There were three main stages to the Danish language to get it to how we know it today. In the Old Danish language (about 800-1100) there was no common language. Instead three “provincial languages” were used. They were that of Scania (then a part of Denmark), Zealand, and Jutland. Middle Danish underwent important changes, such as the levelling of intonation and the simplification of grammar. It also absorbed many loan words, especially from Low German. This was mainly through contact with traders from the Hanseatic League. Zealandic was used in the government offices and became the model for a common language.
By about 1500, the chief characteristics of Danish had evolved, and it began to be used as a national language. Like in English, the printing and publishing activities that happened during the Reformation led to a substantial transformation of the written language and contributed a great deal to the development of literary vocabulary. A geographical expansion of Danish took place when it became the official written language of Norway. It was then united with Denmark. During the last half of the 17th century, German was spoken at the royal court, and many German words entered the Danish language. Most of these words were later discarded. Danish had virtually completed its grammatical development by the beginning of the 18th century, and it became a significant cultural and literary language.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, fewer dialects were spoken, the interaction between spoken and written language increased, and the vocabulary expanded through the assimilation of German, French, and English words, including many technical terms. An authorized standard orthography, with subsequent revisions, has been in effect since 1871. Through a spelling reform adopted in 1948 the capitalization of nouns was abolished, and the letter aa was replaced by å, which brought Danish closer to Norwegian and Swedish. Modern Danish has just two cases (nominative and genitive) and two genders. Its most unusual feature is the glottal stop, which derives from what was originally a tonal accent.
Even though in Danish there have been minor recent spelling reforms, in general, Danish is a conservative language. It differs greatly between written language and it’s pronunciation, and the spelling doesn’t seem to have modernised. In relation to foreign loan words, Danish does adopt them from other languages. This is still happening and examples of common English words in Denmark include: sweater, pyjamas, sport, tennis, football, strike, software and hotdog. You can also find many French, German, Latin and Greek words in the Danish vocabulary, for example, billet (French for ticket) and angst (German for fear).
Although Iceland is not always included in the definition for ‘Scandinavia’, it is linguistically linked to the other Scandinavian countries. For this reason I think that it is important to include it in this essay.
Icelandic is a member of the North Germanic (Scandinavian) branch of the Germanic languages. It is derived from Old Norse, the language of the Vikings who came to Iceland from Norway in the 9th century ad. From 1380 to 1918 Iceland was ruled by Denmark; despite this, Icelandic remained virtually uninfluenced, its purity of form assured by geographic isolation and a strong literary tradition. Even today Icelandic differs little from Old Norse, and modern readers can easily read the medieval Eddas and sagas. The Roman alphabet was introduced with Christianity in about the year 1000, but the older ð (eth, or voiced th) and þ (thorn, or unvoiced th) were retained, as were æ and ö. The vowels may also take acute accents: á, é, í, ó, ú, and ý. Modern Icelandic, which is considered to date from 1540, is the most conservative of the Scandinavian languages and is still heavily inflected. Icelandic has three genders and four cases of nouns, pronouns, and adjectives (nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative); verbs have three persons. The pronouns and verb systems have changed little since the classical period. Pronunciation, however, has changed significantly since Old Norse times. The language is equally purist in vocabulary. A linguistic policy was formulated in the 18th century, which generally prevents assimilation of foreign words, so that instead of international scientific and technological terms being adopted, for example, compounds of native Icelandic words are formed; in addition, old words are revived and new ones are created, based on native roots.
To summarise, Iceland is shown to have the most conservative written form of the Scandinavian speaking Nordic countries. Not even accepting foreign loan words into their vocabulary but instead looking back to their roots and formulating a new Iceland word in its place. It has remained totally unaffected by its surrounding countries due to isolation from being on an island.
The Norwegian Language is a member of the Western group of the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic languages.
Because of the significant dialectal changes that occurred during the Viking age (c. 800-1050), Old Norse (or Old Norwegian), the language from which the modern tongue has derived, came into being and was spread by Norwegian migration to Iceland and other areas in the North Atlantic. The Latin alphabet, replacing runic signs, was introduced with Christianity, and a distinct Norwegian written language evolved in the 11th century. During the subsequent centuries, Danish, Low German, and Swedish influenced the Norwegian language. The Danish influence was dominant between 1380 and 1814, when Norway was united with Denmark under the Danish Crown.
