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When I stumbled upon this article the first thing I noticed was that the last paragraph of the overview section is a summary of the pro-position, but the anti-position is completely omitted from the overview. Either both sides should be summarised or then neither, the current formulation is hardly neutral. I didn't dare to edit it myself after reading this talk page. I have no doubt that this article has suffered from poor edits and that people would be vary of any edits by newcomers not well-established wikipedians, so I would kindly ask some person who hasn't got a vested interest in this to edit the overview section. The rest of the article seemed more balanced based on a quick overview so this section might just be a remnant from a more biased version.
How I would rebut the pro-arguments in the overview section: The answer to the "easier to learn English/German" argument is that the best way to learn a language is to study it directly. We don't study Japanese if we want to learn Chinese, even if knowing one language helps the other. Time spent studying Swedish is away from the school time that could be spent to learn other languages, so this language learning argument lacks credibility in my view. The "need to get services in native language" argument kind of makes sense, but the Finland Swedes don't seem to buy it themselves. When boundaries of health districts were shifted in Ostrobothnia, the Swedish speaking area refused to join a Finnish district on the grounds that only native speakers would have sufficient skills to serve Finland-Swedes. There are special quotas for medical and law school for Swedish-speaking students specifically so that they can serve Swedish-speakers who aren't super fluent in Finnish (AFAIK these Finland Swedish people that aren't fluent up to or very close to a native standard in Finnish are a very small subset of the already small 5.5% minority). If only a native level of language skill is sufficient to serve this very small group (and when this clearly isn't achieved under the current system or even with languages which students really want to learn), it begs the question why to hypocritically insist on a token requirement of Swedish at universities and resulting mandatory Swedish education for every schoolchild? In the case of medical services the argument is also weakened by the fact that there are increasingly many foreign doctors with a poor grasp of even Finnish in hospitals and people still seem to get healthcare.
I know the point of an encyclopedia isn't to win debates, but as other sides seem to be acting so, I was also tempted to chime in. Plateinlynx 04:09, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
Moved from article: As members of the minority naturally will be more skilled in the majority language, than the majority population will be in the minority language, the pakkoruotsi reform can also be seen as an effective means against Finland-Swedish dominance in governmental offices and organisations. -- Firstly, I don´t see why there should be any danger of the minority language dominating governmental offices and organisations, secondly, I don´t understand how this sentence might help in understanding the implications of compulsory Swedish language tuition in Finnish schools. If somebody could clarify and NPOV this, please put it back into the article.
ditto: arguing that the Swedish speakers of Åland and Finland maybe better should emigrate to Sweden if they aren't able to conduct their business in Finnish. -- This looks like disguised polemics against the minority, and is not helpful either.
and more:Some pupils feel they suffer from learning the minority language during two years or more. Also the mandatory course and exam in
tertiary education is questioned by them who hold mandatory Swedish for the most disliked subject in school, arguing their skill in the disliked language doesn't correspond with all the years spent studying it. -- The facts in this sentence may be true, but should be expressed in a more neutral way before going into an encyclopedia article.
Cheers,
Kosebamse 13:10 23 May 2003 (UTC)
I had made a revision some days ago, which I thought I had been fairly successful with, in NPOV-regards. I was then this morning pretty baffled to see "my splendid neutral text" ;->> hadn't been accepted but preambled by a rather biased rant, which I subsequently tried to edit to get it 1/ more neutral, and where that's not possible, 2/ more balanced, in a way which hopefully would be acceptable for both side of the feud. It would be stupid of me to try to hide the element of injured pride in my less skillful editing today, but I hope something good is coming out of it in the end. ;-)
--
Ruhrjung 17:41 23 May 2003 (UTC)
Thanks for the invitation to both Kosebamse and Ruhrjung. I do not know if I can add anything essential to this article, but I tried looking at it with "fresh eyes". You two seem to have managed to make it quite understandable for someone without any knowledge of Finnish language education.
But there are still some things that I do not like in the article:
5.1% of the population in Mainland-Finland in addition to the autonomous Åland islands -- This is just bending the truth with statistics. Why make a distinction with "Mainland-Finland". Lets just say 5.6% of the population of Finland.
In the first paragraph: to refer to Finland-Swedish studied in the schools of Finland. -- I know that Ruhrjung is not going to like this... but I do not think it is Finland-Swedish that is taught to the Finnish speaking pupils. Maybe we can change that to [[Finland-Swedish|Swedish]]? :)
In governmental terminology "the other domestic language" is the term used for Pakkoruotsi, like Finnish is the other domestic language for pupils with Swedish mother tongue. -- I don't understand this sentance at all. Doesn't "the other domestic language" refer to (Finland-)Swedish?
Is the link to "Pois pakkoruotsi" necessary? It could only be interestint to people who can read Finnish (and they should read the Finnish wikipedia article instead).
-- Jniemenmaa 18:28 25 May 2003 (UTC)
I moved the following paragraphs here:
(maybe they could be re-worded?)
-- Ruhrjung 16:44 28 May 2003 (UTC)
Uhm. What exactly bothers you about the above paragraph? (The links aren't my responsibility) -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo stick 17:25 28 May 2003 (UTC)
The language. The connection to Finnland and Finnish politics is also somewhat fussy, but primarily the language. You don't say so in English, unless you are something like a fringe politician (Glistrup-or-worse rather than Kjaersgaard). I know this is hard for many Finns (and Israelis) to assess, as the level of the style used by Finns ...well, let's just say that "something" often makes Finns appear more aggressive than would be good for you, if you get my drift?
--
Ruhrjung 17:38 28 May 2003 (UTC)
Should the entry retain its present name? An explanatory title like "Swedish education in Finland" ought to be more appropriate. The present terminology might be colloquial i Finnish, but it does hardly have the same use in English. Another aspect is that it can be interpreted as a POV or defamatory statement. -- Mic 16:50 28 May 2003 (UTC)
Nobody asked for my opinion, but I tend toward the view that maybe this article need not be here, although it doesn't bother me much, and as long as it's here, I will concentrate on trying to make it as NPOV as possible. On the other hand, it has already, for the better or worse already been translated to several other language wikipedias, so...
Cimon Avaro on a pogo stick 17:25 28 May 2003 (UTC)
The article looks plain silly, and nothing else. From the start with the title to the end with the rant. Someone must have been severly intoxicated to come up with such an idea. Domestic issues of Finland don't need to be covered in articles of their own. The reader don't get any favorable impression of neither the anti-Pakkoruotsi activists, nor of Finland. 193.14.212.59
I don't understand at all why you would complain about this article not being NPOV... I mean, in its current form, it simply just blatantly advocates the Fenno-Swedish position and doesn't even mention once that people disagree with the official status quo. In effect, it is completely biased and doesn't even make a fair attempt at recognizing the other side of the discussion...
I do realize that in Finnish domestic politics ever even slightly questioning the wisdom of the position of Swedish in Finland gives you the automatic label of nazi, but I would have hoped that Wikipedia would have had the guts to recognize that not everyone think it's total bliss...
I think there hasn't been much of complains lately. The
User:193.14.212.59 comment above was made May 28th. The article has improved since then.
--
Ruhrjung 06:40, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Should we maybe move this article to a page titled something like:
or?
/ Tuomas 10:43, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Under any circumstances, the neutrality of this article must be considered as disputed. This should be properly indicated, as is done in the article about, say, Yasser Arafat.
The function of the whole article seems to be taking what is essentially a minor internal dispute on an international arena in an improper way. The question of "pakkoruotsi", which is in itself a polemical word coined by an organisation aimed against the minority, should rather be handled as an annex to the situation of the Swedish minority in Finland. (A passer-by, 12 November 2004)
isn't a little strange to put a map in an encylopedia article, along with a whole paragraph explaining why the map is incorrect/biased, followed by a link to an apparently less biased map (which seems to be on the author's personal homepage... wouldn't there be a more official source for it??). if the linked map is indeed less biased, let's just but that on the page instead and get rid of the biased one.
User:84.248.81.201 20:32, 19 Apr 2005
Before the current reverting escalates, I find the edits of 84.231.217.74 ( talk · contribs) acceptable. // Fred- Chess 16:54, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
okay so here is the url to the difference between the old and new version that was introduced by 84.231.217.74 http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Mandatory_Swedish&diff=25009146&oldid=23414748
first of all
1. "For the 92% majority in Finland who speak Finnish, this means they have to learn an unusual dialect of Swedish" A dialect is a difference in pronunciation, not in grammar. A school teaches grammar, the fact that many teachers do speak the Finnish-swedish dialect(due to living in Finland) is just like having an Irish english-teacher. There are certain small differences between Swedish and Finnish-swedish, but these are only sparse words (the difference is similar or smaller than that of British-english and US-english), in fact there aren't any spelling differences such as color and colour in english. The swedish language has allot of different dialects that are very different from each other (but not unintelligible to each-other) so could someone please tell me what is the correct Swedish dialect. this claim is exaggerated further with the phrase "It is the view of some opponents that this could actually be achieved better if those who do learn the unusual dialect of Swedish did so of their own free will."
2. why did this sentence have to be removed "Supporters maintain that such a claim is an oxymoron and that Scandinavians find it easier to learn e.g. German and English"
3. "Thus supporters of mandatory Swedish argue that the "ethnic origin", as defined in the directive, does not necessarily apply." No this is also claimed by people with a neutral stance to the debate, due to it in fact being a historical fact.
4. "Supporters claim that mandatory Swedish teaching is also supported by one international treaty (by the now-defunct League of Nations)". It would be great to have a source here as to there being only one such international treaty. and otherwise, what does the defunctness of the league of nations have to do with anything? a contract is a contract. I feel the old "and to some degree supported by international treaties" worked much better.
5. This part also does not sound like good encyclopedia text to me "Those favoring broader choice in language teaching claim that most people don't have, or in any case have a limited natural contact with Swedish-speaking people, and that educational resources are wasted by forcing 92% of the population to learn the language spoken by 6% of the population, and that it is in Finland’s national interest to eliminate the outdated compulsory Swedish policy.". Too specific argumentations might be better addressed in different forums.
6. I found this edit brought very few new facts to the article. This edit contained IMO allot of uncalled for many<->some etc. changes in the authors point of view direction. I personally hate the way all parties try to lurk behind the words some and many and try my best not to use them myself. But it is hard to not use them at all. But for instance: "Among some Finns the derogatory term pakkoruotsi, literally "compulsory Swedish", or even "forced Swedish"" to "Among many Finns the derogatory term pakkoruotsi, literally "compulsory Swedish","
Well yes, it is a common term, i use it myself, but more as a joke. THe people really using it in a derogatory way are a small minority.
this article is also about mandatory swedish, that's why i think the parties involved should be referred to as "supporting/opposing mandatory Swedish" instead of vague wordings such as "Those favoring broader choice in language teaching"
Also, why are Finnish-swedes being claimed to be "so-called", this is also a vague formulation imo.
Please do not get me wrong, i found the contributor has had a few good points. But there is allot that's either vague or biased.
I would ask the author and maybe some neutral party to comment on these pointers and not put in any big edits before considering them thoroughly.
