Planning for Multilingualism and Minority Language Rights in Sweden

FRANCIS M. HULT

PLANNING FOR MULTILINGUALISM AND MINORITYLANGUAGE RIGHTS IN SWEDEN

(Received 8 February 2004; accepted in revised form 5 April 2004)

ABSTRACT. As the presence of English in Europe continues to grow, there is amounting interest in the position of national languages among European institu-tions, societies, and people. Swedish, like many national languages in Europe and

throughout the world, is in an awkward position. It is at the same time a strongnational language with the potential to dominate other languages within nationalborders and a potentially dominated language with respect to English as an inter-

national language. Sweden is currently faced with balancing this delicate position inits language policies. This paper explores recent developments in status planning,particularly with respect to language rights, for Sweden’s five recognized national

minorities and their languages. Swedish minority language issues are situated insociohistorical context and recent language policy initiatives are analyzed. It issuggested that Swedish policy trends are moving towards fostering societal multi-lingualism.

KEY WORDS: English, Finnish, language minorities, linguistic rights, Meankieli,minority rights, Romani, Sami, Sweden, Swedish, Yiddish

INTRODUCTION

Sweden might best be characterized as a multilingual polity with amonolingual image. Though the stereotype of Sweden as homoge-nous is widespread, its historically homogenous monolingual cultureis as mythological as the gnomes and ogres who were said in folkloreto inhabit the nation’s forests. The social topography of Sweden is, infact, quite complex. The linguistic ecology of Sweden is decidedlymultilingual, including five recognized national minority languages,1

several regional varieties of Swedish, a number of immigrant lan-guages, and a host of foreign languages including English. AlthoughSweden has a long history of both linguistic and cultural diversitydating back to antiquity, the Swedish language has been, and indeedstill is, central in shaping what it means to be Swedish.

1 The term ‘‘minority languages’’ will be used throughout this paper to refer tothose languages for which Sweden has ratified the European Charter for Regional or

Minority Languages.

Language Policy 3: 181–201, 2004.� 2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

Today Swedish, like many national languages throughout theworld, is in an awkward position. It is at the same time a strongnational language with the potential to dominate other languageswithin national borders and a potentially dominated language withrespect to English as an international language (Hyltenstam, 1999;Boyd & Huss, 2001). Language contact, then, occurs on two levels:on the one hand, between Swedish and English (and other majorlanguages in Europe) in the international context and on the otherhand between Swedish and a multitude of other languages in thenational context. Both of these levels, of course, are part and parcelof Swedish society which is itself situated in an increasingly trans-national world (Boyd, 1999). A complete understanding of societalmultilingualism in Sweden today, then, requires attention to each ofthese contexts with respect to each of the languages involved inlanguage contact. The position of Swedish vis-a-vis internationalEnglish has been addressed elsewhere (e.g., Ljung, 1986; Mannberg,1986; Teleman & Westman, 1997; Berg, Hult & King, 2001; Hult,2003). The focus of this paper will be on the national arena withrespect to status planning and Sweden’s officially recognized minoritylanguages.

Status planning concerns issues related to how and where a lan-guage is used (Cooper, 1989: 99–121). ‘‘Changing the status of alanguage’’, as Cobarrubias (1983: 41) points out, ‘‘implies the allo-cation or reallocation of the functions of such language in a speechcommunity.’’ Of course, status planning does not occur in a vacuum;it dovetails with corpus planning in that the form and structure of alanguage must keep pace with its functional distribution (Fishman,1979). By extension, then, it also relates to acquisition planning inthat the functional uses of a language, as well as the forms of lan-guage through which those functions take place, are inseparable fromthe users of a language and how they come to acquire the (new) formsand functions of that language (Hornberger, 1994; Ricento &Hornberger, 1996). Following Hornberger’s (1994) articulatedframework, the focus of this paper relating to the uses of languagewill be on formal policy and its relationship to functional cultivationand the extent to which the two, in turn, are mirrored in acquisitionpolicy (i.e., relating to users of a language). Specific attention will bepaid to education because educational domains are central to culturalreproduction and social development, especially with respect to lan-guage (Kaplan & Baldauf, 1997: 122–123). Education here will beconsidered broadly to encompass the potential for language learningand language status development both in and out of schools.

FRANCIS M. HULT182

Swedish: Caught between a Rock and a Hard Place

An examination of language status issues in Sweden must take intoaccount the complex sociolinguistic circumstances in which Swedishis situated.2 This includes considering both how minority languageissues and national language issues are positioned and, in turn, howthey are intertwined. Swedish seems to be caught between a rock anda hard place, that is to say between the need for a stronger positionrelative to English and a more benevolent position relative to na-tional minority languages.

A RockThe prevalent use of English in Sweden has led many linguists tobecome concerned about the position of Swedish in relation toEnglish in terms of both corpus and status (Ljung, 1986; Mannberg,1986; Teleman, 1992; Westman, 1996). Indeed, empirical studies havefound substantial use of English for instruction, reading, and re-search at major universities (Teleman, 1992; Gunnarsson & Ohman,1997) and for corporate communication in the banking, engineering,and transportation industries (Hollqvist, 1984).

It has been suggested that English and Swedish in Sweden arebeginning to settle into an asymmetrical relationship. According toHyltenstam (1999), the prominence of English in domains like highereducation, commerce, and industry threatens Swedish to the pointwhere there is a risk of a two-tiered society developing with Englishused for high status interaction and Swedish for lower status commondaily interaction. Moreover, Hyltenstam holds, the strong position ofEnglish internationally, especially in the European Union, is a po-tential threat to the strength of Swedish as a national language be-cause Swedish may cease to be used for governmental purposes,leaving Swedish for only unofficial domains. In this view, Swedishwould become a minority language.

