Language
Swedish
Short description of organisation represented in project
The Swedish Assembly of Finland, or Folktinget, is an organisation representing the Swedish-speaking Finns and watches over their interests. Folktinget is a cross-political body, of which all political parties of the parliament with activities in Swedish are members. Folktinget consists of 75 appointed representatives, a board, a working committee and different delegations and committees. There is a law regarding the Folktinget (1331/2003) and activities are partly financed by the state budget.
Folktinget participates in the law drafting process and issues statements to different authorities. Folktinget works to promote positive attitudes towards bilingualism, publish publications and brochures and informs about Swedish issues in Finland.
Territory where language is spoken
The majority of the more than 290 000 Swedish-speaking Finns (5,6% of the population) resides in the coastal regions in Nyland, Åboland and Österbotten. About 12 000 (4 %) of the Swedish-speaking Finns live in unilingual Finnish municipalities in other parts of Finland. The Åland Islands are a unilingual Swedish self-governing province outside the west coast of Finland, and the home of around 26,000 people. The close vicinity to Sweden and the Swedish language is of vital importance to the Swedish-speaking Finns.
Sociolinguistic data available for language
- The book Life in two languages – the Finnish experience ( Schildts, ISBN 951-50-0780-1)
- Statistics regarding the Swedish-speaking Finns
- Brochure about the Swedish-speaking Finns and the Swedish language in Finland
- Publications from the Social Science Research Unit in Vaasa
- Publications of Fjalar Finnäs regarding Swedish-speaking Finns
Legal status of language
The Constitution of Finland guarantees that Finnish and Swedish are the national languages. In accordance to the Constitution the public authorities shall provide for the cultural and societal needs of the Finnish-speaking and Swedish-speaking populations of the country on an equal basis. In other words this means that there aught to be social services, schooling and other education and information in both languages. Also, the Administration of Finland is by law bilingual. This means that all laws, regulations and important documents are available on both Finnish and Swedish.
The language rights and obligations are more closely specified in the language legislation. Finland got a new Language Act that came into force on 1 January 2004 and according to the act each and everyone has the right to use his or her own language in contacts with state authorities and bilingual regional or and authorities. The authorities should provide service on both languages without the need to specifically ask for it. They should also make sure that signs, forms and brochures are visually displayed on both languages.
Common challenges facing the language
- Assimilation in bilingual urban areas
- Intergenerational language transmission
- Young people