Insofar as immigrants to Sweden are registered only by country of origin, not by language nor ethnicity, one does not know exactly how many Finnish-speakers there are in Sweden. To a vast majority of experts between 200,000 and 300,000 Finnish-speakers appear to be a reasonable estimate. Sweden Finns are mainly an urban population: the proportion living in cities is above 90% (one third of all are estimated to live in the Greater Stockholm area). The bulk of these people went to Sweden for economic reasons during the 19th and 20th centuries. According to experts about 50% of the young people have Finnish as their first language. It seems that there is some decrease both in the number of speakers and members of the community caused by a large group of people that returned to Finland at the beginning of the 90s.

The socio-economic characteristics of Sweden Finns have generally been those of a working-class, both from statistical points of view and as a stereotype picture of Finns. These characteristics have changed during the last decade, especially regarding the second generation. A shift from production to service occupations has also taken place among first generation immigrants, especially among women, so that these socio-economic traits are no longer as uniformly "working-class" as during the first decades of immigration.

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Finnish-speaking people have resided within the borders of Sweden for about 700 years, and at the same time, since Swedes had received papal blessings to finally impose a "proper Christianity" on the Finns in the 12th century, Finland was a part of the Swedish Kingdom for about 600 years, until 1809 when it was ceded to Russia. Since the 13th century there has been a small but steady migration between the central and eastern coastal regions of Sweden and the western parts of Finland. After the World War II, about 450,000-500,000 Finns have migrated to Sweden (about one third of which have returned to Finland) which represents about one-third of all immigrants taking in account both the first and second generation.

The number of Sweden Finns is believed to be decreasing continuously. A main reason is the migration pattern between Sweden and Finland during the last decade, which has been one of net re-emigration to Finland, largely due to years of economic prosperity in Finland, coupled with an economic recession in Sweden, especially in the early 80s.

Concerning the Finnish language, insofar as the crown and the capital were situated in Stockholm, Finland largely upheld the position of a peripheral backyard and Finnish was ordinarily not treated on a par with Swedish. Furthermore, Finnish also lacked a fully-fledged written standard until the mid 1800s. The best way for able young people of Finnish descent to succeed, both in Sweden and Finland, was to accept the dominance of the Swedish language and to acquire a good command of it for instrumental reasons. Most Finns have seen the learning of Swedish as a main task, irrespective of the consequences for their mother tongue, insofar as it has been seen as an instrument for social success and mobility. A diglossic pattern evolved and a general closing of the social gap between mainly upper-class, Swedish-speaking, and mainly lower-class, Finnish-speaking movements also took place.

As a result of the historical imbalance in power, status and prestige to the disadvantage of Finnish, the image of Finnish vis-à-vis that of Swedish has been one of a non-prestigious, low variety, the language of the backward masses.

There is a lack of continuity regarding the language group in Sweden as a social group for both historical and social reasons: constant immigration flood between Finland and Sweden (and vice-versa) and the perception of the "double burden" of being Finnish (lower social status than Swedes, both in Finland and Sweden). The Finnish-speaking community display low self-esteem. In fact, Finns have always tended to be assimilated. Thus, there are very few Finns in the fourth or fifth generation who speak Finnish. There are few third generation Sweden Finns who can speak Finnish.

During the 19th century, the Finnish language was constructed as a national language and as a national symbol in Finland. Therefore, the linguistic agenda acquired a strong "ethnic" meaning.

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During the 19th century, the Swedish language policy was directed against the Finnish language to avoid the Russian influence in the area, insofar as Finland formed a part of the Russian Empire. There was a general linguistic policy within the general political framework (latent ideology of penetration of the Swedish language in all domains). It generated a negative attitude towards Finns. Finnish was not allowed to have a visible role in society: there were no street signs in Finnish, no place-names, etc. Although the use of Finnish was neither officially encouraged nor prohibited in informal exchanges, in practice there was a discrimination in schools (Finnish-speakers marked with a "F" in roll-call list, punishments for using Finnish in the classroom and playground) until 1957 when the Swedish National Board of Education withdrew the unofficial local regulation forbidding the use of Finnish.

The basic principles of the Swedish Constitution state as follows: "Opportunities should be promoted for ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities to preserve and develop a cultural and social life of their own". This has meant that Finnish has been promoted, i.e. it is taught at school; its existence, then, has been recognised. However, Finnish has not been given a full official status in Sweden, except that of an immigrant language: Finnish speakers cannot deal with the Administration using their own language.

