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ACTA ACADEMIAE REGIAE GUSTAVI ADOLPHI 152 2 sid2 3
ACTA ACADEMIAE REGIAE GUSTAVI ADOLPHI CLII
Perspectives on Two Centuries of Norwegian Language Planning and Policy Theoretical Implications and Lessons Learnt
Ernst Håkon Jahr (editor)
UPPSALA 2018
Kungl. Gustav Adolfs Akademien för svensk folkkultur 4
Abstract Ernst Håkon Jahr (ed.), Perspectives on Two Centuries of Norwegian Language Planning and Pol- icy. Theoretical Implications and Lessons Learnt. Acta Academiae Regiae Gustavi Adolphi 152. Uppsala, 2018. 197 pp. ISSN 0065-0897, ISBN 978-91.87403-30-9.
Within Scandinavian linguistics, two specific fields of study have aroused particular interest among linguistic scientists world wide: Old Norse and Norwegian language planning and policy. For a long time, there have been conferences on Old Norse studies. However, until now, no con- ference or symposium has been dedicated specifically to the second field: Language planning and policy in modern Norway. The reason why Norwegian language planning and policy have received so much international attention is primarily due to the works and contributions of Einar Haugen (1906–1994). His influ- ential theoretical model of language planning activities was based on empirical data from the de- velopment of modern Norwegian. His seminal 1966 book Language planning and language con- flict: the case of modern Norwegian as well as other works laid the foundation for the study and research of Language Planning as a separate area within the broad subject of linguistic studies. At the University of Agder, Kristiansand, the First International Symposium on Norwegian Lan- guage Planning and Policy was held in September 2016. This volume is based on the papers pre- sented at the Kristiansand symposium. It presents a wide range of perspectives on nearly two cen- turies of language planning and policy in modern Norway.
Keywords: language planning, language conflict, language policy, language history, language standard, Modern Norwegian, Bokmål, Nynorsk, Dano-Norwegian, Sami, Johan Storm.
© The authors and Kungl. Gustav Adolfs Akademien för svensk folkkultur 2018
ISSN 0065-0897 ISBN 978-91-87403-30-9
Printed in Sweden 2018 Textgruppen i Uppsala AB 5 Contents
Preface ...... 7 Ernst Håkon Jahr: Two centuries of Norwegian language planning and policy: why and how it all started, and how it is divided into three different periods ...... 9 Lars S. Vikør: The Norwegian language situation. An overview ...... 15
* * * * Eli Bjørhusdal: Norway’s language policy: universalism under pressure ...... 29 Kurt Braunmüller: Creating a creoloid as a national language: the case of Dano-Norwegian ...... 43 Jeroen Darquennes: Language conflict research: a synopsis and some ideas on how to advance it ...... 61 Olle Josephson: Two standards, reversed hierarchies, explicit indexi- calities – does it matter? A Swedish perspective on Norwegian lan- guage policy 1814–2017 ...... 81 Andrew Linn: The significance of a historical perspective on language planning and language policy-making – Listening to past voices to inform future policy: the voice of Johan Storm ...... 103 Sylfest Lomheim: Language policy, dialects and spoken standard in Norway ...... 115 Gro-Renée Rambø: 1905–1945 – a substantive period in Norwegian language history? ...... 123 Gunnar Skirbekk: Language history and the power of symbols ...... 141 Peter Trudgill: “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley”: unintended consequences of language planning ...... 155 Alastair Walker: To what extent can Nynorsk be considered a Euro- pean minority language? ...... 167 6
The participants at the First International Symposium on Norwegian language planning and policy, at the University of Agder, Kristiansand, 22–23 September 2016. In the first row (from the left): Gudlaug Nedrelid (Agder), Allison Wetterlin (Agder), Marit Aa- modt Nielsen (Agder). Second row: Wim Vandenbussche (Brussels), Andrew Linn (Westminster), Gro-Renée Rambø (Agder). Third row: Olle Josephson (Stockholm), Sylfest Lomheim (Agder), Eli Bjørhusdal (Western Norway). Fourth row: Martin Skjekkeland (Agder), Kurt Braunmüller (Hamburg), Jeroen Darquennes (Namur), Alastair Walker (Kiel). Fifth row: Peter Trudgill (Agder/ Fribourg), Ernst Håkon Jahr (Agder). 7 Preface
Ten of the twelve papers included in the present volume were first presented at the First International Symposium on Norwegian Language Planning and Po- licy, held at the University of Agder, Kristiansand, 22–23 September 2016. The theme of the symposium was “Perspectives on two centuries of Norwegian language planning and policy: theoretical implications and lessons learnt”. The papers by Gunnar Skirbekk and Lars S. Vikør were not discussed at the symposium. Skirbekk’s paper has been translated from Norwegian for this volume. Allison Wetterlin made a draft translation of the Skirbekk paper. The symposium received financial support from the Faculty of Humanities and Education at the University of Agder, and the Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy, Uppsala.
