Kaikki tykkää opiskella ruotsia !
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/finlanddiary/2005/05/a_young_philoso.html
Interesting reading these sorts of debates in english for a change... Anyway, all I wanted to say was I cannot understand why this has to be such an issue. Multilingual countries with several groups of people are not uncommon.In my opinion, if one language slowly is dying there would need to be some sort of political help to enable it, and the people who speak it, to keep existing. Especially when the percentages look like they do in Finland. Yes the majority is Finnishspeaking, but does that mean that the swedishspeaking don't have the same right to live on this geographic location, as they have done for thousands of years?
I think any country should embrace the different people and languages it contains, and try to preserve them. Diversity is a richness.
If a country, as a concept, is very important. (Which it seems to be to a great deal of the finns) then a basic knowledge of this countrys languages would be practical, of course you cannot force a finnishspeaking finn to learn swedish, and you cannot force a swedishspeaking finn to learn finnish, but if You have a good friend that speaks differently, wouldn't You like to learn at least to understand his language, instead of just speaking my language and totally disregard his? especially if you are sharing the same flat.
Finally, learning another language is never ever bad, as long as you keep your mothertongue alive and strong. Because of the exposure to finnish in Finland, the swedishspeaking minority needs to concentrate on preserving their own language. If they learn and speak too much finnish this naturally becomes a threat to their own mothertongue, since it is so much weaker, percentually that is. This is already happening, especially in the area around the capital, Helsinki-Helsingfors.
This is not the case for the finnishspeaking majority. learning to speak swedish can never be a threat to their mothertongue, yet the largest protests in learning another language seems to come from the finnishspeaking side. This does not make sense to me.
The previous posts here talked about the finnish xenophobia. There certainly seems to be xenophobic elements in this debate, and that is sad. I just hope we grow up soon and learn to embrace what is different instead of rejecting it... The majority of the language debate in Finland is very childish, and it makes me ashamed of my country.
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Fair points all the way Finlander, and your thinking represents in many aspects the mainstreem opinion in Finland. It's just a shame that these tragic elements in our society embarras us all who take pride in being finns.
Posted by: | June 29, 2005 10:10 AM
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/finlanddiary/2005/05/a_young_philoso.html
Interesting reading these sorts of debates in english for a change... Anyway, all I wanted to say was I cannot understand why this has to be such an issue. Multilingual countries with several groups of people are not uncommon.In my opinion, if one language slowly is dying there would need to be some sort of political help to enable it, and the people who speak it, to keep existing. Especially when the percentages look like they do in Finland. Yes the majority is Finnishspeaking, but does that mean that the swedishspeaking don't have the same right to live on this geographic location, as they have done for thousands of years?
I think any country should embrace the different people and languages it contains, and try to preserve them. Diversity is a richness.
If a country, as a concept, is very important. (Which it seems to be to a great deal of the finns) then a basic knowledge of this countrys languages would be practical, of course you cannot force a finnishspeaking finn to learn swedish, and you cannot force a swedishspeaking finn to learn finnish, but if You have a good friend that speaks differently, wouldn't You like to learn at least to understand his language, instead of just speaking my language and totally disregard his? especially if you are sharing the same flat.
Finally, learning another language is never ever bad, as long as you keep your mothertongue alive and strong. Because of the exposure to finnish in Finland, the swedishspeaking minority needs to concentrate on preserving their own language. If they learn and speak too much finnish this naturally becomes a threat to their own mothertongue, since it is so much weaker, percentually that is. This is already happening, especially in the area around the capital, Helsinki-Helsingfors.
This is not the case for the finnishspeaking majority. learning to speak swedish can never be a threat to their mothertongue, yet the largest protests in learning another language seems to come from the finnishspeaking side. This does not make sense to me.
The previous posts here talked about the finnish xenophobia. There certainly seems to be xenophobic elements in this debate, and that is sad. I just hope we grow up soon and learn to embrace what is different instead of rejecting it... The majority of the language debate in Finland is very childish, and it makes me ashamed of my country.
---
Fair points all the way Finlander, and your thinking represents in many aspects the mainstreem opinion in Finland. It's just a shame that these tragic elements in our society embarras us all who take pride in being finns.
Posted by: | June 29, 2005 10:10 AM
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