Resumen de Language and demography: historical development
Marika Tandefelt, Fjalar Finnäs
In this article a sociolinguistic as well as a demographic perspective is used in order to present the historical background of the Swedish language in Finland and of the users of this language. The first part describes the evolution of the Swedish language as it developed into a complete language, serving the needs of the Finnish society. This description primarily deals with issues at the macro level, whereas social and dialectal variations at the micro level only are touched upon en passant. In the latter part of the article, the development of Finnish society at the macro level is discussed by means of demographic and linguistic statistical data. Issues dealt with here concern the spread of bilingualism in the course of various periods and in different parts of the country via marriages between partners with different mother tongues.
