From: ryyti@jyu.fi (Jarmo Ryyti)
Subject: Re: The Finns of Sweden
Organization: University of Jyvaskyla, Finland
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 10:02:18 GMT

Tor Lillqvist (tml@tik.vtt.fi) wrote:
: In article <1992Nov3.094939.26363@jyu.fi> ryyti@jyu.fi (Jarmo Ryyti) writes:
: 
:    You just forget many things. For instance The Finns of Tornedal have never
:    been subject of any other State but Sweden, they are no immigrants.
: 
: Yes, but how many are they? (And please just answer this question,
: don't tell us how many they *would* have been if not Swedish officials
: through the ages had oppressed them, that's not relevant to this
: question, even though it might be a sad fact from history.)  Are there
: more Tornedal-Finns than Saami, for instance?  If not, shouldn't Saami
: be made an official language, etc, first?  Are there more Romani (sp?,
: ie "gypsies") in Finland than Tornedal-Finns in Sweden?
: --
The total amount of Finns are estimated being c. 500 000 in Sweden.
You can ask precise numbers from the Swedish Statistical Bureau:-

How many persons are there living in Tornedalen in the area traditionally
Finnish who have Finnish as a mother tongue?

 The area where Finnish was/is spoken when the border was drawn 1809
 was following on the Swedish side: Haaparanta, Ylitornio,Pajala
communes and parts of Kiiruna like Kaaresuvanto and Jukkasj{rvi.
There is also areas J{llivaara were Finnish was/is spoken but it is not
considered as a part of Swedish Tornedalen.
On this area lived (I start from history) year 1810 6959 inhabitants,
 1880 17000 inhabitants.

After that the figures are from Pajala,Haaparanta and Ylitornio
communes only: 1930 33188, 1940 35891, 1950 33455, 1960 31 115, 1970 25000
1980 24 728 and 1990 25243 inhabitants:
 There is not figures from all traditional Finnish speaking
 areas in the north in these figures. So the the total population
 started to decline overthere because of emigration fro the area.

WHAT ABOUT THE ASSIMILATION POLICY OF SWEDEN?

According to the census of 1930 there were 88,4 % Finnish speakers in
T{r{nt|, 83,4% in Junosuvanto, 78,1% in Pajala, 76,6% in Korpilompolo.

This 1930 Census is the last census when the amount of the Finns were
investigated officially in Sweden in generally and on this area specially.!!!
According to this census 1930 in Norrbotten 30 000 persons spoke only
Finnish, 10 000 spoke relatively well, many of these were saamis,
and 4000 spoke only swedish on this area. A minority.
 
There is no exact figures how many Finnish speakers there is on the
area but it is estimated being c. 25 000 today.


LANGUAGE POLITICS OF SWEDEN

The first schools in Tornedalen were from the beginning of the 1900th
century Finnish, it were the mother tongue of the people.

1888 The State of Sweden gave an DIRECTIVE that the communes over there
can get state AID ONLY if the language of education is SWEDISH.
(People of that time BSS-activists, my note!)

So this in practise led to a situation that the Finnish schools ceased to
exist.

The change was rapid: 1919 there was set a comittee, so called comittee
for the Finnish areas, its purpose was to investigate  if there
was needed Finnish speaking education on the area, the committee came up
to the conclusion that on the area is not such need.

Which were the effects of this assimilation policy-to keep Sweden
swedish?

1945 72 % of the school chiildren attending schools on the area were entirely
Finnish, 1957  38 %, 1965 16% and 1976 1 (one) %.

At the same time the School administration classified Finnish not as a
mother - languege  of the people on the area but gave a new definition
HOME-LANGUAGE for finnish language.

Why after all the Finns are survived on the area compared with
the Forest-Finns of Warmland whose genocide was complited 1960's
by the Swedish administration.

Norrbotten is close to Finland and there is all the time been immigration
and emigration to and from the area with Finland. There has been 
a religious movement the leastadians, which have used Finnish in their
meetings for decades. So even the Swedish administration has tried
to root out the area of the Finnish speakers the same way as in Dalaland
the success over there has not been quite completely.

So late as until 1958 there was a directive according which
it was forbidden to speak Finnish for the schoolschildren between
the pauses at schools. First 1958  it was canselled by the Swedish
Schooladministration (Skol|verstyrelsen), but it was applied on the area
until 1968.

So we need not to go the Amazonas to look for rasism towards indigenous
people but we find the similar actions much nearer. And we must remember
that those persons who practised this rasist preacise are still living
with us, they are not perhaps any more in active politics on local level but
one who likes can still find them in Sweden.


Source: (very much cut) Carelia, 10/1992.

Py|li&Wende, Karjala ja Ruotsin Tornionlaakso. 
Who have used as sources among the others: Wende, 1991,Suomen kielen status
Ruotsissa. Hanseg}rd,1990, Den Norrbottniska Spr}kfr}gan.

Regards,
En Finne igen

And greetings for all swedish Finnish haters!