HAND
Gillis 17:15, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
there was a paragraph explaining that one criticism of mandatory swedish is that finns will always speak it with a finnish accent. i've never heard this argument elsewhere, it doesn't really seem to make any sense (surely one always speaks with an accent when speaking a learnt second language?) so i deleted it.
the {{ NPOV}} is not for Your amusement of showing discontent with an article. It is intended as a guide for edits to improve the article. Slamming NPOV tags because "according to edit summary it was removed because it was there long enough" is NOT applicable. Edit summaries are not reliable evidence whether a tag should be there or not, the article itself is. So describe your arguments, or rewrite parts of the article. I will revert if you continue adding of the tag. Period. Fred- Chess 16:43, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I'd also appreciate if other edits gave their opinions. Fred- Chess 16:46, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I've read through the newer version of the article re-written by you F.C. and i feel it's a good one, more NPOV than the last one atleast. I see no point in keeping the NPOV, if someone has any direct objections over something in the article i hope they will air them here and we could discuss them (instead of one anon. person totally re-editing the article to fit his perspective as last time). Gillis 17:33, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I have to say that bias of this article and the edits of the few Swedish bigots who monitor it night and day are laughable. For example, where in the article are the views opposing mandatory swedish presented? That is hardly a minor oversight, yet one that Gillis and the other fanatics have fully approved. I think the NPOV tag is needed in this article. 85.156.157.184 15:20, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Well it seems that it is quite disputed if pakkoruotsi should be linked here, seems as Khoikhoi and 84.231.217.70 are having a reverting-competition ;)
I personally am onthe anon users "side" in this specific question (about redirecting pakkoruotsi) since it is more of a derrogatory term used for what this article describes (as if nigger was redirected to black person or something like that). But personally "it's not such a big deal for me" as long as somewhere is mentioned that it in fact is not synonymous, but rather a "derrogatory term" or "Politically charged term" as the anon user put it.
I removed personally the redirect on 5 August 2005, but this was changed back by Ulayiti 3 November 2005. During the article being there Jdm did contribute to it and note to me that he felt it being correct to have it separated (this is what i interreted atleast). Since this whole deal of mandatory swedish is pretty much as someone put it earlyer on this discussion-page
"The function of the whole article seems to be taking what is essentially a minor internal dispute on an international arena in an improper way. The question of "pakkoruotsi", which is in itself a polemical word coined by an organisation aimed against the minority, should rather be handled as an annex to the situation of the Swedish minority in Finland. (A passer-by, 12 November 2004)"
so i feel it is enough if it is in fact redrected, but there could be for instance a passage on the story of the term pakkoruotsi itself... although atleast i'm okay with it having it's own page too.
Other edit's speak up before this is edited too much back and forth.
Gillis 00:24, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure about this translation: "However, critical opinion often calls the Swedish tuition and testing 'forced Swedish', in Finnish pakkoruotsi."
I think "forced Swedish" would be "pakotettu ruotsi", not "pakkoruotsi" in Finnish, whereas "pakkoruotsi" is shorter for "pakollinen ruotsi" which translates as compulsory/mandatory Swedish. Translating "pakkoruotsi" as "forced Swedish" seems just wrong to me. Instead I would rephrase the quoted sentence as something like "however, critical opinion often calls the Swedish tuition and testing 'mandatory Swedish' (Finnish: pakkoruotsi) which has a slightly charged tone in Finnish." Shubi 10:47, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I think the article is close to achieving NPOV but there are some things I don't understand that might help me better judge.
Other comments:
Hi Birgitte, thanks for taking part in our discussion here. I'll try to and clear up your questions as neutrally as possible
"Why was the Constitution wriiten to provide for two languages?"
The reasons are mostly historical and therefore also cultural, i think the historical background could be better explained. Well the main argument/reason is that swedish-language always has been a part of the finnish culture in the same way finnish-language has been. finland was a part of sweden between the 12th and 19th century (some argue finland was not officially a part of sweden before the late 14th century), it is noteworthy that before this time no sovereign Finland existed. The history as part of sweden has formed the finnish culture in a way that it is quite hard to get a grip of it without understanding the swedish-speaking aspect, for instance one example could be Finland's national anthem that was originally written in Swedish. So the swedish-speakers are not merely a linguistic minority due to immigration/emigration as sometimes is thought.
"Do the people who want to end mandatory Swedish want to also change the requiremants for civil service? And to what effect?"
Well, i think there is no one answer to this, but dedicated grassroot organisations, such as "suomalaisuuden liitto" (the league of finnishness) does have the aim of reducing Swedish to the level of the sami languages in finland (not official languge, but listed as "one of finland's languages"). But i guess the broader base of the opposition for mandatory swedish aren't really after changing finland's bi-linguality in the constituition which requires the test for people in civil service. But of course it could become quite hard to require this in civil service if no mandatory education was held. Some argue here that interpreters could be used in order to keep up the services in swedish.
"What exactly does civil service imply in Finland? Is just the running of the goverment itself or does the goverment run the railrods etc. there?"
The Finnish government runns many of the civil services, at least in comparisonto the united states. But it is noteworthy that the requirements of swedish for civil services are _very_ basic.
"Are the people who dislike the policy mainly going through a "schoolboy rebbellion" or what is the underlying issue they are opposing?"
Mandatory second domestic language teaching is usually more dissliked during school years (i was not a big fan of it either! ;)). And i guess the possible views against it are more moderate amongst the adult population. The views of it also differ quite a bit around finland since the swedish-speaking minority is not evenly spread over the country and many finns have very little natural contact with swedish-speakers.
"Does the opposition think another language or choice of languages or none at all should be taught at that level of schooling?"
I think the main argument in opposing mandatory second language teaching is that it supposedly takes up resources from teaching other subjects. But I haven't heard of any unison plan about what exactly should be taught instead of swedish for finnish-speakers/finnish for swedish speakers.
Thank's for your other suggestions too. It could also be noted that Åland in fact is autonomous, and has the right to govern itself on educational issues. Also it is notable that Many students on Åland take the finnish matriculation examination from HS, which is governed under "the finnish rules".
Gillis 18:29, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
As I believe Gillis here gave a rather POV response to the questions, which of course do reflect well the official party lines -- it's the "official explanation" -- it serves rather badly to understand the position of those who oppose our language policies. So let me respond in kind, but from my own POV to the most important points raised... I will give more exposition than just answering to the bullet points, bear with me.
The constitution was written the way it is because in early times Swedish still was more dominant as a language than what it is today, and more people spoke it. The proportion of Swedish-speakers was somewhere around 15% (correct if wrong) -- now it's around 6% -- and because of our history, they indeed were a more powerful block than their numbers. Also, during the early time of independence, there was some need of goodwill from Sweden, and a need to quickly shut up the svecomans who still pretty much wanted to join Sweden, so in that sense it was a question of national unity as well. The language part of the constitution was actually rather controversial; finally the Finnish-only side gave in.
Then there was also the issue of the national romantic period of 1800s, which was a weird mixture of mostly Swedish-speaking academics being drawn into romantic Karelianism and the Nordism of Runeberg, who wrote poetry about pining back to Sweden after Sweden lost Finland to Russia in the beginning of the century. His attempts at glorifying the struggle of the losers and the rationalization of the new situation of the country, his POV firmly in the Swedish-speaking high society (not that it was particularly high, but anyway), earned him the title of national poet. I guess he deserves it for commemorating the historical event -- although from a strange perspective -- that probably saved the Finnish-speaking Finns from complete assimilation into Sweden.
The retort that "you guys even sing your national anthem in translation" has always felt like a particularly cruel political weapon to be used among people of supposedly the same nationality, as it totally ignores the fact that the reason why Fenno-Swedes are so heavily over-represented in our "official" national culture of the 1800s -- the classic romantic period -- is simply because you had to be Swedish-speaking to begin with to gain entry into the rather monopolized cultural and societal circles where this stuff was being done! It's not as if it is my fault as a modern Finnish-speaker that this was the case! I am not saying that there weren't some important people there, it's just that some historical context should be acknowledged before getting all misty-eyed with nostalgia. Who knows what might have happened, if Finnish-speakers had not been kept out of university, say. To claim this was not due to societal structure is, mind you, somewhat racist -- I have a hard time believing that Finnish-speakers just simply naturally suck and need some heavy civilizing through Swedish, as was claimed by Freudenthal and pals.
When it comes to the non-high-culture, I would claim that throughout most of history, Finnish-speakers have lived perfectly happily speaking Finnish and having Swedish as a foreign language -- that they didn't know, as they were too busy making a small living off the land and fighting for the king in Stockholm. You should note that not even during the Swedish reign were Finnish-speakers _made to_ learn Swedish, although it of course was of fundamental importance if you wanted to advance in society. When Russia conquered Finland, we started getting more rights in education and finally even official status for Finnish. The university of Helsinki didn't allow studies in Finnish fully until the 1920-30s, after lots of strife (fist-fights amongst different-language students etc). After that, you started seeing Finnish-speakers in their rightful positions in society in greater numbers. So... frankly, all this talk about the wonderful influence Swedish has had in this country boils down to the idea that I should feel some sort of gratitude. I certainly recognize history for what it is, but don't ask me to admire it. It took an edict from the Czar in 1863 to get that official position for Finnish, for chrissakes.
Ok, so that much for history. I don't really believe all that much in drawing conclusions from what has been to what should be. If that were the case, some countries would still have slavery. Knowing history is different from perpetuating it. In modern days, Finland is just as much a Western European country as any of them, and not particularly "Swedish" at that. Actually I would say that we have definitely differing characteristics from the rest of the Nordic countries, which are immortalized in our national stereotypes...
Now, the big question in Finland is what does it MEAN for the individual citizen that the constitution states "Finland's national languages are Finnish and Swedish"? Originally, the idea was that Finnish-speakers get to be Finnish-speakers and Swedish-speakers get to be Swedish-speakers, and the government will serve both in their own language and provide for things like education in the respective tongues. Alongside with this kind of thinking, over the 1900s, the Fenno-Swedes created all sorts of parallel, auxiliary institutions to support a kind of parallel but separate existence. One should remember that in the late 1800s and all the way to WW2 a lot of the Fenno-Swedish academics were quite busy with the idea of proving that Fenno-Swedes form a separate people in Finland that is related to Swedes. Actually, while I don't want to particularly "isolate" myself from Fenno-Swedes, I kind of like this interpretation -- it respects everyone's right to be who they are.
During the Cold War and beginning in the 1970s-80s, someone realized, that this wasn't going to look good for the Fenno-Swedes in the long term. They were being assimilated into the mainstream population, and Swedish was facing the threat of becoming a sort of high-priest language used in official speeches but not much elsewhere. So the "separate people" argument took a complete U-turn: now the constitution was to be interpreted so as to apply the two language principle to each citizen on a personal level. The SFP (Fenno-Swedish party) started demanding that in order to maintain a "living" Swedish language in Finland, the language needs to be extended to everyone, regardless of where they live in the country (Swedish is concentrated along coastlines, and the inner parts of the country are pretty much completely unilingually Finnish). Because Finland was pretty desperate to prove that it is "Nordic" instead of semi-Soviet during the Cold War, the modern language policy was formulated.
The policy has two prongs: the mandatory Swedish in schools -- and starting in 1979 even in university, even if you're in a completely irrelevant field like yours truly, computer science -- and language requirements in the civil service. The civil service requirements tend to get tighter every time the relevant language laws are revised, mostly because the relevant civil servants don't really bother to abide by them or don't really know enough Swedish (because they don't ever use it). The rules about where services need to be provided in which language are very lax to include as much of the country as possible as bilingual and also seem to be changed every time a major Finnish city would otherwise fall unilingual due to dwindling Swedish-speaking population -- they have been changed multiple times for Turku, for instance. This creates situations where ALL civil servants are required Swedish skills as a matter of principle, regardless of actual need. The university Swedish exam is the "civil servant exam" as well -- I can't for the life of me imagine how I am going to be a software-developing civil servant who "serves Swedish-speakers in their own language"! The exam itself is for the time being easy as is mentioned, but the problem is that the legal framework is there. During the latest revisioning of the language law there was even talk of "sanctions" towards people/towns who don't cut it... this, in my view, starts to resemble discrimination against Finnish-speakers, as requirements for a job need to, according to law, be reasonably grounded in actual need and relevance.
