Prosperous, liberal-minded and tolerant, the Swedish-speaking population of Finland rates as one of the world's most fortunate minorities. Yet even the Finland-Swedes are threatened - by love, in the form of the growing number of mixed marriages. Report by Tapani Ritamäki Take a risk, fall in love with a Finland-Swede. That was the slogan of a recent subscriptions campaign by the Swedish-language Helsinki newspaper, Hufvudstadsbladet.      One could add: and get on with it. For if things go badly, there soon won't be any Finland-Swedes left to fall in love with.      For a long time it was believed that the number of Finland-Swedes could not fall below 300,000, or 6 per cent of the population. They were magic figures for Finland-Swedes, and seemed permanent, like Bob Beaumont's 8.90 long-jump at the Mexico Olympics. Except that the direction was opposite - it was believed that that number could not be undercut. But it could. The number of Swedish-speakers is now a little over 290,000. And their percentage is beginning to approach that of weak beer - just 5.5 per cent of the population as a whole.      Finland-Swedes, particularly Finland-Swedish bigwigs, do not wish to submit to pessimism. When, a couple of years ago, Erik Wahlström became the new editor-in-chief of Hufvudstadsbladet, what did he do first?      Naturally, he wrote an editorial in which he described how positive the situation looked, after all. The previous year, the number of Finland-Swedes had only fallen by 431 people.      Great!      That was a much better achievement than the year before, when there was a reduction of 518, almost one hundred more people.      You have to look on the bright side. We have never before died out, so why should we do so now? This is a much-used argument, and of course it sounds logical. Just as logical as to say of a building that it probably won't burn down, because it hasn't burned down so far.      If so, I prefer a slogan adopted by the Finland-Swedish, Ostrobothnian writer Gösta Ågren in the 1970s: 'Personally, I do not diminish.'      The only problem is that that expression sounds better than it really is. For it is precisely individual diminution - gradual Fennicisation - that poses the greatest threat to Finland-Swedes. Bilingual families begin to be increasingly common. Particularly in the capital metropolitan area, Finland-Swedes have long since been taking the risk and fallen in love with Finns. They have succeeded without the benefit of any campaign.      On the other hand, all bilingual families are now presented with a leaflet entitled Anna lapsellesi lahja ('Give your child a present'), in which these families are encouraged to declare their children Swedish-speaking: 'A child how learns both Finnish and Swedish at home will cope very well in the Nordic countries. In addition, many European languages are related to Swedish, which will also help your child's later language studies and contacts in Europe.'      It is, of course, possible to debate whether 'to cope very well' are the right words when a Finland-Swede tries to make sense of Danish gobbledygook. But otherwise, the leaflet's arguments have worked. More than half of bilingual families now send their children to Swedish-speaking schools. And Finland-Swedish demographers rejoice. The result may be, before long, that the Finland-Swedish population may cease to decline! Perhaps as early as the 2030s!      Possibly.      Bilinguality can, after all, also be a waystation on the road to monolinguality.      No special expertise is needed to notice that bilinguality is associated in every case with mixed language. Until now, the main subject of debate has been the difficulties of the inhabitants of southern Finland in understanding the different dialects of Swedish-speaking Ostrobothnia. But today the communication problem is a question not merely of geography, but also of generation. More mature folk may have difficulties in understanding the secret language of young Finland-Swedes. It is common to label the mixed idiom they use to bad language, but surely it cannot be the children's fault if Finland-Swedish has ceased to be a creative language. Or, more correctly, one should perhaps say that Finland-Swedish has ceased to appear in connections where it can be used creatively, in other words in television advertisements, newspaper headlines, billboards and rock music.      Mixed language is the brand of Finland-Swedish which is spoken by all under 30-year-olds in the capital metropolitan area. One of my acquaintances told me about the son of a Swedish diplomat living in Finland who was in the same class as his daughter. In six months the boy learned to speak a form of Swedish of which his parents could understand not a word. Formerly, it was only essentially the Swedish-speaking elite of Helsinki or Turku that could express itself effortlessly in Finnish. Now, it is only the Ostrobothnian Finland-Swedes who encounter difficulties with the other native language. They solve the problem by moving to Sweden, which, because they assiduously watch the Swedish television channels at home, is a country more familiar to them than southern Finland.      Ostrobothnians are of the opinion that in southern Finland all Finland-Swedes speak only Finnish. True enough, and they speak perfect Finnish. Particularly in the capital metropolitan area, Finland-Swedes speak Finnish in which no linguistic genius in the world could detect the tiniest foreign accent. For the mother tongue of these Finland-Swedes is not, strictly, Swedish, but Finnish. They speak Swedish with one of their parents and with the teachers at school. But the rest of their lives take place in Finnish.      