When did the Swedish-speaking Finns come to this land?

[Sees2011]

http://www.magma.fi/tema/swedish-tongue-finnish-heart
8.2.2012

Who are the Swedish-speaking Finns, where did they come from and where do they live?

Kjell Herberts, a Finland-Swedish sociologist:

"The Åland Islands and west coast are where the main concentrations of Swedish-speakers are. Most research now thinks that Finland was settled by both populations around the same time. I don't think anybody can claim we were first here.' Maybe the Sami population are the only ones who can really make this claim."


Is Kjell Herberts right?

[Jaska]

http://www.magma.fi/tema/swedish-tongue-finnish-heart
8.2.2012

Who are the Swedish-speaking Finns, where did they come from and where do they live?

Kjell Herberts, a Finland-Swedish sociologist:

"The Åland Islands and west coast are where the main concentrations of Swedish-speakers are. Most research now thinks that Finland was settled by both populations around the same time. I don't think anybody can claim we were first here.' Maybe the Sami population are the only ones who can really make this claim."


Is Kjell Herberts right?

Since when has a sociologist been an expert on this matter?

He clearly has no clue about the subject, unfortunately. There are no traces whatsoever about Swedes in Finland before the second millennium AD, while Finnic people (ancestors of the Finns) were here at the mid-first millennium AD, and even before that

I guess Herberts has messed the identity and language; he speaks about fishers because the modern nations were not there yet, but the lack of the modern identities cannot change the fact that Finnish was spoken in Finland much earlier than Swedish.

Of course it is another matter whether or not the modern policy can be justified by ancient language expansions:

"Just like the Iron Age Germanic speakers in the coastal belt were ultimately assimilated in the Finnic speakers before the Swedish speakers arrived, were the Finnish speakers assimilated in the Swedish speakers before the modern spread of Finnish speakers to the coastal belt. If it suffices to plead for those Finnish speakers who were assimilated in the Swedish speakers and are not the genealogical ancestors of later Finnish speakers, it would equally suffice to plead for those Germanic speakers who were assimilated in the Finnic speakers and are not the genealogical ancestors of later Swedish speakers."
http://www.mv.helsinki.fi/home/jphakkin ... itical.pdf

[geography]

Sorry but I simply could not help myself, I just had to comment on, not so much what you wrote here, but on your link: Objective language political note.

Just a few points,:

Objective? You write that:
"I invite both camps to enter in the objective, argument-based conversation. In the end only the arguments count, and the opinion which cannot be relevantly justified will lose."

And in you 10 pages you use three sources, the rest is as far I as can see just your opinion based on your opinion and hardly objective or argumentative.

Another example is that you, in the beginning, compare with the Welsh in the UK. Why not compare with German or English in ex. Denmark? They are both compulsory languages to learn though there are very few native speakers, no requirements in the law to translate documents into German or English or anything like that.

You also label Swedish as a "useless compulsory language" is that objective?

You yourself use Swedish in Finland (have seen you write in Swedish in here), and how do you propose people read HBL, or Vasebladet or watch YLE fem without Swedish?
If you take it into a wider context then Swedish can be used and understood in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, used in Nordic cooperation as lingua franca

To top of you mention yourself
"The present law of language skills tells us, that in the position of public authority in which the academic degree is required, is the satisfactory skill level in Swedish required in the bilingual municipality or governmental office, and satisfactory understanding in Swedish in the Finnish-speaking municipality office."

To claim a language is useless is a harsh accusation that shows you have little understanding of languages.

I also see you use the word "analysis" in your paper though I see nothing to suggest that you actually analyze anything, you simply claim (without any sources or justification.)
EX:
"Claim 1: Removal of compulsory Swedish would be an attack against the identity of the Swedish speakers.
Answer: Wrong.
Identity is a voluntary personal concept, therefore the identity of Swedish speakers cannot be dependent on whether the Finnish speakers learn Swedish or not."

