Finland's language strife
The language strife (Swedish: Finska språkstriden) was one of the major conflicts of Finland's national history and domestic politics. Strife revolved around the question of what status Swedish and Finnish has in country. Strife is considered to have ended when Finnish gained official language status and became equal with Swedish. There is a more recent question of having Mandatory Swedish in schools.
Background
As the area nowadays known as Finland was under Swedish rule (Sweden-Finland), Swedish (and Latin) was the language of administration and education in the Swedish Realm. Swedish was therefore dominant over Finnish as the most-used language of administration and higher education among the Finns. Part of the reason was that to become a student one had to learn Swedish and Finnish language was looked down upon as "language of peasants" by upper classes.[1][2] Immigration of Swedish peasants to Finland's coastal regions also boosted the status of Swedish.
As a result of the Finnish War, Sweden ceded Finland to Russia in 1809. Finland became an autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland within the Russian Empire.[3] Although Mikael Agricola had started written Finnish with Abckiria in 1500s, the laws from so-called Sweden–Finland era remained largely and so did Swedish language remain in administration.[4] Finnish translation of Civil Code of 1734 was published in 1759 (Ruotzin waldacunnan laki) but it had no official status of a lawbook since official language of administration was Swedish.[4]
Johan Vilhelm Snellman became a chief initiator of the language strife during the 1850s being concerned with changing language among educated classes.[5] Snellman was concerned to educate larger amount of people and wrote to Zachris Topelius in 1860: "My view is this: Whether Russian or Finnish will win only God knows. I dare not hope for anything. But that Swedish will lose - that I do know".[5] Elias Lönnrot compiled the first Finnish-Swedish dictionary (Finsk-Svenskt lexikon) and completed it in 1880.[6]
Nationalism and the question of language
Finnish eventually recovered its predominance in the country after the birth of Fennomanic Finnish nationalism in the 19th century.
A significant contribution to the Finnish national awakening from the mid-19th century onwards came from the members of the mostly Swedish-speaking upper classes deliberately choosing to promote Finnish culture and language. Snellman himself was a Swede and later ennobled. These people, known as the Fennomans, Fennicized their family names, learned Finnish, and made a point of using it both in public and at home. However, another group of the Swedish-speaking population, the Svecomans, did not wish to abandon Swedish, and strove against the Fennoman ideology and Fennoman-inspired reforms.
Finnish gained an official language status comparable to that of Swedish in 1863 by ruling of Alexander II (AsK 26/1863) allowing Finnish to be used in official capacity in legal and stateoffice matters.[7][8][9] Within a generation Finnish dominated in government and society in Finland.
During Russification of Finland Nicholas II of Russian empire attempted to change official language into Russian (Language Manifesto of 1900) but that did not happen as russification was halted by general strike of 1905.
After independence
After Finland's independence in 1917, relations with Sweden unexpectedly became strained in connection with the Finnish Civil War and the Åland crisis, which further aggravated the language dispute, sharpening it into a prominent feature of domestic politics during the 1920s and 1930s.
In the newly independent Finnish constitution of 1919, Finnish and Swedish were given equal status as national languages. The language strife thereafter centred on this and on the role of Swedish in universities, particularly regarding the number of professors working in Swedish. In the interwar period the university was the scene of a conflict between those who wanted to advance the usage of Finnish language in the university, to the detriment of Swedish and those who opposed such move.[10] Geographer Väinö Tanner was one of the most vocal defenders of Swedish language usage.[11] Swedish People's Party of Finland initiated a campaign collecting 153 914 signatures in defense of the Swedish language that were handed to the parliament and government in October 1934.[10] The conflict at the university generated an international reaction when academics from Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Iceland sent letters to the diplomatic representations of Finland in their respective countries warning about a weakening of the Nordic unity that would result from diminishing the role of Swedish in the University of Helsinki.[10]
Then, at the resettlement of over 420,000 Karelian refugees after the Winter War against the Soviet Union (1939–1940), the Swedish-speaking minority feared that the new Finnish-speaking settlers would change the linguistic balance of their neighbourhoods.
Finally, in language decree of 1.1.1923 Finnish and Swedish became equal.[8]
See also
- Fennoman movement
- Svecoman movement
- Mandatory Swedish
- Language revival
- Language policy
- Constitution of Finland
References
- ^ "Aleksis Kivi - Kansalliskirjailija". Retrieved 2017-12-10.
- ^ Minna Helminen. "Suomen kielen asema". Otavan Opisto. Retrieved 2017-12-10.
- ^ "Sprengtporten, Georg Magnus (1740 - 1819)". Biografiakeskus. Retrieved 2017-12-07.
- ^ a b Kaisa Häkkinen. "Suomen kieli vallan kielenä" (PDF). Retrieved 2017-12-10.
- ^ a b Klinge, Matti. "Snellman, Johan Vilhelm (1806 - 1881)". The National Biography of Finland. Retrieved 24 November 2017.
- ^ "Lönnrot, Elias (1802 - 1884)". Biografiakeskus. Retrieved 2017-12-10.
- ^ "1863 kieliasetus". Retrieved 2017-12-11.
- ^ a b Rita Trötschkes (2013-12-09). "Keisarivierailu vauhditti yhteiskunnan muutosta". Yle. Retrieved 2017-12-11.
- ^ Haarmann, Harald. Modern Finland: Portrait of a Flourishing Society. McFarland. p. 211. ISBN 9781476625652.
- ^ a b c Sundman, Lasse (April 24, 2011). "Universitetsadresserna". Uppslagsverket Finland (in Swedish). Retrieved November 30, 2017.
- ^ Lindberg, Johan (August 5, 2011). "Tanner, Väinö". Uppslagsverket Finland (in Swedish). Retrieved November 30, 2017.
Further reading
- Coleman, Michael C. (March 2010). "'You Might All Be Speaking Swedish Today': Language Change in 19th-century Finland and Ireland". Scandinavian Journal of History. 35 (1): 44–64. doi:10.1080/03468750903315215.
- Hult, F.M., & Pietikäinen, S. (2014). Shaping discourses of multilingualism through a language ideological debate: The case of Swedish in Finland. Journal of Language and Politics, 13, 1-20.