Kristiansand, August 2018
Ernst Håkon Jahr 8 Two centuries of Norwegian language planning and policy 9 Two centuries of Norwegian language planning and policy: why and how it all started, and how it is divided into three different periods
Ernst Håkon Jahr, University of Agder
Many linguistic scholars consider Norway special linguistically or, rather, so- ciolinguistically. One important aspect is the fact that written Norwegian comes in two separate official standards. Another unique feature is the wide- spread and almost universal use of local dialects in all walks of life and at all levels of society. These two aspects make the country stand out linguistically. Since this situation was brought about by close to 200 years of official and private language planning, there might be lessons to be learnt from the Nor- wegian case for language planning in general (Haugen 1966). The Norwegian situation seems to offer an alternative sociolinguistic model to the situation we find in most European countries and beyond, including the neighbouring coun- tries of Sweden and Denmark. In Sweden and Denmark dialects have a far lower social status than in con- temporary Norway, where e.g. pupils and students speak their local dialects in school. Even the School Act states that they have the right to do so. Although not yet investigated enough, it seems that electronic text messages among young people are also written in dialect more often than not. The country’s School Act states that teachers should pay due attention to the local dialects used by their pupils, and that they should not attempt to make their students abandon their home dialect. The frequent use of local dialects in modern Norway – from kindergarten to university and from local municipalities to Par- liament and government – shows a unique position of local dialects in society at large, and a sociolinguistic situation probably unparalleled in Europe, to which perhaps only the German speaking parts of Switzerland come close.
The sociolinguistic situation that triggered the language struggle In one respect – sociolinguistically – the situation in 1814 (with Norwegian in- dependence after 400 years of Danish rule) was quite “normal”: a spoken, high 10 Ernst Håkon Jahr status variety used among the upper-middle classes all over the country was closely connected to a written standard (Danish), and all the different local dia- lects of the peasants and fishermen (used by about 95 % of the population) had low status and were used only locally. This sociolinguistic situation parallels what we find in many countries and societies, and could easily have continued without being seriously questioned – had it not been for three important cir- cumstances: (1) the rise of National Romanticism as an influential philosophical move- ment during the period, (2) the fact that the written standard was Danish, and as such – after 1814 – belonged to a foreign country, and (3) the fact that the prestigious spoken variety of the upper-middle classes was an idiom resulting from language contact during the Dano-Norwegian union. It had developed during the 18th century in the speech of officials and the upper-middle classes as a result of language contact. Spoken Norwegian and written Danish were mixed, yielding a new, grammatically simplified oral variety.
