Luxembourgish is the Grand Duchy’s national language by law, but only the fourth most spoken. This “puts their state language in a situation similar to that of a minority language”, as the European Parliament’s research service puts it. “There isn’t that same feeling of needing to give up Swedish in favour of Finnish because there’s a literary tradition, a political tradition and a powerful neighbour”.Įlsewhere in the EU, Malta and Luxembourg have a similar vibe to Ireland in having a small pool of people speaking the indigenous language. “If you’re Swedish living in Finland, yes you’re part of a minority, but you’re part of a minority of a strong and powerful country next door – which used to rule Finland anyway”, says retired Trinity linguistics professor Jeffrey L Kallen. Plus there’s the fact that Swedish speakers aren’t culturally isolated – they can always watch TV from Sweden itself, which Irish speakers tired of TG4 can’t. Finland was part of the Swedish empire for centuries, making Swedish the “prestige language” of the elite and many ordinary settlers along the southern coast. In other ways, though, the comparison is unfair. That’s in a country only a little bigger than Ireland – in which most people also speak a third language (guess which). Matti Räsänen, a senior expert at the Institute for the Languages of Finland, estimates that around one million Finns speak good, excellent or fluent Swedish. Put another way, three-quarters of Finns have at least some Swedish, while the remaining quarter reported speaking none at all. Finnish citizens also have the right to speak Swedish in court and in other interactions with the state.Īs a result, around 45% of the Finnish population of 5.5 million say they speak decent Swedish, even though it’s only the mother tongue of 5%. As with Irish in Ireland, it has joint billing in the constitution alongside the country’s dominant language, and is compulsory in school. One point of comparison is the Swedish language in Finland. How does that compare with minority languages elsewhere in Europe? Ireland is one of 79 minority languages used across the EU, according to the most recent European charter for regional or minority languages In only five towns in Ireland was the percentage of daily Irish speakers above 50%: Mín Lárach, Rann na Feirste, Bun na Leaca and Bun Beag-Doirí Beaga in Donegal, and An Cheathrú Rua in Galway.Ī survey commissioned by Conradh na Gaeilge shows just over 28% of people aged 16+ “have confidence in my spoken Irish ability”. That leaves 600,000 who use it less than weekly, 100,000 who use it weekly, and 74,000 who speak Irish daily (less than 2% of the population). AT THE LAST census, almost 1.8 million people reported being able to speak Irish – that’s 40% of the population.īut when asked how often they actually use Irish, 980,000 of those people said never or only in school.
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