To complete the circular reasoning, the mandatory Swedish in schools is partially being grounded in the logic of "but you can't get a public sector job if you don't speak Swedish!" Certainly, if you removed the most draconian requirements, you would lose a great deal of the motivation for the teaching of the language too. Its usefulness is of course otherwise rather limited; Finns would be better off equipped with more diverse language skills. Sorry Gillis, but you are guilty of unfortunately typical tunnel vision when you claim there are no reasonable alternatives... hell, German, French and Russian would all be perfectly good ones. I would speak fluent German and French at the moment in addition to my English if I had spent my Swedish lessons on them instead. At the moment I have no time anymore to just study them on my free time, as my field of expertise is more on the sciences side of things. Languages are good, but damage happens on when you insist on monopolizing everyone's language studies when it comes to one language just to satisfy your own political goals.
Usefulness argumentation aside, the one issue that tends to inflame emotions is that of identity. People get justifiedly pissed off when someone comes to educate them on their own identity. Forcing yourself on someone and then claiming they are intolerant if they don't like it is a nasty tactic. If you listen to most propaganda on "Swedishness days" from SFP and even like-minded other politicians, the whole excercise seems to aim at making people "think right" about language issues in the country. In the same breath, they are able to lament and worry about the "alienation" Finns feel about the part of their identity they are supposed to embrace and then demand more legislation to make it happen -- either more teaching or more demands that help them "make use" of their language skills to make it feel worthwhile. The latest idea is to "language-bathe" kids early on so they wouldn't grow up to be dissidents like me. The sad part is that it will probably work in a generation or two; a lot of my peers are already parroting easy to counter SF-lines in the spirit of "mathematics is mandatory too!" and "bilinguality is enriching!" -- I really cry at the lameness of our political discourse in this matter.
It should give everyone pause that this supposed happy-happy bilingual family requires such a government mechanism to uphold -- the very same SFP politicians are very clear in stating that it is at risk if government doesn't methodically pursue these policies. I would suggest that instead of more government action, the more reasonable conclusion is the homogenized bilingual Finland doesn't exist and shouldn't be created, if people obviously aren't voluntarily engaging in its construction. If they are correct about your assumptions regarding Finnish ideals and identity, they should not have anything to fear from freedom, right? Letting kids drop Swedish from their high school finals has caused 15% to actually excercise the option. These are the ones who would fail because of Swedish if they couldn't do this, no matter how good they may be at other subjects.
A disclaimer: I have nothing against Fenno-Swedes as a minority group, so don't try to pull any intolerance arguments on me. It is all too typical to just shut all reasonable critics of a political position out of the discussion because "OMG they are against teh minority". I do hold the rights of Finnish-speakers close to heart as they were difficult to win during history, and we may just as well not have survived. Tolerance means allowing others to be who they are. I do not believe our current language policy is tolerant, as it seeks to shape people into something.. politically acceptable, as some people have problems with the idea of Finland having folks who do not share in to the wonderful Swedish language. It is unacceptable to me that Finnish-speakers are specifically denied the same language identity protection that is granted to for example the people in Åland -- which protects its "special Swedish-speaking character" up to the point of open racism, for example denying the right to set up private Finnish-speaking schools for children of people staying in Åland for work. The theory that all mainland Finns "are" Swedish-speakers but don't know it yet is suspect, and the laws that permit double standards are wrong.
My own policy would call for preservation of the constitution in its current form, but relaxation of the language laws in order to respect the identity related to a person's mother tongue more, and to eliminate the politically motivated language-requirement "filters" that are nowadays in place to stop those people from advancing in life who don't toe the line or just can't get their minds around the language. Just because someone is Fenno-Swedish and would like the rest of the country to be in his own image, doesn't mean the Finnish-speakers must bend over backwards to accommodate that wish. One SHOULD remember that in the past 10-15 years, some 50-70% of people have systematically responded in various polls that Swedish should be voluntary. It's just such a touchy issue that nobody wants to get the Nazi accusations for being the first to mention it openly...
Sorry this got long-winded, I really believe that foreign readers need the background from another perspective too, the SFP-line is a bit suffocating to genuine discussion and readers REALLY need to be shown that there are some real issues here, not just the petulance of some insignificant fanatic minority as it seems to me is being argued... and I also hope this elucidation responded to Birgitte's question on whether this is all just schoolboy rebellion... I have actually been told it is, and that my subsequent frustration at such an idiotic response is just proof thereof... HuckFinn 00:24, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
1. Why was the Constitution wriiten to provide for two languages?
To avoid an other civil war/strife. After the Finnish Civil war the were bigger thing going on. In other circumstances things might have gone differently (all surrounding countries are uni-lingual, but have much larger minorities).
2. Do the people who want to end mandatory Swedish want to also change the requiremants for civil service? And to what effect?
Some do, some don't. Some just want to end pakkoruotsi on elementary school (like it used to be until 70's).
3. What exactly does civil service imply in Finland? Is just the running of the goverment itself or does the goverment run the railrods etc. there?
Running the goverment. Railroads are run by a private company, but the new language law requires them to serve in Swedish also (this isn't related to pakkoruotsi nor is it required by the Constitution).
4. Are the people who dislike the policy mainly going through a "schoolboy rebbellion" or what is the underlying issue they are opposing?
Are you serious? Or really an outsider? That question has such a strong POV and is a classic "answer" to any critisism of pakkoruotsi.
5. Does the opposition think another language or choice of languages or none at all should be taught at that level of schooling?
Students in general already study two foreign languages (choises are plentiful, but usually eng+ger/fr; languages of Russia, Estonia and Norway are rarely taught fo some reason..)+ mandatory Swedish/Finnish and their mother tongue. I have_never_heard anybody demand that Swedish shouldn't be taught in schools to all and any that wish to learn it. Its only the mandatory, pakko part that people are against, not Swedish/ruotsi 213.243.181.212 12:38, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Anyone else who finds this useless? i mean a EU directive that is six years old is not exactly new.
I think that it has been legally proven that the argument given by "some" (as the article puts it) does not have an effect, since as teh article explains it swedish-speakers are not considered an "ethnic minority".
Gillis 18:33, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes, should be removed. Anti-racism has nothing to do with bilinguality. This clause may even be
original research. --
Janke |
Talk
08:27, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
I now removed it, grief can be aired here if someone wants it back Gillis 10:51, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
Okay, well the calm around this article held a few months, now there is some aggressive non-discussed edits going on again where the editor seems to have commented out everything he or she disslikes and requested sources... well here goes.
a. "n Finnish schools, Swedish is a mandatory subject on practically all levels of public education" No it isn't, "pakkoruotsi" starts in ylä-aste, and ends in lukio, certain university grades etc. then also need students to pass "virkamiesruotsi", but this isn't education, it's just a really easy test which requires knowledge of the subject not specificly any new education.
b. Source? Due to Finland having two national languages Wikipedia: article on Finland, in fact this IS wrong, finnish and swedish are not just official languages, they are national languages (official languages also cotnain Sami and "viittomakieli".
c. Tautology. the Swedish language is mandatory in the Finnish-speaking schools, and the Finnish language is mandatory in Swedish language schools.
No it's not a tautology
d. " The Finnish name for both Mandatory Swedish and Mandatory Finnish is "toinen kotimainen kieli", literally "the second domestic language". For Mandatory Swedish, some Finn students use the name pakkoruotsi which literally means "forced Swedish"."
I see no reason why this shouldn't stay as it was.
e. Overview, yes it is releant to people that are not from Finland and don't have the backgrounds.
f. "B.S., any sources? The official reasons are that both languages are official languages of Finland, due to the history of Sweden-Finland empire, which makes both languages part of the Finnish culture. (See further Finland's language strife)"
Well okay, the term "Official reason" is perhaps wrong, but this is in a way obvious since it is in fact true that Finnish culture contains also the swedish language, are you saying Finland does not have a linguistic minotirty and wasn't a part of sweden for approx. more than 500 years?
g. "Biased lies. Any sources? A compulsory Swedish may also bring Finland closer to the Nordic countries, since Swedish is quite similar to both Danish and Norwegian, while the Finnish language belong to the vastly different Finno-Ugric languages group. For this reason, supporters maintain that Mandatory Swedish improves learning of other Germanic languages, such as English and German. Lastly, they argue, Mandatory Swedish is necessary to ensure that all citizens can interact with governmental institutions in their own language."
Notice the word "May", of course some vague wording like "one reason for..." could be used but i think this works. This is not the kind of thing that really can be sourced as it is an common opinion and so is stated.
And as a last thing: I don't see a need for huge changes in the articles POV as it wen't through extensive third party peer reviews before reaching this form. There just seems to be stubborn changers or pseudo-vandals around (having often resulted in a lock down in the same article in fi-wikip).
HAND Gillis 23:09, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
"17 § Rätt till eget språk och egen kultur
Finlands nationalspråk är finska och svenska.
Vars och ens rätt att hos domstol och andra myndigheter i egen sak använda sitt eget språk, antingen finska eller svenska, samt att få expeditioner på detta språk skall tryggas genom lag. Det allmänna skall tillgodose landets finskspråkiga och svenskspråkiga befolknings kulturella och samhälleliga behov enligt lika grunder.
Samerna såsom urfolk samt romerna och andra grupper har rätt att bevara och utveckla sitt språk och sin kultur. Bestämmelser om samernas rätt att använda samiska hos myndigheterna utfärdas genom lag. Rättigheterna för dem som använder teckenspråk samt dem som på grund av handikapp behöver tolknings- och översättningshjälp skall tryggas genom lag."
This means Finnish and Swedish are national languages, this gives speakers of these two languages far more rights to government interaction etc. in their own language. The Sami and the Roma have a right to cherish their culture and recieve certain services in their own language as their status as official minority languages allow them. Also the right to use sign language or any other handicap induced translation in government issues is allowed.
The same passage can be read at this unofficial english translation of the constitution: http://www.om.fi/uploads/54begu60narbnv_1.pdf
The official constitution can be read at the legal database Finlex
In Finnish: http://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/ajantasa/1999/19990731 In Swedish: http://www.finlex.fi/sv/laki/ajantasa/1999/19990731
HAND Gillis 11:49, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Under the heading student's oppinions i see just a load of arguments against compulsory Swedish. Either the passage should be re-labeled, or split into many headings or those parts removed, ideas?
Gillis 23:34, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
I find this kind of odd:
"Students are interested in the Swedish language, and they recognize the importance of Swedish, but they are unmotivated because it is compulsory. The experiment of making Swedish voluntary in the matriculation examination (a de facto test for university enrollment) was highly successful and was made permanent: 88% of students take the Swedish test voluntarily. The mandatory Swedish test is no longer a stumbling block it used to be."
The part about the intrests of students seems like original research based on the amount of students that take the Swedish test at high school.
The Swedish language is one of the four subjects from which the students must choose three. (The other three subjects being long foreign language, math and the so called "reaali".) So whereas it is voluntary to take the Swedish test, it must be noted that if one chooses not take the Swedish test, it is mandatory to select anohter test in it's place. Let's have a imaginary example, where:
T = Mother's tongue, mandatory test for all.
Four subjects, from where it is mandatory to choose three test to take:
A = Long foreign language S = Second domestic language (Swedish in this case) R = Reaali M = Math
The students have to choose from these four alternatives: TRMA, TRMS, TRSA or TASM. Now lets suppose that the students choose evenly and every option gets 25% of the whole amount of students. This leads to a situation where 75% of the students voluntarily choose to take the reaali test, 75% of the students voluntarily choose to take the long foreign language test, 75% of the students voluntarily choose to take the math test and 75% of the students voluntarily choose to take the Swedish test. This is just an example how seemingly many students choose "voluntarily" to take some test in the Finnish system.
The current wording in the article makes it seem like 88% of students choose the Swedish test like a voluntary cherry on top of the mandatory subjects, when in reality the only mandatory test is the mother's tongue test and Swedish is no more voluntary than math, reaali or long foreign language.
It is not neccaccarily that 88% choose to take the Swedish test because they are interested and recognize it importance. I could also be because it is still mandatory to study Swedish at school for six years and many people still learn it and take the test because they would have to take some test anyway.
