Sweden criticized for lack of effort on minority languages
Published: 7 May 09 08:08 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/19300/20090507/
Sweden has been taken to task by the Council of Europe for a lack of progress in raising social awareness about and promoting educational programs in the country’s five national minority languages.
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Since then, Jews, Roma, Sami, Swedish Finns and residents of the Torne Valley (Tornedalers) were granted status as national minorities.
In addition, Finnish, all Sami dialects, Torne Valley Finnish (meänkieli), Romani, and Yiddish are recognized as national minority languages in Sweden.
According to the Council of Europe charter, Sweden is thus obliged to ensure proper instruction in the languages, as well as the ability for those who speak the language to participation in society.
For nearly a decade, the Council, Sweden’s National Schools Administration (Skolverket), and the Obmudsman against ethnic discrimination (DO) have criticized Sweden’s adoption of the convention’s and charter’s requirements.
Now an expert group from the Council of Europe has issued a new report pointing out remaining shortcomings in Sweden’s treatment of minority languages.
In the report, Sweden is “strongly” encouraged to find “innovative solutions” to train more instructors to each Romani.
In addition, there ought to be more instruction in Yiddish, especially in Malmö, Gothenburg, and Stockholm, according to the report.
The Council also wants to see more preschool-level instruction in Sami, Torne Valley Finnish, and Finnish, as well as a more highly developed teacher training programme for instructors in Sami and Torne Valley Finnish.
Public sector employees ought to also be encouraged to attain higher proficiency in Sami, and to use it on the job.
Sweden is also criticized for not having the country’s laws and important societal information translated into each of the minority languages.
Also important, according to the Council, is an increased effort on the part of Swedish authorities to ensure that Sami and Torne Valley Finnish newspapers are established.
What do you think? Leave your comment below.
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But, that being said I am lucky as I speak American English as my native tongue.
Inletwatcher
I'd imagine providing services in five official languages would be both quite complicated and very expensive.
We are talking about minority languages = indigenous populations such as the sami/finnish minorities in the north/Lappland
And that's why it's not done of course, especially since a miniscule amount of the population actually speaks these languages. So I can understand why this is not a priority of the Swedish government. However, at the beginning of this year they did pledge to do more:
http://www.thelocal.se/17244/20090129/
They do speak Swedish and that's the problem. All of those languages (except Finnish) are at risk of dying out because it's usually not a possibility to learn them in schools.
Prove it. There's no evidence of that at all but it's something people assume since the Sami are the minority population. Most likely both populations were there are the same time, but the Northern Germanics were found in the south of the country and the Sami in the north.
Likewise, the US and the UK have no official languages. English is only a de facto language in those countries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minority_languages_of_Sweden
But Swedish is spoken by about ~10 million people. Look at the figures of the national minority languages:
Meänkieli = 50,000
Sami (various dialects) = 40,000
Romani = 9,500
Yiddish = 3000
Yiddish and Romani have roughly 2-3 million speakers worldwide so the language itself isn't threatened (although it is in Sweden). But Meänkieli and especially Sami are at risk of dying out.
Although yes, it seems a bit ridiculous to translate all of Sweden's laws/documents into Yiddish for 3000 people, but that's what you have to do with languages who have an official status.
Inlet
I speak mainly of the areas where the Same actually live though. Certainly there was a time only a few hundred years ago where there was a large land of no nation above Sweden and Norway where the Sami were the only ones.
I would be interested to know more on this, I've heard that Same or related people did once spread over a larger part of Sweden.
Then again, this is Sweden. Its language is Swedish. If you can't hack that, go somewhere with a language that suits you.
It is not the fault of the Swedish Govt. or the Swedish people who are not categorised in the minorities - why should everything be translated into 5 languages where one is already sufficient?
It is not as if those languages labelled as minority are freshly arrived immigrants who do not know Swedish.
It is up to anyone with a second language or mother tongue different to Swedish to educate their children/family in that second language.
For the record, I also teach my son Yiddish, German and French, he learns his Swedish at dagis and we speak English at home.
If I can manage all those, then surely these minority languages can manage ONE EXTRA
@Inletwatcher, howyougetfamous, et al
The minority languages aren't immigrant languages. Several have been in Sweden for as long as or longer than Swedish
@kaze: Sami as far as can be proven is not native to lower Sweden.
First Yiddish speakers came to Sweden in the 1700's. Since Yiddish is a minority language everywhere in the world the Swedish state saw it as endangered (same goes for Romani) and therefore sought to protect it by making it an official minority language. This won't happen to Arabic or any of the other languages which migrants had in the 18th century (French, German, etc)
Because they made them official minority languages. If the state doesn't want to do it they have to remove their official language status.
This is the case for ethnic minority languages, not national minority languages (if they're official). Ethnic minority languages are taught at home and they are given the right to hemspråksundervisning in schools. But that's it. The same would go for national minorities if they were unofficial (which they're not, in this case)
Nonetheless, Swedish should be the language of choice for entering
students. English or another language may be taught alongside Swedish.
I would give students a year of high school or college foreign language credit for
fluency in the language of birth ( if other than Swedish ) . Nonetheless, Swedish would be
required for all in the primary school setting.
Joseph S. Maresca
http://www.skolverket.se/sb/d/2667/a/15018