Danish, the official language of Norway since 1397, became also, in the 16th century, the written language of Norway. The educated classes, especially in the cities, generally spoke Danish while Norwegian dialects continued in use in the country districts and among the working and middle classes of the towns. Only the upper class of that time read books because they could afford them, and these were all written in Danish, which obviously had some influence over them, speaking Danish. During the 19th century, the spoken Danish developed into a language called Dano-Norwegian, which was heavily Danish in structure and vocabulary, but with native Norwegian pronunciation and some native grammatical influences. Later called Riksmål, it became the official language of Norway. Subsequently, however, a strong nationalistic movement awakened a desire for a language people felt was their own. In response to this desire, the linguist Ivar Aasen began, in the middle of the 19th century, the construction of a new national literary language, the Landsmål (“country speech”), based on Norwegian dialects and free of Danicisms. This endeavour won public support, and the Landsmål, further developed, became an important secondary language.
Under pressure of the Landsmål movement, the Riksmål went through a series of significant reforms (1907, 1917, and 1938) emphasizing strictly Norwegian speech and spelling. The names of the two languages were officially changed: The Riksmål became the Bokmål (“book language”) and the Landsmål, the Nynorsk (“New Norse”). The two languages have equal validity in law, and both must be taught in the schools. The Bokmål, still the leading language, is strongest in eastern Norway, the Nynorsk in western Norway. Changes continue to occur in both languages.
The written Norwegian language in comparison to Icelandic is very liberal. It has gone through massive changes over time and it is still changing a great. More recently it has taken on a more conservative approach to change, due to the revolt, in which the Norwegians wanted a language, which was their own. Once this one standardised language is formed I can see them changing to be more conservative and making sure they don’t re-lose their language, which is part of their national identity.
The Swedish Language belongs to the northern or Scandinavian branch of the Germanic languages. It is an eastern development of the language known as Dönsk tunga (“Danish tongue”), spoken not only in Denmark but also in all of Scandinavia even before the early Middle Ages.
The Swedish branch of this common tongue developed into a separate language during the period 900-1500 and is called Old Swedish. The Latin alphabet was introduced in the 13th century; periods of further differentiation followed, and some approximation to Danish occurred. The written language, based on two of the most widely spoken dialects, was made uniform throughout all of Sweden in the 14th century. Aside from differences in vocabulary, Swedish now differs from Danish especially in its retention, after a vowel, of the old voiceless consonants k, t, and p, which in Danish changed to g, d, and b, and in its retention of the vowels a and o in unstressed syllables, whereas Danish has e or no vowel.
The main body of the Swedish vocabulary is of old Germanic stock. The principal foreign loan words come from Latin and Greek words that came in with Christianity and also with the growth of scholarship. Low German words dating from the time of the Hanseatic League (13th-16th century), German words from the 17th century, and French words borrowed in the 17th and 18th centuries are all part of modern Swedish. A simplified spelling reform was introduced in 1906.
The Swedish language is not as liberal as Norwegian but it changes with the times and modernises when it needs to. It is by no means conservative, like Icelandic, as it has changed a great deal over the years from the original Scandinavian norm.
Percentage of people in Scandinavia who understand other Scandinavian written languages:
The importance of this diagram is to show general understanding of written languages between the main three Scandinavian countries.
First of all I would like to point out that the arrows in the diagram point in the direction from the target language to the respondent’s language.
This shows that 86% of the Swedes understand Norwegian without difficulty, and 89% of the Norwegians understand Swedish without difficulty.
The results I would expect to find would be a high understanding between Sweden and Norway, due to them being bordering countries and the extreme simplicity of travelling between the two. I would also expect quite a high amount of understanding between Norwegian and Danish and a medium amount of understanding between Sweden and Denmark.
Instead:
- Figures concerning Danish vs. Norwegian are high.
- Figures concerning Norwegian vs. Swedish are fairly high
- Figures concerning Danish vs. Swedish are considerably lower
These results may not be completely accurate and they were gathered using surveys and some people may have somewhat overrate themselves.
These results are also clearly affected by the Norwegian variety tested being Bokmål, which originally derived from Danish. This gives a clear advantage for understanding between Denmark and Norway.
Since 1952 it has not been necessary for citizens to present their passport in order to cross Scandinavian borders. Also, since 1954 citizens no longer need a visa or to take their social security with them between countries. Therefore this makes it easier to find employment in any of the Scandinavian countries. As a result it has made integration between the countries more frequent.
The Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure once said ‘Time changes all things: there is no reason why language should escape this universal law.’(Saussure, 1915/1959:77), this proving that language is developing, especially as Norway and Sweden are bordering countries, any dialects close to this border are likely to be more similar; whereas Denmark’s a completely different island, which makes travelling between mainland Scandinavia and Denmark more difficult. This makes Denmark somewhat secluded and enables it to keep it’s own language integrity with a larger amount of ease. .
