Language Research

In Finland the only possible problem could be the Swedish minority representing approximately 6% of the whole population. It is interesting to note that this percentage has dropped from a level of 17.5% in 1610. The Finnish Constitution (1919) declares that Finland's domestic languages are Finnish and Swedish. There are two official national languages according to the Language Act of 1922: Finnish and Swedish. The rights of the Swedish-speaking minority are supported through the existence of self-governing municipalities. A municipality can be either monolingual or bilingual. In a bilingual municipality, people are entitled to use either Finnish or Swedish with local authorities; all the documents, public notices and road signs are published in both languages. In a monolingual municipality only one language may be used. Only 4% of the whole Swedish-speaking population lives in a monolingual Finnish municipality and the same applies to the 1% of Finnish-speaking Finns. In the 1980's, there were 461 municipalities: 396 Finnish-speaking; 21 bilingual with a Finnish-speaking majority; 24 Swedish-speaking; 20 bilingual with Swedish as the majority language. A municipality was bilingual if the number of speakers of the minority language exceeded either 3,000 or 8% of its total population. If a municipality had been classified as bilingual, it could not revert to monolingual status until the minority population declined to less than 6%.

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