So, I think the article should not draw original research conlusions from the 88% who take the test. Neither does the chapter take in concideration the way the Finnish matriculation exam system works as a whole.-- Shubi 13:39, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
I think this is not a neutral point of view: "students are interested in the Swedish language, and they recognize the importance of Swedish"
One important part of the debate between different sides is just how importat the Swedish language in Finland is. Current wording takes a side in the debate and makes a statement on the importance of Swedish and notes that the students "recognize" this fact. The original research only said that "the study of Swedish was perceived as important in view of the future" without making statements itself on the importance of the language. It only told what the students perceived themself. Shubi 16:39, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
As discussed earlier on this talk page there has been discussion about renaming this article, but nothing has been done. I would support the renaming of this article, to for instance "Second domestic language education/tuition in Finnish schools", because right now it's called "mandatory Swedish" although it has to explain in several places that learning the other national language is also compulsory for the minority etc.etc. and this really is not such an important article that i'd go for having a "mandatory Finnish" article separately or something like that. So i'd say redirect mandatory Finnish to the renamed article. Anyone in favour? Or well i guess more importantly, does anyone object to this? and if so, why?
Gillis 21:54, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Any other oppinions? I would hate to do the move on a 2-1 "majority".
An official source: http://www.stat.fi/tup/suoluk/suoluk_vaesto_en.html (Population structure -> Language -> 2005) So please do not claim that the number is 6 %: it simply is not true and is considered vandalism now that I have proven the correct number. In fact, it has been under 6 % for over 15 years. -- Jaakko Sivonen 14:58, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
I think this article definetly needs a cleanup. It repeats same statements in different sections and all the sections cover loosely the subject they have, often getting lost in wrong directions. Different views on the debate have scattered around the article in places where they do not belong. Shubi 13:17, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
The logo apperently has been removed from Wikipedia. The person who applied for this or did this, can you explain? Or does anyone else know? EDIT, apparently it was in Commons where logos are not accepted, I have uploaded to enwiki again. -- Pudeo ( Talk) 16:04, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Currently the article says this: "These requirements are justified by referring to the status of Swedish as a national language along with Finnish." However, it does not say who justifies those requiments with those reasons. I searched for the education plan for Finland by Finnish Ministry of Education ( http://www.oph.fi/info/ops/pops_web.pdf page 118), and their page says something like this when translated into English:
"The goal of Swedish tuition is to give the student the ability to communicate and work with our Swedish-speaking minority and the Nordic countries. The mission of the studies is to get the student used to using other languages and raise the student to appreciate the bi-linguality of Finland and the Nordic way of life. The student also learns that as an art/skill and a way of communication a/the language demands focused and complex/rich commuticational practicing. As a school subject, the Swedish language is a skill and cultural subject."
(As you can see, I'm not so good with English). But anyways, I would rephrase the current sentence to something like "The Finnish Ministry of Education justifies these requiments by referring to the status of Swedish as a official national language and a tool to cooperate with the other Nordic countries." 81.175.134.236 22:29, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
How do we translate the text "pois pakkoruotsi" in a pro-freedom logo? Is it "away with forced Swedish" or "away with mandatory Swedish"? And how is Swedish word tjängsvenska translated in English? Majji 16:21, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
"Analogously, this may sometimes be called 'forced Finnish', in Swedish tvångsfinska."
Yes, it may be sometimes be called that, but how often, by who and on what occasions is it called that? As I said earlier, the only times I have heard someone speak about mandatory Finnish is when someone uses it as an argument to support mandatory Swedish. I think it's not a term that you hear so often that it should be mentioned in the article. Shubi 23:10, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
Is a term that should be avoided, as there has never been a country called that. The term is sometimes used, yes, but that does not mean that it should be used here. While the term may be clear to local people, it might seem for someone that Sweden and Finland were in some kind of union, which just is not true. Finland just was an eastern part of the country called Sweden, and was called "Finland" already back then. And if is stated that Finland was a part of Sweden, then it should be clear that Finland was not an independent country. Shubi 01:56, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
There was a large edit again by an anon ip (192.100.124.218), i changed a few things, this is why:
-There is no note in the constitution of Swedish being the SECOND language of Finland. Only that it is a official language of Finland along with Finnish.
- The Swedish people's party has many main agenda's except language, i sourced this with their website.
-I reverted the overview part, not due to content, but due to the factt hat content is already mentioned in two other places in the article.
-When does an international treaty expire? i've never seen a "best before" marking on an international agreement. Just because the league of nations that signed that treaty is as a organisation defunct does not mean the signatories are not responsible for their deal. Note that the same treaties stipulate Åland as a part of Finland and not Sweden.
- Åland has 26 000 inhabitants, and a very slim minority of finnish-speakers, if they are not packed in one place then a finnish-speaking school is pretty hard to achieve. Some Ålandians are assholes with their language stuff, but i'd like to see those claims about discrimination sourced.
- Yes Finnish got the theoretical equal rights during russian rule but the first law of that type was from 1860, that's pretty late into the less than 100 years of russian rule, so i rewrote it to point that out.
- Yes there was Swedish oppression of the finnish language during swedish rule. But it was notthing as other similar situations during the same time. For isntance in Scania you could be convicted to death for speaking Danish, whereas it never was illegal or anything like that to speak Finnish in what later became Finland. So i would not call it active oppression. The point that finnish became a official language during russian rule is pointed out in a multitude of places in the article already. And i'd like to see the source that Swedish was the only official language during Swedish rule, as sweden to this day still does not have any official language defiend in their constitution (so swedish is only a official national language in finland).
- Try to get it into your head: Finland was never occupied by Sweden. Anyone with a basic knowledge of history is aware that there never was an independent state Finland before Swedish rule, therefore you cannot say Finland was occupied by Sweden. In fact the NAME "Finland" is just a few hundred years old! So the claim is a anachronistic claim however you turn it.
- I put back in "Also modernizations typical for that era in Europe were introduced" is this was done in fact clearly earlyer in Sweden (as this otherwise would imply Russia was somehow more liberal against the lower classes than Sweden, which is just dung, look where the revolution took place fifty years later.).
-In the section regarding the peruskoulu reform there was just a lot of information removed that was not noted elsewhere, why?
-Hmm i think discrediting Suomen GHallup is here a bit unnecessary. First of all it not being realted to another firm with the name gallup in it does not discredit it, using the name gallup is quite natural and not a copy. Also in fact taloustutkimus is the one that is more speculated into. YLE has stopped using taloustutkimus for political surveys due to the odd results that did not correlate at all with the last elections, source. http://www.niinisto.net/blogi/2007/03/19/17. Suome gallup on the other side is older company that is pretty respected in Finland, there is a source for that where people can look at the study. Also the studies are in chronologic order as can be seen: there seems according to one of the studies to have been a clear change to more positive attitudes towards mandatory swedish in the last ten years or so. This study is also ordered by a neutral part, yle, any claims that the finnish public service broadcaster would determine the result of the studies is just paranoia.
-For the foltinget study the source says academic, not highly educated.
-Humm there are other studies there that also give certain support for mandatory swedish.
- The Finnish educationplan (oppisuunnitelma) is revied about every 10 years. And it is taking it to more abstract and general knowledgeable levels whole the time.
-"oppressed by the swedish-controlled media" Oh give me a break? are we going to deny the holocaust next? its also a clear myth that the swedish govt. wants a swedish minority in finland, few swedes even know there is swedish spoken widely in Finland.
Please do discuss these thigns and retort before changing again. Also sources are good to add.
Gillis 18:57, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
User "Viktor chmara" claims that the suomalaisuuden liito's study is a composition of several studies. Now where does it say so? first of all the webpage working as a source is no longer available. But as i see it it was only a number of studies by the same client from the same agancy, this does not in my humble oppinion merit for saying "various studies" - as systematic factors are the same. That is just plain incorrect science. Also where are the -07 numbers from since the source is down?
And the sad fact is that surveys vary very much dependant on who is the client - because for one isn't it odd that Suomen Gallups study on the same subject gives numbers of 42% (sourced in the article) the same year as taloustutmkimus hits 67% for SL?
In a similar way there are tens of studies that find apple better than pc comissioned by apple corporation and tens the other way comissioned by microsoft.
And why was the comentary on the studies removed in favour of a bias text summing up the studies saying "most of them say x" as if that proves anything, let the reader judge for hiumself.
Also on the surveys, it might be mentioned that the then head editor of valitut palat was one of the countries most outspoken opponents of mandatory swedish - which casts certain doubt over those results as well. While we are at it folktinget is not really neutral as well (but in the other direction). The only one of those studies ordered by a neutral party is the one by yle/suomen gallup.
I recent having that table there, as it gives the user the feeling that "this is what all the studies sum up to" which just is not true.
Gillis ( talk) 18:45, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Firstly, please DO NOT insert your comments in the middle of my (or anyone else's) text. It disrupts the flow of argument and makes it difficult for outsiders to discern who wrote what.
The fact of the matter is that there are numerous surveys from different sources all indicating that the vast majority of Finns are opposed to mandatory Swedish; all of the surveys closely agree with each other. Then there is one survey that disputes that finding. Therefore it is correct to state that most studies find that most Finns are opposed to mandatory Swedish, and misleading to say there are "big differences between studies". All of the "no to mandatory Swedish" surveys apparently asked straightforwardly if Swedish should be a voluntary school subject, whereas the anomalous STT/SG survey asked in a convoluted manner if "the other domestic language" should "remain compulsory" -- this could be described explicitly in the article.
The editor of Valitut Palat at the time of the survey was Tom Lundberg, so it's irrelevant who preceded him.
Some people might think that mathematics/biology/religion/whatever should be voluntary, too, but this is a red herring, because there exist no public discussion, no NGOs, no popular movement about making other school subjects than Swedish voluntary in Finland.
The article is about mandatory Swedish, so there is no need to include results from polls that surveyd other things, such as what Finns think of "Swedishness", or how many people think that "Swedish [is] a vital and important part of Finnish society". This article is about mandatory Swedish, not about relations between Finnish-speaking and Swedish-speaking Finns in general (the Swedish-speaking Finns article is the right place for such discussion).
The table caption should read that the table contains the results of a series of opinion polls by Taloustutkimus about whether Swedish should be a voluntary school subject. It is not just one study.
When and by whom has this article been peer-reviewed "numerous times"? In any case, I don't feel like edit warring with you, and welcome others to comment on this.
Victor Chmara ( talk) 13:12, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
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There are plenty of sentences and words making this article extremely biased and skewed. Here are som examples: "However, the requirement to study Swedish is often referred to as pakkoruotsi, a somewhat charged term in Finnish meaning "mandatory Swedish", or "enforced Swedish". " No, pakkoruotsi can not be translated as "mandatory Swedish". That would be "pakollinen ruotsi" .
"The employees of the national government and the bilingual municipal governments are required to be able to serve citizens in Swedish." No, they are not, but the institution need to make sure they as an institution can provide service in both Swedish and Finnish. Single civil servants are not required to speak Swedish/Finnish, but they need to fetch someone who speaks the language they don't have proficiency in, should the need arise.
"Currently, it is possible for Finnish citizens to report a different mother tongue for themselves at any time, and as many times as desired, by submitting a form to the Population Register Center. " How is this relevant?
" Military service is not required in the autonomous region of Åland." How is this relevant?
This is just from the first two paragraphs, and I suspect it won't be any better further on in this lengthy article. Romuruotsalainen ( talk) 10:07, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
Although this article already covers the opposite for Swedish speaking Finns, I believe that it's not broad enough. Therefore I propose that this article be split into two, mandatory Swedish and mandatory Finnish. The opposite needs broader coverage. Metric Supporter 89 ( talk) 02:18, 23 September 2020 (UTC)
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When I stumbled upon this article the first thing I noticed was that the last paragraph of the overview section is a summary of the pro-position, but the anti-position is completely omitted from the overview. Either both sides should be summarised or then neither, the current formulation is hardly neutral. I didn't dare to edit it myself after reading this talk page. I have no doubt that this article has suffered from poor edits and that people would be vary of any edits by newcomers not well-established wikipedians, so I would kindly ask some person who hasn't got a vested interest in this to edit the overview section. The rest of the article seemed more balanced based on a quick overview so this section might just be a remnant from a more biased version.