There have been a number of social and political factors, which have influenced the written Scandinavian language in the different countries to change.
The liberal movement in Norwegian politics, which accompanied the surge of nationalism, became more pronounced after the revolutions of 1848 in the major countries of Europe. Political nationalism was reinforced by intellectual and cultural nationalism. Norwegian folktales and folk songs were collected and arranged and became extremely popular. Norwegian dictionaries, histories, and grammars were compiled.
In August 1905 the Norwegian people voted overwhelmingly for separation from Sweden.
The Norwegian government, dominated by ministers with liberal policies, became one of the most advanced in Europe in matters such as unemployment insurance benefits, old-age pensions, and laws concerning divorce and illegitimacy. In 1913 Norwegian women achieved the right to vote in all national elections, and Norway has promoted equality in the workplace with progressive social policies. Women play a prominent role in the country’s politics.
The Labour Party was elected to power in 1935 and continued the policies of moderation and political liberalism that had dominated Norwegian politics since 1905.
So, as you can see, the liberal government, favouring change, made it possible for the people of Norway to restore their own language and all the things that come with it, i.e. National identity etc.
Grimm's law is important in that it demonstrates the development (Etymology) from the old Germanic languages of more recent languages such as English, Dutch, and Low German. It also shows that changes in a language and in groups of languages come about gradually and not as a result of random word changes. Grimm based his research on the 1818 treatise of the Danish philologist Rasmus Christian Rask, a discussion of the origin of Old Norse. Grimm's work was augmented by the explanations of stress shifts formulated by the Danish philologist Karl Adolf Verner.
To conclude, there are both liberal and conservative cases of spelling in Scandinavia. The foremost leading example of conservatism evidently being Icelandic. Changes to spelling there have been resisted. Commonly accepted spellings allow words to be recognisable despite changes in pronunciation over time and geography. This is clearly a good thing, as it allows anyone from all over the country to understand this common, unchanging form. This also makes the language easier for foreigners to learn, and more inviting, knowing that it isn’t going to change.
Language has progressed so much over the years. Contrary to the purist views on language decay, language will always inevitably be subject to change, as influences from other cultures and languages are always increasing. In a world that is always developing, it is only natural that language, which plays a major part in the lives of everyone in the world, should also develop. It is inevitable that from time to time, words will acquire new meanings. As well as being enriched by new foreign vocabularies, languages also gain more words through other means.
As technology advances, new words need to be invented. It’s how the countries cope with this change that makes them liberal or conservative. Iceland, for example, refuses to adopt foreign loan words. It instead looks at the new words and compares them to old words with similar roots and adapts them to make them more Icelandic.
The most liberal of the written languages is thought to be Norwegian, due to its continuing change from the Danish written norm to Norwegian and it’s general liberal political history, from which such change came about.
On the whole mainland Scandinavia itself is the most liberal of the Nordic countries, with any surrounding islands (Denmark, Iceland etc.) proving to be more conservative. I believe this is due to the increased simplicity of crossing the border in mainland Scandinavia, whereas travel to surrounding islands proves to be more difficult than simply driving over the border. As I said before it is no longer necessary for citizens to present their passport in order to cross Scandinavian borders and citizens no longer need a visa or to take their social security with them between countries. Therefore this makes it easier to find employment in any of the Scandinavian countries. As a result it has made integration between the countries more frequent. Language in all countries develops depending on the kind of influences it receives, and the extent of those influences. As Norway and Sweden are bordering countries, dialects close to this border are likely to be more similar, influencing both each others written and spoken language, without intention.
Norway has however taken on a more conservative approach to written language in recent years, restoring its Norwegian written language from the previous Danish (Bokmål, originally derived from the Danish language) written normal. It is now trying to keep it Norwegian Norwegian like it’s fellow Iceland has kept its Icelandic Icelandic.
Bibliography:
Books:
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“Investigation of the Origin of the Old Norse or Icelandic Language.” Rasmus Krisian Rask. The linguistic circle of Copenhagen, Copenhagen 1993.
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“The Scandinavian languages- an introduction to their history.” Einar Haugen, Faber and Faber limited 1976.
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“Scandinavian language structures”. Einar Haugen, Max Niemeyer Velag Tingen 1982.
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“Language change progress or decay?” Jean Aitchison, Cambridge University Press, 2001.
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“The Nordic Languages, their Status and Interrelations” Lars S. Vikør. Nordic Language Council, Novus Press Oslo, 2001.
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Microsoft (R) Encarta. Microsoft Corporation. Funk & Wagnall's Corporation 1994.
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