Nevertheless, a government committee working in two sections has published (7-1-1998) its proposals concerning Sweden's possibilities to ratify both the European Council's Convention on Regional or Minority languages and the European Council's Frame Convention for the protection of minorities. The social demand in favour of that recognition seems to exist amongst the minority language groups. Finnish (including Tornedalen Finnish) is proposed to gain official status as a minority language and both Sweden Finns and Tornedalians are proposed to become official minority group (in addition to Sami, Romani and Jews). This is causing some conflicts in the Torne Valley because Tornedalen Finnish has not been given the status of a language different from standard Finnish. The Swedish government has stated that all changes in the current situation will have to be inexpensive: it is out of question to increase the general budget. This also provokes polemics, since these restrictions leave many of the demands from minority organisations without legal backing. However, the report might not be accepted by the Parliament, although this is unlikely.

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In the compulsory school, almost 11% of pupils claim that a language other than Swedish is regularly used in the home and schooling is provided for these pupils in the following four types of classes:

a) Preparatory classes where pupils receive short-term intensive instruction in their own language and in Swedish as second language.

b) Mother tongue class where all pupils have the same non-Swedish first language. Instruction in the first grade is almost entirely in the children's first language and in successive years the proportion of that instruction decreases as the proportion of instruction in Swedish increases. About 9% of the immigrant pupils attend these classes.

c) Integrated classes (up to grade 3) where pupils with a particular first language constitute about the half of the class and receive some instruction in that language. Only about 2% of the immigrant pupils attend these classes.;

d) Regular Swedish class, plus about two lessons per week in the minority language (the so-called "home language instruction"), often given by a mobile teacher. About 57% of pupils in the compulsory school who report a home language other than Swedish attend regular these classes.

In conclusion, about 50-60% of the pupils with other mother tongue than Swedish in compulsory school participate in some form of instruction in their first language, the vast majority in the last above-mentionned category.

In the fifties and sixties there was no instruction in Finnish in primary school in the whole Sweden. There were hardly any demands for Finnish (there were very few pupils with Finnish as their mother tongue). Home language instruction in Finnish started in Torne Valley in 1970; in 1975, it started in the rest of the country: 2-3 hours a week were introduced in public schools. During these first years, Swedish local councils gave support to the use of Finnish.

There are three types of Finnish courses:

a) Finnish as mother tongue: up to 2 hours per week.

b) Bilingual classes: from 1st to 6th grade in primary school, 50% of courses are taught in Finnish. Later on the number of subjects taught through Swedish increases gradually.

c) Pull-out, or remedial, classes: these are regarded strictly as an emergency solution and are not well accepted by parents.

The main goal is to obtain fully bilingual pupils in order to improve their learning process for other subjects of the curriculum. However, there exist many obstacles. From the 1992-93 school year, the mother tongue hours were placed in the free hours of pupils (early in the morning, lunch time, etc.). Furthermore, some Swedish teachers put the Finnish pupils under pressure in order not to attend the Finnish lessons, arguing that it is better and more useful to study other subjects. They apparently require retraining in order to understand exactly what bilingual education, multilingualism and integration mean.

Cuts in the budget, due to the economic recession, began in the late 1980s and specially after the early 1990s. Nowadays, local councils are constraining the budget allotted to Finnish courses (excluding those with less than 5 pupils attending the classroom) on account of the economic climate.

The loss of Finnish courses in public schools has been slightly compensated by Finnish free schools, where between 800 and 1,000 pupils are taught in Finnish. However, Finnish teaching at schools slides rather quickly downwards. In public schools, about 2,000 and 2,5000 Swedish Finns (47% of the Sweden Finns students) are taught Finnish. This number is rapidly declining.

The use of Finnish in education is restricted to the primary school (even though there is a secondary school where Finnish is taught as a subject). There are some secondary schools in South of Sweden which teach Finnish as a foreign language, in order to develop the skills of people for the Baltic market (principally Estonia), as regards the economy and social services.

Most of teaching and learning materials are imported from Finland, which tends to confuse the pupils, as the cultural and social context is different. However, an increasing amount of locally produced teaching materials is used in the Finnish language education. There are no references to the history of Swedish Finns in the curriculum. One of the proposals of the above-mentioned parliamentary Committees is to give in-service training to teachers so that they can explain the linguistic and cultural diversity of Sweden to their pupils. There are teacher-training courses in Stockholm, Lund, Göteborg, Uppsala and Lulea universities. Teachers are only trained to teach Finnish as a subject. The main problems faced by the teachers of Finnish is that they have a lower socio-professional status than their colleagues: as they do not usually have enough pupils in a single school, they have to teach in several schools in different localities in order to reach the minimum number of pupils. This means that they never fully integrate into the staff of a single school. Furthermore, such teachers are contracted by semesters, so that they are not paid during the holidays. In consequence, there has been a sizeable decrease of Finnish teachers during the 90s (10% fewer in 1996 than in 1990).

