Wednesday 28 November 2007

Swedish Finnish?


Since the digital TV was introduced as all over standard in television broadcasts here in Finland,

50.000 households have cancelled their paid licenses. The main reason for viewers to cancel their license fees has been the subtitling of programs that has not worked out to their satisfaction.

Loosing the license fees means about 10 million euros less for YLE, the Finnish government TV and bropadcast company, in their budget and closing down radio stations and TV channels have been discussed as means to maintain the same quality of programs. The administrative council of YLE has been discussing more collaboration between the Swedish and Finnish YLE news which might mean having to let hand some people their notice. So the Swedish news staff of YLE in protest against the it by a walk out today, so no there were no news in Swedish neither on the radio nor the TV tonight.

I have for long been wondering about if you are Swedish Finnish or are you Finnish Swedish if you are Finnish and your native language is happens to be Swedish. As Sweden Finns should be the Finns living in Sweden and Finland Swedes should be the Swedish citizens living in Finland.

1 comment:

  1. Yes, it's confusing. Also for those of us who are one of them. I generally use Swedish-speaking Finn to describe myself in English. Lots of Swedish-speakers have problems using the word Finn in English because they assume it corresponds to the Swedish word 'finne', which in Swedish only refers to a Finnish-speaking Finn (Swedish-speakings ones being 'finlandssvensk'). In Swedish we have a separate world (finländare) to mean anyone from Finland (i.e. without regard to their language group).

    As in English, 'Finn' just means someone from Finland and has no language-related meaning, I use Swedish-speaking Finn.

    I agree, Finland Swede can sound as if we are from Sweden and have allegiance to the place - which is bad. As you know, no Finnish person wants to be confused to be from Sweden ;)

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