Similarly, Teleman (1992) and Westman (1996) have expressedconcern for the future of Swedish. Both see a strong potential for adiglossic situation arising between English and Swedish in Sweden:

2 A number of different languages are present in the linguistic ecology of Swedenincluding Swedish; sign languages; English and other foreign languages; regionallanguages or varieties of Swedish; ‘‘neighbor languages’’ like Danish, Norwegian,

Icelandic, etc.; national minority languages; and the immigrant and refugee lan-guages of those who have come to live in Sweden (Huss, in press). See Boyd (2001)for a discussion of immigrant languages in Sweden and Allardt (1981) for an his-

torical perspective on Swedish immigration until about 1980.

MINORITY LANGUAGE RIGHTS IN SWEDEN 183

‘‘The position of Swedish as the standard language in Sweden wouldweaken or disappear if we let English force it out of certain domains’’(Westman, 1996: 187, translation mine). Taken to an extreme, somebelieve this could lead to an elite Euro-identity centered on Englishwhile Swedish would become reduced to a private language (Tele-man, 1992). Yet it is not clear that this kind of majority/minoritylanguage interpretation is the most useful way to characterize thesituation.

Boyd (1999) points out that more English use in certain domainslike education, research, politics, and popular culture does not nec-essarily imply a threat to Swedish. Rather there is room for bothEnglish and Swedish in Sweden:

English is the main vehicle for Swedes to communicate with people outside ofSweden, both in speech, writing, and via all the new means of communications fromradio through TV and the internet. Clearly this must be seen as being of enormous

value to a large segment, indeed all of the population. Its role implies not only‘‘transatlantic connections,’’ but global ones. The position of Swedish, and theloyalty of its speakers, including those of us who speak it as a second language,

guarantees a relatively secure future for the language, at least during the next hun-dred years (Boyd, 1999: 246).

Melander (2001) also contends that it is not as dire a situation asscholars like Teleman and Westman believe, but that there is thepotential for social inequality arising between those with high Englishproficiency, and concomitant access to high status social positions,and those without it. In addition, Swedish will lose prestige if Englishcomes to be associated more and more with high status as well asintellectual pursuits. Melander sees it as important to ensure that theyremain at least on equal footing. In sum, he states, ‘‘it is an importanttask to try to make sure that Swedish can be used in as many domainsas possible, even if one does not believe that the present reduction ofthe use of the language may easily spread to other areas’’ (Melander,2001: 28).

A Hard PlaceThough the encroachment of English and the potentially changingstatus of Swedish may be the most recent concern in Sweden, Swedishlanguage policy has long been preoccupied with the status of Swed-ish, often eclipsing language minority matters. While Swedish is stillnot recognized as an official language, its position de facto as thenational language is the result of hundreds of years of languagepolicy, dating back at least to the 14th century (Dahlstedt, 1976;

FRANCIS M. HULT184

Oakes, 2001). It is only within the last 30–40 years that Swedishpolicy has begun to attend positively to a few of the needs of speakersof languages other than Swedish (Boyd & Huss, 2001; Huss, 2001).

Serious attempts to address the needs of speakers of languages otherthan Swedish began in the 1960s and 1970s when ‘‘an awareness grew incertain circles that the State had a moral responsibility for the well-being of those who had chosen to come to work and stay permanentlyin Sweden’’ (Huss, 2001: 138). Action came in the Home LanguageReform which, implemented in 1977/1978, granted immigrant childrenthe right to study their home language in Swedish schools (Huss, 2001:138). The Home Language Reform, targeting immigrant groups spe-cifically but by extension covering language groups which have had along immigrant history in Sweden (e.g., the Finns who have lived in andaround Sweden for centuries), did not address nor grant rights specif-ically to historical or indigenous minority groups in Sweden.Moreover,though the Home Language Reform, which established a system formother tongue instruction in the schools, appeared supportive ofmultilingualism, the policy did little more than recognize languagesother than Swedish as being an additional optional subject. The statusof Swedish as the language of Sweden remained largely intact.

A turning point came in 1998–1999 with a government bill entitledNational Minorities in Sweden. The bill grew out of pressure onSweden to ratify the European Charter for Regional or MinorityLanguages and the Framework Convention for the Protection of Na-tional Minorities. In order to comply with the Charter and the Con-vention, Sweden passed the National Minorities in Sweden bill (Prop.1998/1999: 143) which granted five groups (the Sami, the Tornedalers,the Swedish Finns, the Roma, and the Jews) official minority status,recognized their languages (Sami, Meankieli, Finnish, Romani, andYiddish) as official minority languages, and granted the groups rightsconsistent with the two Council of Europe documents.

The National Minorities in Sweden bill is exceptional because:

The very existence of a report of this kind was a token of a total reorientation in theofficial view of the languages spoken in Sweden. For the first time, the State waswilling to recognise that some other languages than Swedish had special positions as

historical languages within the Swedish territory. In a European perspective, Swedenhas long been an exception because its efforts have been concentrated on immigrantsand immigrant languages while its historical minorities have largely been ignored

(Huss, 2001: 138).

It is clear that this bill is a major step for Sweden with respect tolanguage minority issues but it far from completely solves language


inequity in Sweden. In fact, the passing of the bill seems to havespurred some backlash. As Boyd and Huss (2001) explain, there are anumber of native Swedish speakers who see the Swedish language asbeing threatened by the rights, scant though they may be, which havebeen granted to minorities, including the recognition of these fivegroups’ languages as official minority languages. ‘‘Others, even if theyare supportive of the new rights accorded minority languages andtheir speakers, find it strange that these languages have been accordedofficial status but not the majority language’’ (Boyd & Huss, 2001: 3).Even though recent policy initiatives, as will be discussed in greaterdetail presently, grant certain rights to minorities, Swedish continuesto have the upper hand in Swedish society.

