Forums

Hallo!

If we start from the base that language is the pillar of a culture, upon which territories can module their own identity, then we can affirm that languages represent the foundations of culture. So when a language is at risk of extinction, we should think if we ourselves also are at risk. There may be several reasons why a language disappears. Among them, the more worrying is when the intention of this happening on purpose exists. It is indeed a real shame that Ayapaneco disappears but it would be worse if it didn’t remain any clue of it. Time goes by, cultures evolve, things change, and, in a way, we have to accept languages disappearing, but what can’t happen is that documents, traces, vestiges, trails or memory go away, too.

When it comes to Catalan, I become a bit worried because I think there is the aim of making it disappear for political reasons, although I firmly believe that all their efforts will be in vane.

Anna

Hello,
I am from Catalonia where the language death is a very important subject. As you all know we are now a part of Spain, although for very many centuries we were a country on our own. This is the reason why people from Catalonia have our own language, which is called Catalan. It is also a Roman language as Italian, French or Portuguese, and it is not a Spanish dialect, since we have our own grammar standard and dictionary that is completely different from Spanish.
For a few centuries, since Catalonian became a part of Spain, on and off, Catalan has been threatened to disappear, due to imposition of Spanish, and the prohibition to publicly speak it.
As it's been pointed out in this unit, language disapearance is closely linked to cultural disappearance, and this is exactly why the Catalonian Government is making such an effort to keep our language alive. We want to preserve our own cultural identity and completely refuse to lose our origins.
This is my experience with language death.

Thanks for your answers Maarit! It's good to learn a bit more about Finland. P.

Thanks for your message Pieter! You know correctly. Finnish language belongs to Hungarian language family. Finnish and Sami have something in common. However I can not understand Sami either Hungarian language at all. Actually, just now, I am listening to a Sami children programme but I understand only pictures.
I have heard that the grammar of Hungarian languages is very similar.
I have listened to yoking as well and I can believe that it is important for a singer because she/he can deal feelings by singing.
Gypsies have maintained their own, separate culture and traditions also in Finland. They are very seldom in touch with majority people. But I can remember one gypsy woman who wanted to talk with me about her pregnancy.

Now I have to run.
See you soon
Maarit

Thanks for your very informative message Maarit! So I'm still not clear on one thing: are Finnish and Sami related languages? Can you actually understand Sami? I thought I read somewhere that Finnish was related to Hungarian - I must have remembered wrongly! Also fascinating about the Finnish Roma. Are they integrated into Finnish society or do they maintain their own, separate culture? There have been Gypsies in Spain for centuries too, but they have completely lost their language I believe. They are a very mixed group, there are some very marginalised groups who live in extreme poverty, but also lots of middle-class Gypsies who live like other Spanish middle-class people. They do maintain some of their own traditions though, it's very patriarchal, and the women are quite controlled. They are also highly respected for their music. Some Flamenco musicians are super stars in Spain.
OK, I have to run!
See you again soon,
Pieter
P.S. I'm so glad you saw Paula Modersohn's work, I love that painter very much. I've never been to Worpswede myself, it's on my list!

