The end of the 19th century, and the beginning of the 20th century can be seen as a difficult time for many ethnic minorities in Scandinavia. New nationalistic ideas were spreading through Europe and up to the Nordic countries as well. The idea of unifying the inhabitants of the Scandinavian countries not only under the same flag, but also under the same language and culture, arose. And the ethnic minorities were often on the recieving end of many assimilation policies established at this time.

There are Roma people living in all countries of Scandinavia, and there have been for 500 years. Norway and Sweden are also populated with other ethnic minorities, such as Tornedalians, Kvens, Finns, and the indigenous Sámi people, most of whom live in the northern parts of the countries. During the 19th century, Swedish and Norwegian authorities worked hard to assimilate these groups by making them use the same language as the majority population.

The nationalistic ideology was visible in Swedish elementary education. National heroes were put into the school books and the legends about them were taught through poems and stories. The elementary school education at the time also shows how the Swedish language ideology changed drastically during the 19th century. Before 1809, the norm was that people spoke different languages within the borders of the country. But when Finland no longer was part of the kingdom of Sweden, and when nationalism became more established in the country, the motto was “one state, one people, one language”.

During the same period, Norway went through a similar process. In 1814, Norway reached independence from Denmark, unionised with Sweden, and acquired their own constitution. During the second half of the 1800s, there was an ongoing Norwegianisation (Fornorskning), as they called it, targeted to the indigenous Sámi people and the Kvens. A Norwegian nationalistic independence movement had started to form, and in that process, the Sámi people were depicted as outsiders of what was truly Norwegian, and what was truly worth keeping.

To make Sámi people start speaking Norwegian instead of the Sámi languages, the Norwegian authorities pointed out the “transition districts”, where they intended to attempt to change the language use into Norwegian. The transition districts were situated in the northern part of Norway, since that is where most Sámi people and Kvens live.

In 1898, it was decided that the school education should only be in Norwegian, and that the other languages such as the Sámi and the Kven language should only be used when necessary, for example when a child did not understand a Norwegian word. With time, the schools became stricter and in some places, Sami children were not allowed to talk with each other in Sámi languages, even during recess.

There were similar tendencies at the “nomad schools” in Sweden, boarding schools where Sámi children from nomadic families lived and studied. There are plenty of examples of how the children who lived at the nomad schools were neglected, and subjected to excessive physical punishment. Mostly, the teachers were educating the children in the Swedish language, and the pupils that did not know Swedish had difficulties. At the same time, the Sámi children who went to regular schools also faced problems. Often they were bullied by the other children, and they were discouraged from speaking the Sámi languages with each other.

But Sámi people were not the only group affected by the assimilation ideology. Tornedalians are a group of people living mostly in a northeastern region of Sweden called the Torne Valley. The group has their own language, Meänkieli, which can be described as a mix between Swedish and old Finnish. As the regular schools switched to having education only in Swedish, the language use was gradually adjusted so that Swedish eventually became the majority language in the regions where language plurality originally was the norm, for example in the Torne valley.

Today, there are testimonies from both scholars and the Tornedalian community that the history of having their language exchanged for another created a collective identity filled with shame. It can partially be explained by the Tornedalian children not understanding their teachers when they spoke Swedish in school, creating a feeling of inferiority.

A similar hereditary shame can be found in the Sámi community. Many Sámi parents in the 60s and 70s chose to not speak the Sámi languages with their children because of previous negative experiences they had associated with their maternal language. It resulted in many people never learning Sámi, and today there are many Sámi people who feel as if they have lost a part of their cultural heritage.

Since Tornedalians, Roma, and Sámi people have the status of national minorities in Sweden today, the languages are protected and their right to education in their maternal language is generally not questioned. However, assimilation is still promoted by some political parties, but now in the context of immigrants. The political party mostly known for promoting assimilation is the Sweden Democrats. In the party program one can read that:

“Our alternative to multiculturalism is a regression to communifying assimilation politics similar to the one taking place in the country up until the year of 1975, where the goal is that immigrants will take the customs used where they arrive, and eventually abandon their original cultures and identities to instead become a part of the Swedish nation.”

Even though policies regarding language and culture changed for the better in the middle of the twentieth century, it seems that assimilation is not necessarily a thing of the past. Since the way a language sounds is a consequence of cultural history and collective memories, it is much more than only a way of communicating. A loss of cultural heritage for small groups of society is not only causing distress on an individual level, it is also a loss for the whole collective.