COMMENTARY: Linguistic S/M
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By Annamari Sipilä
I'm either a masochist or else an extremely humble soul, or perhaps both at once. There is no other plausible explanation for my having voluntarily sought to work abroad.
When one is out of Finland, the first humbling experience is losing the Finnish language. Nothing shrinks the ego more effectively than not being able to lord it in one's mother tongue.
Without the crutch provided by one's native language, half of the personality vanishes into thin air - the better half. Talking in a foreign language makes the speaker appear a slow and dim-witted individual devoid of even a glimmer of humour.
The regression process does not always take place according to the same set formula. There are bad days, and then there are even worse days.
There are days when you actually almost feel you've got the hang of it and you are coping. There are days when you know you are completely out to lunch. And then there days when the old saying about "shut your mouth and try to look beautiful" doesn't seem like a bad bet after all. On those occasions you add an extra layer of lip gloss and strain your cheekbones with frozen smiling.
But there are also other days, days when you really can't be bothered. Then you just stare moronically ahead and grunt monosyllables.
It is one of God's good graces that in the view of some foreigners at least, this last-mentioned behaviour pattern can be regarded as curiously attractive. Silent ugri chic can turn out to be remarkably effective in certain international circles.
Some claim to be completely themselves, to exude exactly the same personality, regardless of whether they are communicating in Finnish or in a foreign language. The great majority of them are lying through their teeth. The remainder are so thick that they do not even grasp just how lame they have been made by the loss of their mother-tongue. Or alternatively their personality was already so negligible from the outset that slicing it in half will have made little material difference.
Of course there are those bilingual and near-bilingual types who have never needed to build their personality around a single language. But they are a privileged exception, and in these matters - for once - they do not have a vote.
Having and using your own language brings a sense of empowerment. The individual who is using his or her own language is always going to occupy the high ground.
I do not trust those Finns who demand, for instance in the name of improving the efficiency of the European Union, that the number of official EU languages should be reduced. What are they trying to do - shoot themselves in the foot, or what? Finnish will be among the first languages to be taken behind the sauna and terminated with extreme prejudice.
Not that Finnish has ever been a language one could manage with outside the country's borders. But it is a question of principle.
Those people who speak one or other of the big languages as their mother-tongue enjoy - and always have enjoyed - a position of power over the users of the "little" languages. It is no more than reasonable to ask the French, English, or German speakers even to pretend to respect the rest of us.
Language matters are a little like national defence. It would be stupid if Finland were voluntarily to stand up and take the first step to weaken our already fragile position.
I once paid a visit to Wales in the company of a few other European journalists. The French member of our party expressed astonishment at the fact that the Welsh bothered to keep their language - Cymraeg - just about alive. Wouldn't it have been smarter all round to learn French instead, or even Chinese, he wondered aloud.
This conversation-opener was responded to in two different ways. Some of the group agreed wholeheartedly. Others were gobsmacked at the idea. I can assure you it was not difficult to choose sides.
As speakers of a small language we are specialists in humiliating and awkward situations. It is our own great privilege to be able to share this experience with others.
The trick is best achieved by steering the speaker of a major language into situations where he or she is unable to manage in his or her mother-tongue. It is downright pleasurable to witness at close quarters how the refined and controlled British or French ego gets frayed around the edges under these circumstances.
What we learn is that it is but a short step from linguistic masochism to linguistic sadism. And switching roles, well, it is good for all concerned.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 15.4.2007
The writer of the article was the Helsingin Sanomat correspondent in London from 2001-2006, and from September this year will take up a similar position in Brussels.
ANNAMARI SIPILÄ / Helsingin Sanomat
annamari.sipila@hs.fi