Hi Pieter,
Many thanks for your message and questions. It is nice to notice that you are interested in Finland and Finnish language.
I am very well now. I have got good treatment to my back and knee and they are much better now. I had also a winter break and we stayed 3 days in Bremen, in Germany, and after that 4 days in Pudasjärvi, in North Finland. I made a visit to Paula Moderson-Becker`s museum there in Bremen. It was nice to see her pieces after hearing the listening comprehension in Net languages. The Tale of the Town Musicians of Bremen is very nice as well. Pudasjärvi is in the North part of Finland and there my 9-year-old daughter enjoyed about downhill skiing and I about cross-country skiing, which are impossible in South Finland because it is about +3-7 C degrees now.
Then I will write more about languages in Finland.
We have a Bible which has been published in 1821. It is quite complicated to read this Bible because it includes so many loan words from old Swedish. In addition I have studied my ancestors and then I have found old official documents. It has been quite hard work to read them.
During the Middle Ages Finland was annexed to Sweden and the oldest written Finnish dates back to 1450. Michael Agricola created the first comprehensive Finnish writing system in the 16th century. He wanted to translate the Bible but instead created Finnish language rules. The first novel written in Finnish was published in 1870. In 1892 Finnish was adopted as an official language of Finland.
Sami has been spoken thousands of years in Nordic countries. It is quite closely related to Baltic Finnic languages including Finnish. Sami is not one language but at least three: East Sami, which is spoken in Kola Peninsula, Central Sami, which is spoken in Finland, Norway and Sweden, and South Sami, which is spoken in Sweden and Norway. These languages can turn be divided into dialects. The Central Sami dialect are North Sami and Lulesami.
Most of Sami speak North Sami, maybe 85% of all Sami speakers. Skolt Sami and Inari Sami are also spoken in Finland (be about 500 speakers in each case). The number of North Sami speakers is estimated at 2000 in Finland.
There are about 10 000 gypsies in Finland and about 30% of them speak Finnish Romani. Romani has been spoken in Finland for about 450 years and during this time it has changed greatly.
Karelian is a Finnic language spoken by about 118 000 people mainly in the Russia Republic of Karelia, and also in Finland. The earliest know example of written Karelian dates from the early 13th century. It was written in the Cyrillic alphabet. Today Karelian is written with a version of the Finnish alphabet, which was revised in 2007.
Then something about education of languages in Finland. Our children begin to study the first foreign language, usually English (sometimes Russia, French, German), when they are about 9 years old. 11-year-olds can take the second foreign language (usually German, Russia, and French) but it is voluntary. It is possible to take the second foreign language later as well. Swedish is the second official language in Finland and we start to study it in comprehensive secondary school and then children are about 13 years old.
Teaching in comprehensive schools is mainly conducted in Finnish but for example there in Tampere we have one Swedish school and a couple of English schools. In addition we have French, Russian, and German etc. schools in Finland.
Many Universitiers have dagree programs conducted in English. In addition Åbo Academi is a Swedish University in Finland.
Many immigrants from Baltic countries, Asia, Europe..and immigrant`s children can speak Finnish very fluently. But, of course, someone does not try to learn Finnish language because Finnish is quite difficult language.
How are you? What about the weather in Spain? Do you have a spring already?
Kind regards, Take care
Maarit

Hello again Maarit, good to see you are making progress with level 8! And thanks for your interesting message, I didn't know about the language situation in Finland. I have lots of questions !:)
When you say "Old Finnish" - how old do you mean? Are you talking about medieval Finnish, or are you saying that the language really has changed radically in only 100 years?
Sami: is that the same language that the Laps speak all over the north?
What is Karelian?
And Romani, do you mean the Gypsy language? Are there lots of Finnish Gypsies?
And what about in school: is everything taught in Finnish, or do they use more than one vehicular language? Or are there different schools that use different vehicular language?
And what about the "new" Finns, I mean the children of immigrants who were born in Finland, do they all learn good Finnish?
Voilà! We are very curious about Finland here, because you seem to have the best education system in Europe!
Hope you are well,
Pieter

What about you?

It is a very pity situation that there are only two men speaking Ayapaneco in Ayapa but they refuse to speak to each other because they think they have not anything in common. For this reason the language of Ayapaneco can well die out with the passing of these men.
I think it is important to preserve languages those are in danger of extinction because many indigenous languages have a rich vocabulary. For example there are over 10 words meaning snow in the Sami language which is a minority language in Finland. This language is very important to 2000 people in Lapland.
We have two official languages, Finnish and Swedish, in Finland. In addition we have minority languages: Sami, Romani, Finnish Sign language and the Karelian language. Finnish language has changed very much during latest 100 years. I have sometimes read old texts but it has been quite impossible to understand them. The old Finnish language differ very much from the language spoken today.
Maybe the use of Finnish language is decreasing because we have many companies in which English is a working language. In addition only 5,1 million people speak Finnish and our youngsters speak English very well. However I do not think Finnish would be a dying language because we love our own language – of course.
Kind regards, :-)
Maarit