Sharp cuts in spending are seen as a threat to domestic language research and language maintenance: a group of professors of Finnish Swedish, Sami, the Nordic languages, and the Finno-Ugric languages have appealed to the government's Ministerial Committee on Economic Policy to pay more heed to national culture.
The productivity programme of the Ministry of Finance is leading to cutbacks in funding for the Research Institute for the Languages of Finland.
The tasks of the institute include solving problems in language usage, research into the spoken and written languages, as well as monitoring of the media and public officials. The institute also has a book of Finnish grammar available for free on the Internet.
The 42 professors signing the appeal are concerned about the future of language maintenance and research in Finland. They note that employees with professional skills are a key resource of research in the humanities, and that decisions that are made now will have far-reaching consequences.
The Ministerial Committee on Economic Policy will discuss the proposal of the Ministry of education on November the 25th.