Who can promise that such bilingual people, when they come to marry across the language barrier, will wish to communicate with their children in the language which, of their two home languages, is (often) the weaker? They will certainly not choose Swedish if there is any risk of marginalisation associated with this choice.      Handball is an illustrative example of how Finland-Swedish marginalisation takes place. Handball is a typical Finland-Swedish sport, just as pesäpallo, a kind of baseball, is a Finnish one. Pesäpallo is played only in Finland, but here it is a big sport. It is a matter of pride for the sports programmes to show every match that is ever played in this country, much to the regret of Finland-Swedes. They, of course, would like to watch handball.      Handball, on the other hand, is a game that is played in all European countries, and farther afield. But in Finland handball is a marginal phenomenon. Not even matches on the national level are shown on television. The Finnish-language sports news may mention match results on days when pesäpallo has not been played.      Different professions tend to be branded according to gender. The more women there are in a profession, the lower pay and status it has. In this sense, Finland-Swedes are like women. The more often a Finland-Swede holds a ball in his hand, the less the game interests the majority population. One ball more or less. That is what one might think, but for the fact that in Finland the threat of marginalisation hovers over almost everything that takes place in the Swedish language.      There are different ways to attack this problem.      One could be called the Elisabeth Rehn model. As we know, Finland-Swedes are now so popular that the next president of Finland may be chosen from among their ranks. And the country has not had a Swedish-speaking president for more than fifty years.      Learning from the disaster of the last elections, the Finland-Swedish candidate takes no risks and conducts her campaign in Finnish. But okay, speaking Finnish is one of the most characteristic features of the Finland-Swede.      So why present yourself in Swedish and reach only your ancient aunt and her sister, when you can do it in Finnish to the whole nation. The trend is clear: the Swedish-speaking Lilla Teatern is today equally successful in Finnish. The same is true of the Viirus Theatre. The Schildts publishing house has begun to publish books in Finnish....      The question begins to be about something as banal as earning a living.      So from now on we will have more and more bilingual Finland-Swedes who do their work in Finnish and of whom nobody knows that they are Finland-Swedes. They speak rather formal but linguistically such correct Swedish that the true Finn will hardly learn it in the obligatory school lessons. Another counterstrategy to defeat Fennicisation might be called, for example, Nokiafication. For it is true to say that without the mobile phone company Nokia, Finland-Swedishness would be at a far greater risk of dying out.      How come?      The matter is linked with what is known as Finland-Swedish capital. In other words, that part of capital which has a mother tongue.      For the Finland-Swedish funds/foundations are doing very well. The Swedish Literary Association and the Swedish Cultural Foundation are now richer than the Finnish Cultural Foundation, and even richer than the Swedish Nobel Foundation!      It sounds incredible, but is explicable by the fact that cautious Finland-Swedish money did not join the speculative hysteria of what is known as the casino boom in Finland in the 1980s. Thus these foundations, unlike many others, did not sell their Nokia shares at the point when it looked as if the company would go under. As a result of their restraint, the Finland-Swedish foundations won a few billions.      One result is that Finland-Swedish culture enjoys far greater sponsorship than Finnish-language culture. Almost everything that is done in Finland in Swedish goes more or less badly in financial terms. The foundations have to support newspapers, theatres, publishers, clubs, societies, museums, schools, kindergartens....      It would, however, be wrong to claim that where Finns work for their money, Finland-Swedes live off foundation grants in the same way as shareholders can off dividends. Most Finland-Swedes never see foundation money, except possibly as they read a funded newspaper over their breakfast table. Are the foundations the reason why Finland-Swedes are generally considered to be very prosperous? Unfortunately, this is not the case. Most Finland-Swedes succeed in their lives about as well or badly as the rest of the population. It is true that there is a Helsinki-based elite which has 'old money' and which is more prosperous than average. This group of people is, however, compensated for by the fact that the percentage of farmers among Finland-Swedes is greater than in the rest of the population. And agriculture, in EU Finland, is no goldmine.      Formerly, the Finland-Swedish intelligentsia energetically rebuffed the opinion that 'all Finland-Swedes are rich'. Minorities always experience more or less pressure from the majority. But is it not better to be criticised for being rich, liberal, tolerant and able to speak languages than poor, discriminated against, stupid and thieving - epithets that most of the other minorities in the world are forced to put up with.      Translated by Hildi Hawkins      This article was first published in Nyt,      the weekly supplement of Helsingin Sanomat Top of page