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To: Puck who wrote (8463)	12/8/2000 7:12:55 AM
From: Joar	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 34857

< How come there are so many Swedes in Finland?> Hi Puck, partly, I think, because of geographical reasons. That is, the nations have a common border, and it is reasonable to think that Swedes easily migrated to the eastern side of the Baltic See and settled down their very long ago. This may be true for the rather large Swedish speaking population along the Finnish west, and south-west coast and the archipelago. In part, because Sweden historically was a part of Sweden, and later lost to Russia in war. The Swedish speaking people of Finland are not regarded as “Swedes in Finland”. They are a Finnish minority population of Finland, but with the Swedish language as their mother tongue (of course, their “racial/tribal” background, or how do you say, is different). Finland is a nation with two official languages: Finnish and Swedish, and as a Finnish citizen, you own the right to have all official service and communication in either language. There are Swedish schools and universities. Street signs, etc are in both languages. < Likewise, is there a significant population of Finns in Sweden?> There is likewise a “genuine”, but smaller population of Finnish speaking people in northern Sweden at the area which borders to Finland. The proportion is smaller, however, and earlier (~35-60 yrs ago) Swedish policy was to (by force) try to assimilate this minority, and to try to get them to abandon their Finnish mother tongue and to speak Swedish (shame on Sweden for that!). They did not succeed totally, but almost. In addition to that, there is a very large amount of Finns (both Swedish speaking, and Finnish speaking) who have easily moved to Sweden as immigrants during periods of when work was easier to find in Sweden than in Finland. Thus there is a marked group of first, and second generation Finns living in Sweden, who came this way. These are people who have settled down in Sweden, mostly become Swedish citizens, and who often keep contact with their former home country, and their relatives there by frequent visits during holidays, and summer vacations. This was a little off the Nok topic, but so was the question… LarsA /post #8469: <there is a minority in Finland that, for historical reasons, speak Swedish (some of my "real" Finnish friends say that they, to some degree, are a pain in the butt..)> As you can learn from the above, the people living at the south-west coast and archipelago, mostly fishermen and farmers, and the Swedish speaking Finns of the cities, are as very “real” Finnish as the rest of the habitants of the nation. As what comes to being “a pain in the butt”, I think that’s more a question of individual personality, than one of nationality, or of whether you speak this or that language. I can see no reason for glorifying “real Finns” especially, and, indeed, I know of many “real Swedish speaking Swedes” living in Sweden, who at times may be attributed the “pain in the …” description. ;-) Best, Joar