Modernization and Language Loss in the Meänkieli Community

The Finns living in the Torne/ Tornio Valley were cut off from the Finns in Finland in 1809, when Sweden lost the territory of Finland in favor of Russia. Since then, the Tornedalian Finns have become the victims of a definite assimilation policy. Today their language, Meänkieli, is a minority language officially acknowledged in Sweden, but it is an endangered language nowadays, as well.One of the most important factors which led to the endangered status of Meänkieli was the systematic assimilation policy of the 19th and the 20th century Sweden. One of the main aims of its representatives was to lead language minorities to the path of modernization, offering them the acquisition of majority languages instead of their minority mother tongues.In my study, I am looking for an answer to the question of how modernization affected the Tornedalian Meänkieli-speaking community in Northern Sweden during the 19th and the first half of the 20th century, as reflected in some feuilletons written by the well-known Meänkieli writer Bengt Pohjanen. My research is based on the relational interpretation of history, culture, literature, and language identity.

By Enikő Molnár Bodrogi