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Torvalds is a Swedish-speaking Finn.
by rendall 1y ago
Torvalds is a Swedish-speaking Finn.
- obeattie 1y agoHe speaks Finnish too (though I believe with an accent). https://youtu.be/Pt-X82HZlOU https://youtu.be/Pt-X82HZlOU
- yencabulator 1y agoIt's debatable whether that's an accent or a slightly funny way of speaking. He's extremely soft spoken in that interview, like using conditionals to soften his statements. Maybe he was just nervous. He's also speaking quite formally, like a newsreader would, using fairly few contractions.
- coffeebeqn 1y agoThey’re all bi(tri)lingual. You can’t really get by with just Swedish
- seirus 1y agoYou can get by with just Swedish if you live in a city or town where a large percentage of the population are native Swedish speakers. In Ekenäs, for example, around 80% of the population have Swedish as their native language. Along the coast of southern and western Finland there are many bilingual Swedish/Finnish municipalities where most of the native Swedish speaking population lives. And on the island of Åland the overwhelming majority of the population are native Swedish speakers. On the other hand in Central and Eastern Finland you aren’t going to get by with just Swedish.
- laurent_du 1y agoThat's entirely false. A lot of Fenno-Swedes do not speak Finnish well. And virtually no Finn speak Swedish. They all loathe it because they are forced to learn it at school. Adult Finns can at most say a few canned sentences in Swedish.
- tuukkah 1y agoNobody claims they all speak Finnish well, but the Swedish spoken in Finland is influenced by Finnish and typically includes some loans from Finnish.
- laurent_du 1y agoThe person I was answering to literally claims people are bilingual (Swedish + Finnish).
- tuukkah 1y agoBeing bilingual is a fuzzy concept: to many, it includes people who speak a language less well, but perhaps enough to get by. For example, in a bilingual environment, it can be enough to understand two languages and to speak one.
- laurent_du 1y agoI have never heard someone say "I am bilingual" when what they meant is "I studied another language in school and can somehow understand a few sentences". To me, and I believe, to most people, being bilingual means speaking two languages fluently.
- tuukkah 1y agoPersonally, I'd only call native-level speakers bilingual, but this has caused misunderstandings.
- helsinkiandrew 1y agoUsing Finnish swear words is quite common in Swedish speaking Finns. Finnish expletives particularly sound stronger (probably due to the harder consonants): Perkele!, Saatana, Vittu!
- tuukkah 1y agoFinnish has better swearwords.