If it had not been for the national romantic ideology of the time, it would have been quite conceivable to continue using the Danish standard, since the spoken variety of the upper-middle classes was so close to written standard Danish. However, the romantic idea of the period focused on the issue of “true” Norse- dom and the development of a national language for Norway. The only recog- nized Scandinavian languages in the first half of the 19th century were Danish, Swedish and Icelandic (not yet Faroese); and now Norwegian was to be estab- lished. A Norwegian language could, however, only be considered distinct from Danish and Swedish from an Ausbau sociolinguistic point of view, and here the upper-middle classes – still with their primary linguistic and overall cultural ties to Copenhagen and Denmark – could not in any way compete with what the peasants had to offer in terms of language and culture. In this process, linguists and linguistic research played an important role. In hindsight, it is easy to see that 19th century linguistic theory was highly insuf- ficient in several ways for handling the linguistic situation in Norway after the end of the Dano-Norwegian union. A crucial question, and, as it turned out, an unsolvable problem at the time, was what national status, if any, could be assigned to the Dano-Norwegian spo- ken variety which had developed among the upper classes in Norway during the 18th century. In terms of prosody, phonology and syntax, this variety was clearly different from Danish, but word forms, morphology and vocabulary were derived from the written Danish standard of the period. The linguistic theories available and certainly dominant during the 19th cen- tury – the comparative historical method and the Neogrammarian approach – were both incapable of providing an adequate analysis and description of what, Two centuries of Norwegian language planning and policy 11 to a modern language contact researcher, was the very interesting and quite unique result of language contact found among the Norwegian upper classes. The Dano-Norwegian idiom was disregarded altogether, since neither theor- etical approach could cope with language contact varieties. These theoretical frameworks for language description could only handle linguistic borrowings. The fact that entirely new varieties could evolve out of language contact was in principle beyond their conceptual framework. One obvious objective for Norwegian linguists was that whatever was de- fined as “Norwegian” could be studied in Norway in the same way that Swe- dish could be studied in Sweden and, say, Polish in Poland. To make that pos- sible, the mixed – and thus complicated – linguistic situation in Norway had to be simplified rather considerably. That meant that it was necessary to discrim- inate between different aspects of the observable linguistic data. Here, compar- ative historical linguistics and, later, Neogrammarian theory helped to deter- mine what data to include or reject. The synchronic data which were accepted were those that could be related to Old Norse by Neogrammarian “sound laws”. An unavoidable result of this method was that the socially high-status Dano-Norwegian spoken variety of the upper classes “had” to be classified as “non-Norwegian” or “Danish” (sometimes also referred to as “less Nor- wegian”) (Jahr 2007). Following Peter Trudgill (1986), this special result of contact between Nor- wegian and Danish may be termed a koiné or creoloid. From the very begin- ning, it was the mother tongue of its speakers (i.e., it never went through a pe- riod of reduction of functions which is characteristic of a pidgin); it was intel- ligible to speakers of Danish as well as to speakers of Norwegian dialects; and it exhibited some clear instances of phonological and grammatical simplifica- tion, as well as levelling and admixture. In the newly independent Norway, members of the upper and educated classes spoke this creoloid as their first and, most often, only native linguistic variety. Due to the high social status of its speakers, the Dano-Norwegian variety has always enjoyed the highest social status of all spoken varieties in Norwegian society. Since the 1890s, it has been referred to in Norway as “talt riksmål” (spoken Riksmål). The two most important Norwegian language planners of the 19th century were the linguist and poet Ivar Aasen (1813–1896), and the grammarian and high-school teacher Knud Knudsen (1812–1895). These two individuals repre- sented opposing solutions as to how an independent, written Norwegian stand- ard was to be developed: (1) the creation of a new written standard based on contemporary rural, low-status dialects (Ivar Aasen), or (2) a gradual change of written Danish in the direction of the high-status Dano-Norwegian creoloid of the upper-middle classes (Knud Knudsen).
Aasen and Knudsen thus proposed written standards with significantly differ- ent sociolinguistic bases. Both solutions were pursued during the 19th century. 12 Ernst Håkon Jahr
The social and political competition between them is known as “the Norwegian language struggle”. This policy soon led to the politically very important conclusion that the newly established state of Norway (from 1814) in reality contained two nation- al cultures. While one was (now) foreign and imported (i.e. Danish), the other was native (Norwegian). The upper-middle classes, essentially the upper class of government officials, represented – according to this theory – a foreign, co- lonial culture (Danish), whereas the peasants, the populace, represented the in- digenous and native (Norwegian). There was serious competition between these two cultures which found expression, for example, in political opposition between the farmers and the ruling upper classes. Thus, Aasen’s and Knudsen’s linguistic programs represented clearly con- flicting social bases, which had the consequence that nation-building in post-1814 Norway based on language rapidly developed an inherently explo- sive sociolinguistic opposition: the dialects of the peasants versus the Dano- Norwegian creoloid of the upper classes (Jahr 2014). It is easy to deduce from this that maintenance and defence of the use of local dialects were of crucial importance in the Norwegian language struggle from that time onwards. This social opposition has from the very beginning been salient in the Norwegian language struggle. The current linguistic situation in Norway has been brought about by official and private language planning. The linguistic and sociolinguistic results of lan- guage planning are guided by ideological and/or political convictions and prin- ciples. These principles have defined the limits of language planning in three very different periods: (1) 1814–1917. The nationalist period, when national arguments dominated. The main goal of the period was to develop a national linguistic standard. In 1917, there were two standards. (2) 1917–1964. The sociolinguistic period, when social arguments were the driving force behind the developments. The main goal of the period was to reach a linguistic compromise between the two standards which evolved during the first period. (3) 1964–2002. The period of transition from a one-standard strategy for lan- guage planning to a two-standard strategy. The process was completed by a decision by Parliament in 2002.
