The Making of the Scandinavian Languages

2000

This project began in 1991 when Even Hovdhaugen submitted a proposal for a project on the history of linguistics in the Nordic countries to Nordiska samarbetsnämnden för humanistisk forskning (NOS H, the Nordic Research Council for the Humanities). A small grant was given to further develop the plans for the project. Even Hovdhaugen and Bengt Sigurd then jointly submitted an application for a threeyear research project to NOS H in 1992. The proposal was accepted, and the project ran from 1993 to 1996. The core group of the project consisted in the beginning of Even Hovdhaugen (Norway), Carol Henriksen (Denmark), Bengt Sigurd (Sweden), and Kalevi Wiik (Finland). In 1994, Kalevi Wiik had to leave the project due to other commitments and was replaced by Fred Karlsson as the Finnish representative. Kjell Paulsen, Oslo, functioned as secretary of the project during the duration of the project period and also one year as research assistant. The first thorough version of our manuscript was completed in late 1996. The magnitude of our task is aptly illustrated by the fact that we needed three more years of diligent work on top of the originally scheduled project period in order to properly finish the manuscript. The book has been written jointly by the undersigned core group of the project, but we have been very dependent on the help and research of a number of Nordic linguists. First of all, we would like to thank Kjartan Ottósson who has written the draft of most of the contributions on Iceland and Icelandic in chapters three, four, and five. Secondly, we thank the participants at the conference we arranged in Oslo in 1994 on the history of linguistics in the Nordic countries. The papers presented at this conference (Henriksen et al., eds. 1996) have been a valuable source in writing this book. Last, but not least, we would like to thank all the linguists who have been willing to answer our many curious questions or helped us find obscure references and forgotten material. The entire manuscript, with the exception of the brief concluding chapter seven, has been read and commented on in detail by nine prominent Nordic linguists, two each from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, and one from Iceland. We express our deep indebtedness to Nils Erik Enkvist

Nordicum-Mediterraneum, 2016

The origins of the medieval Norse term dönsk tunga (‘common Scandinavian language’) are obscure, but the term may indicate that the term ‘Danes’ once referred generically to Germanic-speaking Scandinavians. An original tribal name ‘Danes’ may have evolved this meaning with the emergence of a pan-Scandinavian identity focused on developments in southern Scandinavia during the pre-Viking period, much as the Germanic language of Britain came to be known as ‘English’ regardless of its speakers’ continental tribal ancestry. By the Viking Age, political developments may have ended such a generic meaning for ‘Danes’, though the use was fossilzed in dönsk tunga.

Journal of Pragmatics, 1987

Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 265.

Ulla Stroh-Wollin Han and hon -Anaphoric pronouns in Early Scandinavia 162

It has been said that "a language is a dialect that has an army and navy", and Scandinavia is the place where that saying seems to ring true the most. This paper takes a look at how language helps shape how Scandinavian people view themselves, as well as each other.

This paper deals with two very different forms of medieval business communication. The tri lingual situation in London (with [medieval] Latin, Middle English and Anglo-Norman, a French dialect) is analyzed and contrasted with the receptive bi-/multilingual situation (semicommunication) in the Baltic (with Middle Low German on the one hand and Danish and Swedish on the other). In spite of all differences in detail, it is shown that quite similar strategies are used to reduce the burden of mastering various linguistic codes at the same time and to obtain a maximum of economy in understanding each other without using a (third) common language, a lingua franca.

Hyllestad, Whitehead, Olander & Olsen. Language and Prehistory of the Indo-European Peoples. A Cross-Disciplinary perspective. Copenhagen Studies in Indo-European. Museum Tusculanum Press, Copenhagen, 2017

(Originally submitted 2004) Nordic archaeology’s attitude to identity, ethnicity, language and the Indo-European question has been intricate, and has varied through time. The nature of group identities, especially ethnicity was according to cultural historical archaeology something in the very heart of people – people were born into an ethnic identity that was characterized by common language, culture and “blood”. In the wake of Frederik Barth’s seminal introduction to “Ethnic groups and boundaries” (1969) this view was challenged. Barth emphasized the instrumentalist nature of ethnicity, and in his article the important element was not the idea of a primordial ethnic and cultural core, but instead emphasis on the maintenance and negotiation of boundaries. In Barth’s argument, ethnicity becomes a dynamic means of handling difference and a medium of interaction. Continued work on concepts of identity and ethnicity, influenced by sociologists like Bourdieu and Giddens, emphasized the historical depth of ethnic identities, and look beyond an instrumentalist approach to modeling the establishment, constitution and reproduction through over- and along-the-border interaction (Jones 1997). Recent work has sought a “contextual” approach, i.a. looking for the establishment of ideas of shared fundamental institutions, norms, practices and myths. Such shared institutions in themselves do not constitute an ethnic identity, but in time become referential nodes, practically embodied experience and ideas of shared history. Institutions, norms, practices and myths become instruments and cultural capital for the generation of shared identities (Prescott and Glørstad 2012).

English in 21st century Norway, 2020