Finnish 

Background

We do not know exactly how many Finnish-speakers there are in Sweden, but according to seemingly reliable and recent statistics there are 460 000 individuals in Sweden who can speak or understand Finnish or/and Meänkieli. That number indicates that there are some 250 - 300 000 individuals in Sweden who can speak or understand Finnish. The numbers from the statistical survey is much higher than recent popular estimations.

Swedish Finns are mainly an urban population: the proportion living in cities is above 90% (one third of all are estimated to live in the Greater Stockholm area). The bulk of these people went to Sweden for economic reasons during the 19th and 20th centuries. It seems that there is some decrease both in the number of speakers and members of the community caused by a large group of people that returned to Finland during the 80s and later.

There are Finnish-speaking classes and groups within the compulsory 9 year school system run by some of the communes. However, due to economic cutbacks in the early 1990s, independant Finnish-speaking schools (including kindergarten and preschool groups) were established in different parts of Sweden. These schools numbered  8 at the moment and some 900 pupils attend them. One can study Finnish at university, but teacher training in Finnish has come to a halt. At the same time, many of bilingual Finnish teachers have moved to other professions and fields since their classes have ceased to exist.

1. General description on the language group speaking Finnish

In 2000 Sweden ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, to apply to the Saami, Finnish, Meänkieli (Tornedalen Finnish), the Romani Chib and Yiddish languages. The same day Sweden also ratified the European Framework Convention for National Minorities. Saami, Swedish Finns, Tornedalians, Roma and Jews are the Swedish minority groups.

1.1.  Linguistic, geographic and economic description
Insofar as immigrants to Sweden are registered only by country of origin, not by language nor ethnicity, one does not know exactly how many Finnish-speakers there are in Sweden. To a vast majority of experts between 150,000 and 200,000 Finnish-speakers appear to be a reasonable estimate. Sweden Finns are mainly an urban population: the proportion living in cities is above 90% (one third of all are estimated to live in the Greater Stockholm area). The bulk of these people went to Sweden for economic reasons during the 19th and 20th centuries. According to experts about 50% of the young people have Finnish as their first language. It seems that there is some decrease both in the number of speakers and members of the community caused by a large group of people that returned to Finland at the beginning of the 90s.

The socio-economic characteristics of Sweden Finns have generally been those of a working-class, both from statistical points of view and as a stereotype picture of Finns. These characteristics have changed during the last decade, especially regarding the second generation. A shift from production to service occupations has also taken place among first generation immigrants, especially among women, so that these socio-economic traits are no longer as uniformly "working-class" as during the first decades of immigration.

1.2 General history of the region and the language group
Finnish-speaking people have resided within the borders of Sweden for about 700 years, and at the same time, since Swedes had received papal blessings to finally impose a "proper Christianity" on the Finns in the 12th century, Finland was a part of the Swedish Kingdom for about 600 years, until 1809 when it was ceded to Russia. Since the 13th century there has been a small but steady migration between the central and eastern coastal regions of Sweden and the western parts of Finland. After the World War II, about 450,000-500,000 Finns have migrated to Sweden (about one third of which have returned to Finland) which represents about one-third of all immigrants taking in account both the first and second generation.

The number of Sweden Finns is believed to be decreasing continuously. A main reason is the migration pattern between Sweden and Finland during the last decade, which has been one of net re-emigration to Finland, largely due to years of economic prosperity in Finland, coupled with an economic recession in Sweden, especially in the early 80s.
Concerning the Finnish language, insofar as the crown and the capital were situated in Stockholm, Finland largely upheld the position of a peripheral backyard and Finnish was ordinarily not treated on a par with Swedish. Furthermore, Finnish also lacked a fully-fledged written standard until the mid 1800s. The best way for able young people of Finnish descent to succeed, both in Sweden and Finland, was to accept the dominance of the Swedish language and to acquire a good command of it for instrumental reasons. Most Finns have seen the learning of Swedish as a main task, irrespective of the consequences for their mother tongue, insofar as it has been seen as an instrument for social success and mobility. A diglossic pattern evolved and a general closing of the social gap between mainly upper-class, Swedish-speaking, and mainly lower-class, Finnish-speaking movements also took place.

