Ya. K. GROT AND THE RUSSIAN LANGUAGE IN FINLAND

The Russian language is taught in Finland during 200 years as a second language and about 150 years as a mother tongue, and this experience can only evoke a lot of interest. Yakov K. Grot played a unique role in the history of teaching the Russian language in this country. Today, the Russian language is still compared to the Swedish language, it is found out, who wants to speak these languages, who with and when, what their value is. In 2013, the Minister of culture asked whether it would be reasonable to introduce the teaching of Cyrillic alphabet in all Finnish schools. The focus audience and the goals of teaching changed, and the question is relevant whether we teach the language of the Eastern neighbour or the language of Finland’s own historical and cultural minority. In the course of history and under the influence of Finnish laws that changed many times two official state languages were accepted in Finland, Finnish and Swedish, and to each of them rules concerning the writing of documents, translation, teaching, professional occupation, posters in the public places etc. Every schoolchild knows how the linguistic legislation is composed, how the bilingualism and multilingualism are formed and how they function, what should be done in order to acquire languages, how to bring up children in a bilingual family.