[airforceF4]

3rd generation just now learning English? Took a while, did it not? Follow the $$$. My Finnish grandfolks did not allow the grandkids to speak Finnish. Do not worry—this is their problem, not ours.

[vladimir998]

You wrote:

“3rd generation just now learning English?”

No, third generation just learning Urdu or whatever they speak in Pakistan. They grew up speaking English in the UK. They are forced to learn the Middle Eastern/Central Asian languages often shortly before they are sent there for the weddings.

[muawiyah]

There was a time (circa 1812 or thereabouts) it was actually popular among the common folk in Finland to learn Russian.

The upper-class people and titled nobility were making haste fast to learn English and get outta' there.

BTW, that's the year the Swedes had to give up Finland as an independent Duchy to the Czar of Russia.

The only titled nobility I've found actually sticking around had already made arrangements for employment in the vast new Czarist efforts to open up Siberia for development.

That included ALL of Siberia all the way to the Pacific, and for some, all the way to Alaska and then California, and then finally Jackson County, Indiana (where they already had some cousins engaged in the new enterprise of opening up the Ohio Valley).

You will sometimes run across a Russian Orthodox cross on top of a grave in some of the pioneer graveyards there. That's why.