I have surprisingly few concrete memories from my student days.

Of course, I remember many nice teachers and their lectures. The memory of the challenge of listening to Wednesday morning lectures on Latin syntax after a night at the student nation has also remained with me. My best memories are from the time when I had just become a research assistant, and they are connected with a research trip that led me far from the University.

In the spring of 1971, the ethnographical researcher Ragna Ahlbäck, the dialect researcher Ann-Marie Ivars and I embarked on a research trip to North America under the leadership of professor Lars Huldén. The journey, which comprised a total of 80 days and 13 000 kilometres, began in Seattle and ended in New York. During the trip we interviewed over 600 descendants of Swedish-speaking Finnish immigrants.

It was an amazing experience. We were very well received, and learned much about the experience of North American Swedish-speaking Finns. I also learned to understand Fenno-Swedish dialects far better than I had while in Finland. In addition, we gained a great overview of linguistic influence, as the interviewees used a mixture of dialect, Standard Swedish and English.