An Exploration of Policy Trends

The development of Swedish language policy has taken place againstthe backdrop of complex diversity and societal multilingualism.Today, as Boyd and Huss (2001: 3) point out, ‘‘the status of threelanguages, or categories of languages, must be determined: a super-posed world language, a national language and a number of indige-nous and immigrant minority languages.’’ This paper will examinehow Sweden has addressed certain aspects of this tripartite statussituation, focusing specifically on the granting of educational lan-guage rights for Sweden’s five recognized national minorities andtheir languages: the Sami (Sami),3 the Tornedalers (Meankieli), theSwedish Finns (Finnish), the Roma (Romani), and the Jews (Yid-dish). This exploration will first situate Swedish minority languageissues in sociohistorical context and then analyze the development oflanguage policy initiatives broadly related to education.

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON MINORITIES AND LANGUAGE PLANNING

IN SWEDEN

The Swedish territory has long been a diverse setting. The Sami haveinhabited lands in Scandinavia since antiquity; the Finns and theTornedalers have been a strong presence in Sweden since the 1200s,though living in the region much longer; the Roma arrived in Swedenin the 1500s, if not earlier; and Jews have been living in Sweden sinceat least the 1600s (Allardt, 1981; Prop. 1998/1999: 143). However, for

3 There is more than one Sami language. Huss (2001: 144) explains that three

main varieties are spoken in Sweden: North Sami, Lule Sami, and South Sami.

FRANCIS M. HULT186

nearly as long as these peoples have lived in the Swedish area theyhave been subordinated. Even modest rights and privileges forminority groups in Sweden were slow to come. At best Swedishminorities have been tolerated but often they have been silenced andmarginalized.

National Minorities in Sweden

The Sami, for example, have been seen by the majority as ananachronistic curiosity in need of being civilized such that the mosteffective way to maintain the future of the group’s population wouldbe to assimilate them into Swedish society, a view which led to manyoppressive policies much like those faced by other indigenous peoplesaround the world (Huss, 1999: 71–80). Seventeenth century attemptsby the Swedish government to control Sami territories and to spreadChristianity led to assimilationist measures, including the establish-ment of schools designed to educate Sami-speaking priests. Theestablishment of the schools did result in Sami language and litera-ture education, though, and books began to be published in Samivarieties. By the late 19th century, however, a clearly assimilationistview of education took hold and the objective became for students tobe taught primarily in Swedish while the use of other languageswould be transitional. Today, there are provisions for Sami schoolswhich are to take special account of Sami students’ needs so that theygain a positive sense of their language, culture, and identity (Wing-stedt, 1998: 57–59; Huss, 2001: 151–152). Though the adequacy ofthese provisions is contested, conditions for Sami education aredeveloping in a positive direction.4

Finnish speakers have a long history with Sweden as well. In fact,Sweden was a de facto multilingual state for over 600 years as it ruledFinland until 1809 (Boyd & Huss, 2001: 6). During this time Finnishspeakers and Swedish speakers moved regularly between Sweden andFinland and settled in both areas (Allardt, 1981: 632–635). Sweden’sposition as the ruling authority in Finland created a status hierarchybetween the two languages where Swedish was seen as more presti-gious than Finnish, a turn of events which has led to the marginali-zation of Swedish Finnish speakers (Boyd & Huss, 2001: 6; Huss,2001: 140–141). Currently, there is a strong movement amongSwedish Finnish speakers to promote the Finnish language and

4 See, for example, the Sami Parliament of Sweden’s website (http://www.

sametinget.se).


culture but this has not yet led to any large scale rights for theminority group (e.g., official Finnish–Swedish societal bilingualism asis the case in Finland) (Skutnabb-Kangas & Phillipson, 2001: 81).

The Tornedalers, another group with a relationship to Sweden’shistory with Finland, are in a somewhat unique position. Littlethought was given to the people of the Torne Valley, which is locatedin the northern part of Scandinavia on the Swedish/Finnish border,for most of the 600 years that Sweden ruled Finland. Following thewar with Russia, which ended Swedish rule of Finland in 1809, theTorne Valley suddenly became important as borders needed to bedrawn. It was decided that the boundary between Sweden and the thenRussian-held Finland would be drawn down the middle of the TorneValley, effectively separating the people of this area into two groups:one which today is Swedish and another which is now Finnish.Swedish views towards the people of the Torne Valley were somewhathostile after 1809. The Tornedalers, being so near the Russian foe,were seen as a security risk in need of assimilation in order tostrengthen Sweden’s position on the border. The hostility continuedthrough the early 20th century until relations with an independentFinland improved. Still, the Tornedalers continue to be marginalizedin Swedish society even though there is an increasing interest in fos-tering growth for the language and culture of the Torne Valley (Al-lardt, 1981: 635–637; Wingstedt, 1998: 59–74; Winsa, 1998).

Other Swedish minorities have not fared much better than theSami, the Finns, or the Tornedalers. Jews were seen as transients inSweden for quite some time.5 They, along with people of other di-verse faiths and backgrounds, were not permitted to pursue trade orcommerce in Sweden until the mid-1700s and it was not until thistime that the first Jewish congregation was established in the port cityof Marstrand (Allardt, 1981: 642). It was as late as 1849 that Jewswere legally given the right to offer evidence in court and 1862 thatJews were given voting rights (Allardt, 1981: 641–643; Prop. 1998/1999: 143).

The Roma were by no means welcomed either. Also seen astransient, they were considered undesirable by Swedish rulers untilthe middle of the 20th century. A 1637 decree ordered that all Romamen were to be hanged and that all women and children were to be

5 The nation did serve as a refuge for many people fleeing the deadly andoppressive Nazi regime during WWII, however. Over 10,000 Jews were rescued

during this time (Allardt, 1981: 643).

FRANCIS M. HULT188

expelled from the country. Almost 300 years later there was a ban onRoma immigration from 1914 to 1954 (Allardt, 1981: 644).

