Multilingual Finland: Guest Editors’ Introduction to Part II

We, the guest editors of this theme issue, are pleased to present the second part of “Multilingual Finland”—the continuation of the Journal of Finnish Studies’ previous special issue, 27 (2).While the first part introduces Finland's national languages (Finnish, Swedish, and Sámi), Finnish sign language, Finland-Swedish sign language, Finnish Romani, Karelian, Yiddish, and Hebrew, this second part focuses on languages that are relatively new to Finland and considered “foreign languages” (Institute for the Languages of Finland, n.d.; Karlsson 2017, 78; Statistics Finland 2024). Obviously, what is considered a “foreign language” is relative. Romani, for instance, was initially “foreign” in Finland, but because it, along with Romani people, entered Finland over five hundred years ago (Karlsson 2017, 52), it is considered autochthonous today. In a sense, this “foreign vs. non-foreign” dichotomy could be extended all the way to Finnish itself.With this caveat, we here present seven articles that discuss Tatar, Estonian, Russian, Ukrainian, Arabic, African languages, and English. Naturally, these provide only a sampling of the languages spoken in Finland today; full coverage would be an ambitious—but impossible—task. Notable gaps are obvious, including languages spoken by immense numbers of people in the world today (e.g., Mandarin Chinese, Hindi, and Spanish) and languages that have played important roles in Finland's history (e.g., German). For a comprehensive listing of the languages spoken in Finland today, see Statistics Finland (2024), which reports a Finnish population of more than 5.6 million, 89 percent of whom count one of the Finnish national languages as their first language (see table 1).Some 160 foreign languages (that is, excluding the national languages Finnish, Swedish, and Sámi) are listed as spoken in Finland at the end of 2024 (Statistics Finland 2024). The numbers of speakers vary between one speaker (e.g., for Western Frisian, Nauru, and Tahitian) and over one hundred thousand (for Russian). The total number for foreign-language speakers in Finland exceeds six hundred thousand. These statistics are obviously problematic: As discussed in several of the articles in this collection, the numbers do not capture the multilingualism of the population. The census permitted each respondent to report only a single language, even if many speak more than one. Also, with changes in migration patterns, related to migration policies and shifting geopolitical situations around the world, abrupt shifts in numbers of speakers of a given language may take place within a matter of weeks or even days. The rapid rise in the number of speakers of Ukrainian in Finland is a case in point.What the statistics do show, however, is that living in Finland no longer means that one is necessarily a speaker of one of Finland's three domestic languages. The Herderian-Humboldtian-Snellmanian “ideal” of one language per nation has never fit for Finland (Engman 2018, 97–142; Pritipuspa and Tan 2020). As figure 1 indicates, the addition of “new” languages into Finland's linguistic stock has recently been steady. Some authors in this issue point out that part of the apparent growth in the numbers of non-domestic languages in Finland may stem from the fact that new residents are increasingly willing to report a non-domestic language. The internationalization of a formerly highly homogeneous Finland is a clear trend that has increased Finland's linguistic versatility, strengthened old connections, and forged new ties to various places across the globe. Finland's geographically peripheral position has not impeded this trend, and its linguistic diversity is showcased in the present issue.Significantly, while the number of speakers of non-domestic languages has increased, the numbers of Finnish, Swedish, and Sámi speakers have not declined. Table 2 shows that, during one-third of a century (1990–2024), only the number of Swedish speakers shows any decrease.Domestic languages still account for 89.2 percent of the languages reported by Finnish residents. In the first part of “Multilingual Finland,” Jan-Ola Östman discusses reasons for the decline of Swedish, while Coppélie Cocq and Peter Steggo address the rise of the Sámi numbers.What we hope to show with these two issues is the following: First, that change in the distribution of languages in any given country is an inevitable function of a changing world, and second, that when languages come in contact, language-internal changes occur. Language shift or even the death of a language may be postponed by language policy changes and government interventions, but typically for success, such measures need to be coupled with the enthusiasm of individual speakers who want to keep their culture relevant by documenting and revitalizing their language (Fishman 1991). Language-internal change (Clyne 2003; Heine and Kuteva 2005; Thomason and Kaufmann 1988) is also discussed in detail in these articles. Such changes are inevitable. Therefore, there is no reason to mourn the fact that the speakers of a language in a language-contact situation (e.g., in a migrant setting) no longer speak their ancestral language in the same way as it is (or was) spoken in their country of origin.This issue opens with Ainur Elmgren and Orsolya Sild's “The Tatar Language in Finland: Sociolinguistic Perspectives