How I would rebut the pro-arguments in the overview section: The answer to the "easier to learn English/German" argument is that the best way to learn a language is to study it directly. We don't study Japanese if we want to learn Chinese, even if knowing one language helps the other. Time spent studying Swedish is away from the school time that could be spent to learn other languages, so this language learning argument lacks credibility in my view. The "need to get services in native language" argument kind of makes sense, but the Finland Swedes don't seem to buy it themselves. When boundaries of health districts were shifted in Ostrobothnia, the Swedish speaking area refused to join a Finnish district on the grounds that only native speakers would have sufficient skills to serve Finland-Swedes. There are special quotas for medical and law school for Swedish-speaking students specifically so that they can serve Swedish-speakers who aren't super fluent in Finnish (AFAIK these Finland Swedish people that aren't fluent up to or very close to a native standard in Finnish are a very small subset of the already small 5.5% minority). If only a native level of language skill is sufficient to serve this very small group (and when this clearly isn't achieved under the current system or even with languages which students really want to learn), it begs the question why to hypocritically insist on a token requirement of Swedish at universities and resulting mandatory Swedish education for every schoolchild? In the case of medical services the argument is also weakened by the fact that there are increasingly many foreign doctors with a poor grasp of even Finnish in hospitals and people still seem to get healthcare.
I know the point of an encyclopedia isn't to win debates, but as other sides seem to be acting so, I was also tempted to chime in. Plateinlynx 04:09, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
Moved from article: As members of the minority naturally will be more skilled in the majority language, than the majority population will be in the minority language, the pakkoruotsi reform can also be seen as an effective means against Finland-Swedish dominance in governmental offices and organisations. -- Firstly, I don´t see why there should be any danger of the minority language dominating governmental offices and organisations, secondly, I don´t understand how this sentence might help in understanding the implications of compulsory Swedish language tuition in Finnish schools. If somebody could clarify and NPOV this, please put it back into the article.
ditto: arguing that the Swedish speakers of Åland and Finland maybe better should emigrate to Sweden if they aren't able to conduct their business in Finnish. -- This looks like disguised polemics against the minority, and is not helpful either.
and more:Some pupils feel they suffer from learning the minority language during two years or more. Also the mandatory course and exam in
tertiary education is questioned by them who hold mandatory Swedish for the most disliked subject in school, arguing their skill in the disliked language doesn't correspond with all the years spent studying it. -- The facts in this sentence may be true, but should be expressed in a more neutral way before going into an encyclopedia article.
Cheers,
Kosebamse 13:10 23 May 2003 (UTC)
I had made a revision some days ago, which I thought I had been fairly successful with, in NPOV-regards. I was then this morning pretty baffled to see "my splendid neutral text" ;->> hadn't been accepted but preambled by a rather biased rant, which I subsequently tried to edit to get it 1/ more neutral, and where that's not possible, 2/ more balanced, in a way which hopefully would be acceptable for both side of the feud. It would be stupid of me to try to hide the element of injured pride in my less skillful editing today, but I hope something good is coming out of it in the end. ;-)
--
Ruhrjung 17:41 23 May 2003 (UTC)
Thanks for the invitation to both Kosebamse and Ruhrjung. I do not know if I can add anything essential to this article, but I tried looking at it with "fresh eyes". You two seem to have managed to make it quite understandable for someone without any knowledge of Finnish language education.
But there are still some things that I do not like in the article:
5.1% of the population in Mainland-Finland in addition to the autonomous Åland islands -- This is just bending the truth with statistics. Why make a distinction with "Mainland-Finland". Lets just say 5.6% of the population of Finland.
In the first paragraph: to refer to Finland-Swedish studied in the schools of Finland. -- I know that Ruhrjung is not going to like this... but I do not think it is Finland-Swedish that is taught to the Finnish speaking pupils. Maybe we can change that to [[Finland-Swedish|Swedish]]? :)
In governmental terminology "the other domestic language" is the term used for Pakkoruotsi, like Finnish is the other domestic language for pupils with Swedish mother tongue. -- I don't understand this sentance at all. Doesn't "the other domestic language" refer to (Finland-)Swedish?
Is the link to "Pois pakkoruotsi" necessary? It could only be interestint to people who can read Finnish (and they should read the Finnish wikipedia article instead).
-- Jniemenmaa 18:28 25 May 2003 (UTC)
I moved the following paragraphs here:
(maybe they could be re-worded?)
-- Ruhrjung 16:44 28 May 2003 (UTC)
Uhm. What exactly bothers you about the above paragraph? (The links aren't my responsibility) -- Cimon Avaro on a pogo stick 17:25 28 May 2003 (UTC)
The language. The connection to Finnland and Finnish politics is also somewhat fussy, but primarily the language. You don't say so in English, unless you are something like a fringe politician (Glistrup-or-worse rather than Kjaersgaard). I know this is hard for many Finns (and Israelis) to assess, as the level of the style used by Finns ...well, let's just say that "something" often makes Finns appear more aggressive than would be good for you, if you get my drift?
--
Ruhrjung 17:38 28 May 2003 (UTC)
Should the entry retain its present name? An explanatory title like "Swedish education in Finland" ought to be more appropriate. The present terminology might be colloquial i Finnish, but it does hardly have the same use in English. Another aspect is that it can be interpreted as a POV or defamatory statement. -- Mic 16:50 28 May 2003 (UTC)
Nobody asked for my opinion, but I tend toward the view that maybe this article need not be here, although it doesn't bother me much, and as long as it's here, I will concentrate on trying to make it as NPOV as possible. On the other hand, it has already, for the better or worse already been translated to several other language wikipedias, so...
Cimon Avaro on a pogo stick 17:25 28 May 2003 (UTC)
The article looks plain silly, and nothing else. From the start with the title to the end with the rant. Someone must have been severly intoxicated to come up with such an idea. Domestic issues of Finland don't need to be covered in articles of their own. The reader don't get any favorable impression of neither the anti-Pakkoruotsi activists, nor of Finland. 193.14.212.59
I don't understand at all why you would complain about this article not being NPOV... I mean, in its current form, it simply just blatantly advocates the Fenno-Swedish position and doesn't even mention once that people disagree with the official status quo. In effect, it is completely biased and doesn't even make a fair attempt at recognizing the other side of the discussion...
I do realize that in Finnish domestic politics ever even slightly questioning the wisdom of the position of Swedish in Finland gives you the automatic label of nazi, but I would have hoped that Wikipedia would have had the guts to recognize that not everyone think it's total bliss...
I think there hasn't been much of complains lately. The
User:193.14.212.59 comment above was made May 28th. The article has improved since then.
--
Ruhrjung 06:40, 25 Oct 2003 (UTC)
Should we maybe move this article to a page titled something like:
or?
/ Tuomas 10:43, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Under any circumstances, the neutrality of this article must be considered as disputed. This should be properly indicated, as is done in the article about, say, Yasser Arafat.
The function of the whole article seems to be taking what is essentially a minor internal dispute on an international arena in an improper way. The question of "pakkoruotsi", which is in itself a polemical word coined by an organisation aimed against the minority, should rather be handled as an annex to the situation of the Swedish minority in Finland. (A passer-by, 12 November 2004)
isn't a little strange to put a map in an encylopedia article, along with a whole paragraph explaining why the map is incorrect/biased, followed by a link to an apparently less biased map (which seems to be on the author's personal homepage... wouldn't there be a more official source for it??). if the linked map is indeed less biased, let's just but that on the page instead and get rid of the biased one.
User:84.248.81.201 20:32, 19 Apr 2005
Before the current reverting escalates, I find the edits of 84.231.217.74 ( talk · contribs) acceptable. // Fred- Chess 16:54, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
okay so here is the url to the difference between the old and new version that was introduced by 84.231.217.74 http://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Mandatory_Swedish&diff=25009146&oldid=23414748
first of all
1. "For the 92% majority in Finland who speak Finnish, this means they have to learn an unusual dialect of Swedish" A dialect is a difference in pronunciation, not in grammar. A school teaches grammar, the fact that many teachers do speak the Finnish-swedish dialect(due to living in Finland) is just like having an Irish english-teacher. There are certain small differences between Swedish and Finnish-swedish, but these are only sparse words (the difference is similar or smaller than that of British-english and US-english), in fact there aren't any spelling differences such as color and colour in english. The swedish language has allot of different dialects that are very different from each other (but not unintelligible to each-other) so could someone please tell me what is the correct Swedish dialect. this claim is exaggerated further with the phrase "It is the view of some opponents that this could actually be achieved better if those who do learn the unusual dialect of Swedish did so of their own free will."
2. why did this sentence have to be removed "Supporters maintain that such a claim is an oxymoron and that Scandinavians find it easier to learn e.g. German and English"
3. "Thus supporters of mandatory Swedish argue that the "ethnic origin", as defined in the directive, does not necessarily apply." No this is also claimed by people with a neutral stance to the debate, due to it in fact being a historical fact.
4. "Supporters claim that mandatory Swedish teaching is also supported by one international treaty (by the now-defunct League of Nations)". It would be great to have a source here as to there being only one such international treaty. and otherwise, what does the defunctness of the league of nations have to do with anything? a contract is a contract. I feel the old "and to some degree supported by international treaties" worked much better.
5. This part also does not sound like good encyclopedia text to me "Those favoring broader choice in language teaching claim that most people don't have, or in any case have a limited natural contact with Swedish-speaking people, and that educational resources are wasted by forcing 92% of the population to learn the language spoken by 6% of the population, and that it is in Finland’s national interest to eliminate the outdated compulsory Swedish policy.". Too specific argumentations might be better addressed in different forums.
6. I found this edit brought very few new facts to the article. This edit contained IMO allot of uncalled for many<->some etc. changes in the authors point of view direction. I personally hate the way all parties try to lurk behind the words some and many and try my best not to use them myself. But it is hard to not use them at all. But for instance: "Among some Finns the derogatory term pakkoruotsi, literally "compulsory Swedish", or even "forced Swedish"" to "Among many Finns the derogatory term pakkoruotsi, literally "compulsory Swedish","
Well yes, it is a common term, i use it myself, but more as a joke. THe people really using it in a derogatory way are a small minority.
this article is also about mandatory swedish, that's why i think the parties involved should be referred to as "supporting/opposing mandatory Swedish" instead of vague wordings such as "Those favoring broader choice in language teaching"
Also, why are Finnish-swedes being claimed to be "so-called", this is also a vague formulation imo.
Please do not get me wrong, i found the contributor has had a few good points. But there is allot that's either vague or biased.
I would ask the author and maybe some neutral party to comment on these pointers and not put in any big edits before considering them thoroughly.