Language Planning in Sweden

Swedish language management, with its longtime goal of strength-ening the Swedish language, has tended to obscure issues of the statusof minority languages. Juxtaposing the development of the positionof Swedish with the history of minorities, one begins to see that at thesame time as social policies had a restrictive orientation to minorities,language policies emerged to promote Swedish as the national lan-guage. In the last third of the 20th century this has begun to changevisibly.

Oakes (2001) recounts the historical development of languagepolicy in Sweden. One of the earliest language policies noted inSwedish history is Magnus Erikson’s National Law of 1347 whichserved to formally establish a Swedish kingdom with Swedish as thelanguage of the realm. Since then, the Swedish language has beencentral in establishing and shaping the territorial identity. This becameevident when Gustav Vasa ascended to the Swedish throne and had ashis two major objectives to break away from the Danish-dominatedKalmar union of Scandinavia and to severe ties with Rome, both ofwhich involved using the Swedish language to forge a Swedish terri-torial identity. In 1526 the Gustav Vasa Bible was published inSwedish, serving to promote the language in the kingdom. Soon, alanguage policy in the form of a 1571 Church Ordinance issued byArchbishop Laurentius Petri denounced the use of foreign words inSwedish and a sense of linguistic purity emerged. ‘‘Swedification’’began in earnest in the middle of the 17th century as Denmark cededthe Skane region and Swedish literary tradition began to come of age.About a hundred years later, in 1786, the Swedish academy wasfounded by Gustav III to ‘‘advance the Swedish language and Swedishliterature.’’6 In 1905 Swedish was established as the language of edu-cation in Sweden, pushing out Latin (Oakes, 2001: 65–69).

The powerful position of Swedish, having been entrenched since atleast 1347, has been difficult to change. Even the establishment ofSocial Democracy in the 1930s, with its mantra of egalitarianism, wasa double edged sword for Swedish minorities. While there was a beliefthat everyone in Sweden should be treated equally, this translated

6 To learn more about the Swedish Academy go to their website (http://

www.svenskaakademien.se).


into an early belief that it was not egalitarian to single out and treatdifferently minority groups even if they needed special support(Oakes, 2001: 69–70). This assimilationist view of egalitarianism be-gan to change only in the 1960s and 1970s.

During the 1960s and 1970s, an ethnic revival began to appearamong Swedish minority groups and a climate of support for theirlanguages and cultures began to take shape while at the same time theSwedish government started to accept responsibility for treatingminorities with dignity and respect beyond socialist egalitarian rhet-oric (Wingstedt, 1998: 77–83; Huss, 2001: 138).7 A major shift inSwedish language policy emerged. A new government report ad-dressed the cultural and linguistic needs of immigrant minorities inSweden (SOU 1974:69) and it took effect in 1976–1977 as the HomeLanguage Reform. Though this was a major shift in Sweden’s officialorientation towards minorities, the focus was on immigrants with nospecial consideration of indigenous or historical minorities.

Indigenous and historical minorities have not been silent since thelate 1970s. The five recognized national minorities continue to bepolitically and socially active and they are a small but noticeableconstituent of the Swedish population8 as Table 1 shows.

The strength and persistence of Sweden’s national minorities isalso apparent in the foundation of academies and committees de-signed to support minority language planning and cultural develop-ment. The precursor to the Roma National Congress was formed in

TABLE 1

Sweden’s official national minorities and their languages.

National minorities Number of people Language Number of speakers

Swedish Finns 400,000 Finnish 250,000Tornedalers 70,000–80,000 Meankieli 50,000–60,000

Sami 15,000–20,000 Sami 10,000Roma 15,000–20,000 Romani 10,000Jews 20,000 Yiddish 5,000–6,000

Source: Huss (2003) and Prop. 1998/1999: 143.

7 Skutnabb-Kangas (pers. comm., August 7, 2003), who was actively involved in

movements for minority rights in Swedish policy during the 1960s and 1970s, de-scribes the process as a struggle of backroom politics, with the Swedish governmentacquiescing to the needs of minorities rather than leading the way as the situation is

often portrayed.8 Statistics Sweden (Statistiska centralbyran) reports on their website (http://

www.scb.se) that the total Swedish population as of January 2004 is 8,977,418.

FRANCIS M. HULT190

1973. There have been committees on the Sami languages since 1974.9

The Swedish Finnish Language Council was founded in 1975.10 Still,it was not until Sweden began the process of ratifying the EuropeanCharter for Regional or Minority Languages and the FrameworkConvention for the Protection of National Minorities that indigenousand historical minority rights returned to the forefront of Swedishpolicy development.

SWEDISH MINORITY POLICIES AND THE EUROPEAN CONTEXT

After Sweden joined the European Union in 1995 the Swedish gov-ernment began the process of ratifying the European Charter forRegional or Minority Languages (ETS no. 148) and the FrameworkConvention for the Protection of National Minorities (ETS no. 157).11

These Council of Europe documents, particularly the EuropeanCharter for Regional or Minority Languages, are often seen as merelysymbolic. As Ager explains, ‘‘the Charter represents a particularlegalistic and policy approach to the rights of minority languages, onewhich many of the European language associations have adopted…[I]t follows traditions of formal textual declarations important tomany countries…’’ (2001: 94). The major concern for Ager is thatsimply declaring rights does not make them reality, particularly ascountries may pick and chose which parts to apply and to whichgroups they shall apply them; however, as Ager points out, Europeannations take the European Charter for Regional or Minority Lan-guages seriously. As such, while it is certainly not sufficient inestablishing linguistic human rights, the Charter is a good example ofinternational collaboration resulting in a higher profile for languagepolicy issues (Phillipson, 2003: 92). Its impact on Swedish minoritiesis a case in point.

