Finland today
Finland has 5.5 million inhabitants with a density of 16 inhabitants per km2 (2020). While 85% of the population lives in urban areas, 15% of Finns live in rural areas. In the vast areas of Lapland, the density does not exceed 2.2 inhabitants per km2. In addition to the Finns, who make up the majority of the population (93%), there are also three minorities in Finland. The largest is the 300,000 Finns of Svenskar or Swedish-speaking Finns. The country is indeed bilingual with two official languages coexisting: Finnish and Swedish. The second minority group includes the 6,000 or so Saami (formerly known as Lapps) who live north of the Arctic Circle but who are practising their dialects less and less, like Breton in France. A language centre specializing in Sámi languages has been set up at the Sajos Culture Centre in Inari in the north of the country. Unlike the Inuit, they came into contact with the more southern peoples at a very early stage and the mixing was more profound. The third group is made up of about 5,000 Gypsies who have lived in the country for 400 years. The Mustalaiset, as they are called here, former Romani nomads, are now settled.
Russian is also a language that is still widely taught at school without speaking English, which is fluently spoken throughout the country and greatly facilitates exchanges with foreigners. Immigration to Finland is almost non-existent.
Native Finnish speakers: 91%.
Native Swedish speakers: 5%.
Native Russian speakers: 1.3%.
Native Saami speakers: 0.04%.
Mass emigration
In the middle of the 19th century, emigration to the United States and Canada took off in Finland on a large scale, as it did in Sweden. The independence gained in 1917, however, slowed the phenomenon considerably. Finnish emigration to Sweden between the 1950s and 1960s was due to the then wide gap in living standards between the two countries. Thanks to the spectacular take-off of its economy, Finland has now caught up. The inferiority complex long in vogue in the Scandinavian world is no longer in evidence. Emigration has stopped.
The Finnsssvenskar, the Swedish-Finns
Contrary to what their official name suggests, the Swedish-Finns are not immigrants. These Swedish-speaking Finns - because they are indeed Finns - only have Swedish as their language. They do, however, retain a number of Scandinavian traditions. Their settlement dates back to the 12th and 13th centuries. It was at that time that Finland became part of Stockholm. Swedish peasants migrated to clear and cultivate the virgin land on the Finnish coasts. The nobility, the clergy and the merchants followed. Settled across the Baltic and at the head of key posts, they imposed Swedish as the language of the elite. In fact, Swedish speakers will dominate the whole country until Sweden's defeat against Russia in 1809. Nevertheless, in addition to these descendants of the "Swedes of the Kingdom", native Finns also adopted the Swedish language to rise in the social hierarchy. Swedish-speaking Finns have never been an oppressed minority. It is Finnish, on the contrary, that will be subject to real discrimination. The vernacular was considered at the time to be a vulgar language, unsuited to modernity. When Finland became part of the Russian Empire in 1809, Swedish was still the only official language of the country (education, administration and justice). The majority of Finns, however, stubbornly kept their language, despite pressure from the Swedish-speaking elite. The 1860s marked a historical turning point. In 1863, the Finnish language was recognised as an official language like Swedish.
The War of Languages
Under the leadership of the philosopher Johan Vilhelm Snellman, Fennomaniacs succeeded in convincing Tsar Alexander II to make the status of the Finnish language official. From 1863 onwards, the Finnish language was introduced into the administration. However, the 1919 constitution maintained official bilingualism. Gradually, linguistic duality took on a political dimension. Swedish-speaking Finns, who were the holders of wealth and power, were frequently the target of accusations. Extremist groups, such as the Lapua movement, obtained from the Ministry of Education a ban on the word "Finnish" in schools in favour of "Finnish". In the 1940s and 1950s, the Swedish-Finns, feeling the wind changing, cultivated their specificity and defended their prerogatives foot to foot. In 1962, they obtained a law defining the bilingual status of the cities of Helsinki (Helsingfors in Swedish), Turku (Åbo) and Vaasa (Vasa). Swedish-speaking Finns also obtained the right to use their own language in contacts with the administration, to send their children to school in Swedish and to do their military service in a Swedish-speaking battalion. Because Swedish-Finnish people have defined themselves according to linguistic rather than cultural criteria, the majority of the country has remained indifferent to their demographic decline. They now account for only 6% of the Finnish population, compared with 12% at the beginning of the 20th century. The prospect of the Swedish language disappearing is therefore not inconceivable in the long term. Mixed marriages are speeding up the process. Young Finnish-speaking Finns are reluctant to learn Swedish, preferring English by far. However, when young people take a state examination, they are required to provide a certificate of bilingualism. The last Swedish-speaking households are concentrated along the south coast, in the Turku archipelago, the Åland Islands and Ostrobothnia. Unofficially, some restaurants, cafés and even neighbourhoods are rather Swedish-speaking
The Finno-Ugric language
The Finno-Ugric languages originate from the same ancient language, which has become different over time, with the dispersion of the speakers. If many of the Finns' distant ancestors left Russia, driven out by the Slavs, some of them would remain and be integrated into the Russian Empire and the USSR. These small peoples, drowned out by the overwhelming Russian majority, will manage to keep their language.