Regarding the education control, there were some inspectors for the education of immigrants in the 80s at the local level. At the national level, the National Board of Education (which was abolished in the late 80s) started the Pedagogical Development Program for Finnish Teaching (PUFFI). It can be argued that in practice there is no education inspection for Finnish, even in the case of the eighteen councils (in the areas where the bulk of Finnish-speakers live) which asked for Finnish courses. However, the Minority Language Committee proposes that the governmental School Directorate should be given the task to monitor and inspect the education given in Finnish in compulsory schools and teacher training facilities.

Adult education: As for adult education, there are five or six special residential folk colleges (called Folkhögskola) in Haparanda, Aksevala, Fristad, Göteborg and Ylitornio. In these colleges Finnish is available to be taught to adults, although it is not often required. Other Finnish evening courses are organised by the Workers Teaching Association (ABF, a nation-wide association) for beginners, while courses offered by the National Association of Finns in Sweden (NAFS) are aimed to develop the Finnish-language institutions and organisations in Sweden.

Higher education: At the university level, Finnish is taught both as a "home language" and as a second language at the universities of Stockholm and Uppsala. The first courses started in the 70s in Uppsala for the so-called "home language teachers" (also with students from Stockholm, Lund, Umea and Lulea universities). The courses still run in Stockholm and Uppsala.

There are three types of instruction:

a) Finnish courses for beginners: designed for journalists, translators, interpreters, etc.

b) Finnish as mother tongue: designed for those having Finnish as their mother tongue.

c) Finnish for teachers: only at the Umea Polytechnic College (where Sami courses are also offered).

There are also courses on Tornedalian culture and Swedish-Finnish culture. In addition, 18 students are currently enrolled in Finnish doctorate programs.

About 200 students are enrolled in the various Finnish courses in Stockholm. The number has steadily increased throughout the 90s. Swedish students are slowly becoming involved in these courses. Students often have problems due to the gap between the level of proficiency acquired at school and the level required at the University.

As regards the current topics for university research, the most relevant ones are:

• Teaching Finnish to Swedish-speaking people
• Finnish authors of Sweden
• Bilingualism studies
• Bilingualism in Tornedalen
• Joint research projects between Uppsala and Tampere
• Linguistic attitudes of people

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Insofar as Finnish is considered as an immigrant language, the Finnish-speaking Swedes have therefore the same rights as other immigrant groups to translation help in courts. On the contrary, Tornedalians, being Swedish citizens, cannot request this service.

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There is no use of Finnish by public authorities (except in those cities and municipalities where the local immigration office has Finnish-speaking personnel), although some social services are given in Finnish in the larger cities. There is some basic public information in Finnish, designed for newly arrived immigrants. The government expenditures on information in any immigrant language, however, has been strongly reduced in the last years. Command of Finnish is not a requirement for jobs either in the public services or in the mass-media.

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There are two weeklies entirely published in Finnish and a handful of daily newspapers publish a page or two in Finnish every week. A few periodicals published by different Swedenfinns institutions or organisations also use Finnish as their main language.

There are programmes in Finnish on the state-owned Swedish TV (2-3 hours per week). There are news programmes on Finnish TV, five days a week, and these have a good audience.

The Swedish State radio broadcasts programmes in Finnish daily (both at State and local level) dealing with all kinds of subjects. This radio station created a new Finnish language channel on January 1998 but the digital receivers are still very expensive and very little people can enjoy these broadcasts.

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A pop-rock group sings in Finnish, and has a large following in Sweden. Regarding traditional music two groups deal with 'Kantela' (epic music), dance music and Finnish tango.

Some 20 amateur theatre groups perform in Finnish but they have rather a limited audience. A National Finnish Ensemble performed up to last year (but it had to stop due to budget cuts).

There is no dubbing of films because all foreign language movies are showed in the original version with subtitles in Swedish.

The majority of Finnish books are imported from Finland (due to problems existing in Sweden to publish books in other languages than Swedish).

There are some Finnish culture festivals across the country: a main nation-wide festival once a year and a lot of smaller local events.

The overall conclusion for cultural industries is that success in writing, singing, performing theatre, etc., always leads the authors and performers to Finland, thereby causing them to be perceived by Swedes as Finnish, not Swedish, i.e. as foreigners. There are very few second or third generation Sweden Finns active in the cultural and artistic industry.

