Sweden promises to do more for national minority languages

[Harold Schiffman]

Sweden promises to do more for national minority languages

Gent, Thursday, 05 February 2009 by Katriina Kilpi

The Swedish government has promised to do more to preserve and promote
the country's national minority languages.


Since 2000, Finnish, all Sami dialects, Torne Valley
Finnish(Meänkieli), Romani, and Yiddish have had special status as
national minority languages in Sweden. But integration minister Nyamko
Sabuni wants the government to do more to ensure that endangered
languages, including several Sami languages, don't die out in Sweden.
In a report from a Swedish English language news, the Local, Ms Sabuni
said; "The future of national minority languages is uncertain, and for
some of the languages, the situation is dire,… a collective strategy
is needed in order to meet the needs of the national minorities,
increase awareness of these national minorities, and to ensure Sweden
does a better job of living up to its human rights commitments."


In a referral presented to the Council on Legislation (Lagrådet) last
Thursday, the government proposed a new law for national minorities
and their languages, as well as changes to the Sami parliament law and
the laws governing social services. The government plans to set aside
an additional 70 million kronor(6.8 million euro) after 2010 to reform
national minority policies, a substantial increase from the current 10
million kronor funding level. Sabuni explained that people who want to
use Finnish or Sami when in contact with the five major state agencies
should have the right to do so and be made aware of that right.


Sabuni also wants the agencies to make an effort to hire employees who
are fluent in the languages. "Regardless of where in the country you
live, you should, when contacting these agencies, be able to
communicate in Finnish or Sami," she told Sveriges Radio. (Eurolang
2009)



Full story http://www.thelocal.se/17244/20090129/


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 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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