If I may pitch in here and ask a question to your two-line-analysis; who has said that? If identity is voluntary then I could choose to to be a Finnish-speaker, though I doubt that anyone would recognize me as such and the recognition from others is crucial in identity formation as it help develop group of "us" and "them" (Allardt & Starck 1981).

You also undermined your own conclusions in what your write. Like f.ex in addition to your take on identity your later write:
"Identity is a matter of individual himself, and Swedish language is not included in the identity of Finnish speakers. For a Finnish speaker, Swedish is just one foreign language among others, even though Finland as a state is officially bilingual."

If identity is individual, as you suggests, how can you then speak for all Finnish speakers without any empirical data? And you completely ignore the number of Finnish who are bilingual ex. have parents with different mother tongue.

You also talk about Swedish as:
"...another official (national) language." But accordingly to the language Act Swedish and Finnish are both national language of Finland and no language outranks the other - which again questions your unbiased position.

You also write: "Here the line has clearly been crossed, beyond which the minority no more gets any additional benefit or security, but the great majority gets unnecessary obligations and duties.[What about the duties and obligations to learn Finnish?] In any other country they have not ended up in a result as useless and uneconomical as the one in Finland, and no agent anywhere else is claiming that such a situation would be necessary for the survival of the minority." [my emphasis to question your objectivity once again]

I will tell you where, in Switzerland and Luxembourg. They have four languages so other countries do have "uneconomical" situations as well but you chose not to mention them. In Switzerland the Italian-speaking minority is around the same size as the Swedish-speaking in Finland.

Finally, your solution seems to be; no compulsory teaching of Swedish or Finnish in dominant monolingual municipalities. How do you then suggest that these people interact with each other if they don't learn each others languages? The result (and you know it) will of cause be that the Swedish speakers will have to learn Finnish and the Finnish speakers don't have to learn Swedish but then again that seemed to be your agenda all though the paper.



BTW. if you are wondering why Herbartsa is talking about this subject, then you might want to read the article

Kjell Herbertsa sociologist and expert on the topic...He has been a researcher at the Institute of Finland- Swedish Social Research in Åbo Akademi University since 1982

So to answers your question when an sociologist has been an expert, I would say from around 1982

[geography]

http://www.magma.fi/tema/swedish-tongue-finnish-heart
8.2.2012

Who are the Swedish-speaking Finns, where did they come from and where do they live?

Kjell Herberts, a Finland-Swedish sociologist:

"The Åland Islands and west coast are where the main concentrations of Swedish-speakers are. Most research now thinks that Finland was settled by both populations around the same time. I don't think anybody can claim we were first here.' Maybe the Sami population are the only ones who can really make this claim."


Is Kjell Herberts right?

There is no consensus on when the Swedish speakers first came to nowadays Finland. The two first books I have listed below says that the earliest signs of Swedish speakers in Finland are from the sixth century. They could have been earlier and they could have been later. Most agree that by the 13th century (third book) Swedish speakers lived in Finland.

It is a bit the same with America, there are several signs that the vikings came long before Columbus, however he is still widely acknowledged as the first to discover America.

Beijar, Kristina et al. (1997): Life in Two Languages The Finnish Experience. Schildts, Espoo.

Allardt, Erik & Starck, Christian (1981): Språkgränser och samhällsstruktur Finlandssvenskarna i ett jämförande perspektiv. Almqvist & Wiksell Förlag AB, Stockholm.

Wolf-Knuts, Ulrika (2001): The Finland Swedes: A Compensating Minority. Pp. 143-152 in Coimbra Group (2001): Migration, Minorities, Compensation Issues of cultural identity in Europe. Coimbra Group.

[Kinaporin kalifi]

Kärä Peter, som du antagligen vet det fanns inga svenskspråkiga under sexhundratalet för man talade då på dansk tunga.

[Jaska]

You also label Swedish as a "useless compulsory language" is that objective?

You yourself use Swedish in Finland (have seen you write in Swedish in here), and how do you propose people read HBL, or Vasebladet or watch YLE fem without Swedish?

