Finnish and Swedish are both official languages in Finland. Small Sami- and Russian-speaking minorities account for less than 2.5% of total speakers, whereas Finnish alone accounts for more than 90% of total speakers. (CIA, 2007) English is, like in many other countries, the most popular foreign language and widely spoken.

The languages of Finland are diverse, and it is one of the few countries that boasts a 100% literacy rate. Twelve of its languages are currently in use while one is extinct. (Gordon, 2005) The two official languages belong to different language families: “Swedish . . . and Russian belong to the Indo-European group of languages while Finnish is one of the Finno-Ugrian languages.” (Branch, 2000) All Finns learn English and Swedish in school, and many learn German or French too. This language diversity has deeply affected the lexical nature of traditional languages within Finland, e.g. local Swedish dialects contain many Finnish words, and Finnish also borrows words from English, Swedish, Russian, German etc.

Foreign regimes have caused Finland’s language diversity. As a connecting country between West and East, Finland was constantly blighted by wars with its neighbours — Russia and Sweden. From the 12th century to 1809, Finland was ruled by Sweden and heavily influenced by the domination of Swedish. As the Swedish Empire declined, Finland was ceded to Russia as a grand duchy. (Lehtipuu & Mäkelä, 1993:12-13) Though Finland declared its independence in 1917, the Swedish and Russian languages had become rooted in the country.

Pluralism is highly valued in Finland. Many children from bilingual families attend Swedish schools. The Swedish-speaking minority, though constitutes only 5~6% of Finnish population, remains a vigorous language group compared to Russian groups:

It can be a clear advantage to be born into a Swedish-speaking home since Finland’s official status of bilingualism demands officials who are fluent in both languages. (Thomas, 1999:46)

Therefore in some occupations Swedish speakers are overrepresented. Moreover, the unemployment rate of Swedish speakers is lower than Finnish speakers regardless of age, gender, education, and labour market. (Jan & Fjalar, 2003) Swedish is more prestigious than Russian within Finland not only because of its official status but also for a historical reason: during the Swedish sovereignty, Swedish was the language of the upper class. Russia, on the other hand, did not impose its own language during its ruling time. The Tsar promised that the language situation would not be changed, “which meant that Swedish rather than Russian would be the main language of the administration.” (Singleton, 1998:73)

The Finnish language has formed a barrier in Finland’s communication with other countries. Although Finnish is also spoken in some parts of Sweden and Russia, it is only widely used in Finland. “To begin with, Finns speak a language that is completely different from . . . their Scandinavian neighbors.” (Ottesen, 1992) So interaction with neighbouring countries is nearly impossible without using another language, not to mention the rest of the world. It is also unfeasible to promote Finnish education to other countries because the language is extremely difficult for non-native speakers, e.g. it has 15 cases for nouns and more than 160 conjugations. As a result, Finland has to rely on other languages to promote its arts, tourism, business, as well as international activities.

Finnish has survived against all odds. Finns are proud of their native language and they have resisted successfully their enemies’ attempts to impose foreign languages on them. (Jane, 2002)

“ . . . Finnish had been written in a form based on the western dialects” (Korhonen, 1986:67) until Mikael Agricola (1510-57) created a Finnish writing system. It went through many reforms of orthography and improved its status in the 18th century. “Finnish became the language of instruction in the University alongside Swedish only in the 1860s.” (Ibid:73) In the late 1880s it was the dominant language in universities. Finnish literature began to prosper in the 19th century, and in 1939, F. E. Sillanpää, one of the most famous Finnish writers, won the Nobel Prize for Literature. (”Frans Eemil Sillanpää – Autobiography,” 1939) At the end of the 19th century, profuse local and national newspapers as well as periodicals in Finnish emerged.

Swedish speakers are generally more well off and more stable in marital status than Finnish speakers. The long-distance migration rate of Finnish speakers is considerably higher than Swedish speakers, which indirectly effects social integration. According to Finnäs (1997), communities that have strong social networks help to maintain marriages. (pp. 264-265) This explains partly the lower divorce rate in the Swedish-speaking group. From the point of view of Swedish speakers, cross-language marriages double their divorce rate, but the effect is small on Finnish speakers. When the marriages are homogamous, the divorce rate decreases.

Swedish is dying out. Despite strong support from the government and parents’ willingness to educate children in Swedish, Swedish is gradually being assimilated by Finnish. The percentage of Swedish speakers has dropped 7.5% since 1865, because they are always surrounded by Finnish speakers. While most Swedish-speaking pupils use some Swedish dialects, the school only teach standard Swedish, which causes confusion for these students; a lot of students can not even understand the Swedish lectures or express themselves in this language. (Brunell, 1991:14-22) Thus improvements of bilingual education are necessary if Swedish is to be maintained.

The decline of the Swedish-speaking population has made Swedish speakers even more privileged in work places. Swedish speakers, however, often endure heavier pressure, responsibilities and are overwhelmed by communication and translation tasks. When corporations adopt Swedish as the official business language, the disequilibrium becomes so problematic that some professionals use English as a more neutral language. (Eero, Janne, Rebecca, & Risto, 2005) Although the designation of a particular language is often seen as a way to enhance business communication, it also implicitly entitles certain groups to higher power.

Research on languages in Finland is restricted due to the lack of relevant information in English; many papers are written in foreign languages. I found that although Finns demand multilingual skills, the movement for establishing a single national language since 1800s is still influential in modern Finnish society. Monolingualism is considered essential in uniting the whole national, or the ethnic groups. However, globalisation has ruled out this possibility. An eclectic solution for Finland is to find a balance among its many languages and improve the language education.

Bibliography

Branch, H. (2000). The Finnish language. Retrieved April 9th, 2007, from http://virtual.finland.fi/netcomm/news/
showarticle.asp?intNWSAID=25832

Brunell, A. V. (1991). Language Acquisition in the Swedish-Speaking Minority in Finland. Journal of Reading, 35(1), 14.

CIA. (2007). Finland. The World Factbook Retrieved April 9th, 2007, from https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/fi.html

Eero, V., Janne, T., Rebecca, P., & Risto, S. (2005). Language and the Circuits of Power in a Merging Multinational Corporation. The Journal of Management Studies, 42(3), 595.

Finnäs, F. (1997). Social integration, heterogeneity, and divorce: The case of the Swedish-speaking population in Finland. Acta Sociologica, 40(3), 263-277.

Frans Eemil Sillanpää – Autobiography. (1939). Nobel Lectures Retrieved April 10th, 2007, from http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/
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Gordon, R. (2005). Ethnologue: Languages of the World. 15. Retrieved April 9th, 2007, from http://www.ethnologue.com/show_country.asp?name=FI

Jan, S., & Fjalar, F. (2003). Unemployment and native language: The Finnish case. Journal of Socio - Economics, 32(1), 59.

Jane, A. B. (2002). The language that refused to die. Faces, 18(5), 18.

Korhonen, M. (1986). Finno-Ugrian Language Studies in Finland. Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica.

Lehtipuu, M., & Mäkelä, V. (1993). Finland (1st ed.). Hawthorn: Lonely Planet.

Ottesen, K. R. (1992). Language Barrier, History Have Isolated Finn Acts. Billboard, 104(35), 1.

Singleton, F. (1998). A Short Histroy of Finland (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Thomas, R. (1999). Helsinki: Bilingualism continues. Europe(390), 45-46.

By Jesse Chen, Dept. of English, Sydney Uni.