The Saami language (formerly Lappish) is also a Finno-Ugric language spoken by about 2,000 speakers in the Lapland region. The Saami do not speak the same language depending on whether they live in western or eastern Lapland.
In the south of the country, a large number of Finns are bilingual (Finnish-Swedish). English is also spoken by a large majority of the population, especially young people. Foreign television series and films, which are always broadcast in the original version with subtitles, promote language learning. You will have no problem making yourself understood in English. On the other hand, French is still not widely spoken, although the trend seems to be improving since Finland joined the European Union. North of the Gulf of Bothnia, Finns often know German better than English. Pocket-sized Finnish-French dictionaries are available in major Finnish bookshops and in France
The Saami people
The Saami reject the term "Lappish", which literally means "dressed in rags". They rightly prefer the term "Saami" from their own language. This is a legitimate renewal of identity. Uncertainty still hangs over their origins. Some evoke nomadic tribes from Central Asia. Following the retreat of the glacial fringe, they dispersed as far as northern Finland and eastern Karelia during the last millennium BCC. Ethnicity is divided into four groups: the Mountain Saami, the Forest Saami, the Lake and River Saami and the Coastal Saami.
In Finland, only a minority of the Saami are engaged in traditional activities such as logging and reindeer herding, where snowmobiles have largely replaced sledges. Geographically, they are now spread throughout Lapland, a territory of 260,000 km2 (less than half the size of France) straddling four countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. Out of 60,000 Saami, 35,000 live in Norway, 20,000 in Sweden, 6,000 in Finland and 3,000 on the Kola peninsula in Russia. In Finnish Lapland, they live mainly in Inari, Utsjoki, Enontekiö and Sodankylä. Their pastoral culture and language, which is distinct from Finnish, although related to the Finno-Ugric group, makes them a separate minority within the country.
The Sámi in all four countries are united and politically organised with their own parliaments and are part of the Sámi Council established in 1956 in Norway. They also have their own flag, anthem(Sámi soga lávlla, literally "the song of the Sami people") and national day (6 February). Since 1995, the Finnish Constitution recognises them as an indigenous people until the creation of a parliament called Sámediggi in 1973. The Sámediggi Parliament is located in the beautiful Sajos Cultural Centre in Inari, which will be inaugurated in 2012. Its 21 members and 4 deputies oversee the fair distribution of subsidies for education, reindeer husbandry, language, Sami culture or simply the representation of their people internationally. Other parliaments also exist in Norwegian and Swedish Lapland, perhaps soon in Russia. Demographically, however, the Saami population has been in sharp decline since 1945. The Chernobyl accident has also had disastrous repercussions on the economy, making lichen unfit for consumption and, as a result, reindeer meat as well. The survival of the community now depends to a large extent on tourism. The great finesse of the craftsmanship demonstrates the skill and originality of a people whose citizens have long suffered from the unacknowledged racism of the Finnish and Scandinavian authorities. Leather work, birch bark braiding and tin embroidery are among the most sought-after items. Saami culture is based on oral tradition. The joik, a kind of very moving melody, is still sung by the younger generations and can sometimes be heard during major festivals such as the national holiday (6 December).
