The Finnish lifestyle

We Finns dare to say that Finland is a calm and peaceful place. There are not many other countries in the world as peaceful and secure. But the world is changing, the bigger cities are not as safe as they used to be. The cities have grown because most of the Finnish population live in urban areas nowadays. Still people have a strong urge to get "back to nature". The Finns think that the best thing about Finland is definitely the unspoiled nature. We love our beautiful countryside with many lakes and forests.

The Finns are generally very honest and you can trust the word of a stranger. Some foreigners think that we are shy, reserved and hard to approach. The Finns are known to smile and laugh only when they are drunk! That might partly be true but Finns are not all alike and times change. Especially the young generations is more outgoing and open. Older people may appear a bit more reserved for example in the countryside. But once the "ice is broken" you will experience the warm and nice hospitality of the Finns.

Although Finnish families tend to be small (3-4 persons) the Finnish life still revolves around the home and family. Young people often study many years so that's why the age of marriage has been rising. The typical Finnish woman gives birth to the first child at the average age of 28.

The Finnish lifestyle is relaxed and easy-going. But Finns are also hard workers and the life in the busy cities are more or less stressful. That's why many people have summer cottages. Usually it's far away from the place where they live. The summer cottages are often located on a nice and peaceful lakeshore or on an island. It's the place where Finns go to rest and spend some time with their families. Every summer cottage has to have a sauna because it's such an important part of the Finnish lifestyle. The sauna is definitely something that everyone grows up with, and bathing in the sauna comes as naturally as speaking. We get real angry if somebody else claims the sauna as their own because it's something really unique for the Finns. The sauna is a steam room where Finns go to sweat, relax and cleanse themselves. The sauna is a place without hurry. Often after bathing in the sauna nice "sauna-evenings" continue with lively conversations and drinks. Drinking and sauna is something that goes hand in hand! If the sauna is near a lake or the sea it's customary to take a "dip" in the water, no matter if it's winter or summer! That might sound crazy but it's an old tradition that goes together with the sauna.

Finland's special richness is that it is a bilingual country. Both Finnish and Swedish are official languages. The Lapps’ own Saami language is also a language minority. English is widely spoken as foreign language but also German, French and Russian are studied in Finnish schools. Finnish has a reputation of being a difficult language to master. That's very much true! Finnish is not an Indo-european language so it's very demanding to learn for English speakers. It's a part of the Ugric family of languages.
The Finns are known as being a people of few words. For example small talk is a skill that Finns do not have. A Finn is much better listener than speaker, it's also considered to be impolite to interrupt. Silence is a form of communication for Finns.

Today the Finno-Swedish people live in different regions. One-third of the Finno-Swedes live mainly in Swedish speaking communities. But because of the rest of the Swedish-speaking Finns who are living in cities, where the Finnish language is the dominating language, the Swedish language is slowly fading away.

In many different regions, specially in "Österbotten" the dialect is most like the mother tongue and the original Finno-Swedish language is just like the Finnish language, it's a language that you have to learn in school.

The Swedish-speaking Finns are talking in a major key but the Finnish-speaking Finns are talking in a minor key. The Finno-Swedish language has many similarities with the Finnish language for example short syllables.

It's nothing special to have two official languages in a country. Finland isn't the only country in Europe which has several languages, for example Swizerland has 4 official languages.
The culture of the Swedish-speaking Finns is a mixture of both Finnish and Swedish features. The Finno-Swedish people have some events that they are celebrating without the Finns, e.g. they have their own Swedish-Day in November. They have also events like Lucia (a girl who comes on December 13th with candles in her hair), many festivals like "Popkalaset" (a music festival in the summer) and so on.
The Swedish-speaking Finns have their own big theatres, they have their own television channel (FST) and then they have many different newspapers and journals (the biggest newspaper is Hufvudstadsbladet).

There are many Finno-Swedes among the famous Finnish writers e.g. Tove Jansson (the mother of the Muumi-trolls) and J L Runeberg who wrote the Finnish national hymn.

The Finno-Swedish people's rights are well looked after all e.g. every street has a Swedish name and the Swedish-speakers can manage just with Swedish in many stores.

Finns generally believe Swedish speaking Finns are wealthy and proud. The Finns think that every Finland-Swede knows each other and because of that the Finno-Swedish call themselves ironically the Finno-Swedish "Duckpond". Several Finns think also that because the Finno-Swedes talk Swedish they are Swedish, but to be a Swedish-speaking Finn is absolutely a normal thing. It's natural and almost obvious that the Finno-Swedes are happy if Sweden loses against Finland in some game...Nowadays there isn't such a big difference between a Swedish-speaking Finn and an "original" Finn.

There are three Saami languages spoken in Finland, Inari, Skolt, and North Saami.
Surprisingly, none of these three languages actually understand each other unless they learn the other Saami languages as foreign languages. Only half of the Saami people living in Finland speak Saami as their mother tongue, because of the pressure they get from the majority language.

Since 1992 Saami have had the right to use the Saami language both in speaking and writing, which means that they are entitled to use their mother tongue in offices and hospitals. North Saami is the principal teaching language in some of the schools in Inari and Utsjoki. Since 1994 it has been possible to take the matriculation examination in North Saami.

Because of the long and old Saami history, a lot of traditions are involved in its culture. The Saami people may look funny from an outsider's eyes, with their colourful hats and pullovers and reindeer. Saami have also their own kind of music style that's called jojk. It's a singing style with melody and verse, in which you can express feelings of sorrow, hate or love.

In Finland there are about 10 000 Romani, but it is not known how many of them speak Romani. There have been Romani speaking people in Finland for some 450 years. Still, people are afraid that the language is slowly disappearing.
In 1989 Romani was taught in some comprehensive schools in Finland, and 1999 the possibility to teach Romani in upper secondary schools was written in the law.

Made by: Veronica, Meta and Clara