Regarding the promotion of the Finnish language and culture, the Swedish-Finnish Language Board receives funding from both the Swedish (75% of funds) and Finnish governments. The Board co-operates with the Finnish Language Board (Finland) regarding the standard written language. The main activities of the Board are as follows:

• terminology
• studies on the differences between standard Finnish and Sweden Finnish
• elaboration of a specific terminology for Sweden Finnish
• linguistic advice (mainly to journalists)

There is also a recently-founded Tornedalian Language Board (although they have not fixed specific goals for its work). The general goal is the standardisation of the local language.

The most relevant association devoted to Finnish in Sweden is the National Association of Finns in Sweden (NAFS). This association (founded 40 years ago) has some 25,000 members (7,000 of whom belong to the youth association). The main activities of the association are:

• promotion of bilingualism
• developing leisure-time activities in Finnish (sports, culture, arts, etc.)
• international seminars, conferences, etc.
• booklets (activities, how to find funding, etc.)

The NAFS have over 150 local clubs in 10 districts across the country, with 15 people working in the central office in Stockholm and 50-100 in local clubs (mainly full-time), plus about 200 volunteers. The youth branch (FYS) enjoy a large degree of autonomy from the adult association (the budget and the executive board are different) and they have 60 local clubs in 10 districts. Most local clubs of FYS are closely associated with NAFS clubs and share offices and employees. Both co-operate with the Swedish Clubs association, other immigrant associations in Sweden (Turks, Iranians, etc.) and minorities (Samis, Gypsies), as well as with foreign organisations.

There is no discrimination in comparison with the other cultural associations in Sweden. The NAFS receives funding from the Swedish State authorities (around ECU 125,000 a year, apart from funding received from local authorities). They receive their money from the Board of Immigration, as they have always been perceived as an immigrant organisation. After the early 1990s the leadership of NAFS began to develop their concept of minority: at present the NAFS works on lobbying for minority languages rights (that led to establishing the Minority Languages Committee) through contacts with political parties and MP, and on organising leisure activities at local level (more than 150 clubs for sports, culture, old people care, etc.). They also work with interculturalism, a dynamic concept of the mutual influence between cultures.

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Having the status of an immigrant language, Finnish is not usually required by employers. Obviously there are many companies involved in tourism and in import and export business which demand Finnish speakers workers; but Finnish is not usually a requirement to get a job in a Swedish company. From the early 1990s, Swedish authorities have pointed out the importance of the concept of "perfect Swedish", which is indispensable to find a job everywhere. Thus, people with a bad Swedish accent may have some trouble, but this does not concern the Finns specifically.

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The use of Finnish has had a strong position among the adult first generation speakers. It has been the exclusive language used among peers and in other private domains. The second generation that grew up during the 60s (before the largest waves of immigration arrived) did not have favourable opportunities to receive Finnish instruction. We can therefore expect that they shifted to Swedish to a larger extent than it may be assumed to be the case among later born second generation. However, even the children of those Finns who migrated to Sweden during the 50s and the 60s have mostly shifted from Finnish to Swedish. This process continues among the third generation, for hardly anybody speaks Finnish (due to the bad knowledge of Finnish by their parents and the lack of school opportunities).

This process shows that the predominant language attitude considers that learning Swedish is better and more useful than learning Finnish. In mixed families, in most cases Swedish is the language of the household (there is the same pattern whether the Finnish speaker is the mother or the father). There are no linguistic differences according to the gender of children. The Finnish-speakers perceive themselves, and are perceived, as belonging to the lower middle-class and young Finnish-speakers usually describe themselves as bilingual Swedes.

However, there is a shift in attitudes and many families are increasingly becoming aware that it is possible to learn both Swedish and Finnish perfectly. In the last years Finnish language has started to be revalued both by its speakers and by Swedish society in general, although it is still regarded as a second class language.

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There is a large number of fields where Swedenfinnish institutions and organisations and their Finnish counterparts in Finland co-operate. The main ones are education, cultural production and mass-media, but lately even political issues have gained some ground.

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Finnish is generally associated with low status (both cultural and socio-economic) whereas Swedish is regarded as the prestigious language. This hinders the transmission of the language and thus the decrease of the Finnish language will continue in the following years: an important decline of Finnish speakers is expected, i.e. when the first generation of Finnish immigrants die. Despite this fact, Finnish is supposed to survive in Stockholm and it might survive in the rest of Sweden if the constant flow of Finnish immigration does not stop. In addition to this, an eventual official recognition of the Finnish language in Sweden and the status as an official minority group for the Sweden Finns may slow this recessive process and even strengthen the language.

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