This study examines different methods of language identification for the languages Meänkieli, Kven, and Finnish. The methods explored are two n-gram-based classifiers; Naive Bayes and TextCat and one word embedding-based classifier; fastText. These models were trained on approximately 100.000 sentences taken from the three languages and further divided into four separate datasets to examine how data availability impacts the final performance of the trained models. The study found that the best model for the examined dataset was the fastText classifier, but for languages with less available material a naive Bayes classifier might be more appropriate. / Denna studie utforskar olika metoder av språkidentifering för språken meänkieli, kvänska och finska. Två metoder baserade på n-gram undersöks; naive Bayes och TextCat samt en metod med ordinbäddningar; fastText. Dessa modeller tränades på sammanlagt 100 000 meningar taget från dessa tre språk och delades vidare in i fyra delmängder för att utvärdera hur stor inverkan storleken av träningsdata har på de tränade modellerna. Studien fann att den bästa implementationen utifrån den undersökta datamängden var fastText, medans språk med färre resurser skulle förmodligen gynnas bättre av en språkidentifering byggd med en naive Bayes klassifierare.

This essay deals with recurring grotesque motifs in Mikael Niemi’s novels Kyrkdjävulen, Populärmusik från Vittula (Popular Music from Vittula), Fallvatten and Koka björn (To Cook a Bear). It aims to widen the academic understanding of Niemi’s works by focusing on their aesthetics in relation to previous studies, which have mostly been concerned with placing Niemi in a context of Tornedalian minority literature. With the grotesque defined as monstrous and boundary breaking imagery that challenges common rational, ideological or moral world views, this study shows that these motifs can both strengthen, nuance and undermine postcolonial interpretations of the novels.Through Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the grotesque, emphasis is placed on the subversive and utopian aspects of the grotesque motifs. With the use of Sigmund Freud’s term the uncanny (das unheimliche) and Julia Kristeva’s term the abject, psychological and emotional aspects of the selected motifs are drawn to the surface. And, by turning to Sara Ahmed’s thoughts on emotions and performativity, the function of disgust in said motifs is examined. The grotesque motifs in question are: the degradation of the mouth, the lower animals, the boy with the knife, the witch mother, and the androgyne. The first part of the analysis shows that in Niemi’sworks the mouth is associated with storytelling, power, agency and the subject’s ability to both knowand express himself, but also to take the world into himself and be changed by it. The mouth is often degraded, which in a carnivalesque manner results in a linguistic revival. The second part of the analysis argues that lower animals, such as rats, reptiles and bat-like devil spawn, are symbols of the abject – that which man must cast out in order to exist. The motifs of the rats and devils are associated with themes of language, identity and writing, but also allude to a threatening feminine principle. In the third part of the analysis, the motifs of the boy with the knife, the witch mother and the androgyne are found to be juxtaposed to and interwoven with each other in narratives concerning gender, sexuality and coming of age. The results of the study show that Mikael Niemi utilizes grotesque aesthetics to give shape toprocesses of growth and change, captivity and liberation, and a complicated sense of identity that eludes clear and rational definitions. The grotesque in these novels is not purely utopian in a Bakhtinian sense, but more emotionally ambivalent. A determining factor to whether the grotesque image brings true renewal or only a repetition of past pain is the will and choice of the individual. Thus, Mikael Niemi’s novels speak not so much of the power of a minority identity, as of the power and potential of the individual to reinvigorate that identity. They form an individualized, existential project in a Tornedalian context.