HAND
Gillis 17:15, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
there was a paragraph explaining that one criticism of mandatory swedish is that finns will always speak it with a finnish accent. i've never heard this argument elsewhere, it doesn't really seem to make any sense (surely one always speaks with an accent when speaking a learnt second language?) so i deleted it.
the {{ NPOV}} is not for Your amusement of showing discontent with an article. It is intended as a guide for edits to improve the article. Slamming NPOV tags because "according to edit summary it was removed because it was there long enough" is NOT applicable. Edit summaries are not reliable evidence whether a tag should be there or not, the article itself is. So describe your arguments, or rewrite parts of the article. I will revert if you continue adding of the tag. Period. Fred- Chess 16:43, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I'd also appreciate if other edits gave their opinions. Fred- Chess 16:46, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I've read through the newer version of the article re-written by you F.C. and i feel it's a good one, more NPOV than the last one atleast. I see no point in keeping the NPOV, if someone has any direct objections over something in the article i hope they will air them here and we could discuss them (instead of one anon. person totally re-editing the article to fit his perspective as last time). Gillis 17:33, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
I have to say that bias of this article and the edits of the few Swedish bigots who monitor it night and day are laughable. For example, where in the article are the views opposing mandatory swedish presented? That is hardly a minor oversight, yet one that Gillis and the other fanatics have fully approved. I think the NPOV tag is needed in this article. 85.156.157.184 15:20, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Well it seems that it is quite disputed if pakkoruotsi should be linked here, seems as Khoikhoi and 84.231.217.70 are having a reverting-competition ;)
I personally am onthe anon users "side" in this specific question (about redirecting pakkoruotsi) since it is more of a derrogatory term used for what this article describes (as if nigger was redirected to black person or something like that). But personally "it's not such a big deal for me" as long as somewhere is mentioned that it in fact is not synonymous, but rather a "derrogatory term" or "Politically charged term" as the anon user put it.
I removed personally the redirect on 5 August 2005, but this was changed back by Ulayiti 3 November 2005. During the article being there Jdm did contribute to it and note to me that he felt it being correct to have it separated (this is what i interreted atleast). Since this whole deal of mandatory swedish is pretty much as someone put it earlyer on this discussion-page
"The function of the whole article seems to be taking what is essentially a minor internal dispute on an international arena in an improper way. The question of "pakkoruotsi", which is in itself a polemical word coined by an organisation aimed against the minority, should rather be handled as an annex to the situation of the Swedish minority in Finland. (A passer-by, 12 November 2004)"
so i feel it is enough if it is in fact redrected, but there could be for instance a passage on the story of the term pakkoruotsi itself... although atleast i'm okay with it having it's own page too.
Other edit's speak up before this is edited too much back and forth.
Gillis 00:24, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure about this translation: "However, critical opinion often calls the Swedish tuition and testing 'forced Swedish', in Finnish pakkoruotsi."
I think "forced Swedish" would be "pakotettu ruotsi", not "pakkoruotsi" in Finnish, whereas "pakkoruotsi" is shorter for "pakollinen ruotsi" which translates as compulsory/mandatory Swedish. Translating "pakkoruotsi" as "forced Swedish" seems just wrong to me. Instead I would rephrase the quoted sentence as something like "however, critical opinion often calls the Swedish tuition and testing 'mandatory Swedish' (Finnish: pakkoruotsi) which has a slightly charged tone in Finnish." Shubi 10:47, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
I think the article is close to achieving NPOV but there are some things I don't understand that might help me better judge.
Other comments:
Hi Birgitte, thanks for taking part in our discussion here. I'll try to and clear up your questions as neutrally as possible
"Why was the Constitution wriiten to provide for two languages?"
The reasons are mostly historical and therefore also cultural, i think the historical background could be better explained. Well the main argument/reason is that swedish-language always has been a part of the finnish culture in the same way finnish-language has been. finland was a part of sweden between the 12th and 19th century (some argue finland was not officially a part of sweden before the late 14th century), it is noteworthy that before this time no sovereign Finland existed. The history as part of sweden has formed the finnish culture in a way that it is quite hard to get a grip of it without understanding the swedish-speaking aspect, for instance one example could be Finland's national anthem that was originally written in Swedish. So the swedish-speakers are not merely a linguistic minority due to immigration/emigration as sometimes is thought.
"Do the people who want to end mandatory Swedish want to also change the requiremants for civil service? And to what effect?"
Well, i think there is no one answer to this, but dedicated grassroot organisations, such as "suomalaisuuden liitto" (the league of finnishness) does have the aim of reducing Swedish to the level of the sami languages in finland (not official languge, but listed as "one of finland's languages"). But i guess the broader base of the opposition for mandatory swedish aren't really after changing finland's bi-linguality in the constituition which requires the test for people in civil service. But of course it could become quite hard to require this in civil service if no mandatory education was held. Some argue here that interpreters could be used in order to keep up the services in swedish.
"What exactly does civil service imply in Finland? Is just the running of the goverment itself or does the goverment run the railrods etc. there?"
The Finnish government runns many of the civil services, at least in comparisonto the united states. But it is noteworthy that the requirements of swedish for civil services are _very_ basic.
"Are the people who dislike the policy mainly going through a "schoolboy rebbellion" or what is the underlying issue they are opposing?"
Mandatory second domestic language teaching is usually more dissliked during school years (i was not a big fan of it either! ;)). And i guess the possible views against it are more moderate amongst the adult population. The views of it also differ quite a bit around finland since the swedish-speaking minority is not evenly spread over the country and many finns have very little natural contact with swedish-speakers.
"Does the opposition think another language or choice of languages or none at all should be taught at that level of schooling?"
I think the main argument in opposing mandatory second language teaching is that it supposedly takes up resources from teaching other subjects. But I haven't heard of any unison plan about what exactly should be taught instead of swedish for finnish-speakers/finnish for swedish speakers.
Thank's for your other suggestions too. It could also be noted that Åland in fact is autonomous, and has the right to govern itself on educational issues. Also it is notable that Many students on Åland take the finnish matriculation examination from HS, which is governed under "the finnish rules".
Gillis 18:29, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
As I believe Gillis here gave a rather POV response to the questions, which of course do reflect well the official party lines -- it's the "official explanation" -- it serves rather badly to understand the position of those who oppose our language policies. So let me respond in kind, but from my own POV to the most important points raised... I will give more exposition than just answering to the bullet points, bear with me.
The constitution was written the way it is because in early times Swedish still was more dominant as a language than what it is today, and more people spoke it. The proportion of Swedish-speakers was somewhere around 15% (correct if wrong) -- now it's around 6% -- and because of our history, they indeed were a more powerful block than their numbers. Also, during the early time of independence, there was some need of goodwill from Sweden, and a need to quickly shut up the svecomans who still pretty much wanted to join Sweden, so in that sense it was a question of national unity as well. The language part of the constitution was actually rather controversial; finally the Finnish-only side gave in.
Then there was also the issue of the national romantic period of 1800s, which was a weird mixture of mostly Swedish-speaking academics being drawn into romantic Karelianism and the Nordism of Runeberg, who wrote poetry about pining back to Sweden after Sweden lost Finland to Russia in the beginning of the century. His attempts at glorifying the struggle of the losers and the rationalization of the new situation of the country, his POV firmly in the Swedish-speaking high society (not that it was particularly high, but anyway), earned him the title of national poet. I guess he deserves it for commemorating the historical event -- although from a strange perspective -- that probably saved the Finnish-speaking Finns from complete assimilation into Sweden.
The retort that "you guys even sing your national anthem in translation" has always felt like a particularly cruel political weapon to be used among people of supposedly the same nationality, as it totally ignores the fact that the reason why Fenno-Swedes are so heavily over-represented in our "official" national culture of the 1800s -- the classic romantic period -- is simply because you had to be Swedish-speaking to begin with to gain entry into the rather monopolized cultural and societal circles where this stuff was being done! It's not as if it is my fault as a modern Finnish-speaker that this was the case! I am not saying that there weren't some important people there, it's just that some historical context should be acknowledged before getting all misty-eyed with nostalgia. Who knows what might have happened, if Finnish-speakers had not been kept out of university, say. To claim this was not due to societal structure is, mind you, somewhat racist -- I have a hard time believing that Finnish-speakers just simply naturally suck and need some heavy civilizing through Swedish, as was claimed by Freudenthal and pals.
When it comes to the non-high-culture, I would claim that throughout most of history, Finnish-speakers have lived perfectly happily speaking Finnish and having Swedish as a foreign language -- that they didn't know, as they were too busy making a small living off the land and fighting for the king in Stockholm. You should note that not even during the Swedish reign were Finnish-speakers _made to_ learn Swedish, although it of course was of fundamental importance if you wanted to advance in society. When Russia conquered Finland, we started getting more rights in education and finally even official status for Finnish. The university of Helsinki didn't allow studies in Finnish fully until the 1920-30s, after lots of strife (fist-fights amongst different-language students etc). After that, you started seeing Finnish-speakers in their rightful positions in society in greater numbers. So... frankly, all this talk about the wonderful influence Swedish has had in this country boils down to the idea that I should feel some sort of gratitude. I certainly recognize history for what it is, but don't ask me to admire it. It took an edict from the Czar in 1863 to get that official position for Finnish, for chrissakes.
Ok, so that much for history. I don't really believe all that much in drawing conclusions from what has been to what should be. If that were the case, some countries would still have slavery. Knowing history is different from perpetuating it. In modern days, Finland is just as much a Western European country as any of them, and not particularly "Swedish" at that. Actually I would say that we have definitely differing characteristics from the rest of the Nordic countries, which are immortalized in our national stereotypes...
Now, the big question in Finland is what does it MEAN for the individual citizen that the constitution states "Finland's national languages are Finnish and Swedish"? Originally, the idea was that Finnish-speakers get to be Finnish-speakers and Swedish-speakers get to be Swedish-speakers, and the government will serve both in their own language and provide for things like education in the respective tongues. Alongside with this kind of thinking, over the 1900s, the Fenno-Swedes created all sorts of parallel, auxiliary institutions to support a kind of parallel but separate existence. One should remember that in the late 1800s and all the way to WW2 a lot of the Fenno-Swedish academics were quite busy with the idea of proving that Fenno-Swedes form a separate people in Finland that is related to Swedes. Actually, while I don't want to particularly "isolate" myself from Fenno-Swedes, I kind of like this interpretation -- it respects everyone's right to be who they are.
During the Cold War and beginning in the 1970s-80s, someone realized, that this wasn't going to look good for the Fenno-Swedes in the long term. They were being assimilated into the mainstream population, and Swedish was facing the threat of becoming a sort of high-priest language used in official speeches but not much elsewhere. So the "separate people" argument took a complete U-turn: now the constitution was to be interpreted so as to apply the two language principle to each citizen on a personal level. The SFP (Fenno-Swedish party) started demanding that in order to maintain a "living" Swedish language in Finland, the language needs to be extended to everyone, regardless of where they live in the country (Swedish is concentrated along coastlines, and the inner parts of the country are pretty much completely unilingually Finnish). Because Finland was pretty desperate to prove that it is "Nordic" instead of semi-Soviet during the Cold War, the modern language policy was formulated.
The policy has two prongs: the mandatory Swedish in schools -- and starting in 1979 even in university, even if you're in a completely irrelevant field like yours truly, computer science -- and language requirements in the civil service. The civil service requirements tend to get tighter every time the relevant language laws are revised, mostly because the relevant civil servants don't really bother to abide by them or don't really know enough Swedish (because they don't ever use it). The rules about where services need to be provided in which language are very lax to include as much of the country as possible as bilingual and also seem to be changed every time a major Finnish city would otherwise fall unilingual due to dwindling Swedish-speaking population -- they have been changed multiple times for Turku, for instance. This creates situations where ALL civil servants are required Swedish skills as a matter of principle, regardless of actual need. The university Swedish exam is the "civil servant exam" as well -- I can't for the life of me imagine how I am going to be a software-developing civil servant who "serves Swedish-speakers in their own language"! The exam itself is for the time being easy as is mentioned, but the problem is that the legal framework is there. During the latest revisioning of the language law there was even talk of "sanctions" towards people/towns who don't cut it... this, in my view, starts to resemble discrimination against Finnish-speakers, as requirements for a job need to, according to law, be reasonably grounded in actual need and relevance.