It is objective, because only arguments count. I have no strong emotions for or against, only arguments count. That's why it is objective.

"Useless compulsory language" means that there is no use for Swedish among the Finnish speakers, UNLESS they themselves make up some use. So there is no functional arguments supporting obligatory Swedish.

Besides, the term "compulsory" of course excludes native speakers of Swedish, who will and can read HBL etc. "Compulsory" is only a valid concept when talking about non-native speakers.

So to answers your question when an sociologist has been an expert, I would say from around 1982

Again, he is an expert in sociology since then. He is not an expert of linguistic history, unless you can show me articles by him using historical linguistic methods.

There is no consensus on when the Swedish speakers first came to nowadays Finland.

Of course there is a consensus view: every scientific source knows that it happened in the first centuries of the second millennium.

The two first books I have listed below says that the earliest signs of Swedish speakers in Finland are from the sixth century.

This is not a scientific result. They only mean that there has been Scandinavian activity in Finland at that time, but they have no results whatsoever to support that they were Swedes. At that time there were no Swedes, nor was the Swedish language distinguished yet.

[geography]

It is objective, because only arguments count. I have no strong emotions for or against, only arguments count. That's why it is objective.

Like I wrote in my first post you conclude that Swedish have no place in Finland even BEFORE beginning your analysis which does not seen objective to me. Furthermore, you might believe that you are indifferent and objective but I don't believe anyone in social science can claim complete objectivity, hermeneutics sure would disagree.

"Useless compulsory language" means that there is no use for Swedish among the Finnish speakers, UNLESS they themselves make up some use. So there is no functional arguments supporting obligatory Swedish.

Again I would like to ask how you propose that Finnish speakers interact with Swedish-speakers, get jobs in Åland island. You yourself use Swedish in this forum to interact with others.
Many people have lived their whole life in Finland, only been able to speak Finnish, that is also possible today HOWEVER, just because you can avoid speaking another language does not mean that English, Russian or Swedish is useless in Finland.

Again, he is an expert in sociology since then. He is not an expert of linguistic history, unless you can show me articles by him using historical linguistic methods.

You do not have to be an expert in linguistic history (which is a pretty narrow field). The study of language is not exclusively for linguistics, a geographer or economist can for example know more about some historical events/periods than a historian. Today most researchers work from a multidisciplinary angle using sources from a variety of fields. So when Kjell Herberts, who is an expert on multilingualism and minorities (especial the Swedish-speaker Finns) is called an expert, I tend to agree.

Of course there is a consensus view: every scientific source knows that it happened in the first centuries of the second millennium.

If I, on the top of my head, can list two book quoting several scholars who are of different opinion then there is no consensus - just like you and I have not reached a consensus. I agree that the majority talks about approx. year1200 but consensus means that all agree.

This is not a scientific result. They only mean that there has been Scandinavian activity in Finland at that time, but they have no results whatsoever to support that they were Swedes. At that time there were no Swedes, nor was the Swedish language distinguished yet.

I am not sure what you mean with "its not a scientific result". It is books written by scientist based on other scientists and their own studies, published by scientific publisher, read by scientist and refereed to by scientist. In my world that makes it as close to scientific result as it gets.

If there was no Swedes or Swedish language, how can you be sure there where Finns and Finnish language and thereby conclude that Finnish came first?

If Mikael Agricola is the father of written Finnish (16th century) and the guy who streamlined the language, then is is a valid argument that Finnish did not exist (in written form) before.

[Jaska]

It is objective, because only arguments count. I have no strong emotions for or against, only arguments count. That's why it is objective.

Like I wrote in my first post you conclude that Swedish have no place in Finland even BEFORE beginning your analysis which does not seen objective to me. Furthermore, you might believe that you are indifferent and objective but I don't believe anyone in social science can claim complete objectivity, hermeneutics sure would disagree.

Yeah yeah, when we philosophize enough, nothing is objective. But it is enough to be objective in the common sense meaning of the word.

Please try to be constructive and show WHY it is not objective.

