Vaasa (Vasa på svenska) is a strange city in Finland. There is a deep separation between Finnish and Swedish speaking people. They are practically in war against each other. That's something I don't understand.
Today I read about one incident in Vaasa. The Swedish speaking kindergarten was denying all Finnish inside its area. They even compared speaking Finnish to swearing. (Swe-aring, LOL!) That's pretty insulting.
Based on experience I had on Finnish speaking kindergarten (or pre-school if you will) in Stockholm, this is outrageous. There children were allowed to speak Swedish if they wanted to. And they did. I saw no harm in there - on the contrary: it gave a nice little language bath to our daughter.
How can Finland-Swedish be that narrow-minded? At least in Vaasa. I know that they are fighting for their existence to an extent, but still. Provoking people against each other doesn't sound that good an option to me. I'm disappointed in those people in question. Maybe I have broadened my understanding against Swedish while living in Sweden, but I think all the Finns should do the same. Not necessarily to live in our neighbor country but to be more permissive at least.
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I think it makes sense. They are trying to protect their identity. Besides, imagine if I spoke English in a Finnish language class even if I was perfectly capable of speaking Finnish?
ReplyDeleteYou've got a point there. But still dissing other languages isn't the way anyone should handle it anywhere.
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