Abstract
The present chapter reports results of a study on the language policies and experiences of 11 intermarried families in Tallinn. As the capital of Estonia, the city contains much of the linguistic and ethnic diversity of the state. Forty-five percent (45 %) of the country’s 392,000-strong non-ethnic-Estonian population resides in the city (Statistics Estonia, Statistical database: population and Housing Census 2011: PC0428: population by ethnic nationality, sex and place of residence, 31 December 2011. http://pub.stat.ee/px-web.2001/I_Databas/Population_Census/databasetree.asp. Accessed: 24 June 2013, 2013a), half the city’s population speaks a non-Estonian language as a mother tongue and 23 % of residents are of a different citizenship than Estonian (Tallinn City Government, Statistical Yearbook of Tallinn 2012. http://www.tallinn.ee/eng/g2677s63835. Accessed 24 June 2013, 2012). Ten of the participant families had been successful in raising at least one child to adolescence with active and productive competence in at least two languages including the state language, Estonian. Another participant family was on its way to achieving this goal. Through semi-structured interviews the family members discussed the formation and application of language policy; shared their experiences; and looked to the future when the adolescent children become adults and consider starting families of their own. It is suggested that the successful outcomes were not wholly due to the families’ language policies, but that the particular sociolinguistic context of Tallinn, as well as the status of the languages involved, also had a large role to play.
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Notes
- 1.
These other languages are listed with the level as self-reported by the parent in question according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR).
- 2.
The father had not been living with the children and their mother for a number of years at the time of the study.
- 3.
M2: read as ‘mother of family 2’; F9: read as ‘father of family 9’; Only those parents and children referenced using a code in the chapter are listed with a code in Table A7.1 in Appendix – either ‘m’ or ‘f’ for mother and father respectively for the parents, and ‘c’ for child for the children, followed by the number of the family.
- 4.
Years;months.
- 5.
Father F9 was raised in Estonian and formally educated in Swedish in Sweden; Father M11 was largely raised in and exclusively formally educated in Russian in Estonia.
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Acknowledgments
I acknowledge the valuable feedback to this chapter of Mila Schwartz, my doctoral supervisor Anna Verschik and my family, and also the assistance of the schools and the participation of the 11 families, without whom this study would not have been possible.
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Doyle, C. (2013). To Make the Root Stronger: Language Policies and Experiences of Successful Multilingual Intermarried Families with Adolescent Children in Tallinn. In: Schwartz, M., Verschik, A. (eds) Successful Family Language Policy. Multilingual Education, vol 7. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7753-8_7
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