This talk presents our joint work produced for the The Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Tornedalians, Kvens and Lantalaiset, a state commission ongoing 2020–2023 where Hyltenstam was a formal committee member. Published in 2023, our report was titled Språkideologi och det ofullbordade språkbytet. Den språkliga försvenskningen av det meänkielitalande området [Language ideology and uncompleted language shift. The linguistic Swedification of the Meänkieli-speaking area]. The Meänkieli-speaking area refers to the vast region of northernmost Sweden and, emblematically, the northeastern regions bordering Finland at the mouth of the Gulf of Bothnia. While the area is historically and contemporarily multilingual, it has been subjected to severe state-backed attempts at linguistic assimilation policy – Swedification – rife with moral and political interest. The period 1880s–1950s constitutes a textbook case of the efficacy of language as a weapon in political battles. In the Meänkieli-speaking area of North Bothnia, Swedish was strategically imposed to galvanize the border to Russia/Finland as well as to foster loyalty with the Swedish nation-state project. It was thus a period of linguistic and cultural regimentation, characterized by state-orchestrated language shift in a climate of monocultural superiority.

By contrasting this phase of Swedification against phases of toleration towards multilingualism – before as well as after the Swedification project – we seek to convey a view of how normative ideas about social and linguistic relationships may take form and change over time, but also how certain cultural assumptions about language and social life became latent rather than abandoned as new assumptions were rendered dominant. We advocate, accordingly, for a view of language ideologies not as replacing each other successively. Rather, they are weaved together into more complex constellations, over-layering, informing and cross-fertilizing each other. 

As we will claim, retrospectively reviewing the events of the Swedification process risks producing a one-eyed narrative of a unified majority oppressing a unified minority or of an evil state that deliberately acts in ways that harm everyone within a certain group. The work of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee has shown that the situation is much more complex. Seemingly oppressive states can do evil without being evil; that is, they may lack a sound understanding of the effects of their actions.

Adding to this perspective, as scholars of bilingualism research with a keen interest in historical epistemology, we also take an interest in questions related to expertise and knowledge about bilingualism. It should be recognized that knowledge about bilingualism was scant or non-existent throughout the age of Swedification. Hence, some of the language political wrongdoings – as they appear now – were likely carried out with the, at least rhetoric, intention of preserving bilingualism in the area, but without identifying the consequences that resulted from the neglect or ban of Finnish in schools. In this light, questions about bilingualism knowledge and research may be posed: What does it entail to have a stock of knowledge on the dynamics of bilingualism? What does it mean to have an institutionalized field of subject area devoted to bi- and multilingualism research? Our conclusion is that established thought collectives for intellectual interaction matter or at least have the capacity to do so.

About the report (2023) in Swedish: Slutbetänkande från Sannings- och försoningskommissionen för tornedalingar, kväner och lantalaiset

Kenneth Hyltenstam

Linus Salö