Posted on December 6, 2011 by Kirsi Suutarinen
Finland
celebrates its independence (from Russia) on 6 December. As a Finn
living in Belgium, I will celebrate it today by reflecting for a moment
on the language situation in Finland and what it has meant to me.
I grew up in Finland, a Nordic country with nearly 5.4 million
inhabitants. Our national languages are Finnish and Swedish. Other
language groups recognised in the constitution are three Sami languages,
Finnish Romani and the Finnish sign language. At the end of 2010, 4 857
903 (90.4%) people had Finnish as mother tongue, 291 153 (5.4 %)
Swedish and 1 832 (0.03 %) Sami (there are three Sami languages spoken
in Finland) (Statistics Finland, 18.3.2011). Read more...