References
Haugen, Einar, 1966: Language conflict and language planning: The case of modern Norwegian. Cambridge, Mass. Jahr, Ernst Håkon, 2007: The (mis)use of linguistics: linguistic research and Norwegian Two centuries of Norwegian language planning and policy 13
nation building. In: Elmevik, Lennart (ed.), Nya perspektiv inom nordisk språkhis- toria. Uppsala. Pp. 81–88. Jahr, Ernst Håkon, 2014: Language planning as a sociolinguistic experiment. The case of modern Norwegian. Edinburgh. Trudgill, Peter, 1986. Dialects in contact. Oxford. 14 Ernst Håkon Jahr The Norwegian language situation 15 The Norwegian language situation. An overview1
Lars S. Vikør, University of Oslo
Basic information Norwegian is spoken by a majority close to 100 % in the kingdom of Norway, which at present contains around 5 million inhabitants. A few tens of thousands have other languages as their first language, in the first place the indigenous lin- guistic minorities: Sami (spoken in three varieties which function as separate lan- guages: North Sami, Lule Sami and South Sami) and Kven (a variety of Finnish which is now acknowledged as a separate language), all of these mainly spoken in Northern Norway, and the so-called Rom languages, which are used by a few hundreds. The groups using Kven and the Rom languages are acknowledged by law as national minorities, while the Sami have a special status as “aboriginal people” (urfolk). In addition, there are many “immigrated languages” which have entered the country since the 1960s, and there is the sign language of the deaf (about 3000 users). None of these languages will concern us here. The majority language, Norwegian, has two distinct written varieties: Bok- mål (“Book Language”) and Nynorsk (“New Norwegian”). They are so close to each other linguistically that they may be regarded as “written dialects”, mu- tually completely intelligible. Orally, local dialects are extensively used throughout the country. They are also mutually intelligible, although they can be very diverse, not least in intonation. In addition, both Swedish and Danish are closely related to Norwegian and thus intelligible to Norwegians, although with some initial difficulty in many cases. In speech, there is much blending between dialects, Bokmål and Nynorsk, but in writing, the varieties are kept more clearly apart. Nynorsk is used as a written language by roughly 10 % of the people, amounting to about half a mil- lion, mostly in Western Norway.2 Bokmål is dominant in the rest of the coun- try, and is used in writing by close to 90 % of the population. This article will focus on the relationship between Bokmål and Nynorsk. It starts with a historical and a socio-linguistic survey.
1 This article was originally written for a Portuguese-language collection of articles on the topic of “near languages” or “collateral languages”: Robert Neal Baxter (ed.), Quem fala a minha língua? (Vol. 2, Associaçom Galega da Lingua, Santiago da Compostela 2015) under the title “O Norue- guês: Bokmål vs. Nynorsk”. The present version is my original English text, slightly revised. 2 A brief note on geography: Norway is a long and rather narrow country, customarily divided into two main parts: Northern Norway (Nord-Norge) and Southern Norway (Sør-Norge). South- 16 Lars S. Vikør
Historical and social background Norwegian belongs to the North Germanic languages, besides Swedish, Danish, Faroese (the language of the Faroe islands, today an autonomous part of the kingdom of Denmark) and Icelandic. Its parent language was Old Norse, which during the Viking age (800–1050) and the Middle Ages (until about 1500) was spoken and written in Norway. Norway was an independent king- dom from the eleventh until the fourteenth century, towards the end of this pe- riod also comprising several emigrant societies in the North Atlantic (the Faroe islands, the Orkney islands, Shetland, Iceland, and Greenland). Old Norse was a literary language with a large body of manuscripts on parchment, primarily from Iceland, but also from Norway. From the fourteenth century on, the kingdom of Norway weakened, particu- larly because of the Great Plague of about 1350. The country was, although nominally still independent, integrated into a Scandinavian union with its power centre in Denmark. Sweden belonged to this union, but broke out of it several times, making the break definite in 1523. From then on, the Danish kingdom comprised Norway and all its dependencies (although the Orkney islands and Shetland were ceded to Scotland in 1469, but the Norn language, deriving from Old Norse, survived there for some centuries more). The Old Norse written language was now gradually superseded by Danish, although this did not happen in Iceland. One of the reasons for this was linguis- tic distance: Norwegian speech, above all in the towns, but later on also in the countryside, was profoundly influenced by Danish, but even more by Low Ger- man, which was the language of the Hanseatic League, a commercial empire based in the North German cities of Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck and others, dominating trade throughout Northern Europe. Both Norwegian, Danish and Swedish borrowed a lot of words and expressions from Low German. The lan- guages also underwent rapid morphological simplification, ending up with relatively simple declension and conjugation patterns, while Icelandic kept its Old Norse character (with a complex inflection system) in these respects, and Faroese did so to a lesser, but still significant, degree. The result was that these two insular languages were no longer understood by Scandinavians, while the three Scandinavian languages developed along parallel lines and kept their
