Institute for the Languages of Finland
Finland
Finland Swedish, that is, Swedish spoken in Finland, is considered as a variety of Swedish. The term Finlandism is used in reference to a word, an expression or a linguistic structure which is used only in Finland Swedish, or which has a different meaning in Finland Swedish and standard Swedish. The third category of Finlandisms covers linguistic items that occur much more frequently in Finland Swedish than standard Swedish.
Most Finlandisms are used more or less interchangeably with their standard Swedish alternatives. In other words, the standard Swedish term is also acceptable. However, there are also instances where the Finlandism is hard to replace, as there seems to be no close enough equivalent in standard Swedish.
Traditionally, language planning for Finland Swedish has taken a opposing view towards Finlandisms. The aim has been to maintain unity between standard Swedish and Finland Swedish. This goal originates in the national romanticism of the nineteenth century and has been considered as a survival strategy for the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland. This line of thought emphasises that a linguistic distancing from standard Swedish would be rather harmful when the population of speakers is small.
The most influential advocate for the idea that Finland Swedish language should adhere to the standard Swedish norm was the philologist Hugo Bergroth (1866–1937). In his book Finlandssvenska. Handledning till undvikande av provinsialismer i tal och skrift ("Finland Swedish. Guide to the avoidance of provincialisms in speech and writing", 1917, 1928) he summarised his language planning ideology. The title of the book says it all.
His language planning programme was designed to ensure that Finland Swedish adheres to standard Swedish. This means that Finlandisms are basically to be avoided.
It should be noted that there are many similarities in Bergroth’s view and the views of modern language planners’ in regard with Finlandisms. Nevertheless, the development of society, as described below, has contributed to a progressively more liberal approach to Finlandisms.
The 1920s witnessed strict edits of literary works where Finlandisms were erased with a heavy hand, based on Bergroth’s book. It was essentially only the literary modernists who protested against this ideal.
The language struggle of the 1930s in Finland between so called Fennomans and Svecomans probably contributed to an increased unity among the Swedish-speaking people on the issue of language planning in Finland. As a reaction to accusations made by the Fennomans, the Swedish speakers wanted to demonstrate and prove that Finland Swedish was not an unusable dialect.
During World War II, the language struggle calmed down. Nevertheless, the time of war strengthened the Bergrothian ideology. The influence of Finnish on Finland Swedish was discussed extensively. The military terminology, strongly influenced by Finnish, was widely used during this period, not only in official texts by the government but also in the media and in everyday spoken language. The common impression was that the Finnish influence was particularly strong during this period.
In the 1950s, protest voices expressed a new need of loosening up the norms. Too tight a linguistic uniformity was considered to impede Finland-Swedish writers and authors. These voices became even stronger in the 1970s. The empowerment of Finland-Swedish identity coincides with the ethnic mobilization of minorities in different parts of Europe, influenced by the radical student movements at the same time. The Finland-Swedish mobilisation movement Hurrarna emphasised the link between language and identity. In the book Hurrarna. En stridsskrift om finlandssvenskarna (Gösta Ågren ed., 1974) Bergroth and his schoolbook Högsvenska was severely criticised, and it was stated that “the Finland-Swedes are no longer humble” in relation to the language elite. With the reformation of comprehensive school in Finland in the 1970s, Högsvenska was removed from the curriculum.
An important turning point was seen in 1976 when the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland was founded, and language planning became a government-run effort. With this new institutional status, language planning was professionalised, its scope widened, its impact increased, and its focus shifted increasingly on public language. Today, the focus is on language used by the media and by the authorities. This shift means that modern Finland-Swedish language planning does not concern itself with the language practices of private citizens anymore, nor with the language of fiction. The strict, dogmatic editing of fiction of the kind that was practiced in the early 20th century is completely unthinkable these days. Furthermore, it is very rare that the professional language planner of today would try to standardize Finland-Swedish pronunciation. This manoeuvre is thinkable only when addressing speaking journalists, and only in some genres. Today’s language planners prefer to take on an advisory role, and they emphasise the role of context in expression.
However, this does not mean that Finland-Swedish language planning has abandoned its essential goal. It is still considered an important value that Swedish in Finland develops in a close parallel with Swedish in Sweden, and that it does not diverge into a separate language. And it is the Swedish in Finland that must follow the development in Sweden, not the other way around.