Talk:Finland

Multilingualism/Languages

I find it strange that almost 50% of the population can hold a conversation in both Finnish and Swedish, but there is not much mentioned on multilingualism in this country. There should exist a fairly large number of inhabitants with two native languages. (Filadifei 17:39, 16 November 2011 (UTC))

What do you exactly find strange? When it comes down to constitution, Finland is a country with two equally official languages. All government documents are available and equally binding in both languages. Members of Eduskunta can and do debate in either language of their choosing. You can always have any official documents and services – including court and police – in either language. There is compulsory education of the "second domestic language" (defined as Swedish for those officially registered as Finnish-speakers, and vice versa) on all levels of education from elementary school to academia. This is why most people speak both languages to at least some degree. --hydrox (talk) 18:08, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, that was my point. You confirm my theory that multilingualism is widespread in this country. Yet it is hardly mentioned in statistics/articles on this country. (Filadifei 18:29, 16 November 2011 (UTC))

Define what do you mean with multilingualism. Officially everyone in Finland has one and one only primary language. If multilingualism is defined as being able to strike a conversation in more than one language, it is so widespread everywhere in the world that I would be wary of including it in any country article. --hydrox (talk) 19:08, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ I was referring to the native languages. It might be the case though, as you mention, that no such statistics are available or that the actual figure (should we have it) would be very low. (Filadifei 19:20, 16 November 2011 (UTC))

Okay yes, now I understand. Yes, the number of people who have two or more native languages is – I think – not officially recorded. At least no such number can be drawn from the official Statistics Finland data, because it only records one primary (native) language, and does not concern with native bi- or multilingualism. However, I would think that number of natively multilingual people in this sense is actually rather low. All families generally have one home language, and that is for most people their official native language. Then also, there is the language of the surrounding immediate society (local town, or part of town).. in most areas this is Finnish, but on some areas it is Swedish or Sami. Nowhere is it really anything else – Finland has no "Chinatowns" or French quarters. One could argue that a child of Swedish-speaking family in a Finnish-speaking town could be defined statistically as natively multilingual (or a child of Vietnamese-speaking family in a mostly Swedish-speaking town for that matter), because they generally develop extremely proficient in both languages due to need to cope in the surrounding society in either language.

We could draw the data by comparing native language to the primary official language of the municipality of residence, but this would introduce significant statistical errors because municipalities are rather large, and local language can vary within one municipality. --hydrox (talk) 19:36, 16 November 2011 (UTC)

Did this go through?

"In October 2009, Finland's Ministry of Transport and Communications committed to ensuring that every person in Finland will be able to access the internet at a minimum speed of one megabit-per-second beginning July 2010.[128]"

Well it's July 2010 now, did he succeed? I'm certainly no good at researching these things. --Sgtlion (talk) 06:17, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

"Committed". Yes, in its statement. But the policy is that in practice this is not the business of the government. It has given money for municipalities in the sparsely inhabited areas, but for example Väståboland was not deemed sparsely enough populated and the sea between islands ignored. Sonera (former national telephony company, now private) was not allowed to lay down its copper based telephony network, as wireless connections were not up to the 1 Mbps other than in theory. Copper isn't either, but at least more reliable.

So the government is giving some support for those wanting to build 1 Mbps connections, but is not doing it itself, nor in anyway guaranteeing building them will be economically possible. There is fibre mostly anywhere, but the owners are not forced (and not willing) to share them for decent prices. Ironic, as the biggest players are owned by the government, unless already sold out.

--LPfi (talk) 15:32, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Religion edit

I removed this statement: In recent years, the church's position on homosexuality has spurred some Finns to declare themselves unaffiliated. The articles cited (describing resignations from the Church's official rolls following intolerant comments of a Christian politician) do not support the deleted statement. 208.68.128.53 (talk) 23:01, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Picture of Finland men's national ice hockey team

Edited the caption a bit (corrected a misspelled "of" added a couple of links). Still think its overly long, though. Anybody more sports savvy care to revise it all together? Juhoeemeli (talk) 16:01, 23 January 2012 (UTC)