Swedes
Many countries have also experienced some kind of conflict over languages. Only very rarely have language issues been resolved in a way which both the majority and the minority find satisfactory. One of these rare cases is Finland, where the circumstances of the Swedish-language minority are so well ordered that they could serve as an example for Europe and the whole world. Finland is a society which mostly functions very well in two languages, Finnish and Swedish, even though the minority language accounts for a mere six per cent of the population.
A wave of largely peaceful colonization ebbed at the beginning of the 14th century, immigrants mainly coming from Mälardalen area in Sweden, which had become overpopulated. Ever since then, Finnish and Swedish speakers have lived side by side in Finland.
Over the centuries, the Swedish realm, of which Finland was an integrated and equal part, fought many wars with Russia, whose power became overwhelming in 1808, Finland was then made a part of the Russian Empire. In 1815, there were an estimated 160,000 Swedish speakers in Finland, about 15% of the population. Swedish had been the dominant language of government, business and culture throughout Swedish rule. First in the early 1900s Finnish achieved equal status with Swedish.
The Finnish national awakening in the mid-nineteenth century was the result of members of the Swedish-speaking upper classes choosing to promote Finnish and to speak it themselves. However, another faction of the Swedish-speaking elite did not wish to abandon Swedish, as they felt it was a guarantee that Finland would remain within the sphere of West European culture. This situation was made for conflict between the languages. Following Finland's independence in 1917, attitudes to the language issue sharpened, and it was a prominent feature of internal politics during the 1920s and '30s. It should be pointed out, however, that the language conflict in Finland never claimed any lives; it was fought almost entirely on a verbal level, and the rare occasions when physical violence occurred produced nothing worse than a few black eyes.
Finland's heroic struggle against crushing odds in the Winter War against the Soviet Union in 1939-1940 united the Finnish nation. Finns and Swedish-speakers fought side by side, creating a new understanding between the language groups.
Throughout the post-war period the language situation has been good, although there are always those who persist in viewing bilingualism as a burden rather than a resource. According to a research report published in 1997, 70% of Finland's Finnish-speaking population feel that Swedish is an essential part of Finnish society, and 73% believe it would be a pity if the Swedish language and culture were to die out completely in Finland (Ekberg, 2001, electronic). The Swedes in Finland has their own radio stations and an own TV channel. Education on Swedish is given at all levels.
4 generations of Swedish speaking Finns.