"Useless compulsory language" means that there is no use for Swedish among the Finnish speakers, UNLESS they themselves make up some use. So there is no functional arguments supporting obligatory Swedish.

Again I would like to ask how you propose that Finnish speakers interact with Swedish-speakers, get jobs in Åland island. You yourself use Swedish in this forum to interact with others.
Many people have lived their whole life in Finland, only been able to speak Finnish, that is also possible today HOWEVER, just because you can avoid speaking another language does not mean that English, Russian or Swedish is useless in Finland.

There is no use for Swedish in the most areas of Finland, because
1. there are no Swedish speakers, and/or
2. if there are some few, they can speak Finnish.

Do you understand?

Again, he is an expert in sociology since then. He is not an expert of linguistic history, unless you can show me articles by him using historical linguistic methods.

You do not have to be an expert in linguistic history (which is a pretty narrow field). The study of language is not exclusively for linguistics, a geographer or economist can for example know more about some historical events/periods than a historian. Today most researchers work from a multidisciplinary angle using sources from a variety of fields. So when Kjell Herberts, who is an expert on multilingualism and minorities (especial the Swedish-speaker Finns) is called an expert, I tend to agree.

He is an expert of another field, just as you named, he is not an expert in the history of languages. Ask him about the ancient contacts between Germanic, Finnic and Saami speakers in Western Finland, and he knows nothing about it. Unfortunately, such contacts are the only way to tell anything about the language situation of the past. There is no scientific method to predict the past language situation from the sociolinguistic situation of the present.

Of course there is a consensus view: every scientific source knows that it happened in the first centuries of the second millennium.

If I, on the top of my head, can list two book quoting several scholars who are of different opinion then there is no consensus - just like you and I have not reached a consensus. I agree that the majority talks about approx. year1200 but consensus means that all agree.

Consensus means that all that are experts on the field and work in the scientific framework agree. When we discuss about the linguistic past, we can ignore the contradicting views based on some irrelevant disciplines or mere guesses. Your "expert" Herberts has not given any scientific results for his guess, and he is not an expert in the field, so we can ignore his views (as well as those views you found in your books).

This is not a scientific result. They only mean that there has been Scandinavian activity in Finland at that time, but they have no results whatsoever to support that they were Swedes. At that time there were no Swedes, nor was the Swedish language distinguished yet.

I am not sure what you mean with "its not a scientific result". It is books written by scientist based on other scientists and their own studies, published by scientific publisher, read by scientist and refereed to by scientist. In my world that makes it as close to scientific result as it gets.

Then you can give us here a short conclusion about their methods and results, please. Or are you afraid that they appear to be of irrelevant fields, having no power of testimony in the actual history of languages?

If there was no Swedes or Swedish language, how can you be sure there where Finns and Finnish language and thereby conclude that Finnish came first?

Answers for your questions can be found here:
http://www.mv.helsinki.fi/home/jphakkin/Jatkuvuus2.pdf

Try to read it, it is scientific.

In short:
- There is a continuum of Finnic placenames of Southwest Finland since the mid-1st millennium BC.
- There is a continuum of Swedish placenames only since the 2nd millennium AD.
- Even the Germanic-originated placenames were borrowed to Swedish from Finnic/Finnish (read Johan Schalin's articles).

If Mikael Agricola is the father of written Finnish (16th century) and the guy who streamlined the language, then is is a valid argument that Finnish did not exist (in written form) before.

Written language has nothing to do with the origin of a language. Written language is artificial, spoken dialects are the true language(s). Modern Finnish is a conglomerate of different Finnic dialects, and as such modern Finnish is artificial and late - just like modern Swedish is artificial and late (Skåne dialect was only late robbed from Danish). But these Finnic dialects are older in Finland than Swedish; no expert denies this.

[geography]

Please try to be constructive and show WHY it is not objective.

In your paper you compere the Swedish language in Finland with the Welsh in UK. I find the comparison strange as Wales is a country. Instead you should use Luxembourg or Switzerland who have similar situations.

