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Finland Swedish

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Finland-Swedish is a variety of Swedish spoken in Finland. From the 16th century Swedish, not Finnish, was the main language of jurisdiction, administration and higher education in Finland. In 1892 Finnish and Swedish became official languages with equal status, and by the time of Finland's independence in 1917 Finnish clearly dominated in government and society.

map with distribution of Finland-Swedes
map with distribution of Finland-Swedes

Finland has since then been a bilingual country with a Swedish-speaking minority (5.08% of Mainland Finland's population in 2003), speaking Finland-Swedish, living mostly in the coastal areas of southern, south-western, and western Finland. During the 20th century, the urbanization following the Industrial Revolution has led to large majorities of Finnish speakers in all major cities. The capital Helsingfors became the predominantly Finnish-speaking city Helsinki as early as around year 1900. A large and important part of the Finland-Swedes nevertheless live in the capital.

The autonomous island-province of Åland is an exception, being monolingually Swedish-speaking according to international treaties. It is a matter of definition whether the Swedish dialects spoken on Åland are to be considered Finland-Swedish or not. Most Swedish-speaking Finns do consider them being closer to some of the dialects spoken in nearby parts of Sweden.

Finland-Swedish differs slightly from Swedish as spoken in Sweden ("rikssvenska"), most notably with regard to prosody. Prestigeous Finland-Swedish does however not differ more from high-prestigious varieties spoken within Sweden, than these varieties differ among themselves. Spelling is identical.

In spoken language, especially among young people in Finnish-dominated areas, Finnish loanwords, as well as calques from Finnish, are frequently incorporated. There are also some words in the Finland-Swedish that in Sweden would be considered archaic. Some words from the field of government and public service that have been created in recent centuries do also differ, like also other new words, notably loanwords from English.

Some dialects from Ostrobothnia are practically unintelligible to Swedish-speaking people in southern Finland.

Language regulation

The Finland-Swedish language is regulated by the "Swedish Department" at the "Research Institute for the Languages of Finland" in Finland. There is an officially stated aim that the Finland-Swedish dialect should remain close to the Swedish spoken in Sweden, thus the Swedish Department strongly advises against loanwords and calques from Finnish, which would often be incomprehensible to Swedes from Sweden.

History

1610 17.5%
1749 16.3%
1815 14.6%
1880 14.3%
1900 12.9%
1920 11.0%
1940 9.5%
1960 7.4%
1980 6.3%
2003 5.6%

Swedish is the mother tongue for about 265,000 persons in Mainland Finland and 25,000 on Åland, or 5.55% of the total population according to official statistics for 2003 [1]. The proportion has been steadily diminishing since the 18th century when approximately 15% of the population had Swedish as the mother tongue (estimation for 1815 [2]).

The Swedish-speaking minority of Finland descends chiefly:

  1. from settlers who arrived particularly to some coastlines and archipelagos with the Viking raids and trade connections towards East (so-called Austway) (900–1200, and even before that period, during which period also towns in present-day Russia had Scandinavian colonies).
  2. from the settlers who arrived with the Christian missionaries, crusaders and administrators in the early middle ages of Finland (1200-1400).
  3. from socially ambitious Finnish families. The Swedish mother tongue was a great social advantage, particularly during the 17th–19th centuries. Therefore socially ambitious families often raised their children in Swedish, ultimately leading to a situation where the administrative elite had a limited knowledge of the majority language, Finnish.
  4. from foreign immigrants. Plenty of non-Finnic immigrants, particularly townspeople and elite, chose to join Swedish speakers rather than Finnish. For example, children of Mr Marhein, a Dutch merchant, chose to learn Swedish. Later some descendants succeeded in climbing into civil servant nobility, which entitled them to gloss their surname a bit. Thus, a person named C.G.E.Mannerheim, a Swedish-speaker, having become a leading military and a president in Finland, is correctly listed below as Finland-Swede.
  5. from Swedish settlers throughout the period of close connections, c 1400-1800.

Ethnicity

The minority speaking Finland-Swedish can, according to standard definitions, be considered an ethnic minority. It's however important to note that Finland-Swedes as a rule are not self-designated ethnic Swedes. Today, it's often stated that Finland-Swedes are not Swedes in any other sense than that of language, and that the history (from 1714 and on) gives them no reason to feel any obligation or allegiance to Sweden. In this most Finnish speaking and Swedish speaking Finns agree.

