A Transition Model of Language Shift in Nine Finnish Cities, 1920-1930

Abstract

A transition matrix model was designed to estimate language shift between Finnish and Swedish in nine Finnish cities, between 1920 and 1930. Data from the Census of cities in Finland for 1920 and 1930 provided cross-tabulations of the population by sex, by age-group, by languages spoken and by place of birth. Age-sex cohorts could thus be formed and language shift could be studied for every cohort. A life table for Finland, 1921-1930, was used to estimate mortality. Several additional assumptions, similar to those traditionally made for the residual method of analyzing internal migration, allowed the fitting of the data into the transition model for more than half of the cohorts analyzed. Various relaxations of basic transition rules allowed the fitting of almost all of the remaining cohorts. Findings suggest that language shift was an important factor in the decline of the urban Swedish-speaking population of Finland between 1920 and 1930. Language shift appears to be related to a person's entry into the labour force. In addition, a change from monolingualism to bilingualism was virtually universal for urban Swedish speakers, whereas a similar change for Finnish speakers only occurred to a significant degree in the three cities with the highest proportions of Swedish speakers.