To complete the circular reasoning, the mandatory Swedish in schools is partially being grounded in the logic of "but you can't get a public sector job if you don't speak Swedish!" Certainly, if you removed the most draconian requirements, you would lose a great deal of the motivation for the teaching of the language too. Its usefulness is of course otherwise rather limited; Finns would be better off equipped with more diverse language skills. Sorry Gillis, but you are guilty of unfortunately typical tunnel vision when you claim there are no reasonable alternatives... hell, German, French and Russian would all be perfectly good ones. I would speak fluent German and French at the moment in addition to my English if I had spent my Swedish lessons on them instead. At the moment I have no time anymore to just study them on my free time, as my field of expertise is more on the sciences side of things. Languages are good, but damage happens on when you insist on monopolizing everyone's language studies when it comes to one language just to satisfy your own political goals.
Usefulness argumentation aside, the one issue that tends to inflame emotions is that of identity. People get justifiedly pissed off when someone comes to educate them on their own identity. Forcing yourself on someone and then claiming they are intolerant if they don't like it is a nasty tactic. If you listen to most propaganda on "Swedishness days" from SFP and even like-minded other politicians, the whole excercise seems to aim at making people "think right" about language issues in the country. In the same breath, they are able to lament and worry about the "alienation" Finns feel about the part of their identity they are supposed to embrace and then demand more legislation to make it happen -- either more teaching or more demands that help them "make use" of their language skills to make it feel worthwhile. The latest idea is to "language-bathe" kids early on so they wouldn't grow up to be dissidents like me. The sad part is that it will probably work in a generation or two; a lot of my peers are already parroting easy to counter SF-lines in the spirit of "mathematics is mandatory too!" and "bilinguality is enriching!" -- I really cry at the lameness of our political discourse in this matter.
It should give everyone pause that this supposed happy-happy bilingual family requires such a government mechanism to uphold -- the very same SFP politicians are very clear in stating that it is at risk if government doesn't methodically pursue these policies. I would suggest that instead of more government action, the more reasonable conclusion is the homogenized bilingual Finland doesn't exist and shouldn't be created, if people obviously aren't voluntarily engaging in its construction. If they are correct about your assumptions regarding Finnish ideals and identity, they should not have anything to fear from freedom, right? Letting kids drop Swedish from their high school finals has caused 15% to actually excercise the option. These are the ones who would fail because of Swedish if they couldn't do this, no matter how good they may be at other subjects.
A disclaimer: I have nothing against Fenno-Swedes as a minority group, so don't try to pull any intolerance arguments on me. It is all too typical to just shut all reasonable critics of a political position out of the discussion because "OMG they are against teh minority". I do hold the rights of Finnish-speakers close to heart as they were difficult to win during history, and we may just as well not have survived. Tolerance means allowing others to be who they are. I do not believe our current language policy is tolerant, as it seeks to shape people into something.. politically acceptable, as some people have problems with the idea of Finland having folks who do not share in to the wonderful Swedish language. It is unacceptable to me that Finnish-speakers are specifically denied the same language identity protection that is granted to for example the people in Åland -- which protects its "special Swedish-speaking character" up to the point of open racism, for example denying the right to set up private Finnish-speaking schools for children of people staying in Åland for work. The theory that all mainland Finns "are" Swedish-speakers but don't know it yet is suspect, and the laws that permit double standards are wrong.
My own policy would call for preservation of the constitution in its current form, but relaxation of the language laws in order to respect the identity related to a person's mother tongue more, and to eliminate the politically motivated language-requirement "filters" that are nowadays in place to stop those people from advancing in life who don't toe the line or just can't get their minds around the language. Just because someone is Fenno-Swedish and would like the rest of the country to be in his own image, doesn't mean the Finnish-speakers must bend over backwards to accommodate that wish. One SHOULD remember that in the past 10-15 years, some 50-70% of people have systematically responded in various polls that Swedish should be voluntary. It's just such a touchy issue that nobody wants to get the Nazi accusations for being the first to mention it openly...
Sorry this got long-winded, I really believe that foreign readers need the background from another perspective too, the SFP-line is a bit suffocating to genuine discussion and readers REALLY need to be shown that there are some real issues here, not just the petulance of some insignificant fanatic minority as it seems to me is being argued... and I also hope this elucidation responded to Birgitte's question on whether this is all just schoolboy rebellion... I have actually been told it is, and that my subsequent frustration at such an idiotic response is just proof thereof... HuckFinn 00:24, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
1. Why was the Constitution wriiten to provide for two languages?
To avoid an other civil war/strife. After the Finnish Civil war the were bigger thing going on. In other circumstances things might have gone differently (all surrounding countries are uni-lingual, but have much larger minorities).
2. Do the people who want to end mandatory Swedish want to also change the requiremants for civil service? And to what effect?
Some do, some don't. Some just want to end pakkoruotsi on elementary school (like it used to be until 70's).
3. What exactly does civil service imply in Finland? Is just the running of the goverment itself or does the goverment run the railrods etc. there?
Running the goverment. Railroads are run by a private company, but the new language law requires them to serve in Swedish also (this isn't related to pakkoruotsi nor is it required by the Constitution).
4. Are the people who dislike the policy mainly going through a "schoolboy rebbellion" or what is the underlying issue they are opposing?
Are you serious? Or really an outsider? That question has such a strong POV and is a classic "answer" to any critisism of pakkoruotsi.
5. Does the opposition think another language or choice of languages or none at all should be taught at that level of schooling?
Students in general already study two foreign languages (choises are plentiful, but usually eng+ger/fr; languages of Russia, Estonia and Norway are rarely taught fo some reason..)+ mandatory Swedish/Finnish and their mother tongue. I have_never_heard anybody demand that Swedish shouldn't be taught in schools to all and any that wish to learn it. Its only the mandatory, pakko part that people are against, not Swedish/ruotsi 213.243.181.212 12:38, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Anyone else who finds this useless? i mean a EU directive that is six years old is not exactly new.
I think that it has been legally proven that the argument given by "some" (as the article puts it) does not have an effect, since as teh article explains it swedish-speakers are not considered an "ethnic minority".
Gillis 18:33, 21 January 2006 (UTC)
Yes, should be removed. Anti-racism has nothing to do with bilinguality. This clause may even be
original research. --
Janke |
Talk
08:27, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
I now removed it, grief can be aired here if someone wants it back Gillis 10:51, 22 January 2006 (UTC)
Okay, well the calm around this article held a few months, now there is some aggressive non-discussed edits going on again where the editor seems to have commented out everything he or she disslikes and requested sources... well here goes.
a. "n Finnish schools, Swedish is a mandatory subject on practically all levels of public education" No it isn't, "pakkoruotsi" starts in ylä-aste, and ends in lukio, certain university grades etc. then also need students to pass "virkamiesruotsi", but this isn't education, it's just a really easy test which requires knowledge of the subject not specificly any new education.
b. Source? Due to Finland having two national languages Wikipedia: article on Finland, in fact this IS wrong, finnish and swedish are not just official languages, they are national languages (official languages also cotnain Sami and "viittomakieli".
c. Tautology. the Swedish language is mandatory in the Finnish-speaking schools, and the Finnish language is mandatory in Swedish language schools.
No it's not a tautology
d. " The Finnish name for both Mandatory Swedish and Mandatory Finnish is "toinen kotimainen kieli", literally "the second domestic language". For Mandatory Swedish, some Finn students use the name pakkoruotsi which literally means "forced Swedish"."
I see no reason why this shouldn't stay as it was.
e. Overview, yes it is releant to people that are not from Finland and don't have the backgrounds.
f. "B.S., any sources? The official reasons are that both languages are official languages of Finland, due to the history of Sweden-Finland empire, which makes both languages part of the Finnish culture. (See further Finland's language strife)"
Well okay, the term "Official reason" is perhaps wrong, but this is in a way obvious since it is in fact true that Finnish culture contains also the swedish language, are you saying Finland does not have a linguistic minotirty and wasn't a part of sweden for approx. more than 500 years?
g. "Biased lies. Any sources? A compulsory Swedish may also bring Finland closer to the Nordic countries, since Swedish is quite similar to both Danish and Norwegian, while the Finnish language belong to the vastly different Finno-Ugric languages group. For this reason, supporters maintain that Mandatory Swedish improves learning of other Germanic languages, such as English and German. Lastly, they argue, Mandatory Swedish is necessary to ensure that all citizens can interact with governmental institutions in their own language."
Notice the word "May", of course some vague wording like "one reason for..." could be used but i think this works. This is not the kind of thing that really can be sourced as it is an common opinion and so is stated.
And as a last thing: I don't see a need for huge changes in the articles POV as it wen't through extensive third party peer reviews before reaching this form. There just seems to be stubborn changers or pseudo-vandals around (having often resulted in a lock down in the same article in fi-wikip).
HAND Gillis 23:09, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
"17 § Rätt till eget språk och egen kultur
Finlands nationalspråk är finska och svenska.
Vars och ens rätt att hos domstol och andra myndigheter i egen sak använda sitt eget språk, antingen finska eller svenska, samt att få expeditioner på detta språk skall tryggas genom lag. Det allmänna skall tillgodose landets finskspråkiga och svenskspråkiga befolknings kulturella och samhälleliga behov enligt lika grunder.
Samerna såsom urfolk samt romerna och andra grupper har rätt att bevara och utveckla sitt språk och sin kultur. Bestämmelser om samernas rätt att använda samiska hos myndigheterna utfärdas genom lag. Rättigheterna för dem som använder teckenspråk samt dem som på grund av handikapp behöver tolknings- och översättningshjälp skall tryggas genom lag."
This means Finnish and Swedish are national languages, this gives speakers of these two languages far more rights to government interaction etc. in their own language. The Sami and the Roma have a right to cherish their culture and recieve certain services in their own language as their status as official minority languages allow them. Also the right to use sign language or any other handicap induced translation in government issues is allowed.
The same passage can be read at this unofficial english translation of the constitution: http://www.om.fi/uploads/54begu60narbnv_1.pdf
The official constitution can be read at the legal database Finlex
In Finnish: http://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/ajantasa/1999/19990731 In Swedish: http://www.finlex.fi/sv/laki/ajantasa/1999/19990731
HAND Gillis 11:49, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
Under the heading student's oppinions i see just a load of arguments against compulsory Swedish. Either the passage should be re-labeled, or split into many headings or those parts removed, ideas?
Gillis 23:34, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
I find this kind of odd:
"Students are interested in the Swedish language, and they recognize the importance of Swedish, but they are unmotivated because it is compulsory. The experiment of making Swedish voluntary in the matriculation examination (a de facto test for university enrollment) was highly successful and was made permanent: 88% of students take the Swedish test voluntarily. The mandatory Swedish test is no longer a stumbling block it used to be."
The part about the intrests of students seems like original research based on the amount of students that take the Swedish test at high school.
The Swedish language is one of the four subjects from which the students must choose three. (The other three subjects being long foreign language, math and the so called "reaali".) So whereas it is voluntary to take the Swedish test, it must be noted that if one chooses not take the Swedish test, it is mandatory to select anohter test in it's place. Let's have a imaginary example, where:
T = Mother's tongue, mandatory test for all.
Four subjects, from where it is mandatory to choose three test to take:
A = Long foreign language S = Second domestic language (Swedish in this case) R = Reaali M = Math
The students have to choose from these four alternatives: TRMA, TRMS, TRSA or TASM. Now lets suppose that the students choose evenly and every option gets 25% of the whole amount of students. This leads to a situation where 75% of the students voluntarily choose to take the reaali test, 75% of the students voluntarily choose to take the long foreign language test, 75% of the students voluntarily choose to take the math test and 75% of the students voluntarily choose to take the Swedish test. This is just an example how seemingly many students choose "voluntarily" to take some test in the Finnish system.
The current wording in the article makes it seem like 88% of students choose the Swedish test like a voluntary cherry on top of the mandatory subjects, when in reality the only mandatory test is the mother's tongue test and Swedish is no more voluntary than math, reaali or long foreign language.