As a result of the historical imbalance in power, status and prestige to the disadvantage of Finnish, the image of Finnish vis-à-vis that of Swedish has been one of a non-prestigious, low variety, the language of the backward masses.
There is a lack of continuity regarding the language group in Sweden as a social group for both historical and social reasons: constant immigration flood between Finland and Sweden (and vice-versa) and the perception of the "double burden" of being Finnish (lower social status than Swedes, both in Finland and Sweden). The Finnish-speaking community display low self-esteem. In fact, Finns have always tended to be assimilated. Thus, there are very few Finns in the fourth or fifth generation who speak Finnish. There are few third generation Sweden Finns who can speak Finnish.
During the 19th century, the Finnish language was constructed as a national language and as a national symbol in Finland. Therefore, the linguistic agenda acquired a strong "ethnic" meaning.

1.3 Legal status and official policies
During the 19th century, the Swedish language policy was directed against the Finnish language to avoid the Russian influence in the area, insofar as Finland formed a part of the Russian Empire. There was a general linguistic policy within the general political framework (latent ideology of penetration of the Swedish language in all domains). It generated a negative attitude towards Finns. Finnish was not allowed to have a visible role in society: there were no street signs in Finnish, no place-names, etc. Although the use of Finnish was neither officially encouraged nor prohibited in informal exchanges, in practice there was a discrimination in schools (Finnish-speakers marked with a "F" in roll-call list, punishments for using Finnish in the classroom and playground) until 1957 when the Swedish National Board of Education withdrew the unofficial local regulation forbidding the use of Finnish.

The basic principles of the Swedish Constitution state as follows: "Opportunities should be promoted for ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities to preserve and develop a cultural and social life of their own". This has meant that Finnish has been promoted, i.e. it is taught at school; its existence, then, has been recognised. However, Finnish has not been given a full official status in Sweden, except that of an immigrant language: Finnish speakers cannot deal with the Administration using their own language.

Finnish and Meänkieli gained 2000 official status as minority languages and both Sweden Finns and Tornedalians are official minority groups (in addition to Sami, Romani and Jews).

Saami is an official language in Kiruna, Gällivare Jokkmokk and Arjeplog. Meänkieli and Finnish are official languages in Kiruna, Gällivare, Pajala, Övertorneå and Haparanda.

2. Presence and use of the language in various fields

2.1 Education
There are three types of Finnish courses:

a) Finnish as mother tongue: up to 2 hours per week.
b) Bilingual classes: from 1st to 6th grade in primary school, 50% of courses are taught in Finnish. Later on the number of subjects taught through Swedish increases gradually.
c) Pull-out, or remedial, classes: these are regarded strictly as an emergency solution and are not well accepted by parents.
The main goal is to obtain fully bilingual pupils in order to improve their learning process for other subjects of the curriculum. However, there exist many obstacles. From the 1992-93 school year, the mother tongue hours were placed in the free hours of pupils (early in the morning, lunch time, etc.). Furthermore, some Swedish teachers put the Finnish pupils under pressure in order not to attend the Finnish lessons, arguing that it is better and more useful to study other subjects. They apparently require retraining in order to understand exactly what bilingual education, multilingualism and integration mean.

Cuts in the budget, due to the economic recession, began in the late 1980s and specially after the early 1990s. Nowadays, local councils are constraining the budget allotted to Finnish courses (excluding those with less than 5 pupils attending the classroom) on account of the economic climate.

The loss of Finnish courses in public schools has been slightly compensated by Finnish free schools, where between 800 and 1,000 pupils are taught in Finnish. However, Finnish teaching at schools slides rather quickly downwards. In public schools, a few thousand Swedish Finns receive mother tongue instruction a few hours/week.

