We learn Swedish because it’s mandatory over here. We have a Swedish speaking minority, about 4% of the population who mainly live in the West and South coast. They’re quite tight communities who can go through life never needing to learn Finnish properly. There’s higher education, a few universities, for Swedish speakers. They even have a Swedish political party. The status of Swedish language comes up every now and then. Swedish speaking Finns want Swedish to maintain its status as an official language. They’re quite localised, though, so some Finnish speakers find it absurd because not every one needs to use Swedish in their daily life.
I don’t know much about other languages in the fenno-ugric language group. Estonian sounds like Finnish but it’s not monotonic like Finnish. We have similar words with different meaning, like
“pulma” Fin: a problem, Est: a wedding
“hallitus” Fin: a government, Est: mildew
“linna” Fin: a castle, Est: a prison
Hungarian has similar grammar but very different vocabulary. Finnish has 15 cases and I think Hungarian has 1-2 more.
Other minority languages like Mari, Vepsä and Komi are quite foreign. In conclusion, I don’t understand any of our related languages Finnish does not help me with me understand any other language in the world. Except maybe some Swedish loan words
Oh really? I don’t care traveling in coutries where I don’t understand anything
And you speak English, you can go almost anywhere.
I got great memories of trying to talk to a japanese in their countryside, or a hungarian on a horse carriage in the middle of nowhere, or many albanians. That was fun !
Oh and this japanese cook, using google translate. Ahah. We were talking about crepes, the translation was about whales. We laughed together so hard. Anyway, language shouldn’t be a barrier, especially nowadays.
Arabic, african words, mixed with french or not are really common too. Sometimes my 19 years old daughter explain some new trendy words to me
But our way of cutting words in half and reverse the two is pretty wild here.
Interesting. Frisian is our second official language, spoken by the Frisians who live in the province of Friesland (duh). It’s the mother language for about 2.5% of the Dutch population. Nobody outside of Friesland speaks it though, neither is it taught in any school outside of the province. The Frisians are rather nationalistic, and there is a (tiny) frisian independence movement.
Just to add something to what @Olivia said. I grew up on the west coast, I have a lot of dear friends who speak Swedish as their first language. But I gotta say, because I spoke Finnish as a first language, and my Swedish wasn’t the best, it was harder to find a job, especially where customer services and such were involved. And it’s still pretty much the same. To find a job up here in the north, I could get by without having to speak Swedish as much as in the west.
But funnily enough, the Swedish speaking Finns don’t identify as Swedish, they feel very much Finnish, at least what I hear from my friends. Like say, whenever ice-hockey is on - you know it - they’ll root for Finnish team, obvs I think it’s a bit different in Åland though.
But I’m grateful to my Swedish speaking friends, I got through high school Swedish classes with some help Some cheating might have been involved but we don’t need to go there
We have a looooong history with Sweden and Swedish. Sweden claimed Finnish territories back in around 1150, and ruled for 500 years until losing a war to Russia in 1808 and Finland became an independent Russian dutchy. Swedish was the language of the noble, education and commerce. Finnish got a standardised written form in mid 1500s because the influence of Martin Luther the Reformer. Finnish became an official language at the turn of 1800 and 1900s during a national movement that lead to our independence in 1917.
Sweden used Finland for human and material resources during their rule. Swedish speaking Finns held higher social and financial status than Finnish speakers who were farmers, artisans and workers. Swedish speakers were highly educated, in positions of power and nobles. Traces of that can still be seen today. Many Swedish speaking families are loaded with money and upper class. I think that’s one reason why Swedish has the official status.
As by the the rules of the forum please stick to the language of the first post in the thread. If you want to have a conversation in Finnish make your own thread.
I’m in the USA and wish I could speak multiple languages. I studied Spanish is school, which is most relevant where I am, but don’t have enough practice to keep it up. It was enough to travel through Spain and I can still read it okay. I’m just hesitant to try speaking it anymore.
So just a funny story about language learning. 20 years ago, I had one American friend staying at mine for a about a week during the summer. Obviously we taught her Finnish words and phrases. And we roll our r’s and she was getting quite good in that as well.
We were having a lovely midsummer celebration then, and were at the south-west archipelago area. Then as we were exiting the area, we were on a ferry with a bunch of people, and then this happened:
Earlier she had learn to ask “do you have…” whatever it was that she needed. Now, later she asked me for more Finnish words with the letter r in it, just to practise her rolls. And I started listing some words and for the life of me I dunno why, I said herpes. And she asked, what’s that? And I said, it’s the same, herpes. Now, the clever girl she is, she put two and two together and said, not so quietly, in Finnish, “do you have herpes”
Lesson learned. If I want people to learn how to roll their r’s, I won’t use the word herpes as an example. But we had a good laugh then, and I still find it amusing.
Much the same as with French in the southern Netherlands (now Belgium). French was the official language and that of the upper class for centuries. It took till recent times to give flemish/dutch the same status as french. And in Wallony, the french speaking part of Belgium, most people still refuse to speak or understand dutch. The '‘taaloorlog’ or language wars are still raging in Belgium.
I love this conversation! I have learned a lot about Mexico and the 68 independent indigenous languages in the country, plus 140 something variations within those languages. I even think @Olivia and @Milele that sometime in the past we have talked about this before. But I could be remembering wrong. Anyway. I was in the state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico for 4 months or so in my 20s and the people I lived with were Zapotecan, speaking Zapoteca. The villages that have maintained these indigenous languages were so remote for the most part that this is how they maintained the languages over these centuries, but that also means that villages that spoke the same language had variations between them that it was sometimes a challenge for people to communicate with each other. How fascinating that was for me! I met a woman who visited our village and she was doing research and working on developing a written form, as all of these languages are spoken only, not written. She was starting with a dictionary and some understanding of grammar and structure and so on. I have a travel journal where I wrote several words down phonetically and at the moment I only remember the greeting and the farewell. Hello: Sácu chín. Goodbye: Sácu shí
What was interesting to me is that the names of things were influenced by the land around them and the ancient stories passed down. There was a “mountain,” a big foothill separating my village and the one next to it and there was a story about a mystical pair of stones found on the top, one black and one white. Their names for those colors supposed came from what they were told by gods that the stones were named and the villages had the same Spanish name but the Zapoteca word for black was attached to the town name for one and the word for white was attached to the town name for the other. All those little villages have Spanish names given by the priests that spread Catholicism and it’s all Saint so and so blah blah plus an indigenous word. You can guess why they did that. The villages already had names.
I follow an Instagram by someone who provides a Nahuatl word of the week and I’m learning so much. That’s the language of the Aztecs and Mexican Spanish has borrowed several adapted words from that language as well, including chocolate. Which then spread around the world since chocolate comes from the Americas.
Adding on to the indigenous languages in Mexico are all the hundreds of others all over Latin America and it is just so fascinating.
Oh and just to add that the woman was doing research and documenting because these languages are slowly being lost to migration, people leaving, choosing Spanish over their mother tongue. I hope languages can be preserved.
It is the same in England after the Norman conquest, the old french language was spoken at court and in the nobility etc. A lot of the language still exists today in different ways. Absolutely fascinating, and yet most English people hate learning languages at school.
Finnish does not help me with me understand any other language in the world. Except maybe some Swedish loan words 
I think it’s a bit different in Åland though.
