Why don't we speak English?

A question that I often dwell on is why we don’t speak English more often. Since I belong to the Swedish language minority in Finland I often run into the Finnish language majority. The minority should learn the majority’s language, right? Well in the region (landskap, maakunta) I live in the majority language is actually Swedish. You can get by pretty well just knowing one language in this region because there is no real necessity of having to learn the other domestic language.

I have learned enough Finnish to be able to get by at work. Every work place has its own vocabulary and I know mine in 2 languages. But if somebody asks me something that is not related to my work and would like an answer let’s hope they know Swedish or accept a short answer that makes no sense whatsoever. Don’t get my wrong, I understand Finnish but speaking it myself can be somewhat difficult.

But back to the first thing I wondered about in this post. Most Finns know some degree of English so instead of one speaking in very bad Swedish or Finnish and not being able to communicate with the other person in the conversation they could turn to English. But I know how it feels to speak English to another Finn. It’s feels ridiculous. It’s a sense of “I should know Finnish or he should know Swedish and we don’t”. It embarrassing not being able to communicate in the only two domestic languages we have and having to turn to a foreign language. It feels inappropriate. But maybe we should stop thinking about what is appropriate and start communicating instead…