They call themselves finlandssvenskar, literally "Finland-Swedes", but other translations to English are often favored, and increasingly Swedish-speaking Finns in order to circumvent the confusion regarding nationality, citizenship and ethnicity. The choise of terminology is highly sensitive both for some ethnic Finns and for some Finland-Swedes. The usage of the term Finlander in English may be considered offensive by some ethnic Finns, like also the usage of the term Swedish speaking Finns may be considered offensive by some Finland-Swedes.

The 19th century rise of Fennomani (ethnic Nationalism as it appeared in Finland) led to the establishment of Finnish as a language of culture, science and administration in Finland. One important aspect is that many families of the Swedish-speaking elite learned Finnish and, championning a total switch of language, made Finnish the mother tongue of their children. Tensions between the Finnish speaking majority and the Swedish speaking minority were inevitable, dubbed Finland's language strife. The minority identified themselves as the vector of Western culture, the link to the Western world. In the light of gradual loss of importance and influence of Finland-Swedish in Finland, it was natural for the minority to identify Sweden as the mother country capable of intervening against anti-Swedish policies by the government of Finland. The tensions diminished from the mid-1930s thereafter, and the Winter War had a unifying effect on Finland, it can no longer be said that the Finland-Swedish minority as a rule feel closer affiliated to Sweden than to Finland — the exception may be the monolingual Åland islands.


Nevertheless, some tension can be registered between a part of the Finnish speaking majority and the Swedish speaking minority. The Finland-Swedes do not inhabit the poorer inland of Eastern and Northern Finland, and the unemployment rate of Swedish-speaking people is in fact lower than that of Finnish speakers. Some of Finland's most influential and wealthy families are Finland-Swedish, and popular wisdom hold Finland-Swedes in general to be wealthier than ordinary people, i.e. Finnish speakers. Still today, members of wealthy Swedish-speaking families occupy unproportionally many administrative positions, both in economical and governmental administration.

In the view of some Finns, a further example of this is the fact that the Swedish People's Party has been represented in most cabinets of independent Finland, currently with 2 out of total 18 ministers — even though the amount of Swedish-speaking people in Finland is only about 5%.

Bilingualism

Finland being a bilingual country, according to its constitution, means that citizens of the Finland-Swedish minority have the right to communicate with authorities in their mother tongue.

After an educational reform in the 1970s, both Swedish and Finnish are compulsory school subjects, mandatory in the final examinations: education in the pupil's own language is officially called mother tongue (modersmål in Swedish or äidinkieli in Finnish) and education in the other language is referred to as the other domestic language (andra inhemska språket in Swedish, toinen kotimainen kieli in Finnish). The introduction of mandatory education in Swedish was chiefly intended as a step to avoid further finlandization.

In an international context, and compared to the neighbouring countries Sweden, Norway and Estonia, the mandatory education in the 5%-minority's language must be noted as an unusually strong means to support the governmental bilingualism, although after Finland's entry to the EU being laxed: in the matriculation examination, usually taken at age 18, Swedish is since 2004 no longer a mandatory subject. The studying of the other domestic language remains mandatory.

Being a small minority leads necessarily to a functional bilingualism. Although it might be possible to live your life entirely on Swedish in some towns and municipalities, Finnish is the dominant language in most towns, at most employers and in the main part of Finland. Many find it more convenient to use Finnish when interacting with strangers and known Finnish-speakers. There exists a widely established tacit agreement on using Finnish as discussion language in a group as soon as at least one of the participating persons begin to use Finnish, even if all or all but one of the group is known to be Swedish or to be in sufficient command of Swedish language.

Demographics

  • 9% of the Swedish-speaking population of Finland live on Åland
  • 6% live in purely Swedish-speaking towns and municipalities of Continental Finland
  • 35% live in bilingual towns and municipalities where Swedish dominates
  • 44% live in bilingual towns and municipalities where Finnish dominates
  • 6% live in purely Finnish-speaking towns and municipalities

In addition, about 60,000 Swedish-speaking Finns are estimated to have emigrated to Sweden during the second half of the 20th century.

List of notable Finland-Swedes and Swedish-speaking Finns

See also

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