The use of Finnish in education is restricted to the primary school (even though there is a secondary school where Finnish is taught as a subject). There are some secondary schools in South of Sweden which teach Finnish as a foreign language, in order to develop the skills of people for the Baltic market (principally Estonia), as regards the economy and social services.
Most of teaching and learning materials are imported from Finland, which tends to confuse the pupils, as the cultural and social context is different. However, an increasing amount of locally produced teaching materials is used in the Finnish language education. There are no references to the history of Swedish Finns in the curriculum.

Adult education: As for adult education, there are five or six special residential folk colleges (called Folkhögskola) in Haparanda, Aksevalla, Fristad, Göteborg and Matarenki. In these colleges Finnish is available to be taught to adults, although it is not often required. Other Finnish evening courses are organised by the Workers Teaching Association (ABF, a nation-wide association) for beginners, while courses offered by the National Association of Finns in Sweden (NAFS) are aimed to develop the Finnish-language institutions and organisations in Sweden.

Higher education: At the university level, Finnish is taught both as a "home language" and as a second language at the universities of Stockholm and Uppsala. The first courses started in the 70s in Uppsala for the so-called "home language teachers" (also with students from Stockholm, Lund, Umea and Lulea universities). The courses still run in Stockholm and Uppsala.
There are three types of instruction:
a) Finnish courses for beginners: designed for journalists, translators, interpreters, etc.
b) Finnish as mother tongue: designed for those having Finnish as their mother tongue.
c) Finnish for teachers: only at the Umea Polytechnic College (where Sami courses are also offered).
There are also courses on Tornedalian culture and Swedish-Finnish culture. In addition, 18 students are currently enrolled in Finnish doctorate programs.

About 200 students are enrolled in the various Finnish courses in Stockholm. The number has steadily increased throughout the 90s. Swedish students are slowly becoming involved in these courses. Students often have problems due to the gap between the level of proficiency acquired at school and the level required at the University.

2.2 Judicial authorities
Finnish and Meänkieli can be used orally in courts in the five municipalities where these language have official recognition. Written documents in Finnish and Meänkieli can be submitted, but written documents by the authorities may be in Swedish.

2.3 Public authorities and services
Finnish and Meänkieli can be used orally in courts in the five municipalities where these language have official recognition.
Command of Finnish is not a requirement for jobs either in the public services or in the mass-media.

2.4 Mass media and information technology
There are one weeklies entirely published in Finnish and one bilingual newspaper (Swedish-Finniish and some Meänkieli) published a few times/week. A few periodicals published by different Swedenfinns institutions or organisations also use Finnish as their main language.

There are programmes in Finnish on the state-owned Swedish TV (2-3 hours per week). There are news programmes on Finnish TV, five days a week, and these have a good audience.

The Swedish State radio broadcasts programmes in Finnish daily (both at State and local level) dealing with all kinds of subjects. This radio station created a new Finnish language channel on January 1998 but the digital receivers are still very expensive and very little people can enjoy these broadcasts.

2.5 The Arts
A pop-rock group sings in Finnish, and has a large following in Sweden. Regarding traditional music two groups deal with 'Kantela' (epic music), dance music and Finnish tango.
A National Finnish Ensemble has been active a few years.
There is no dubbing of films because all foreign language movies are showed in the original version with subtitles in Swedish.
The majority of Finnish books are imported from Finland (due to problems existing in Sweden to publish books in other languages than Swedish). There are some Finnish culture festivals across the country: a main nation-wide festival once a year and a lot of smaller local events.
The overall conclusion for cultural industries is that success in writing, singing, performing theatre, etc., always leads the authors and performers to Finland, thereby causing them to be perceived by Swedes as Finnish, not Swedish, i.e. as foreigners. There are very few second or third generation Sweden Finns active in the cultural and artistic industry.

The main activities of the Board are as follows: