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FINLAND

Language Research

RUSSIANS

The presence of most Russians in Finland dates back to the period during which Finland was part of the Russian Empire as a Grand Duchy (1809-1917). However, a Russian presence on current Finnish territory can be noted since the 18th century (military and tradesmen). The 20th century witnessed migrations due to the Bolshevik Revolution.

SAMI/LAPP

The oldest description of these peoples was given by Tacitus in "De origine et situ Germanorum" in 98 B.C. The Lapps originally lived by hunting and fishing in small communities. Their way of living was affected during the 17th and 18th centuries when colonists settled in the northern territories. The mores of colonists - who were mainly farmers, lived in houses and produced wool and butter - were very different from the traditional occupations of the Lapps. However, the colonists were able to integrate with and adapt to the Sámi way of life. In the 19th century, the establishment of a school system changed behavior towards the Lapps and their culture and allowed a limited use of "Sámegiella", which would subsequently be eliminated.

SWEDISH

The origin of the Swedish presence in Finland dates back to the 13th and the 14th centuries, when the Swedish crown sent peasants and fishermen to colonize the coasts of South and West Finland. Finland was part of the Kingdom of Sweden until 1809, when it became a subject of the Russian empire, which made it an autonomous Grand Duchy. At that time, the administrative language was Swedish. In 1917, Finland declared its independence and the Constitution of 1919 states that Finnish and Swedish are the official languages of the Republic.

After being a part of Sweden for 650 years, Swedish remained the language of administration throughout the first half of the 19th century. It was not until 1863 that Finnish was recognized as an official language in Finland. For some time, Russian was also used, and the administration was in fact multilingual. After independence, Finnish very soon became the dominant language.

TATAR

The presence of Tatars in Finland dates back to the early 19th century. The first Tatars who settled in Finnish territory were soldiers from the Kazan region (Nizhni Novgorod), in Russia. Having arrived in Finland as merchant farmers at the end of the 19th century and later joined by family members, they became organized and successful throughout the business world.

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Updated (January 2001)

ROMA

Finland's Roma came to the country during the 16th Century via Sweden and the Baltic. At that time Finland was a part of Sweden and the policy towards Roma was not very agreeable. In 1637 a law was introduced which made it legal to kill any Roma discovered in the kingdom. After Finland was independent from Russia in 1917, all ethnic groups soon became Finnish citizens. In 1970's anti-discrimination laws came into force and special measurements were introduced to improve the economic, educational and social position of Roma.

Today it is believed that there live 10,000 Roma in Finland.

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Updated (February 2003)

SWEDISH

The language belongs to the German language family and it is one of the Nordic languages, which have very much in common. About 20 million people understand Swedish in all Nordic countries. The Swedish language spoken in Finland has the same standard and norms as Swedish spoken in Sweden.

The total population of Finland is about 5.2 million people (July 2002). Swedish-speakers number about 311,000 or 6.0 percent of the total population.

In 1880, the Swedish-speaking population numbered 294,900 and thus formed 14.3 percent of the total population in Finland. Because of the heavy increase of the Finnish-speaking population during the 20th Century, the Swedish speakers, though they remained almost the same in numbers, have decreased in proportion to about 5.9 percent (2002). This negative trend can be partly explained by emigration (since 1950, about 60,000 Finland-Swedes have emigrated (mostly to Sweden)) and by a language shift to Finnish (since 1950, about 1,000 people have shifted from Swedish to Finnish).

Source: Mercator Education, Regional Dossiers, the Swedish language in education in Finland, http://www1.fa.knaw.nl/mercator/regionale_dossiers/regional_dossier_swedish_in_finland.htm

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Updated (July 2004)

FINNO-SWEDISH

Finno-Swedish is not an independent language, but rather a regional variant of Swedish, spoken and written by Finnish Swedes. Finno-Swedish differs from Swedish partly in pronunciation, partly in vocabulary, expressions and syntax and, to some extent, also in morphology. These special features of Finno-Swedish are called Finlandisms.

One of the significant objectives of the Finno-Swedish language planning is to prevent Finno-Swedish from becoming too distant from Swedish spoken in Sweden.

THE PRINCIPLE OF EQUALITY OF THE FINNISH AND SWEDISH LANGUAGES

In the 19th Century, with the rise of the Finnish nationalistic movement, calls for official recognition of the Finnish language were increasingly heard. Since 1863 Finnish, alongside Swedish, could be used when dealing with the authorities in Finland. From 1883 civil servants were obliged to use the Finnish language and issue documents in it and in 1892, it finally became an official language on an equal footing with Swedish. With the 1906 Parliament Act (Parliament Act of 1906), which introduced equal and universal suffrage and a unicameral Parliament, Finnish became de facto the first official language of Finland.

In 1917, when Finland gained independence, it became necessary to settle relations between the Finnish and Swedish-speaking communities in the country. There existed two dominant views: one maintained that two ethnic groups or nationalities (the Finns and the Swedes of Finland) live together within the borders of the same country and the other expected that the people of Finland constitute a single nation, where one part has Finnish and the other part has Swedish as their mother tongue.

During Finland's quest for independence the Swedish-speaking people of the Åland Islands desired almost unanimously to join Sweden, which led to a serious row between Sweden and newly independent Finland in 1917. The Council of the League of Nations settled the dispute in 1921, by confirming the sovereignty of Finland over Åland in exchange for a high degree of cultural and political autonomy for the Islands, which was to be confirmed by international law and national legislation.

The resolution of the Åland dispute had a decisive impact on the question of Swedes' settlement in mainland Finland. The Finland Swedes had to abandon their proposal to have four Swedish cantons (the Swiss model). Instead, the Swedish language retained its status as a national language together with Finnish. Section 14 of the 1919 Constitution declares that the educational, cultural and social needs of the Finnish-speaking and Swedish-speaking populations should be taken care of according to similar principles¹.

Although the Swedish-speaking community is by many considered not to be a minority, it possesses all the characteristic minority features. It is numerically smaller than the rest of the population; it has distinct features with respect to language; it is determined to preserve its specific identity and it has long-standing and formal ties (citizenship) with the country.

The number of the Swedish speakers relative to the whole population has constantly decreased: in 1880, it was 14.3 percent, in 1910, 11.6 percent, in 1940, 9.6 percent and in 1970, 6.6 percent. According to the most recent information from the Finnish Statistics Center (December 31, 1997) there were 293,691 Swedish speakers, or 5.7 percent of the total population². The total population of Åland was 25,392, of whom 23,864 were Swedish-speakers. Anyone is free to register as a Finnish or Swedish speaker and the authorities will not check the person's language skills.

Source: Virtual Finland, National Minorities, February 29, 2000, http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/english/minorit3.html and the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland, http://www.kotus.fi/inenglish/

SÁMI/SAAMI/LAP

The Sámi languages, as the indigenous European languages, are most closely cognate to the Baltic-Finnish languages. There are a total of ten Sámi languages. We can divide them into the western branch (South, Ume, Pite, Lule and North Sámi) and the eastern branch (Inari, Skolt, Akkala, Kildin and Ter Sámi).

The Sámi languages are spoken in four states: Finland, Sweden, Norway and Russia. Out of 60,000 to 100,000 Sámi people (depending on a counting system) about 6,000 live in Finland.

Three Sámi languages are spoken in Finland: Inari, Skolt and North Sámi. Each language has its own peculiarities and orthography, so the speakers of the different Sámi languages cannot understand each other. Even though multilingualism has always been part of the Sámi culture, many Sámi people have lost their mother tongue because of the pressure from the majority language. Only half of the Sámi living in Finland speak Sámi as their mother tongue.

Since 1992 the Sámi languages in Finland have had official status in their home region (the municipalities of Enontekiö, Inari and Utsjoki) as well as in the northern part of the municipality of Sodankylä. This means in practice that the Sámi people are entitled to use their mother tongue in offices and hospitals. North Sámi is the principal teaching language in some schools in Inari and Utsjoki, and nowadays it is even possible to take the matriculation examination in it.

Besides the Arctic area, the Sámi live all over Finland. However, Utsjoki is the only municipality with a majority of Sámi-speaking inhabitants. North Sámi, used there, is the most widely spoken Sámi language in Finland (at least 2,000 people). As for the Skolt and Inari Sámi, they live chiefly in the municipality of Inari, which is the only four-language municipality in Finland (Finnish, Inari, Skolt and North Sámi). The speakers of Skolt Sámi (some 400 people) used to live in the Petsamo Region, but after the war they were settled in the Sevettijärvi and Nellim area. The Inari Sámi-speaking community has only about 350 members at present.

LEGAL BACKGROUND

Finnish legislation introduced a definition of Sámi, based primarily on the linguistic criteria. Sámi is a person who identifies himself or herself as Sámi and he himself or herself, or at least one of his or her parents or grandparents, learnt Sámi as their first language. In 1995, the Sámi definition was broadened to cover descendants of people who had been entered in a land, taxation or population register as mountain, forest or fishing Lapps. This broadening has been opposed by the Sámi Parliament that alleged it opened the door to the Sámi community for persons whose forefathers had long ago been assimilated into the Finnish population.

In 1995, the Finnish Constitution was amended in order to provide stronger protection of the Sámi rights, guaranteeing them cultural autonomy in respect to their language and culture within the Sámi Homeland.

The Sámi Homeland, constituted by the four northernmost municipalities in the Province of Lapland (Utsjoki, Inari, Enontekiö and Sodankylä), is the area of relevance for the implementation of the 1991 Sámi Language Act and the 1995 Act on the Sámi Parliament. According to the Sámi Language Act, Sámi may use their language before courts as well as state and municipal authorities in the Sámi Homeland. Under this Act, Sámi residents in Finland may have the Sámi language entered in the population register as their mother tongue. Acts of Parliament, and decrees and decisions of the Government or other authorities relating to Sámi issues must be translated into the Sámi language. Place names in Finnish and Sámi have recently appeared on road signs. In the Inari municipality some place names are given in all three Sámi languages used in Finland.

In spite of all these efforts, the implementation of the present Sámi Language Act has not fully met its original purposes so a working group has been established to study how the Act might be revised to become more effective in promoting the use of the Sámi languages.

When ratifying the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages the Finnish Government undertook 59 commitments with respect to the Sámi language.

SÁMI-LANGUAGE EDUCATION

Teaching in Sámi has been provided in some lower-level comprehensive schools since the mid-1970s. The first legal provision on Sámi as a language of instruction dates back to 1983. In the 1991 Act on Gymnasia and the 1995 Act on the Comprehensive Schools Sámi acquired the status of an independent mother tongue.

Under the new Act on Comprehensive Education, which entered into force at the beginning of 1999, Sámi children who live in the Sámi Homeland and speak Sámi are entitled to receive the main part of their education up to the ninth grade in the Sámi language. The provisions embodied in this Act are the first that clearly obligate the municipalities in the Sámi Homeland to provide for teaching in Sámi. The new Acts on Gymnasia and Vocational Schools, which also came into effect at the beginning of 1999, allowed teaching of Sámi at this type of educational institutions.

SÁMI-LANGUAGE MEDIA

In 1947, the Finnish Broadcasting Company aired news in Sámi for the first time. Nowadays it is obliged by law to provide services in Sámi. Sámi language radio programs amount up to 40 hours per week. Sámi films on television are less frequent. There are joint transmissions with Norway and Sweden.

THE SÁMI PARLIAMENT

At the beginning of 1996 the new Sámi Parliament (Sámediggi) was constituted through the Act of Parliament as a representative body for the Sámi. It is the successor to the Sámi Delegation (the old Sámi Parliament established in 1973). At least three representatives from four Sámi municipalities are elected to the Sámi Parliament every four years.

Source: Virtual Finland, National Minorities, 29 February 2000, http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/english/minorit3.html and Research Institute for the Languages of Finland, http://www.kotus.fi/inenglish/

THE OLD RUSSIANS

The Russian-speaking population of Finland is often said to consist of the Old and the New Russians. The ancestors of the Old Russians came to Finland in three waves. The first were serfs who were relocated from the cities of Jaroslavl, Tula and Orel to the Province of Karelia, which had become Russian after the great Nordic War (1700-1721). The second wave were Russians who obtained permission to settle in the autonomous Duchy of Finland as civil servants, military officers and merchants. The third wave consisted of Russians who fled the Russian Revolution and did not move on to the large emigrant centers in Paris, Nice, Berlin, Brussels and Novi Sad.

In 1921, the number of Old Russians reached its peak (19,000 people). It is difficult to estimate their present number as they have largely been assimilated into the Finnish-speaking majority or (to a lesser extent) into the Swedish-speaking minority. Thus the number of those, who settled in the urban areas around Helsinki, Turku and Tampere, is estimated to be between 3,000 and 5,000 people.

As a result of recent immigration from the Soviet Union and the Commonwealth of Independent States, the total number of Russians living in Finland is about 20,000.

Many ethnic Finns from Russia, known as Ingrians, as they originally settled in the region called Ingria, have, since the end of the 1980s, been allowed to return to Finland under a simplified procedure. Several spoke only Russian when they arrived in Finland.

At the end of the 19th Century there were numerous primary schools and dozens of secondary schools to meet the needs of the Russian-speaking population in Finland. At the beginning of 1924 there were six schools for the established local Russians, seven for Russian emigrants and nine schools were mixed for both groups. The most important was the Russian Secondary School in Helsinki, which in 1955, was replaced by the present Finnish-Russian school. In connection with the 1977 Comprehensive School Reform, it became a public school subsidized from the national budget. Finnish gradually became its language of instruction while Russian was taught only as a subject. However, because of the growing immigration from the Soviet Union, and later from the CIS countries, the need for instruction in the Russian language increased and at present instruction is in both Finnish and Russian.

In the 1980s, Russian kindergartens were set up in a number of Finnish towns, including Helsinki, Turku, Tampere, Kuopio, Joensuu and Jyväskylä.

The Helsinki Balalaika Orchestra has existed since 1910. Greek Orthodox religious services are held in Finnish, Russian and Church Slavonic.

Source: Virtual Finland, National Minorities, July 9, 1999, http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/english/minorit3.html

THE TATARS

About 900 Tatars, creating a Turkic community in Finland, espouse the Islamic faith. They form a homogeneous religious, cultural and linguistic minority.

During the early years when Finland had a status of the autonomous Grand Duchy under the Russian Tsars, the Tatars were employed by the Russians on the construction of the Bomarsund fortress in Åland and the Suomenlinna/Sveaborg island fortress off Helsinki. Most of them returned to Russia so only an Islamic cemetery in Bomarsund proves their presence in Finland.

The ancestors of the present-day Tatars came to Finland from some twenty villages in the Sergatch Region on the Volga River, southeast of Nizhni-Novgorod (Gorki) from the 1870s to the mid 1920s. They were merchants trading in furs and textiles who settled initially in Helsinki and its surrounding area. In 1925, the first Islamic congregation was founded. Currently the Tatars live in Tampere and Helsinki and smaller groups reside also in the towns of Kotka, Turku, Rauma, Pori, Järvenpää, Lappeenranta and Kuopio.

Although the Tatars are fully integrated into the Finnish society, they have maintained their genuine, distinct identity. They have managed to keep their Turkic Tatar language alive by using it in family and private circles and also in their organizations.

From 1948 to 1969 there was a Tatar primary school in Helsinki, which was partly subsidized by the Islamic Congregation and partly by the City of Helsinki. About half of the teaching was in Finnish and half in Tatar. After the comprehensive school reform it was no longer possible to run the Tatar school, due to the small number of pupils and lack of money.

The Islamic Congregation still keeps on providing teaching in Tatar (one hour a week in the afternoon). A Tatar kindergarten has existed since the 1950s. Summer courses in Tatar are held at the Tatar Training Center in Kirkkonummi, near Helsinki.

Since 1935 the Tatar Cultural Society has organized cultural events for Tatars. Those who have immigrated only lately are accepted into the Tatar community if they promise to master the Tatar language.

Source: Virtual Finland, National Minorities, July 9, 1999, http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/english/minorit3.html

¹ According to the 1995 amendment, previously formulated "the cultural and economic needs" and "according to the same principles"

² 5,147,349

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Updated (October 2007)

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE LANGUAGE SITUATION IN FINLAND

The Finnish language belongs to the Uralic family of languages and is related to Estonian and Hungarian. These three languages are the only languages of this group that have the status of national language in Europe.

Finnish is the overwhelming majority language in the Republic of Finland – about 93 percent of the population speaks Finnish as their mother tongue.

From the historical point of view, Finland was part of the Kingdom of Sweden from the 13^th century to 1809. During the Swedish rule, the Finnish language did not have an official status, but was merely a vernacular that was spoken at homes and only written for judicial and ecclesiastic purposes. By means of law and religion, Finnish peasants were kept faithful and subservient to the Swedish crown. The status of Finnish continued to deteriorate throughout this period, as the increasing urbanization and education helped Swedish to gain ground. At this time, even Finnish–speaking children had to learn the Swedish language to gain access to education. At the final stage of Swedish rule, speakers of Finnish constituted only 22 percent of the total population.

Later on, as a consequence of the Finish war (1808–1809) between Russia and Sweden, Sweden had to cede Finland to Russia. This turned out later to be of crucial significance for the political and cultural emancipation of Finland. Russia granted Finland the status of an autonomous Grand Duchy, and the Porvoo Diet², where peasants were also represented, “established Finland as a nation among other nations”.

Finnish, self–evidently, became the majority language in the new Grand Duchy, though Swedish retained its position as the language of administration, education and media almost throughout the 19^th century.

Gradually, the status of Finnish was strengthened. In 1863, the Russian Czar Alexander II issued a language manifesto, which granted native speakers of Finnish the right to use their own language in courts and with the public authorities.

The Russian rulers were favorable towards the emancipation of Finnish, as they wanted Finland to break loose with Sweden. Towards the end of the period of autonomy, however, Russia tightened its grip on Finland, and the 1900 Language Manifesto ordered Russian to be adopted as the administrative language in certain sectors. This order was never properly enforced because the Finnish authorities did not know enough Russian, and Russian hence never gained a significant position in Finland.

One reason was that the Finnish national identity had notably consolidated in the 19^th century – the Finnish language and indigenous culture were the main determinants of Finnish national identity. The publication of Kalevala, a collection of folk poetry compiled by Elias Lönnrot, first stirred the nationalism that led to Finland's independence from Russia.

After Finland gained independence in 1917, relations with Sweden unexpectedly became strained in connection with the Finnish Civil War and the Åland crises which further aggravated the language dispute, sharpening it into a prominent feature of domestic politics in the 1920s and 1930s.

The Finnish Constitution first adopted in 1922 recognized Finnish and Swedish as the national languages. It was last amended in 2000 &ndhs; according to the amendment, each citizen has the right to use their own language, either Finnish or Swedish, when dealing with courts or the public authorities. Moreover, the government must to ensure equal rights for the educational and societal needs of the Finnish and Swedish–speaking population. This means, that although only about 6 percent of Finnish citizens are native Swedish speakers, they enjoy the same language rights as Finnish majority.

The three other language minorities mentioned in the Finnish Constitution are the Sámi, the Roma and the users of sign language.

Thanks to the constantly increasing migration, there are many other languages spoken in Finland by different so–called “migrant minorities”. These languages, however, do not have official status.

Source: Harri Mantila: Language situation in Finland In: ICHEL Linguistic Studies Vol.6 edited by Kazuto Matsumura Department of Asian and Pacific Linguistics, Institute of Cross–Cultural Studies, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology, University of Tokyo.

1. The Diet of Porvoo was the summoned legislative assembly to establish the Grand Duchy of Finland in 1809 and the heir of the powers of the Swedish Riksdag (parliament) of the Estates.

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