ABSTRACT
Sweden has five national minority languages, namely Finnish, Meänkieli, Yiddish, Romany, and Sami. This chapter gives an overview of these languages in terms of history, status, and number of speakers. It offers an analysis of official minority language policies (laws, ordinances. and governmental initiatives) and the problems of implementation of minority language legislation. It is argued that there is considerable implementation space, partly because of the character of general laws in the area of minorities’ language rights. There is, however, also a potential conflict between the societal discourses on the language situation in Sweden today, which indirectly might have an impact on the implementation of the minority language policy. The official discourse, based on above all the Language Act and the Minority Act, is concerned with Sweden as a multilingual society and the right of minorities to preserve their mother tongue in addition to acquiring Swedish. However, under the pressure of a dramatically increased migration, Swedish educational policy has become more or less totally focused on the fast acquisition of Swedish. Thus, in regard to multilingualism and minority languages, Swedish language policies present partly contradictory language planning strategies.