ern Norway is broad enough to be divided between west and east, however. In Norwegian those parts are called Vestlandet and Østlandet, by me rendered Western Norway and Eastern Norway in English. Vestlandet is thus the western part of Sør-Norge, while Nord-Norge does not have an east-west division at all. The centre of Western Norway is Bergen, while for Eastern Norway it is Oslo, which is also the national capital. The northern part of Southern Norway, bordering on Northern Norway and having Trondheim as its urban center, is called Trøndelag. In the context of this article, we should mention that some of the place names have different forms in Bokmål and Nynorsk: The country is called Norge in Bokmål (originally from Danish), Noreg in Nynorsk (from Old Norse Noregr). Eastern Norway is called Østlandet in Bokmål, Austlandet in Nynorsk, because this variety has preserved Old Norse diphthongs in many words where the diphthongs have been monophthongized in Bokmål (and Danish and Swedish). The Norwegian language situation 17 mutual intelligibility. That, again, made it easy for Danish to pass into Nor- wegian society as the new and modern “state language” not only of Denmark, but also of Norway. “Norwegian” survived only in the form of various spoken dialects throughout the country. Very significant in this respect was the abolition of the Catholic Church in Scandinavia. This church, with its dependence on Latin as its ecclesiastical lan- guage, had been dominant throughout the Middle Ages, but it was replaced by state-run churches based on Martin Luther’s version of protestantism in the 1530s in Denmark (with Norway) (somewhat earlier in Sweden). The most tan- gible result of this as far as language is concerned was the translation of the Bible (first the New, then the Old Testament) into the vernacular languages, a key element in the Lutheran reformation. But, whereas Swedes and Icelanders received these holy texts in their own languages, Norwegians (and Faroese) had to be content with the Danish version. This raised the prestige of Danish in Norway even more, now also being the language of the holy texts. The Old Norse written language thus became extinct in the sixteenth centu- ry. To Norwegians, Danish was the only “correct” written language, while the Norwegian dialects were used orally. Gradually, at least from the eighteenth century, the elite developed a separate spoken code based on the Danish writing system, but since the phonetic difference between Norwegian and Danish dia- lects was considerable, the pronunciation remained markedly Norwegian. Since the spelling of Danish remained more conservative than its pronuncia- tion, which developed more and more distinctly Danish features, Norwegian pronunciation of the common written language often came closer to writing than Danish pronunciation. Some contemporary observers in the eighteenth century even thought Norwegian elite pronunciation of Danish to be better than what one could hear in Denmark proper, even though Norway was only a prov- ince and Copenhagen was the metropole. In 1814, everything suddenly changed. The Napoleonic wars had ended with the defeat of Napoleon, and while Denmark had chosen to back the loser, Swe- den was on the winning side, along with the British. The result was that the Swedes could force the Danish king to cede Norway to Sweden (although the Faroe islands, Iceland and Greenland remained with Denmark). The Nor- wegian elite tried to avenge this by staging a bloodless national uprising, whereby elections were arranged for a national convention, which met in order to declare Norway an independent kingdom and draft its constitution. Sweden did not accept this, however, and after a brief war, a compromise was found. Norway was allowed to keep its new constitution, but an extraordinary parlia- ment had to be elected and convene in order to make adjustments in the consti- tution which allowed for the king of Sweden to be elected king also of Norway. By this, Norway acquired the status of a separate state, although only semi-in- dependent under the Swedish crown. Throughout the 19th century, however, a development took place towards a gradual increase of Norwegian autonomy. By the end of the century, the king was still Swedish, and the foreign relations 18 Lars S. Vikør of both countries were still managed by the Swedish government, but in all other respects Norway was independent. In 1905, the Norwegian parliament declared Norway’s full independence, which after a national referendum was acknowledged by the international community. Danish was for several decades after 1814 still the only written language used in Norway, and the Swedish authorities accepted this; Swedish was never promoted in this function. But the new (still only cultural) nationalism, which was developing under the influence of similar currents in Europe generally, also had a linguistic aspect. An increasing group of Norwegians felt it as a problem that the standard language was Danish, although some wanted to call it Norwegian, or they preferred the neutral term “the mother tongue”. The idea