnish language.
If anyone wants read more good points on why studying swedish or any other foreign language should not be compulsory they should go to www.pakkoruotsi.net. The site is in finnish, though ;)
I didn't mean to post twice, sorry.
ReplyDeleteI'm actually worried about exactly this attitude, and it exists in Finland as much as everywhere else. People feel minorities should not have as much rights as majorities just because they are minorities - that's what I mean by "suffer". What I wish for is generosity - standing up for other people's rights even if they are not our rights. I didn't really write about the "forced" Swedish at schools, although it has its sides, pluses and minuses, like everything else. But what would really happen if Finnish kids weren't taught Swedish at schools (below University level)? I suspect quite a few would choose some other language, so it would definitely be marginalized...
ReplyDeleteIf Swedish speakers are going to get service in Swedish in offices, court etc. universities have to teach it, and many colleges too. Should they start from zero? Would that provide a language base good enough to offer actual service in Swedish? Or should the children already know if they want to go to public offices at the age where they choose the languages they'll study?
And do the Swedish speakers need to get service in their own language? Well, no, if we don't want them to have equal rights to Finns because they are minorities. (Please don't say "why don't other minorities get this" - that's not the issue, although I think we could consider other minorities issues in another blog... but we shouldn't take away an existing right or privilege from a group because injustice exists somewhere else.) However well you know another language, it's never your mother tongue, and if Swedish is an official language aside with Finnish (not below Finnish) then the speakers should not contend with a language problem in court, for example.