A colleague of mine recently shared an article from The Guardian that talks about young Finnish people preferring to read in English over Finnish.

While trying not to shout “I told you so!” I want to offer some commentary on key sections as a linguist, a cultural equity consultant, and a European resident whose life and work are impacted by the very phenomena this article describes.

To quote some key passages:

“As is the case in neighbouring Sweden, the dominance of English across the internet, social media, film and TV also means it is seen as aspirational for young people to be seen to speak and read in English.”

“I am a bit concerned. I’m mostly concerned for the young readers. It seems a bit cool to read in English[…]On the streets of Helsinki you can find teenagers born in Finland with Finnish-speaking parents who speak English to each other.”

As I’ve said so many times, one of the issues with English hegemony is not just its ubiquity, it’s its aspirational nature. It’s not only the language you “have” to learn for socioeconomic opportunity, it’s not just a tool for ease of communication. It’s a way of life, and you’re encouraged, both subtly and not, to incorporate it as part of your discursive identity.

One of the key heralds of language loss is when younger generations begin to prefer the imposed/prestige language over the indigenous one. People who share a language choosing to speak the prestige language with each other is one manifestation of this. First they do it because of the aura associated with it; then they do it because they haven’t developed the ability to communicate similarly in their native language, having preferred the prestige language for so long. Then they start speaking to their children in the prestige language, encouraging further domain restriction in the indigenous language, and with each passing generation the indigenous language gets so restricted that it’s only used at home, with older generations, for certain culture bound observances, and then eventually not all.

But there’s a catch…

“Another reason for the popularity of English is that some find the sex scenes less embarrassing. ‘When you read in English you can detach yourself a little bit’.”

Yes, you can detach…because it’s not your language.

You are not in co-creative relationship with it. You follow the dictates of the standard setters. You can become a standard setter yourself, but at a price. The price of your indigenous language. The only way to avoid paying that price is to make sure that your indigenous language is developing and being used at a rate and in a manner similar to the prestige language, and examples of that on a large scale are vanishingly rare.

All of these questions have particular resonance in Finland, a place that has long struggled with achieving linguistic autonomy. The gains of 1863 are being eroded by those, both native and non, who don’t feel Finnish to be a necessary part of their communicative endeavors (NB: when I say non-native I’m mostly speaking about immigrants of choice. In Finland, as in many other places, there exists an “underclass” of immigrants who are not only expected to learn the local language, but are derided when they haven’t learned it “sufficiently,” even if, as a group, they are far more likely to be functional in the local language than “preferred” immigrants).

Language industry folks, including those who react with such exasperation when linguistic equity is brought up, do you think it doesn’t affect you?

“[F]ears among publishers over the future of translated literature.’

“[A] Finnish publishing house, said […] they had to think ‘very carefully whether it is worth the risk to translate a book into Finnish’.”

Every time you hold a conference exclusively in English, every time you hold all of your discussions in English, every time your social media is English dominant, you are sending a very clear message: multilingualism in theory, but not in practice.

This practice, this hyper-visibility of English for all economic and most social activity, directly and indirectly contributes to the endangerment of your livelihoods.

The Irish, the Welsh, the Navajo, all these groups know how hard it is to win back linguistic territory once domains start being lost. It’s slow, costly, and there’s no guarantee of success.

The rewards of speaking like the powerful lose their shine after a few generations, but what is there to do when you can’t even describe your loss in its original language?

There’s still time. Finnish is still alive and a vital language of communication. But it won’t stay that way without conscious and committed effort. We can choose a different future, and speak about it in all languages.