In terms of language rights, perhaps the most fundamental out-come of Sweden’s ratification of both the Framework Convention forthe Protection of National Minorities and the European Charter forRegional or Minority Languages was the recognition of the five

9 Read more about the language work of the Sami Parliament of Sweden on its

website: http://www.sametinget.se.10 See the Swedish Finnish Language Council on the web: http://www.

sverigefinska. spraknamnden.se.11 ETS is an acronym for European Treaty Series. The two items cited here, along

with other Council of Europe documents, can be viewed online: http://conventions.

coe.int/Treaty/EN/CadreListeTraites.htm.


groups’ right to exist, a basic linguistic human right (Phillipson,Rannut & Skutnabb-Kangas, 1994: 2; de Varennes, 1996: 145). InArticle 1, the Charter offers the following definitions:

(a) ‘‘Regional or minority languages’’ means languages that are:

(i) traditionally used within a given territory of a State by nationals of that Statewho form a group numerically smaller than the rest of the State’s population;

and

(ii) different from the official language(s) of that State;it does not include either dialects of the official language(s) of the State or the

languages of migrants;(b) ‘‘territory in which the regional or minority language is used’’ means the geo-

graphical area in which the said language is the mode of expression of a number

of people justifying the adoption of the various protective and promotionalmeasures provided for in this Charter;

(c) ‘‘non-territorial languages’’ means languages used by nationals of the State which

differ from the language or languages used by the rest of the State’s populationbut which, although traditionally used within the territory of the State, cannot beidentified with a particular area thereof.

In ratifying the Charter, Sweden defined Sami, Finnish, and Me-ankieli as regional or minority languages in Sweden and Romani andYiddish as non-territorial minority languages. This is an importantdistinction as it reflects directly on the parts of the Charter, and thecorresponding rights, which Sweden chose to attribute to therespective groups. Sami, Finnish, and Meankieli gained numerouslanguage rights relating to education, judiciary authority, adminis-trative services, the media, and cultural development. Romani andYiddish were acknowledged and the government continues toinvestigate ways to preserve and promote these languages. In all, 45paragraphs or sub-paragraphs were applied to Sami and Finnish and42 paragraphs or sub-paragraphs were applied to Meankieli. This is,of course, a major development for minorities in Sweden, though thenon-territorial minority languages of Romani and Yiddish, despitehaving long ties to Sweden, were not accorded equal status to theother minorities.

Sweden chose to apply the following educational paragraphs andsub-paragraphs to Sami, Finnish, and Meankieli: 8.1.a.iii; 8.1.b.iv;8.1.c.iv; 8.1.d.iv; 8.1.e.iii; 8.1.f.iii; 8.1.g; 8.1.h; 8.1.i; 8.2 (see Appendix1 for the Charter text). Each of these choices represents the right ofthe selected minorities’ languages to appear in education. Skutnabb-Kangas and Phillipson (2001: 81) point out, though, that while thesechoices represent an important step, none of the specified measureschosen indicate that the mother tongue will be used as the medium ofinstruction. It is also important to note that none of these provisions

FRANCIS M. HULT192

apply to Yiddish and Romani at all. Likewise, the provisions chosenin other areas of the Charter which grant certain rights to support forcultural development (Article 12) as well as rights to use minoritylanguages in courts (Article 9), with the government (Article 10), andin the media (Article 11) do not apply to Yiddish or Romani either.Nonetheless, Sweden’s ratification of the Charter and the rightsgranted to certain minorities do seem to indicate that Sweden istending towards a direction of fostering societal multilingualism.Accordingly, planning for certain minority languages in Sweden isbeginning to change through a policy orientation which supports,even if it does not yet promote, minority language cultivation.12 Thisis seen in the efforts which were taken in order for Sweden to ratifythe Charter.

Before ratifying the Charter, Sweden enacted the NationalMinorities in Sweden (Prop. 1998/1999: 143) bill which served toestablish that the five national minorities and their languages wouldbe officially recognized and would be granted specific rights consis-tent with the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languagesand the Framework Convention for the Protection of NationalMinorities. This policy included that the school curricula (Lpo 94 andLpf 94) be changed to include instruction on national minorities andthat research on minority languages and peoples should continue tobe developed at the university level. No mention was made of bilin-gual education or mother tongue medium instruction in these docu-ments, though, since the existing educational policy was seen bypolicymakers as already allowing for such instruction (Boyd & Huss,2001: 8).13 Additional provisions were made for the allocation ofresources to promote Sami, Finnish, and Meankieli cultural activitiesand media communication. Special laws were passed (SFS 1999:1175;SFS 1999:1176; SFS 2000:86) which grant Sami, Finnish, and Me-ankieli limited rights to use their mother tongues in dealings withgovernment administrators and courts within the regions in whichthese minorities are located (Prop. 1998/1999:143; Ministry ofIndustry, Employment and Communications, 2001). In all, theratification of the Charter has served as a catalyst for languageminority issues in Sweden.

12 Again, here I use language cultivation in Hornberger’s (1994) sense.13 See Huss (2001: 150–153) for a brief discussion of practices related to the

education of national minorities in Sweden.


TOWARDS A POLICY FOR MULTILINGUALISM IN SWEDEN

A recent policy proposal is Speech: Draft Action Programme for theSwedish Language (SOU 2002:27). It is designed to secure the statusof Swedish in Sweden while also attending to how Swedish is situatedwith respect to other languages, most prominently English.

The need for a national language policy for Swedish has beendebated in Sweden for over 20 years (Teleman & Westman, 1997;Boyd & Huss, 2001; Melander, 2001). Teleman and Westman (1997)hold that the ongoing use of English in numerous areas of lifeendangers the status of Swedish as a ‘‘complete language,’’ that is tosay as a language for use in all public and private domains. In theabsence of an overt national language policy they believe that thisthreat is not likely to disappear.

