2009/12/14 by Michael C. Coleman · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #European Cultural and National Identity #Political Systems and Governance #Historical Legal Studies and Society
paper · doi:10.1080/03468750903315215
openalex publication_date 2009/12/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
In 1800, almost four times as many people spoke Irish as Finnish. That year the Act of Union joined Ireland to Great Britain; half of the population, over three million, were monoglot Irish speakers. Finland was then a part of the Kingdom of Sweden. An increasing number, perhaps 15%, spoke Swedish; the remainder, less than one million, spoke Finnish. A century later in 1900, however, as national agitation for independence grew in both countries, Ireland and Finland had become almost reverse mirror images linguistically. A tiny fraction of Irish people habitually spoke Irish, but Finnish had become the overwhelmingly dominant language in Finland. The present exploratory comparative study in language change points to three major conclusions: the importance of contingency, or chance, in such historical developments; the importance of individual agency; and the complexity and dynamic nature of the relationship between national identity and language.