Citation: Aksinovits, Larissa, and Anna Verschik. 2024. Family Language Policy in the Estonian Diaspora in Finland: Language Ideology and Home Language Education. Languages 9: 225. https://doi.org/10.3390/ languages9070225 Academic Editors: Ekaterina Protassova and Maria Yelenevskaya Received: 15 April 2024 Revised: 13 June 2024 Accepted: 18 June 2024 Published: 21 June 2024 Copyright: © 2024 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). languages Article Family Language Policy in the Estonian Diaspora in Finland: Language Ideology and Home Language Education Larissa Aksinovits 1, * and Anna Verschik 2 1 Finnish Association of Home Language Teachers, Oman äidinkielen opettajat, 04320 Helsinki, Finland 2 School of Humanities, Tallinn University, 10120 Tallinn, Estonia; annave@tlu.ee * Correspondence: larissa.aksinovits@gmail.com Abstract: The article deals with family language policy (FLP) among Estonian families in Finland. The focus is on language beliefs concerning maintenance of Estonian and Estonian home language (HL) classes provided by municipalities free of charge. Using the classical three-component model of FLP by Spolsky (language beliefs, language management, language practices), the analysis concentrates on language beliefs (the importance of Estonian and HL education) and management (real actions that enable children’s involvement in HL classes). The data were collected from eight Estonian families via semi-structured interviews. The caregivers have higher education and stable incomes. All participants emphasized the importance of proficiency in Estonian for their ethnolinguistic identity and the beneficial aspects of HL classes. However, we found discrepancies between beliefs and actual behavior: the children do not attend Estonian HL classes because of complicated logistics and, according to the caregivers, poor language teaching methods (this claim is not supported by any evidence). Such discrepancies between beliefs and management have been attested in various recent studies of other minorities. Keywords: family language policies; language maintenance; home language teaching; Estonian; language ideologies 1. Introduction The objective of the current study is to investigate attitudes to the option of home language instruction among Estonian diaspora families in Finland. The study is conducted within the framework of Family Language Policy (FLP) research. Estonia and Finland are situated geographically close and their languages are closely related, belonging to the Finnic branch of the Uralic language family. Both peoples have a history of cultural connections. The number of Estonian background migrants has increased in Finland especially due to the enlargement of the European Union in 2004 (Praakli 2014). According to recent data, 50,318 Estonian speakers constitute the second largest immigrant community in Finland, according to the Finnish Statistical Agency’s database (StatFin Database 2022). However, the participation in home language classes of Estonian children is lower when compared to the activity of participation of children of other large minority origins—Russian, Arabic and Somali speakers. Thus, Estonian- speaking children participating in HL classes are in the fourth place (Teachers’ Labour Union OAJ 2019; Finnish National Agency for Education 2023). This circumstance justifies the question of Estonian-speaking parents’ awareness of the options of home language teaching and their motivations to send or not to send their children to Estonian classes. The current article presents preliminary research on the topic. We pose the following research questions: Q1: What are language beliefs among Estonian caregivers concerning bilingualism and home language proficiency? Q2: What are the actual language management measures as far as the enrolment of the Languages 2024, 9, 225. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9070225 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/languages