of reforming the language itself was first formulated in the 1830s. Already then two different strategies were formulated: to introduce Norwegian elements (lexically and idiomatically) into the standard Danish in Norway, leading to a separate version of Danish which in the long run might be called Dano-Norwegian. The other strategy was to start with an investigation of spo- ken dialects, particularly those that had preserved Old Norse features in lexi- con, pronunciation and morphology, and then codify a common standard on the basis of these features. In this way, a separate Norwegian standard language would be called into existence. Both strategies were followed, and they resulted in two different varieties of Norwegian, called Bokmål (derived from Danish), and Nynorsk (derived from Norwegian dialects). I shall deal with them separately here, beginning with Nynorsk. The founder of this variety, or this language (there is no full agreement as to how to designate it), was Ivar Aasen (1813–1896), a crofter’s son from West- ern Norway who was given opportunity to study different languages and even drafted a grammar of his own dialect. He was given a scholarship to travel around in Norway and describe the spoken dialects, which had never been done that systematically before. His travels took place from 1842 until 1846, and he published a comparative dialect grammar of Norwegian in 1848 and a diction- ary in 1850. After that, he continued his studies with an allowance from the par- liament, and in 1853 he published an attempted codified version based on the common features of the dialects in comparison with Old Norse, which was seen as the common ancestor of all the dialects. Since Western Norwegian dialects had remained (relatively) closest to the Old Norse structure, his standard came to resemble these dialects the most. Even in these relatively conservative dia- lects, however, Old Norse morphology had been largely simplified. Aasen published examples of his standard in the form of poems, essays, folk tales, and a translated Icelandic saga. Others followed up publishing literary works, journalism and so on. Textbooks for schools in it were also compiled and published. In 1885, a parliamentary decree gave it official status, and from 1892, it was allowed to be taught in schools after a local decision process. About 1900, Norway had developed into a country with two language stand- The Norwegian language situation 19 ards, the Dano-Norwegian one vastly dominant, the purely Norwegian one struggling to establish a base in the rural parts of southern Norway. The Danish language in Norway was not formally reformed in the 19th cen- tury, but a movement for its norwegianization was developing in nationalist and radical circles, and above all among teachers, who pointed out difficulties in the teaching of the traditional code to pupils who spoke dialects in schools. The leading ideologist behind the movement was Knud Knudsen (1812–1895), a secondary school teacher living in the capital (then Christiania, now Oslo).3 He worked for a reform where the spelling of Dano-Norwegian was brought closer to the daily pronunciation of the educated elite (in opposition to the for- mal and ceremonial speech of the same elite, which approached Danish writing to a significant degree). Knudsen and his followers used both nationalistic and pedagogical arguments for a norwegianization of the language, partly on the basis of the educated daily speech of the elite, as we just mentioned, partly in- cluding some features from more popular dialects in the central and urban areas of the country. They envisaged a separate Norwegian standard language, but still different from Aasen’s creation, in a direction they saw as more urban and modern. I shall go deeper into this shortly, but here I shall give a very general sketch of developments after 1900. I use some crucial years as a “skeleton” to build the description around, starting from 1905, the year when Norway terminated the union with Sweden and established itself as a completely independent king- dom. 1907: A reform of Dano-Norwegian, encompassing both morphological and orthographical features, established this variety as a separate language from Danish, allowing for its subsequent development to take place in a solely Nor- wegian context. The same year, it was made mandatory for all who passed their high school exam to master both varieties (Dano-Norwegian and pure Nor- wegian) to a satisfactory degree. (But only a minority of the people passed high school; this minority, however, provided the officials necessary for the civil service at the national and the local level.) 1917: A new reform encompassing both written varieties endeavoured to bring them closer together with an amalgamation as the ultimate future goal. A high degree of optionality between traditional and new forms in both varieties was introduced. In practice, the more moderate changes in Dano-Norwegian, which brought the language closer to the daily speech of the urban elite, were soon accepted in usage, but the more radical ones, consisting of forms similar to Nynorsk and popular (both rural and urban) non-elite dialect speech, were rejected and thus rarely or never occurred in written texts. 1929: By parliamentary decree Dano-Norwegian was officially renamed Bokmål (“Book Language”) while the purely Norwegian variety was called Nynorsk (“New Norwegian”).