The government commissioned the Swedish Language Council,the semi-public Swedish language planning body, to create a draftaction program for the promotion and protection of Swedish in lightof multilingualism in Sweden. The Swedish Language Council pub-lished its program in 1998 with the primary recommendation that theposition of Swedish be established by law. A major criticism of thedocument was its emphasis on Swedish to the detriment of minoritylanguages (Boyd & Huss, 2001: 9). The document, focusing primarilyon how to maintain and strengthen the functions of Swedish in lightof the growing use of English in a number of important domains (e.g.,education, trade and industry, media, and diplomacy), appeared tosolidify myopically the power of Swedish leaving minority languagesby the wayside.

In 2000, the Swedish parliament created the Committee for theSwedish Language which was charged with reviewing the LanguageCouncil’s program and with crafting a language policy proposal thatwould take into account the criticisms of the original plan. The resultof the Committee’s work is the language policy proposal entitledSpeech: Draft Action Programme for the Swedish Language. It isscheduled to go before Swedish Parliament in mid-2004 and possiblytake effect by January 2005 (L. Huss, pers. commun., March 14,2004). Its purpose, to promote and strengthen Swedish as a nationallanguage, is clear but so is its attempt to take into account thesociolinguistic circumstances which relate to Swedish, both nationallyand internationally. The stated aims of the policy are as follows:14

14 The English translation of this, as well as other policy text from SOU 2002:27,

is taken from the Committee for the Swedish Language (2002).

FRANCIS M. HULT194

• ‘‘Swedish shall be a complete language, serving and uniting our society.

• ‘‘Swedish in official and public use shall be correct and shall function well, and

• ‘‘Everyone shall have a right to language: Swedish, their mother tongue, andforeign languages.’’ (SOU 2002: 27: p. 22)

These statements suggest a balanced perspective, officially positioningSwedish as the national language of Sweden while also including lan-guage rights. It is, in this way, advocating additive multilingualism andthe functional allocation of linguistic resources in a manner that rec-ognizes the different niches that languages serve in Sweden, attributingvalue to each of them. English, Swedish, and other languages in Swe-den, then, are all seen as serving important roles. In this sense, theproposal is tending towards societal multilingualism. Nonetheless, thefocus of the policy is on Swedish and the specific functions which itshould serve, often in relation to English. In fact, it is explicitly statedthat English is heavily factored into the policy proposal:

• ‘‘English has won an increasingly strong position internationally, thereby alsobecoming a more and more important language in our country.’’

• ‘‘[I]t is obvious that in many contexts it is necessary to employ English and thatmore and more people need increasing proficiency in English.’’ (SOU 2002: 27: p.

21)

The position of Swedish in relation to English appears prominentlythroughout the policy but particularly in recommendations related toeducation:

Recommendation 3: The regulatory framework for upper secondary school shall beamended to require schools to teach Swedish in all years of upper secondary edu-

cation.Recommendation 4: Universities and other institutes of higher education shouldaugment elements in their students’ programmes that promote better oral andwritten skills in both Swedish and English, and should also, in certain cases, require a

more advanced previous knowledge of Swedish.Recommendation 5: Measures should be taken to promote parallel employment ofEnglish and Swedish in research and scholarship.

Recommendation 6: One objective of educational programmes at Swedish universitiesand other institutes of higher education shall be that the students acquire a capacityto exchange knowledge in their areas of specialization in both national and inter-

national connections, both orally and in writing, and for diverse target groups.

The use of the mother tongue in education is considered a crucialelement for the development of language rights (Skutnabb-Kangas,2000: 502). This is addressed in the proposal, although mothertongue medium education is not specified:


Recommendation 53: Measures shall be taken to strengthen mother tongue support inpre-school and mother tongue instruction in school.

General language diversity is also included in the policy proposal, asthe following recommendations show:

Recommendation 20: Measures shall be taken to bring about a positive change in

attitudes towards the Swedish language and different linguistic varieties.Recommendation 22: Minority and immigrant languages in Sweden should receivesupport.Recommendation 23: Measures shall be taken to support access to media in minority

and immigrant languages.Recommendation 43: Continuing professional development for teachers shall includeissues relating to language variation.

Recommendation 45: Efforts shall be made to promote a more open attitude towardsand tolerance of linguistic variation.

These recommendations along with the overall statement of languagerights in the policy proposal aims signify the continued developmenttowards a positive orientation to multilingualism in Swedish languagepolicy. As such, this policy proposal is attempting to situate Swedishin the delicate position between being subordinated by English as aninternational language and subordinating other languages.

CONCLUSION

Sweden has long been a diverse and multilingual polity. Thoughhistorically the official treatment of minorities in Sweden tended to beless than favorable and language policies often focused singularly onpromoting Swedish, these tendencies have begun to change in recenttimes. Today Sweden faces a delicate balancing act in strengtheningthe status position of Swedish relative to English while also consid-ering the impact on minority languages of strengthening Swedish inthis way. Recent policy developments show that Sweden is stillattempting to negotiate this balance. Legislation in conjunction withthe ratifications of the European Charter for Regional or MinorityLanguages and the Framework Convention for the Protection of Na-tional Minorities advanced certain minority language issues in Swe-den. Although the language rights accorded were not as far reachingas they might have been, they suggest a trend towards supportingminority languages. The policy proposal Speech: Draft Action Pro-gramme for the Swedish Language reflects the ongoing tension of themultilingual balancing act. This proposal is heavily weighted towards

FRANCIS M. HULT196

addressing the relative status positions of English and Swedish but atthe same time it makes explicit statements about multilingualism andlanguage rights. Issues of multilingualism are, at least, on the policymap in Sweden. Ultimately, as Hornberger (2002: 30) remarks,‘‘multilingual language policies are essentially about opening upideological and implementational space in the environment for asmany languages as possible...’’ This space continues to emerge forminority languages in Sweden.