Furthermore, you keep talking about Swedish as useless in Finland and completely ignore all the facts that says it is not useless - I don't call that objective.

I have met doctors in Finland that did not speak English but could communicate with native English, German and Danish speakers via Swedish.

In your last comment you have however started to modify your statement:

There is no use for Swedish in the most areas of Finland, because
1. there are no Swedish speakers, and/or
2. if there are some few, they can speak Finnish.

Now its most areas - I take that as a sign that you agree Swedish is useful in Finland. Besides there are Swedish-speakers in most areas of Finland though not many.

Furthermore, you say that the Swedish-speakers can just speak Finnish... You can see it yourself right? You want the Swedish speakers to adapt if they want to talk to you. Objective? You are laying all the responsibility on the Swedish-speakers.

This is actually the biggest problem regarding the discussion on Swedish in Finland and when you suggest that neither the Finnish speakers or the Swedish speakers should be forces to learn the other language it is not a fair or equal solution as you suggest. It is the beginning of the end.

While a national language needs no special protection, a minority language does. The rights of its speakers must be respected and even defended in the face of the onslaught of majority language and culture (OReilly 2001: 93).

He is an expert of another field, just as you named, he is not an expert in the history of languages. Ask him about the ancient contacts between Germanic, Finnic and Saami speakers in Western Finland, and he knows nothing about it.

I will agree with you as much as I myself am not an expert on the matter. However, you seem to be very fixated or titles and whether or not he knows about the ancient contacts between Germanic, Finnic and Saami speakers in Western Finland is speculation. What I suggest is that while he might not be an expert on the history of languages he is an expert on Swedish-speaking Finns and their history which includes their language. Where you see sharply draw lines, I see overlapping areas.

Consensus means that all that are experts on the field and work in the scientific framework agree

Scientific framework of what? Linguistics or history? Their might be consensus amongst linguistics and they might claim to be the only ones who can determine the matter. However, historians might disagree on both accounts.

If you want to know or read about when Swedish speakers first came to Finland do you pick up a linguistics book, a history book or a book on arkeology?

Then you can give us here a short conclusion about their methods and results, please.

So you want me to account for all historians + others that have ever worked on the topic and their method used? Ok, but while I work on that why don't you do the same for linguistics and then we can compare notes.

Or are you afraid that they appear to be of irrelevant fields, having no power of testimony in the actual history of languages?

So you are saying that historians have no say in the history of languages? Isn't that the same as saying they have no say in the history of politics.

Try to read it, it is scientific.

I am afraid I will have to disappoint you, my Finnish skills are not up the the challenge, I will however, commend you for using references unlike in your objective paper on the Swedish-speakers.

[/b]

[aikalainen]

"Useless compulsory language" means that there is no use for Swedish among the Finnish speakers, UNLESS they themselves make up some use. So there is no functional arguments supporting obligatory Swedish.

Again I would like to ask how you propose that Finnish speakers interact with Swedish-speakers, get jobs in Åland island.

There are not that much jobs in Åland. For example in the biggest village of Åland, Mariehamn, there are about 11.000 inhabitants only. Actually, you should be more concerned about Åland-people getting jobs in the rest of Finland, while they do not have "compulsory finnish" in their schools at all.

Many people have lived their whole life in Finland, only been able to speak Finnish, that is also possible today HOWEVER, just because you can avoid speaking another language does not mean that English, Russian or Swedish is useless in Finland.

I guess Jaska does not mean literally, that swedish is "useless". When comparing to his other text, the idea seems to be that swedish is "not very useful" for finnish-speaking finns, on the average. That is an argument, why swedish should not be "compulsory" for all pupils in finnish-speaking schools, but just one "selectable" language among other languages.

As you can see on this map, the most of finnish-speaking finns (white) live far away from swedish-speaking finns (dark blue). The mixed areas are in light blue. (Additionally, the most of swedish-speaking finns outside Åland speak excellent finnish as well.)

