Language politics

[OneToughHerring]

As an offshoot from the Swedish military service - thread I thought I'd start a thread about language politics in general. My beef is with so called forced Swedish as it is known that Finns are forced to speak in elementary school, college and university. Also all government offices are forced to be able to give service in Finnish and Swedish. There are also schools, universities etc. that are for the Finnish-Swedish - speaking minority of Finland. And of course Åland, an entire island much nearer to Finland then Sweden that is completely Swedish speaking and their men are also exempt from military service.

Actually the language that is tought to Finns is not Swedish as is spoken in Sweden but Finnish-Swedish, a dialect of Swedish spoken really only in Finland.

I know that for example in Belgium language politics have been a hot button - issue with the Flemish language etc. Would be interesting to hear views and opions about this matter, even from Swedes.

Wiki-article about mandatory Swedish. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandatory_Swedish)

[Snestorm]

Wiki-article about mandatory Swedish. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandatory_Swedish)

Link does not seem to work for me.

Edit: Issue resolved in original thread.

[Skybird]

Mandatory Swedish? Sounds better than Mandatory Russian! :D

[Snestorm]

Mandatory Swedish? Sounds better than Mandatory Russian! :D

You almost knocked me out of the chair from sudden laughter.
Very well said.

[Betonov]

Mandatory Swedish? Sounds better than Mandatory Russian! :D
I second that motion

[August]

Skybird isn't right very often about things foreign but when he is he nails it.

[GoldenRivet]

my experience with language and politics is this... English is the standard language of the aviation industry... thankfully.

If it were Chinese, I'd be locking the office up and hitting the bricks in search of a new career right this very second :haha:

[Betonov]

my experience with language and politics is this... English is the standard language of the aviation industry... thankfully.

If it were Chinese, I'd be locking the office up and hitting the bricks in search of a new career right this very second :haha:

OMFG, a couple of months ago a chineese coal transport ship ran aground near Ankaran (slovenia) because the captain only spoke chineese. english is also standard language in naval transport

http://www.rtvslo.si/crna-kronika/nasedlo-kitajsko-ladjo-resili-iz-mulja/224441
slovenian article

[GoldenRivet]

wow.

yeah i remember a couple of years ago in order to align with the ICAO requirements i had to actually get an "English proficient" endorsement added to my pilot certificate. seemed a little strange for an American Air Carrier to require its pilots to prove english proficiency.;)

[Betonov]

wow.

yeah i remember a couple of years ago in order to align with the ICAO requirements i had to actually get an "English proficient" endorsement added to my pilot certificate. seemed a little strange for an American Air Carrier to require its pilots to prove english proficiency.;)

so you's d0nt talk l33t whin yer in air... ya all'
I's be somewhere in air in b1g pl4n3 l00king on ye l00sers and n33wbs in control t0w3r

[papa_smurf]

Im just glad I live in a country full of dialects, with no such forced language.
Can you imagine the whole UK being forced to speak "Queens English"?

[Penguin]

my experience with language and politics is this... English is the standard language of the aviation industry... thankfully.

If it were Chinese, I'd be locking the office up and hitting the bricks in search of a new career right this very second :haha:

well it seems like some Chinese pilots don't choose a new career path when they find out that you are required to talk English:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AFv48IWhJw
even to the ears of a non-native speaker like me, the ATC guy speaks pretty clear- although he's from NYC ;)

[Penguin]

Back to the topic:
my opinion is pretty much already stated in the wikipedia article:
-Swedish gives you an advantage to learn other germanic languages
-Swedish is pretty useful in your neighbour countries: you can get along pretty well with Swedish: even in Scania some people can understand you :03:
-it's useful in Finland too, when you want to visit the west-coast or Åland

However i think its bullskit (haha, jag vinnar över spellcheck) that it is mandatory even in high school/university. If you are not interested in learning something, you won't. I made the experience in school when I had to lean French (the other choice was Latin:doh:). In 4 years I learned only the basics, because I had no interest in it. Later i regretted it, when I was in France and the people refuse to speak English... When I had voluntary Spanish in school later i have learned more in half-a-year than in 4 years French - ok, I had also a girlfriend from South-America at this time :)

Is it really mandatory to have a Swedish course in university? When I wanted to study in Oulu there was no such thing, only finnish courses, but the courses were in English anyway.