Talk:Finland's language strife

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The page Finland's language strife was created in order to be able to refer to it from other articles. It's chiefly cut out of the History of Finland article.
-- Ruhrjung

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Is Fennization a word? Google returns one hit versus for for finnization. At first glance I would have thought this meant the process of making a swamp (fen). Fennicized returned zero hits on Google. Finnicized yields 42. Rmhermen 19:31 31 May 2003 (UTC)

You're surely right. I was just about to send a thank-you-note to your personal talk-page, btw. :-)) -- Ruhrjung 19:33 31 May 2003 (UTC)

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With all due respect, this page certainly seems like it's written by a bunch of Fenno-Swedes with their typical prejudices and odd views on history and justice... tell me if I'm right? For me as a person who has family coming from the lost Karelia, it is especially hurtful to read suggestions that the Paasikivi refugee settlement was "fennomanic" and "much too generous" even if it is merely stated that it was the Swedish-speakers who felt it was too generous. The other side of the story is willfully ignored. I know that the Fenno-Swedes have a great talent at being completely unreasonable and aloof towards Finnish-speakers, but what complaining can there possibly be in a settlement that said that Fenno-Swedes will not have to settle war refugees who are supposedly their compatriots in areas that were considered to be Swedish-speaking? The contents of this settlement should be disclosed in the article instead of taking the stand saying the Fenno-Swedes felt it was "too generous".

Another important point is to mention that even today, not all Finns are ecstatically in love with our other official language (Swedish or Finnish), even if this is the official Swedish People's Party -given truth...

Yes, I have strong political views on the issue, but my possible future edits will aim for neutrality and I would love to discuss their contents.

-- User:HuckFinn

Be bold, but remember that a bad grip of nuances is a common problem in foreign language writings, also for people with Indo-European mother tongues (as German, for instance) when the foreign language also is Indo-European (as English, for instance). ;-)

The "much too generous" wording might well have been mine, at it might well have evolved from a few edits by others - although I don't have the time or energy to investigate that right now. But it might be of some interest to decide whether you dislike the pure wording, or the history-view. I would have expected sensitiveness from the Swedophones regarding the sentence, but there you see - I'll never be able to predict the reactions of Finns... ;-))

Paasikivi was a fennoman, that's a fact, isn't it? And it was during his time as prime minister and president that the issue was settled, wasn't it? And the settlement is attributed to Paasikivi, isn't it? And he settled the issue on terms much more aggreeable to the Finland-Swedes, than they realistically could have expected? And this "generousity", or what ever is a better term for it, quenced their stubborn opposition, allienation and a great deal of the bitter feelings from the 1920s-1930s, I believe. And Paasikivi's controversial step met at least not more opposition than the same proposal from someone indifferent to the language strife, would have done, did it? Not to mention if he had been a Swedophone, but still the given choice as a russophile prime minister after Mannerheim had become president, hadn't he had met a massive criticism and caused dangerous tensions within Finland, if he had dared to propose similary concessions to the Swedophones?

Would you agree that the tensions in post-WWII Finland between Fennophones and Swedophones are much too weak to be mentioned together with the language strife?

My advice to you, Huck, is to edit! Try to explain the peculiarities foreigners might meet in contact with Finland and Finns.

Edit in such a way, that also people with another view than your own would read the article without feeling an urge to change it. See: NPOV, and remember that this is not a forum for internal Finnish debate - actually, not a forum for debate at all, although debates on the best expressions to use in the article (as you quite correctly states) have their place on this Talk-page.

Have fun!
-- Ruhrjung 06:50, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Contents 1 dubious additions from anon 2 Copyedit 3 Title 4 Requested move 4.1 Survey 4.2 Discussion

[edit] dubious additions from anon

I've removed the following chunks of text that were the result of successive edits from the same anonymous contributor but, according to my limited knowledge, are of dubious quality and or relevance for this article:

• Between the 12th century and the 14th century Finland became gradually incorporated into Sweden - what was at the time also known as Sweden-Finland - not through wars between the Swedes and the Finns, but rather a slow process where the skirmishes and battles were conducted between the Finns in the West and the Finns in the East (of area known in Latin as Fennoscandia).
• Swedish became the dominant language in administration, gradually also education, although still in the 14th century Latin and French were most often the languages of higher education for the Finnish students studying abroad. Some of the earliest notations of Finnish university students are from 1313, when the Finnish students of the University of Paris signed a petition to the Holy See. By 1420, their numbers in the famous Sorbonne in Paris rivaled those of the largest German bishoprics, and were seven times that of the leading Swedish Bishopric of Uppsala. In 1435, Olavus Magni from Turku, Finland, became the rector of the school.
• Fire has destroyed most of the early literature the Finnish church and monasteries must have produced. The first known Finnish author was Jöns Budde, a Franciscan monk who lived in the Brigittene monastery of Naantali, Finland, in the latter part of 15th century, chiefly translating from Latin to Swedish, and becoming the first known author to translate the Bible into the Swedish language. At least parts of the Bible were also translated into Finnish already in the 15th century.
• Martin Luther's first Finnish student, Petrus Särkilahti, was one of the early pioneers of teaching science in Finnish language. In 1538, the first known books in Finnish were published by his student, Mikael Agricola.
• Whereas during the centuries before often Finns had changed their names into Latin or Swedish ones, now many Swedish speaking Finns finnicized their family names, learned the Finnish language, and made a point of using it both in the society and at home, giving their children what they lacked themselves: the Finnish mother tongue.

Something of this maybe ought to be moved to more appropriate articles, but given the easily spotted inaccuracies (as the statement that the state should have been known by its contemporaries as "Sweden-Finland", one should maybe not trust this material too much?

--Ruhrjung 00:10, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)

I would say, as a Finn, that these points are verifiable. However, their formulation might carry a fennoman POV. --138.23.181.10 01:19, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Copyedit

Added copyedit tag 21:50, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Reason: Article needs a proper lead section, getting headers, and general structure. / Fred-Chess 21:50, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Title

The title of this article seems mildly unencyclopedic to me. Why not simply put it at language strife, seeing as that term seems to refer more or less exclusively to the Finnish situation? If disambiguation were needed, more suitable titles would be language strife (Finland) or language strife in Finland. (I note that the latter is a redirect, but the other two phrases I've mentioned have nothing.) Loganberry (Talk) 02:35, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I've created the first two phrases above as redirects to this page. If another (ie non-Finnish) "language strife" exists then the plain language strife article can become a disambiguation page. Loganberry (Talk) 12:20, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree. I support a change to Language strife in Finland. Funnyhat 00:03, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move