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Curious if anyone from Finland can comment: How is it that you are not scared of seeing your culture be erased by the ever-increasing use of English? Some comme

by belval 5y ago

Curious if anyone from Finland can comment: How is it that you are not scared of seeing your culture be erased by the ever-increasing use of English? Some comments mention that you can find restaurants where no one speaks Finnish. Is that not a red flag that at some point the country might flip entirely?

CRConrad 5y ago
> Curious if anyone from Finland can comment: How is it that you are not scared of seeing your culture be erased by the ever-increasing use of English? For that, one needs to have a culture to be worried for... Somewhat less flippantly: How do you know they aren't? I'd guess most people don't worry about that, but some probably do. Personally, I don't; I'm fairly certain Finnish will survive... And I have enough to worry about for the country's minority language, Swedish, which I fear won't survive here for many more generations. > Some comments mention that you can find restaurants where no one speaks Finnish. Is that not a red flag that at some point the country might flip entirely? No. I think you misread that; at least the comment I saw on the subject read not like "nobody" but "not everybody" to me. Your waitress might speak only English, so if you don't, you'd have to ask for another one -- most, or at least some, of the rest of them probably do speak Finnish.
soundnote 5y ago
Many are, and it feels bothersome to forget how to speak your native language sometimes. But it's not just the language that erases the culture, it's the actual cultural content and the overwhelming dominance of big players in the market. The entire country has ~5.5 million people, we lose in population to any number of random cities you might pick. As for the latter: Why do you think localist-populist parties are on the rise all across Europe? A lot of people very much worry about drowning in the tide of homogenizing globalism.

by belval 5y ago

CRConrad 5y ago

> Curious if anyone from Finland can comment: How is it that you are not scared of seeing your culture be erased by the ever-increasing use of English? For that, one needs to have a culture to be worried for... Somewhat less flippantly: How do you know they aren't? I'd guess most people don't worry about that, but some probably do. Personally, I don't; I'm fairly certain Finnish will survive... And I have enough to worry about for the country's minority language, Swedish, which I fear won't survive here for many more generations. > Some comments mention that you can find restaurants where no one speaks Finnish. Is that not a red flag that at some point the country might flip entirely? No. I think you misread that; at least the comment I saw on the subject read not like "nobody" but "not everybody" to me. Your waitress might speak only English, so if you don't, you'd have to ask for another one -- most, or at least some, of the rest of them probably do speak Finnish.

soundnote 5y ago

Many are, and it feels bothersome to forget how to speak your native language sometimes. But it's not just the language that erases the culture, it's the actual cultural content and the overwhelming dominance of big players in the market. The entire country has ~5.5 million people, we lose in population to any number of random cities you might pick. As for the latter: Why do you think localist-populist parties are on the rise all across Europe? A lot of people very much worry about drowning in the tide of homogenizing globalism.