APPENDIX: Article 8 of the European Charter for Regional orMinority Languages

1. With regard to education, the Parties undertake, within the territory in which suchlanguages are used, according to the situation of each of these languages, and

without prejudice to the teaching of the official language(s) of the State:(a) (i) to make available pre-school education in the relevant regional or minority

languages; or

(ii) to make available a substantial part of pre-school education in the rele-vant regional or minority languages; or

(iii) to apply one of the measures provided for under (i) and (ii) above at least

to those pupils whose families so request and whose number is consideredsufficient; or

(iv) if the public authorities have no direct competence in the field of pre-school education, to favor and/or encourage the application of the

measures referred to under (i) to (iii) above;(b) (i) to make available primary education in the relevant regional or minority

languages; or

(ii) to make available a substantial part of primary education in the relevantregional or minority languages; or

(iii) to provide, within primary education, for the teaching of the relevant

regional or minority languages as an integral part of the curriculum; or(iv) to apply one of the measures provided for under (i) to (iii) above at least

to those pupils whose families so request and whose number is considered

sufficient;(c) (i) to make available secondary education in the relevant regional or minority

languages; or(ii) to make available a substantial part of secondary education in the relevant

regional or minority languages; or(iii) to provide, within secondary education, for the teaching of the relevant

regional or minority languages as an integral part of the curriculum; or

(iv) to apply one of the measures provided for under (i) to (iii) above at leastto those pupils who, or where appropriate whose families, so wish in anumber considered sufficient;

(d) (i) to make available technical and vocational education in the relevant re-gional or minority languages; or

(ii) to make available a substantial part of technical and vocational educationin the relevant regional or minority languages; or


(iii) to provide, within technical and vocational education, for the teaching ofthe relevant regional or minority languages as an integral part of the

curriculum; or(iv) to apply one of the measures provided for under (i) to (iii) above at least to

those pupils who, or where appropriate whose families, so wish in a

number considered sufficient;(e) (i) to make available university and other higher education in regional or

minority languages; or(ii) to provide facilities for the study of these languages as university and

higher education subjects; or(iii) if, by reason of the role of the State in relation to higher education

institutions, sub-paragraphs (i) and (ii) cannot be applied, to encourage

and/or allow the provision of university or other forms of higher edu-cation in regional or minority languages or of facilities for the study ofthese languages as university or higher education subjects;

(f) (i) to arrange for the provision of adult and continuing education courseswhich are taught mainly or wholly in the regional or minority languages;or

(ii) to offer such languages as subjects of adult and continuing education; or(iii) if the public authorities have no direct competence in the field of adult

education, to favour and/or encourage the offering of such languages assubjects of adult and continuing education;

(g) to make arrangements to ensure the teaching of the history and the culturewhich is reflected by the regional or minority language;

(h) to provide the basic and further training of the teachers required to implement

those of paragraphs a to g accepted by the Party;(i) to set up a supervisory body or bodies responsible for monitoring the mea-

sures taken and progress achieved in establishing or developing the teaching of

regional or minority languages and for drawing up periodic reports of theirfindings, which will be made public.

2. With regard to education and in respect of territories other than those in which theregional or minority languages are traditionally used, the Parties undertake, if the

number of users of a regional or minority language justifies it, to allow, encourageor provide teaching in or of the regional or minority language at all the appro-priate stages of education.

REFERENCES

Ager, Dennis (2001). Motivation in language planning and language policy. Clevedon:Multilingual Matters.

Allardt, Erik (1981). Ethnic minorities. In Erik Friis (Ed), Nordic democracy: Ideas,issues and institutions in politics, economy, education, social and cultural affairs ofDenmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden (pp. 627–649). Copenhagen: Det

Danske Selskab.Berg, E. Cathrine, Hult, Francis M. & King, Kendall A. (2001). Shaping the climatefor language shift? English in Sweden’s elite domains. World Englishes, 20(3), 305–

319.

FRANCIS M. HULT198

Boyd, Sally (1999). Transatlantic connections. In Dag Blanck & Per Jegeback (Eds),Migration och mangfald: essaer om kulturkontakt och minoritetsfragor tillagnade

Harald Runblom [Migration and diversity: Essays on cultural contact and minorityissues dedicated to Harald Runblom] (pp. 233–248). Uppsala: Centrum forMultietnisk Forskning.

Boyd, Sally (2001). Immigrant languages in Sweden. In Guus Extra & Durk Gorter(Eds),The other languages of Europe (pp. 177–192). Clevedon:MultilingualMatters.

Boyd, Sally & Huss, Leena (2001). Introduction. In Sally Boyd & Leena Huss (Eds),Managing multilingualism in a European nation-state: Challenges for Sweden (pp. 1–

12). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Cobarrubias, Juan (1983). Ethical issues in status planning. In Juan Cobarrubias &Joshua A. Fishman (Eds), Progress in language planning: International perspectives

(pp. 41–85). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Committee for the Swedish Language (2002). Speech: Draft action programme for theSwedish language: Summary. Statens Offentliga Utredningar.

Cooper, Robert (1989). Language planning and social change. New York: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Dahlstedt, Karl-Hampus (1976). Societal ideology and language cultivation: The

case of Swedish. Linguistics: An International Review, 183, 17–50.de Varennes, Fernand (1996). Languages, minorities and human rights. The Hague:Martinus Nijhoff.

Fishman, Joshua A. (1979). Bilingual education, language planning and English.

English Worldwide, 1(1), 11–24.Gunnarsson, Britt-Louise & Ohman, Katarina (1997). Det internationaliseradeuniversitetet: en studie av bruket av engelska och andra frammande sprak vid Upp-

sala Universitet [The internationalized university: A study of the use ofEnglish and other foriegn languages at Uppsala University]. Uppsala: UppsalaUniversity.

Hollqvist, Hakan (1984). The use of English in three large Swedish companies.Studia Anglistica Upsaliensia 55.

Hornberger, Nancy H. (1994). Literacy and language planning. Language andEducation, 8, 75–86.

