29 Comments
And if Gotland could be renamed Äland... Then we would have Åland, Äland and Öland in the Baltic in alphabetical order, teaching non-Swedes about our three additional letters and their order. ;)
It's a fascinating read for those interested in the language situation in bilingual Finland. Åland enjoys a large degree of autonomy, and the islanders are very fierce about preserving their Swedish-speaking identity. Fact is that if you weren't born an Ålander, and want to become one, you will have to prove that you speak Swedish.
When you write "become [an Ålander]", do you mean "accepted by the locals"? Or can't you move there if you don't speak Swedish?
Åland is not a country, so you can't be a citizen of Åland. But the local autonomy allows for what's called åländsk hembygdsrätt, which you'll need to own a house or land, or to run a business. Finnish citizens who received hembygdsrätt before the age of 12 are also exempt from military service, due to Åland being a demilitarized territory.
If you weren't born to Ålander parent(s), and want to acquire the hembygdsrätt, you will have to prove you speak Swedish.
You also have to live there for some time to get the "citizenship" but before getting it you cannot own any land or property.
The famous ferry booze stop. At least, it used to be before the Customs Union :-)
Jag älskar Island! And since I began the Swedish lessons, I feel icelandic language a little less distant to me. Bear in mind Icelandic for a native Portuguese speaker is nearly as far as another planet from Earth.
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Not quite as much as you think; Icelandic is a relatively pure Germanic language, somewhat close to Old English, and all european languages share a common ancestor (with possible exceptions of Celtic and Basque languages) in Proto-Indo-European. Asian, African, American, and Pacific languages would likely all be farther removed, unless they've been very strongly influenced by a European language recently.
In Europe, Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian are not PIE languages. The Celtic languages are PIE languages.
Many major languages of Asia are PIE languages, which account for about half the PIE speakers across the world today. The "Indo" in Proto-Indo-European should be a big hint :) Rather than list them here, I suggest taking a look at the Indo-Iranian langauges Wikipedia article. That's not to mention Russian (150 million speakers), which is spoken from the Atlantic to the Pacific in Asia, though it's usually classified as a European language.
Fantastic. I wonder were the term 'ö' come from. I like to imagine one of your ancient Nordic men sailing the sea with his log, dying of cold and hunger... then he see something in the distance...he open his mouth...and he speak... overwhelmed with unexpected joy 'ö'
- 1621
Nei, Ísland er ekki bara ein ey, það eru líka Vestmannaeyjar! Gleymið þið ekki þeim!
Just a minor comment: the intonation sounds a bit misleading, as if it was a question with wrong word order. Or is it just me hearing this?
