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The article discusses linguicide and linguicism in relation to the more general role of language in the unequal distribution ofpower and resources at a more general level (induding some of the tatest attempts to secure binding linguistic human rights to minorities) and uses the struggle of SwedenFinns to become accepted äs an official national minority äs an example.
Finland and Sweden are neighboring Nordic countries. Finland was colonized by Sweden for some 650 years, up to 1809 when it became a Russian Grand Duchy, to gain its independence in 1917. Swedish is the largest minority language in Finland, and Finnish in Sweden. Swedish Speakers in Finland have possibly the best legal protection ofany linguistic minority in the world. Finnish Speakers in Sweden have almost no linguistic rights.
They are not accepted äs a national linguistic minority. The article claims that Sweden, by preventing Sweden Finns and the Finnish language from achieving any kind of official Status, guaranteed by international law, and by making it difficult to use Finnish äs a legitimate medium of education throughout the educational process, is attempting to commit linguistic genocide. It is not done openly, but by sophisticated means, through ideological glorification ofthe majority language andculture, stigmatization, invisibilization and invalidation of minority languages and cultures, and a rationalization of the relationship between them so that everything promoting Swedish at the expense of minority languages is presented äs goodfor the minorities, the majority "helping" them.