[Jaska]

Please try to be constructive and show WHY it is not objective.

In your paper you compere the Swedish language in Finland with the Welsh in UK. I find the comparison strange as Wales is a country. Instead you should use Luxembourg or Switzerland who have similar situations.

Wales is a unit within a greater state, Great Britain. By percentage and areal distribution Welsh is a good analogy to the Swedish-speaking area of Finland.

Furthermore, you keep talking about Swedish as useless in Finland and completely ignore all the facts that says it is not useless - I don't call that objective.

You haven't given any examples how it would be useful.

In your last comment you have however started to modify your statement:

There is no use for Swedish in the most areas of Finland, because
1. there are no Swedish speakers, and/or
2. if there are some few, they can speak Finnish.

Now its most areas - I take that as a sign that you agree Swedish is useful in Finland. Besides there are Swedish-speakers in most areas of Finland though not many.

Let's keep it precise: Swedish is not useful in Finland overall, it is useful only in the areas with great percentage of Swedish-speakers.

Furthermore, you say that the Swedish-speakers can just speak Finnish... You can see it yourself right? You want the Swedish speakers to adapt if they want to talk to you. Objective? You are laying all the responsibility on the Swedish-speakers.

As you saw, I was talking about Finnish-speaking areas. In the Swedish-speaking areas it is vice versa: native Finnish speakers should - and do - speak Swedish. So that is very objective.

I thought that you had read my memo...

He is an expert of another field, just as you named, he is not an expert in the history of languages. Ask him about the ancient contacts between Germanic, Finnic and Saami speakers in Western Finland, and he knows nothing about it.

I will agree with you as much as I myself am not an expert on the matter. However, you seem to be very fixated or titles and whether or not he knows about the ancient contacts between Germanic, Finnic and Saami speakers in Western Finland is speculation. What I suggest is that while he might not be an expert on the history of languages he is an expert on Swedish-speaking Finns and their history which includes their language. Where you see sharply draw lines, I see overlapping areas.

Sociolinguistics has no historical aspect, unless history science (documents) or historical linguistics is applied. I saw no sign of either those in the works of Herberts.

Consensus means that all that are experts on the field and work in the scientific framework agree

Scientific framework of what? Linguistics or history? Their might be consensus amongst linguistics and they might claim to be the only ones who can determine the matter. However, historians might disagree on both accounts.

They do not disagree, if they know their own discipline and its limitations. If they don't know, then their disagreement is irrelevant and they are only dilettants.

If you want to know or read about when Swedish speakers first came to Finland do you pick up a linguistics book, a history book or a book on arkeology?

A linguistic book is the one which can tell us that there were no Swedish speakers in Finland so early, but in this timeframe also historical records can tell us when the Swedish speakers arrived.

So you are saying that historians have no say in the history of languages? Isn't that the same as saying they have no say in the history of politics.

If there is a discipline studying the history of politics independently from the general history science, then I would say yes. Namely, historical linguistics is methodologically totally independent from the history science. I thought that you would have known that...

[Sees2011]

There is no consensus on when the Swedish speakers first came to nowadays Finland. The two first books I have listed below says that the earliest signs of Swedish speakers in Finland are from the sixth century.

There's a lot "all good came from Sweden" -thinking around. I'd say that it seems very important to Swedish speakers to believe that the Finns did not arrive first and the Finns certainly were not much of a cultural success story when they arrived.

But if the Swedish speakers arrived and survived from the sixth century I would like to have some facts about it. What kind of proofs they give in those books you mentioned?.

I have understood that the Finnish language came to the coasts of Finland a lot earlier than the sixth century. The Finns were not the first here but an early and very successful wave of new language.

Do you really think that we should say that "Most research now thinks that Finland was settled by both populations around the same time."

[Pystynen]

"Claim 1: Removal of compulsory Swedish would be an attack against the identity of the Swedish speakers.
Answer: Wrong.
Identity is a voluntary personal concept, therefore the identity of Swedish speakers cannot be dependent on whether the Finnish speakers learn Swedish or not."

