Tämä artikkeli on luettavissa myös suomeksi: Laitilan kuukauden kieli vuonna 2024

A training session at the Multilingual Library, which covered topics such as the Multilingual Month (Satakielikuukausi), made me reflect on the people living in Laitila whose native language is something other than Finnish. I began to think that even many locals might not be aware of how many different languages are represented in our town. I felt it would be great to highlight these languages and their speakers in some way. At first, I thought about displaying all the languages on an information stand in the library, which we did, but after discussing the idea with my colleague, we decided to make this a bigger project. This is how Laitila’s Language of the Month was born in 2024. Every month, we held an event at which we introduced one of the languages spoken in Laitila. I personally and unilaterally chose the languages to be featured. Unfortunately, only 12 languages fit into the year, though there were nearly 30 to choose from.

The languages we presented were Romanian, Tagalog, Latvian, Vietnamese, Tigrinya, Polish, Estonian, Thai, Turkish, Kannada, Spanish and, in January 2025, Ukrainian. Throughout the month, books in the featured language were available for loan to both adults and children. At each event, we presented a PowerPoint with information about the language and the country where it is spoken.

We had the pleasure of hosting a native speaker at each event, who read a story in their own language, while we read it in Finnish and, if necessary, in English. At the end of each session, we asked our guest questions about their language – and about themselves if they were comfortable with the idea. Everyone was happy to participate. The audience was engaged and eager to ask further questions. “Surprisingly” enough, Laitila locals were particularly interested in the translations of “chicken” and “egg”.

In January, a journalist attended the event and wrote a great article about it for Laitilan Sanomat, which provided nice publicity for the project. Our January guest was so enthusiastic about Laitila’s Language of the Month that they volunteered to come every month to do face painting for children.

In May, during the Tigrinya session, our guest brought homemade Eritrean bread, traditionally enjoyed with butter and served with coffee or tea. It was fresh, steaming, wonderfully fragrant and delicious!

Finding speakers of different languages was sometimes like detective work, but we managed to organise every session successfully. Securing a Vietnamese-speaking guest was a somewhat nerve-racking experience, as their participation was confirmed only two hours before the event started. Fortunately, our January guest was a great help, connecting us with other immigrants. We had to cancel the Ukrainian evening in October, but luckily, we managed to reschedule it for January 2025.

All the events took place in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere. However, there were occasional moments of nervousness, both for us as organisers and for our multilingual guests.

This project, inspired by the Multilingual Library, has been a fascinating journey into different languages, cultures and people. It has been a joy to dive into a new language each month and create a presentation. In total, three of us were involved in making this happen. One person handled the books for each featured language, while the other two took care of everything else from start to finish.

In January, we will host a thank-you coffee event for all our guests and their families. We hope that everyone will be able to attend and enjoy some treats. We will also create some fun activities to make sure everyone has a great time and leaves the event feeling happy.

Sari Sandberg

Sari Sandberg is a librarian at Laitila library. Her areas of responsibility include fiction and non-fiction for adults, library services for special groups and immigrants and the Books home service (Kirjakassi), i.e. taking material home to those who for one reason or another cannot get to the library themselves.

Photos: Gianina Dumitru.