To the Lexicon and Beyond: Sociolinguistics in European Deaf Communities

The Sociolinguistic Situation of Finland-Swedish Deaf People and Their Language, Finland-Swedish Sign Language

The Sociolinguistic Situation of Finland-Swedish Deaf People and Their Language, Finland-Swedish Sign Language Karin Hoyer This chapter describes the sociolinguistic situation of the FinlandSwedish Deaf community. The members of this group are a linguistic minority with a long history; unfortunately, their sign language may today be endangered. Between 1998 and 2002 the Finnish Association of the Deaf conducted a research project on the lexicon of this language. This chapter presents some of the results from the project and specifically notes some linguistic phenomena that are the result of contact with spoken and other signed languages. Finnish Sign Language (FinSL) exhibits both social and regional variation . The language varies, for example, according to the gender and age of the language users. For instance, elderly people tend to sign with more mouth movements derived from spoken language. This most likely is because Deaf education in Finland used to be more oralistic. The regional dialects correlate mainly with the different schools for Deaf pupils. Usually Deaf people are able to tell which Deaf school another person has attended simply from the person’s use of sign language. The sign-language variety that differs the most is Finland-Swedish Sign Language (FinSSL), which was in use in the Deaf school in the town of Porvoo/ Borgå. Finland is a multilingual country with two national languages. The majority of the hearing population speaks Finnish, and a minority of about 6 percent claims Swedish as their mother tongue. History partly accounts for this since Finland was a part of Sweden until 1809. The constitution of Finland also recognizes sign-language users among other language groups. Section 17 of 731/1999 of the Finnish constitution states the following about the right to one’s own language and culture: 3 The national languages of Finland are Finnish and Swedish. The right of everyone to use his or her own language, either Finnish or Swedish, before courts of law and other authorities, and to receive official documents in that language, shall be guaranteed by an Act. The public authorities shall provide for the cultural and societal needs of the Finnish-speaking and Swedish-speaking populations of the country on an equal basis. The Sami, as an indigenous people, as well as the Roma and other groups, have the right to maintain and develop their own language and culture. Provisions on the right of the Sami to use the Sami language before the authorities are laid down by an Act. The rights of persons using sign language and of persons in need of interpretation or translation aid owing to disability shall be guaranteed by an Act. The sign-language situation in Finland reflects the division into Finnish speakers and Swedish speakers. Deaf people who come from Finnishspeaking families and have attended Deaf schools that use Finnish as the language of education use FinSL. Deaf people who have a Swedish-speaking family background and who have attended the now-closed Deaf school in Porvoo use FinSSL. Finland thus has two main sign-language varieties: FinSL and FinSSL. These varieties can, depending on one’s definition of the terms ‘‘language’’ and ‘‘dialect,’’ also be considered as two different, independent sign languages. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Finland-Swedish Deaf people have had a considerable impact on the history of Deaf people in Finland. In 1846 Carl Oscar Malm, who was Deaf and had a Swedish-speaking family background, founded the first school for Deaf pupils in Porvoo. Malm had learned sign language in a school for Deaf students in Sweden. When he returned to Finland and founded the Porvoo school, he used sign language as the language of instruction, and it then began to spread among his Deaf students. (For further discussion, see Rainò 2000 and Wallvik 1997, 100–102.) The language that Malm brought to Finland from Sweden thus became the basis for the development of both FinSL and FinSSL. With the rise of oralism, sign language lost its status as a language of Deaf instruction. In 1892 the schools for Deaf students in Finland were divided into Finnish and Swedish ‘‘speaking’’ and ‘‘writing’’ institutions 4 : k a r i n h o y e r (Wallvik 1997, 138–39). Nevertheless, sign language remained in active use among Deaf people, and clubs for Deaf people were founded (e.g., in Helsinki in 1895 and in Vaasa and Tampere in 1898); the Finnish Deaf magazine Kuuromykkäin...