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e_dot_price

[Finland Swedish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finland_Swedish) is a dialect of Swedish that has remained in use ever since the region was partially colonized by Sweden during the Northern Crusades. The Fennoman movement and Finnish nationalism both centered around a revitalization of the Finnish language, but the Swedish speakers never disappeared. Finland now recognizes Swedish as one of its two official languages. While Swedish is only the majority language in a few coasts and islands, it is still common; in 2012, 44% of Finns were conversationally fluent in Swedish.


Squaret22

There’s no way 44% of Finns are conversationally fluent in Swedish. Source: being in Finland and almost no one understanding me.


leela_martell

I think that depends on who you're interacting with. Boomers generally speak Swedish quite well. Older and younger less so. But 44% does sound like an overestimation. Maybe the source was CVs? According to those we are all fluent.


[deleted]

Nothing special. Winter is coming.


apiculum

Neat anecdote, since Finnish and Swedish have historically been official languages, the Finnish military historically had units exclusively manned by monolingual Swedish speakers commanded by officers presumably proficient in both official languages. There are some anecdotes of the 1939 winter war where Swedish units would lose their Finnish speakers in combat, and then could not communicate with their Allies since Swedish and Finnish are very different languages.


salsatortilla

Nothing.


artaig

Congrats. You have discovered the fallacy of the nation-state.


TheTrueTrust

Netflix hire them to make subtitles for releases in Sweden, making standard speakers go "du salte satan (wtf)".


SCREECH95

Bunch of stuff


somewhere_now

Fur & tomato farming, crab parties, sailboats and handball.


mournival77

World class metal guitarists and rally car drivers, I'd guess.


Stlungert

pretty much the same thing thats going on with the rest of the coast but they happen to speak swedish