It is not neccaccarily that 88% choose to take the Swedish test because they are interested and recognize it importance. I could also be because it is still mandatory to study Swedish at school for six years and many people still learn it and take the test because they would have to take some test anyway.
So, I think the article should not draw original research conlusions from the 88% who take the test. Neither does the chapter take in concideration the way the Finnish matriculation exam system works as a whole.-- Shubi 13:39, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
I think this is not a neutral point of view: "students are interested in the Swedish language, and they recognize the importance of Swedish"
One important part of the debate between different sides is just how importat the Swedish language in Finland is. Current wording takes a side in the debate and makes a statement on the importance of Swedish and notes that the students "recognize" this fact. The original research only said that "the study of Swedish was perceived as important in view of the future" without making statements itself on the importance of the language. It only told what the students perceived themself. Shubi 16:39, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
As discussed earlier on this talk page there has been discussion about renaming this article, but nothing has been done. I would support the renaming of this article, to for instance "Second domestic language education/tuition in Finnish schools", because right now it's called "mandatory Swedish" although it has to explain in several places that learning the other national language is also compulsory for the minority etc.etc. and this really is not such an important article that i'd go for having a "mandatory Finnish" article separately or something like that. So i'd say redirect mandatory Finnish to the renamed article. Anyone in favour? Or well i guess more importantly, does anyone object to this? and if so, why?
Gillis 21:54, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Any other oppinions? I would hate to do the move on a 2-1 "majority".
An official source: http://www.stat.fi/tup/suoluk/suoluk_vaesto_en.html (Population structure -> Language -> 2005) So please do not claim that the number is 6 %: it simply is not true and is considered vandalism now that I have proven the correct number. In fact, it has been under 6 % for over 15 years. -- Jaakko Sivonen 14:58, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
I think this article definetly needs a cleanup. It repeats same statements in different sections and all the sections cover loosely the subject they have, often getting lost in wrong directions. Different views on the debate have scattered around the article in places where they do not belong. Shubi 13:17, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
The logo apperently has been removed from Wikipedia. The person who applied for this or did this, can you explain? Or does anyone else know? EDIT, apparently it was in Commons where logos are not accepted, I have uploaded to enwiki again. -- Pudeo ( Talk) 16:04, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Currently the article says this: "These requirements are justified by referring to the status of Swedish as a national language along with Finnish." However, it does not say who justifies those requiments with those reasons. I searched for the education plan for Finland by Finnish Ministry of Education ( http://www.oph.fi/info/ops/pops_web.pdf page 118), and their page says something like this when translated into English:
"The goal of Swedish tuition is to give the student the ability to communicate and work with our Swedish-speaking minority and the Nordic countries. The mission of the studies is to get the student used to using other languages and raise the student to appreciate the bi-linguality of Finland and the Nordic way of life. The student also learns that as an art/skill and a way of communication a/the language demands focused and complex/rich commuticational practicing. As a school subject, the Swedish language is a skill and cultural subject."
(As you can see, I'm not so good with English). But anyways, I would rephrase the current sentence to something like "The Finnish Ministry of Education justifies these requiments by referring to the status of Swedish as a official national language and a tool to cooperate with the other Nordic countries." 81.175.134.236 22:29, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
How do we translate the text "pois pakkoruotsi" in a pro-freedom logo? Is it "away with forced Swedish" or "away with mandatory Swedish"? And how is Swedish word tjängsvenska translated in English? Majji 16:21, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
"Analogously, this may sometimes be called 'forced Finnish', in Swedish tvångsfinska."
Yes, it may be sometimes be called that, but how often, by who and on what occasions is it called that? As I said earlier, the only times I have heard someone speak about mandatory Finnish is when someone uses it as an argument to support mandatory Swedish. I think it's not a term that you hear so often that it should be mentioned in the article. Shubi 23:10, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
Is a term that should be avoided, as there has never been a country called that. The term is sometimes used, yes, but that does not mean that it should be used here. While the term may be clear to local people, it might seem for someone that Sweden and Finland were in some kind of union, which just is not true. Finland just was an eastern part of the country called Sweden, and was called "Finland" already back then. And if is stated that Finland was a part of Sweden, then it should be clear that Finland was not an independent country. Shubi 01:56, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
There was a large edit again by an anon ip (192.100.124.218), i changed a few things, this is why:
-There is no note in the constitution of Swedish being the SECOND language of Finland. Only that it is a official language of Finland along with Finnish.
- The Swedish people's party has many main agenda's except language, i sourced this with their website.
-I reverted the overview part, not due to content, but due to the factt hat content is already mentioned in two other places in the article.
-When does an international treaty expire? i've never seen a "best before" marking on an international agreement. Just because the league of nations that signed that treaty is as a organisation defunct does not mean the signatories are not responsible for their deal. Note that the same treaties stipulate Åland as a part of Finland and not Sweden.
- Åland has 26 000 inhabitants, and a very slim minority of finnish-speakers, if they are not packed in one place then a finnish-speaking school is pretty hard to achieve. Some Ålandians are assholes with their language stuff, but i'd like to see those claims about discrimination sourced.
- Yes Finnish got the theoretical equal rights during russian rule but the first law of that type was from 1860, that's pretty late into the less than 100 years of russian rule, so i rewrote it to point that out.
- Yes there was Swedish oppression of the finnish language during swedish rule. But it was notthing as other similar situations during the same time. For isntance in Scania you could be convicted to death for speaking Danish, whereas it never was illegal or anything like that to speak Finnish in what later became Finland. So i would not call it active oppression. The point that finnish became a official language during russian rule is pointed out in a multitude of places in the article already. And i'd like to see the source that Swedish was the only official language during Swedish rule, as sweden to this day still does not have any official language defiend in their constitution (so swedish is only a official national language in finland).
- Try to get it into your head: Finland was never occupied by Sweden. Anyone with a basic knowledge of history is aware that there never was an independent state Finland before Swedish rule, therefore you cannot say Finland was occupied by Sweden. In fact the NAME "Finland" is just a few hundred years old! So the claim is a anachronistic claim however you turn it.
- I put back in "Also modernizations typical for that era in Europe were introduced" is this was done in fact clearly earlyer in Sweden (as this otherwise would imply Russia was somehow more liberal against the lower classes than Sweden, which is just dung, look where the revolution took place fifty years later.).
-In the section regarding the peruskoulu reform there was just a lot of information removed that was not noted elsewhere, why?
-Hmm i think discrediting Suomen GHallup is here a bit unnecessary. First of all it not being realted to another firm with the name gallup in it does not discredit it, using the name gallup is quite natural and not a copy. Also in fact taloustutkimus is the one that is more speculated into. YLE has stopped using taloustutkimus for political surveys due to the odd results that did not correlate at all with the last elections, source. http://www.niinisto.net/blogi/2007/03/19/17. Suome gallup on the other side is older company that is pretty respected in Finland, there is a source for that where people can look at the study. Also the studies are in chronologic order as can be seen: there seems according to one of the studies to have been a clear change to more positive attitudes towards mandatory swedish in the last ten years or so. This study is also ordered by a neutral part, yle, any claims that the finnish public service broadcaster would determine the result of the studies is just paranoia.
-For the foltinget study the source says academic, not highly educated.
-Humm there are other studies there that also give certain support for mandatory swedish.
- The Finnish educationplan (oppisuunnitelma) is revied about every 10 years. And it is taking it to more abstract and general knowledgeable levels whole the time.
-"oppressed by the swedish-controlled media" Oh give me a break? are we going to deny the holocaust next? its also a clear myth that the swedish govt. wants a swedish minority in finland, few swedes even know there is swedish spoken widely in Finland.
Please do discuss these thigns and retort before changing again. Also sources are good to add.
Gillis 18:57, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
User "Viktor chmara" claims that the suomalaisuuden liito's study is a composition of several studies. Now where does it say so? first of all the webpage working as a source is no longer available. But as i see it it was only a number of studies by the same client from the same agancy, this does not in my humble oppinion merit for saying "various studies" - as systematic factors are the same. That is just plain incorrect science. Also where are the -07 numbers from since the source is down?
And the sad fact is that surveys vary very much dependant on who is the client - because for one isn't it odd that Suomen Gallups study on the same subject gives numbers of 42% (sourced in the article) the same year as taloustutmkimus hits 67% for SL?
In a similar way there are tens of studies that find apple better than pc comissioned by apple corporation and tens the other way comissioned by microsoft.
And why was the comentary on the studies removed in favour of a bias text summing up the studies saying "most of them say x" as if that proves anything, let the reader judge for hiumself.
Also on the surveys, it might be mentioned that the then head editor of valitut palat was one of the countries most outspoken opponents of mandatory swedish - which casts certain doubt over those results as well. While we are at it folktinget is not really neutral as well (but in the other direction). The only one of those studies ordered by a neutral party is the one by yle/suomen gallup.
I recent having that table there, as it gives the user the feeling that "this is what all the studies sum up to" which just is not true.
Gillis ( talk) 18:45, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Firstly, please DO NOT insert your comments in the middle of my (or anyone else's) text. It disrupts the flow of argument and makes it difficult for outsiders to discern who wrote what.
The fact of the matter is that there are numerous surveys from different sources all indicating that the vast majority of Finns are opposed to mandatory Swedish; all of the surveys closely agree with each other. Then there is one survey that disputes that finding. Therefore it is correct to state that most studies find that most Finns are opposed to mandatory Swedish, and misleading to say there are "big differences between studies". All of the "no to mandatory Swedish" surveys apparently asked straightforwardly if Swedish should be a voluntary school subject, whereas the anomalous STT/SG survey asked in a convoluted manner if "the other domestic language" should "remain compulsory" -- this could be described explicitly in the article.
The editor of Valitut Palat at the time of the survey was Tom Lundberg, so it's irrelevant who preceded him.
Some people might think that mathematics/biology/religion/whatever should be voluntary, too, but this is a red herring, because there exist no public discussion, no NGOs, no popular movement about making other school subjects than Swedish voluntary in Finland.
The article is about mandatory Swedish, so there is no need to include results from polls that surveyd other things, such as what Finns think of "Swedishness", or how many people think that "Swedish [is] a vital and important part of Finnish society". This article is about mandatory Swedish, not about relations between Finnish-speaking and Swedish-speaking Finns in general (the Swedish-speaking Finns article is the right place for such discussion).
The table caption should read that the table contains the results of a series of opinion polls by Taloustutkimus about whether Swedish should be a voluntary school subject. It is not just one study.
When and by whom has this article been peer-reviewed "numerous times"? In any case, I don't feel like edit warring with you, and welcome others to comment on this.
Victor Chmara ( talk) 13:12, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
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There are plenty of sentences and words making this article extremely biased and skewed. Here are som examples: "However, the requirement to study Swedish is often referred to as pakkoruotsi, a somewhat charged term in Finnish meaning "mandatory Swedish", or "enforced Swedish". " No, pakkoruotsi can not be translated as "mandatory Swedish". That would be "pakollinen ruotsi" .
"The employees of the national government and the bilingual municipal governments are required to be able to serve citizens in Swedish." No, they are not, but the institution need to make sure they as an institution can provide service in both Swedish and Finnish. Single civil servants are not required to speak Swedish/Finnish, but they need to fetch someone who speaks the language they don't have proficiency in, should the need arise.
"Currently, it is possible for Finnish citizens to report a different mother tongue for themselves at any time, and as many times as desired, by submitting a form to the Population Register Center. " How is this relevant?
" Military service is not required in the autonomous region of Åland." How is this relevant?
This is just from the first two paragraphs, and I suspect it won't be any better further on in this lengthy article. Romuruotsalainen ( talk) 10:07, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
Although this article already covers the opposite for Swedish speaking Finns, I believe that it's not broad enough. Therefore I propose that this article be split into two, mandatory Swedish and mandatory Finnish. The opposite needs broader coverage. Metric Supporter 89 ( talk) 02:18, 23 September 2020 (UTC)