Hornberger, Nancy H. (2002). Multilingual language policies and the continua ofbiliteracy: An ecological approach. Language Policy, 1, 27–51.

Hult, Francis M. (2003). English on the streets of Sweden: An ecolinguistic view of

two cities and a language policy. Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 19(1),43–63.

Huss, Leena (1999). Reversing language shift in the far north: Linguistic revitali-

zation in northern Scandinavia and Finland. Studia Uralica Upsaliensia 31. Up-psala: Uppsala University.

Huss, Leena (2001). The national minority languages in Sweden. In Guus Extra &

Durk Gorter (Eds), The other languages of Europe (pp. 137–157). Clevedon:Multilingual Matters.

Huss, Leena (2003, February). Even the Swedish language is worth saving: Swedishlanguage policies in transition. Paper presented at the Georgetown University

Roundtable on Languages and Linguistics, Washington, DC.Huss, Leena (in press). Swedish language policies in transition. In Carl James &Leena Huss (Eds), Minority issues in diverse societies: A comparison of Sweden and

Canada [working title]. Fernwood & ZED Press.


Hyltenstam, Kenneth (1999). Svenska i minoritetssprakperspektiv [Swedish inminority language perspective]. In Kenneth Hyltenstam (Ed), Sveriges sju inhemska

sprak: ett minoritetssprakperspektiv [Sweden’s seven domestic languages: A minor-ity language perspective] (pp. 205–240). Lund: Studentlitteratur.

Kaplan, Robert B. & Baldauf, Richard B. (1997). Language planning from practice to

theory. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Ljung, Magnus (1986). Undersokningen engelska i Sverige [Investigating English inSweden]. Sprakvard, 1, 5–10.

Mannberg, Gustaf-Adolf (1986). Engelskan – inkraktare eller befriare? [English –

intruder or rescuer?]. Sprakvard, 1, 18–22.Melander, Bjorn (2001). Swedish, English and the European Union. In Sally Boydand Leena Huss (Eds), Managing multilingualism in a European nation-state:

Challenges for Sweden (pp. 13–31). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.Ministry of Industry, Employment, and Communications (2001). National minoritiesin Sweden: A summary on Swedish policy on national minorities. Stockholm: Re-

geringskansliet.Oakes, Leigh (2001). Language and national identity: Comparing France and Sweden.Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Phillipson, Robert (2003). English-only Europe? Challenging language policy. Lon-don: Routledge.

Phillipson, Robert, Rannut, Mart & Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove (1994). Introduc-tion. In Robert Phillipson & Tove Skutnabb-Kangas (Eds), Linguistic

human rights: Overcoming linguistic discrimination (pp. 1–22). Berlin: Mouton deGruyter.

Ricento, Thomas & Hornberger, Nancy H. (1996). Unpeeling the onion: Language

planning and policy and the ELT profession. TESOL Quarterly, 30(3), 401–427.

Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove (2000). Linguistic genocide in education or worldwide

diversity and human rights? Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum.Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove & Phillipson, Robert (2001). The world came to Sweden –but did language rights? In Sally Boyd & Leena Huss (Eds), Managing multilin-gualism in a European nation-state: Challenges for Sweden (pp. 70–86). Clevedon:

Multilingual Matters.Teleman, Ulf (1992). Det svenska rikssprakets utsikter i ett integrerat Europa [TheSwedish language’s prospects in an integrated Europe]. Sprakvard, 4, 7–16.

Teleman, Ulf & Westman, Margareta (1997). Behover Sverige en nationellsprakpolitik? [Does Sweden need a national language policy?] Sprak i Norden 1997,5–22.

Westman, Margareta (1996). Har svenska spraket en framtid? [Does the Swedishlanguage have a future?] In Lena Moberg and Margareta Westman (Eds), Svenskai tusen ar: glimtar ur Svenska sprakets utveckling [Swedish in one thousand years:

Reflections of Swedish language development] (pp. 182–194). Stockholm: Nors-tedts.

Wingstedt, Maria (1998). Language ideologies and minority language policies inSweden: Historical and contemporary perspectives. Stockholm: Centre for Research

on Bilingualism.Winsa, Birger (1998). Language attitudes and social identity: Oppression and revivalof a minority language in Sweden. Applied Linguistics Association of Australia

Occasional Paper No. 17.

FRANCIS M. HULT200

OFFICIAL POLICY DOCUMENTS

ETS no. 148 European charter for regional or minority languages.

ETS no. 157 Framework convention for the protection of national minorities.

Lpf 94 1994 ars Laroplan for de frivilliga skolformerna [1994 curriculum for the non-compulsory

school system].

Lpo 94 Laroplan for det obligatoriska skolvasendet, forskoleklassen och fritidshemmet [Curric-

ulum for the compulsory school system, the pre-school class, and the leisure-time centre].

Prop. 1998/1999:143 Nationella minoriteter i Sverige [National minorities in Sweden].

SFS 1999:1175 Lag om ratt att anvanda samiska hos forvaltningsmyndigheter och domstolar [Act

concerning the right to use the Sami language in dealings with public authorities and courts].

SFS 1999:1176 Lag om ratt att anvanda finska och meankieli hos forvaltningsmyndigheter och

domstolar [Act concerning the right to use Finnish and Meankieli in dealings with public

authorities and courts].

SFS 2000:86 Forordning om statsbidrag till atgarder for att stodja anvandningen av samiska,

finska och meankieli [Regulation concerning state subsidy for measures to support the use of

Sami, Finnish and Meankieli].

SOU 1974:69 Invandrarutredningen 3 [Immigrant report 3].

SOU 2002:27:Mal i mun:Forslag till handlingsprogram for svenska spraket [Speech: Draft action

programme for the Swedish language].

University of PennsylvaniaGraduate School of Education3700 Walnut Street, 3d FloorUSAE-mail: [email protected]


Documents

Planning for Multilingualism and Minority Language Rights in Sweden