and Audiovisual Archival Resources.” We have placed this article first for the reason that Tatar, while having a relatively long history in Finland, is not always included in Finland's language inventory because of the small numbers of its speakers. However, like Yiddish and Hebrew in the first part of this special issue, it is a reminder of people's relocations in response to sociopolitical situations or war, phenomena also affecting many African languages as well as Ukrainian in Finland today. Elmgren and Sild look at Tatar in Finland through the lens of archival research, pointing to weaknesses in archival representation of extant audio and audiovisual sources. The importance of preservation and revitalization of Tatar is highlighted.In “Estonian in Finland,” Kristiina Praakli and Maria Frick examine Estonian's situation in Finland from a historical and geopolitical point of view. Ties between Estonia and Finland have been close for centuries because of geographic proximity and the closeness of Finnish and Estonian languages and cultures. During the near-fifty years of Soviet occupation, 1944–91, movement between Estonia and Finland was minimal and difficult, but after Estonia's independence in 1991, Estonian migration to Finland has risen. It is characteristic for Estonians in Finland to commute between the countries for work, which keeps the Estonian cultural and linguistic community in constant movement. Praakli and Frick argue that because of this special geographic and cultural-linguistic closeness, Estonian-Finnish migration is best characterized as transnationality and multinationality.In “Russian Language and the Russians in Finland,” Larisa Leisiö discusses the history and social significance of Russian in Finland. Chronicling centuries of tumultuous history, Leisiö paints a vivid picture of the influence of Russian on the Finnish language and linguistic landscapes. She shows how some Finnish vocabulary derives from Russian and can be traced back to historical periods when the geographical areas currently known as Finland were a part of the Russian Empire (Snellman and Kalleinen 2022). Russian is the most common foreign language spoken in Finland today, and the value of Russian in Finland has always had economic and political connotations.In “Ukrainian in Finland,” Yan Kapranov, Maria Frick, and Kaarina Hippi address the current situation of Ukrainians in Finland. Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Ukrainian was not a frequently spoken foreign language in Finland, but, as a result of the war, tens of thousands of Ukrainians have sought protection in Finland (Finnish Immigration Service 2023). In 2022–23, Frick and Kapranov conducted a survey of Ukrainians in Finland concerning their language use in different daily domains, including their communications with Finns. The authors summarize and discuss these survey findings, including opportunities for the study of Ukrainian in school and digital means that help Ukrainians in Finland maintain contact with the country from which they fled.Sylvia Akar paints a vivid picture of the diverse landscape of Arabic spoken in Finland in “‘We Say Shlōnk!’ Diversity of Arabic in Finland.” At the time of the writing, Arabic speakers were the third-largest foreign-language-speaking group after Russian and Estonian, with most Arabic speakers living in the Greater Helsinki region. As Akar discusses, Standard Arabic is a macrolanguage, with twenty-eight living subvariants (SIL International, n.d.), and no one speaks Standard Arabic as their first language. Diglossia can lead to difficulties in the Finnish migration context where the state-mandated Arabic interpreter and the interviewee may speak different variants of Arabic. This, obviously, impedes communication. Akar points to the challenges of providing Arabic home-language instruction in schools, not least because of a paucity of resources or training.In “African Languages in Finland: Adding Multicolored Yarn to an Old Ryijy,” Friederike Lüpke uses the metaphor of the Finnish woven ryijy to symbolize the dynamic multilingualism of Finland. Lüpke explores the linguistic circumstances of African migrants in Finland, highlighting their diverse language repertoires. She refutes the claim that Finland had no connections with Africa until the 1990s, when Somalian refugees began to arrive, and she points to some of the weaknesses of Finnish census data, particularly its capturing of only a single language per respondent.Sirpa Leppänen and Mikko Laitinen conclude with “English in Finland: Story, Status, and Sociolinguistic Role.” In the context of this collection, “English” stands as a category by itself; it is not a national language, nor an autochthonous language, nor really a minority language. Yet it is the most widely studied and known foreign language in Finland, and is so visible in the linguistic landscape (especially in urban areas) that it has been characterized as intrusive or a threat. Drawing on survey results and extensive research, Leppänen and Laitinen lay to rest alarmist views that Finland's national languages, Finnish and Swedish, are in danger of being replaced. Instead, they emphasize the complementary and supplemental ways Finns use English in practice alongside their main languages. They suggest that English, together with the 160 other languages spoken in Finland, will continue contributing to the richness of a multilingual Finland.