Jaan Siitonen: Language skills – the superpower that increases our security?

In August 2023, the Finnish President Sauli Niinistö attended the Swedish radio program Sommarprat (Summertalk), in which the guest discusses important and personal topics accompanied by their chosen favourite music. President Niinistö talked about the war in Ukraine, how the Finnish NATO-membership came to be, his personal experiences about Sweden, and above all about his relationship with the Swedish language.

In his opening remarks he told a story from April 2015, when he participated in a concert together with his wife Jenni Haukio and the then Prime minister of Sweden Stefan Löfven. They spoke Swedish with each other and during their discussion it turned out that both Löfven and Haukio had the same favourite poet: Finnish Eeva Kilpi. Löfven could even recite Kilpi’s poems from memory. This impressed President Niinistö so much that he decided to start his episode with this story.

This story is a great reminder of how a common language and cultural understanding has a big influence and how it can tie people and countries together. When talking about how to make our alliances stronger, we tend to concentrate on the harder security aspects, as for example increasing the defence spending, buying new weapon systems, or military exercises. As these are very important elements of our security, we often forget to mention language skills, cross-country relationships, or daily grassroot networks as major factors that bind us together and create the corner stone for our shared values that also ultimately legitimizes our military alliances among the ordinary people. For instance, the Finnish Institute of International Affair’s report on Nordic resilience (2022) highlights the benefits of strong grassroot networks between the countries that makes the Nordic countries more resilient for outside threats.

The Language Learning Process – one must meet people

The reason why language learning is an effective way to strengthen our alliances lies in the process of learning a language. Let us say that a Norwegian person called Jarl decides to learn the Estonian language. For him to become fluent in Estonian, he must spend thousands of hours with people who speak the language, and maybe even move to the country for a while.  As a by-product, this creates friendships and a network that then starts to open different opportunities for him both professionally and socially.

Jarl could even meet his partner in Estonia and then build a family with bilingual children. At this point Jarl’s parents and siblings might become more interested in Estonia and start visiting the country. Also, many of Jarl’s Estonian friends and family visit Norway regularly. Just through Jarl’s decision to learn Estonian tens of people build cross-border relationships and strengthen mutual cultural ties among citizens in both countries.

Let us say that tens of thousands of people in the Baltic Rim area would do the same thing as Jarl. Suddenly there are many families, careers and networks that run like a web throughout the entire region. Of course, we already see many cases like Jarl’s, but I claim that with certain decisions, investments, and incitements, we could birth more similar stories. Cultural exchange and other forms of soft power have been done for decades between the Western countries and this has had a major effect, why countries feel connected and why they are willing to defend each other. However, more could still be done, and new forms of soft power are welcome.

Language ambassadors – simple method with a large impact

Learning a language is not easy and it is a big investment in time and effort for an individual. Therefore, a great deal of motivation is needed if one wants to learn a new language as well as a clear ROI – return of investment - should be involved. This begs the question: how to concretize the benefits and opportunities brought by a language?

“Kielilähettiläät – Språkambassadörerna” was founded in 2019 with the goal to concretize language benefits. The organization coordinates language ambassadors to visit schools to talk about their own inspiring experiences with language learning and to increase the understanding of what a great personal resource being able to speak another language really is. At first, a language ambassador, just like President Niinistö, usually did not know what opportunities the language could unlock. The goal of the visit is to awaken the student's inner motivation to learn and use new languages.

So far, we have focused on Swedish and Finnish, and our language ambassadors have visited over 1850 classes around Finland and reached almost 40 000 pupils. Over 90 % of the teachers see our method as a key component of language learning, especially when it comes to increasing the motivation among the pupils.

In 2022 we started to organize visits to Sweden. A Swede that moved to Finland tells their story about how they ended up in Finland and why Finland could be a great opportunity for other Swedes as well. Our future goal is to start implementing the language ambassador -method in the Nordics.

Proposals from the author:

In 2022, according to research centre Sipri, the Baltic Rim countries’ (excluded Russia and Belarus) defence spending totalled 102 billion dollars. Increased defence spending is necessary, but in addition to this more investments in forms of soft power should be formed such as
- Implement the “Language ambassador” -method in all Baltic Rim countries
- Create an exchange program (3-6 months) for civil servants to work in another Baltic Rim country and provide them with support to learn the language during their stay
- Create shorter exchange programs for pupils so that they can live in another Baltic Rim country during a school year
- Increase language teaching and create incentives for adults to learn new languages

www.kielilahettilaat.fi