Histåvrrå・Historjá・Histooria・Historia

This is an attempt at summarizing the historical events that have shaped the ways, practices, and destinies of the languages’ in Malmfälten, the Torne Valley, and Sápmi. This is but a cursory summary of a motley, winding, and wounded tale about our part of the country. When you read this, our hope is that you will become interested in learning more.

Gällivare Municipality has an incredible language wealth. In the municipality there are four language borders: the Finnish western border; the Sami eastern border; the border between the two Sami languages Lule Sami and Northern Sami, of which Kaitum Sami is part of both; and the border between the two varieties of Meänkieli: Gällivare Finnish and Torne Valley Finnish, with elements from the Överkalix dialect in the east. 

Because of this, Gällivare has been appointed administrative municipality for Sami, Meänkieli, and Finnish. These languages have long been connected to the lands here, and the native speakers have coexisted in the area for a long time, long before the national borders were defined. Cultural encounters and influences have given rise to a mutual context that has been both physical, psychological, and spiritual. At regular intervals the languages have affected one another and been dependant on each other. Sometimes they have been completely interlaced, and the relationships have been both challenging and harmonic at different times.

Which area the different peoples and native speakers have lived in can be deduced from place names that still exist in Gällivare. Many names of places have been Swedified and altered but they can oftentimes be connected to the people who have lived in the area. For example, in the north-eastern areas the settlers spoke Finnish, while those who lived in the western areas of the municipality where exclusively Sami. The western areas were the last in Gällivare municipality to be affected by Swedish and Finnish immigration.

From the end of the 1600s and fifty years onwards the so called Lappmark Proclamation of 1673 granted tax exemption for fifteen years, as well as release from military service for those who established new settlements in Lappmarken. This led to immigration of people from Finland and the Torne Valley who came to settle in Gällivare and Kiruna municipalities.

Cultural influence often means that the language is affected, and the Finnish language has taken many loanwords from Sami everyday life. This is in part due to interaction between the peoples. The Finnish speaking population who migrated were also dependent on the Sami to survive in the harsh environment.

Some of the forest Sami who had previously lived a nomadic existence chose or was forced to become settlers. Several of them married people from the Finnish speaking population, and in many instances the Finnish language became dominating.

The living patterns of people have affected the languages’ situation today, beside the colonial strategies that forced the Finnish and Sami speaking population to new or more limited ways of life. The colonial strategies have been practiced for a long time and included many different systematic methods. Some of them were aimed at Tornedalians, Lantalaiset, and Sami, while some were exclusively directed at the Sami.

An important reason for these calculated strategies were the loss of Finland in 1809. Eastern Norrbotten was now a part of Sweden, but the population had a strong cultural and linguistic bond to the Finnish side. To build a stronger nation the state sought to exploit the natural resources of the northernmost part of the country: the ore, the forests, and the rivers. The majority of the citizens were Finnish or Sami speaking, which was considered negative for the loyalty to the nation. There wasn’t any room for these linguistic and cultural environments in the creation of the Swedish nation. The Swedification process was a reality.

Policies for segregation of culture and livelihood was aimed at the Sami. Reindeer herding Sami were forced to keep their children in goathi schools. They were forbidden from pursuing other livelihoods outside of reindeer herding and were discriminated against when it came to housing opportunities. Through reindeer herding laws the notion of “authentic Sami” were equated with reindeer owning Sami, which caused a divisive effect that is palpable to this day. 

Sweden long pursued a nationalistic language policy. It was not officially referred to as an assimilation policy, even though that was exactly what it was. It was called a language policy with the purpose of making Sami, Lantalaiset, and Tornedalians bilingual. It would also create a shared culture founded on Swedish language and Swedish culture. Above all, schools were the place where this would be implemented: through folk schools, folk high schools, the military, and workhouses. Using another language than Swedish was cause for punishment. 

At the time of the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden in 1905 the strive to make the nation state homogenous became even stronger. The majority language and the majority culture would become the norm for everyone. The own cultures and languages of the minorities were pushed back even further. 

After the second world war the policies changed. The educational system was going through modernisation and the value of the native languages was highlighted. This was also part of the UN’s effort to restructure educational methods in order to improve them, and it was recommended that children were taught in their own native languages. In time, home language tuition became part of the curriculum.

During the latter part of the 1900s, Norrbotten has been characterised by industrialisation, closure of farming, and migration. Many people left their linguistic and cultural spheres and as a consequence lost big parts of their language and cultural heritage. Negative attitudes towards the language also affected the will and ability to teach the language to the next generation, it was simply not deemed necessary. When it comes to Gällivare Finnish or Torne Valley Finnish many of the native speakers themselves didn’t consider it to be “authentic Finnish”. Moreover, there existed a notion that bilingualism made children confused, making parents so worried that they chose not to pass on the language. The attitude that the languages were not worth preserving has influenced many parents not to speak the language to their children and to only use Swedish instead. Meänkieli, Sami and Finnish became languages that were only spoken among adults. 

Yet there are some people who have worked hard to achieve a revitalisation of the language and who have succeeded in getting individuals to value their language and increased their self-esteem. The lack of self-esteem and a negative attitude towards the own language is something that has existed in all of these languages, and it has been affected by the powerful assimilation process. To the Sami, the possibility to use their languages in everyday life has been reduced as it is greatly dependent on the context in which you live. Oral communication often occurs on the conditions of the majority population.

Sami, Finnish and Meänkieli today hold a position as Sweden’s national minority languages, together with Romani chib and Yiddish. The national minority languages are protected through the minority language act, and administrative municipalities are obliged to offer language teaching to those who have a right to it. But when the law was established in 2000 many language bonds had already been broken. Moreover, it has been easy to ignore the law and Sweden has been criticized multiple times for its handling of it. Some politicians and political parties have suggested that the home-language teaching should be discontinued, and the National Agency for Education has decided to severely reduce teaching about the national minorities.

Sources:

Elenius, L. (2006). Nationalstat och minoritetspolitik: samer och finskspråkiga minoriteter i ett jämförande nordiskt perspektiv. Lund: Studentlitteratur.

Falck, A. & Korhonen, O. (2008). Gällivares samiska och finska ortnamn. ([2. uppl.]). Gällivare: Gellivare sockens hembygdsförening.

Hyltenstam, K. (red.) (1999). Sveriges sju inhemska språk: ett minoritetsspråksperspektiv. Lund: Studentlitteratur.

Persson, C. (2018). "Då var jag som en fånge.": statens övergrepp på tornedalingar och meänkielitalande under 1800- och 1900-talet. Övertorneå: Svenska tornedalingars riksförbund - Tornionlaaksolaiset : Met Nuoret.

Ömalm, T. (2021). Loss, Remembering, Resistance, Revitalisation. Pågående. Piteå: Luleå tekniska universitet.

https://www.minoritet.se/6644 (210226)

Copyright © Julia Palo