If I may pitch in here and ask a question to your two-line-analysis; who has said that? If identity is voluntary then I could choose to to be a Finnish-speaker, though I doubt that anyone would recognize me as such and the recognition from others is crucial in identity formation as it help develop group of "us" and "them" (Allardt & Starck 1981).

This is true, but seems irrelevant to the (IMO blindingly obvious) argument that compulsory teaching of Swedish cannot be a part of a Swedish speaker's identity as it does not even concern him/her. What is the connection supposed to be, exactly? Could a Finn reasonably state that lack of compulsory Finnish teaching in let's say Wisconsin is an attack against their identity as Finnish? Most probably not.

You also undermined your own conclusions in what your write. Like f.ex in addition to your take on identity your later write:
"Identity is a matter of individual himself, and Swedish language is not included in the identity of Finnish speakers. For a Finnish speaker, Swedish is just one foreign language among others, even though Finland as a state is officially bilingual."

If identity is individual, as you suggests, how can you then speak for all Finnish speakers without any empirical data?

There is no need to speak for all Finns to refute a statement that Swedish would be a necessary part of the Finnish identity. Knowledge of Swedish can of course be an optional part of the Finnish identity for someone (and nobody's stopping them from learning Swedish).

While a national language needs no special protection, a minority language does. The rights of its speakers must be respected and even defended in the face of the onslaught of majority language and culture (OReilly 2001: 93).

Certainly true, but much of pro-Swedish camp seems to rather insist that Swedish is, in fact, also a "national language", and it is quite evidently treated distinct from minority languages such as Sámi. No-one is suggesting that Finland Swedish needs no support.

If you would like to derive a requirement to speak Swedish from its areal usefulness and its minority status (that's "if" not sure if I've followed your entire argument), does not the same argument require us to speak Sámi as well? Sámi varieties are by far more endangered, and if compulsory Swedish teaching can be defended *purely* as a necessary evil to maintain Finland Swedish's existence, then definitely we need to instill compulsory Sámi, and have it done yesterday.

Of course, I don't think this is the case, and I also don't think you think this is the case, and Swedish's special treatment derives not from its minority language status but (as a leftover, I think; you may disagree) from its historical, acrolectal status.

Finally, your solution seems to be; no compulsory teaching of Swedish or Finnish in dominant monolingual municipalities. How do you then suggest that these people interact with each other if they don't learn each others languages? The result (and you know it) will of cause be that the Swedish speakers will have to learn Finnish and the Finnish speakers don't have to learn Swedish but then again that seemed to be your agenda all though the paper.

The Swedish speakers will have to learn Finnish if they wish to get along in a monolingual Finnish-speaking environment, yes; but similarly, Finnish speakers will have to learn Swedish if they wish to get along in a monolingual Swedish-speaking environment (eg. Åland, or most of Sweden). Why exactly is this unfair? Surely it is not inherently unfair that there are more monolingual Finnish areas in Finland than monolingual Swedish areas.

[Sees2011]

They still insist on Magma-pages that "Scholars such as Allardt, Starck & Beijar et. al. talk about the first Swedish speakers arriving in the 6th century".

Could it be true?

[Jaska]

They still insist on Magma-pages that "Scholars such as Allardt, Starck & Beijar et. al. talk about the first Swedish speakers arriving in the 6th century".

Could it be true?

No, there are absolutely no linguistic results supporting such a view.

Try to find out what is the "evidence" for such a claim - I bet it is either a misinterpretation from some other discipline (archaeological influence from Swedes is seen as a proof of Swedish language) or some pseudo-linguistic piece, like some absurd and erroneous place-name interpretation à la Paula Wilson.
http://www.kotus.fi/index.phtml?l=sv&s=590

Those mentioned guys are sociologists, not linguists. I try if I find any arguments for their claim.

There are many articles referring to those guys, but all they agree that Swedes came only from 12th century onward. Maybe it's just some layman's misinterpretation.