Finland's language strife

Finland's language strife (Finska språkstriden) (Suomen kielitaistelu) was a major conflict in mid-19th century Finland. Both the Swedish and Finnish languages were commonly used in Finland at the time, associated with descendants of Swedish colonisation and leading to class tensions among the speakers of the different languages. It became acute in the mid-19th century. The competition was considered to have officially ended when Finnish gained official language status in 1863 and became equal to the Swedish language. History of Finland Finland under Swedish rule Finland had once been under Swedish rule (Sweden-Finland). Swedish (with some Latin) was the language of administration and education in the Swedish Realm. Swedish was therefore the most-used language of administration and higher education among the Finns. To gain higher education, one had to learn Swedish, and Finnish was considered by the upper classes to be a "language of peasants". Immigration of Swedish peasants to Finland's coastal regions also boosted the status of Swedish by sheer number of speakers. Although Mikael Agricola had started written Finnish with Abckiria in the 1500s, and a Finnish translation of the Civil Code of 1734 was published in 1759 (Ruotzin waldacunnan laki), it had no official status as a legal publication since the official language of administration was Swedish. As a result of the Finnish War, Sweden ceded Finland to Russia in 1809. Finland became the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland within the Russian Empire. Under Russian rule, the laws of the Sweden–Finland era remained largely unchanged, and Swedish continued to be used in administration. The language strife became more acute in the second half of the 19th century. Johan Vilhelm Snellman, a Swede who wished to increase education in Finland, became a chief initiator of conflict in the 1850s due to his concern about the changing language use among the educated classes, many of whom were using Russian or Finnish. He wrote to Zachris Topelius in 1860: "My view is this: Whether Russian or Finnish will win, only God knows.

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Related concepts (8)

Grand Duchy of Finland

The Grand Duchy of Finland, also translated as Grand Principality of Finland, was the predecessor state of modern Finland. It existed between 1809 and 1917 as an autonomous state within the former Russian Empire. Originating in the 16th century as a titular grand duchy held by the King of Sweden, the country became autonomous after its annexation by Russia in the Finnish War of 1808–1809. The Grand Duke of Finland was the Romanov Emperor of Russia, represented by the Governor-General.

Finnish language

Finnish (endonym: suomi ˈsuo̯mi or suomen kieli ˈsuo̯meŋ ˈkie̯li) is a Uralic language of the Finnic branch, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. Finnish is one of the two official languages of Finland (the other being Swedish). In Sweden, both Finnish and Meänkieli (which has significant mutual intelligibility with Finnish) are official minority languages. The Kven language, which like Meänkieli is mutually intelligible with Finnish, is spoken in the Norwegian county Troms og Finnmark by a minority group of Finnish descent.

Fennoman movement

The Fennoman movement or Fennomania was a Finnish nationalist movement in the 19th-century Grand Duchy of Finland, built on the work of the fennophile interests of the 18th and early-19th centuries. After the Crimean War, Fennomans founded the Finnish Party and intensified the language strife, yearning to raise the Finnish language and Finnic culture from peasant status to the position of a national language and a national culture. The opposition, the Svecomans, tried to defend the status of Swedish and the ties to the Germanic world.