3 The capital was until 1924 named Christiania (from 1877 Kristiania) after the seventeenth-cen- tury Danish king Christian IV, but from 1925 it was renamed Oslo, an Old Norse name probably dating from the Viking age. 20 Lars S. Vikør
1930: A regulation for the national official civil service made it a duty for all governmental offices to use both varieties in their contacts with the public. At this time, Nynorsk had acquired dominance in rural Western Norway and the mountainous inner areas of Southern Norway, partly also other rural areas in the far south and the north, while Bokmål still dominated the rest of the coun- try. 1938: A new reform was passed by Parliament, this one, too, encompassing both written varieties, introducing many Nynorsk-like and dialectal forms in Bokmål, and Eastern Norwegian and Bokmål-sounding forms in Nynorsk. The optionality between alternative variant forms was reduced, but was still present to a high degree. This reform was more controversial than its predecessor, but the German occupation from 1940 until 1945 “froze” the language struggle for the time being. 1952: The parliament established an official language commission (Norsk språknemnd), which was given the responsibility for future language codifica- tion and cultivation at different levels. It would have to follow the amalgama- tion policy. 1959: The 1950s saw heavy (although non-violent) actions against the amal- gamation policy, particularly in urban Norway, and particularly from the polit- ical right (who for twenty years after World War II remained in the opposition against the continuously ruling Labour Party). In 1959, a new reform encom- passing Bokmål and Nynorsk was promulgated, still based on the amalgama- tion principle, but modifying it, consolidating the 1938 reform rather than tak- ing new steps. 1964–1966: The government appointed a committee to evaluate the lan- guage policy. The committee advised a partial retreat from the amalgamation policy, accepting traditional Bokmål forms which had been excluded from the official norm in earlier reforms, and keeping a high degree of optionality be- tween traditional and newer variant forms. Gradually, the language struggle di- minished during the following years. 1972: The language commission was replaced by a language council (Norsk språkråd), with similar, but quite expanded, tasks, such as checking and im- proving usage in school textbooks. This council was entrusted with the task of reassessing the Bokmål standard on new grounds. It was to base itself on a modified version of the amalgamation policy, viz. to support tendencies in gen- eral usage which reduced the differences between the language varieties, but not to take new steps towards amalgamation ahead of spontaneous develop- ments. The strengthening of the minority variety, Nynorsk, also remained an important part of its tasks. 1981: A new reform of Bokmål was passed by Parliament, reintroducing many traditional forms into the standard again, but preserving a high degree of optionality between “conservative” and “radical” forms. 2005: The language council was replaced with a new institution, also called “The Language Council” (Språkrådet). Its task should now to a lesser degree in- The Norwegian language situation 21 volve codification and to a larger degree language cultivation and defence against pressure from outside, above all from English. A new reform of Bokmål was passed. It was based on quantitative investigation of general written usage (in- volving the examination of large digital text corpora), and the optionality was now reduced as many rare forms in usage were abolished in the written standard, while a number of additional traditional forms were now admitted. 2012: A similar reform was introduced for Nynorsk, based on extensive analyses of extant and evolving digital text corpora and widespread discussions among Nynorsk users ahead of the decisions. The result was a reduction of the differences between modern usage and a standard which had included many optional, but rarely used, “heritage forms” from earlier stages of the language’s development.
Linguistic relationships Danish and Norwegian are closely related languages within the Scandinavian language group (together with Swedish). They used to be mutually intelligible, which they still are to a large extent, at least in writing. The oral intelligibility is, however, somewhat reduced, because Danish phonology has developed in a very separate direction which we cannot explore further here. The Danish writ- ten language, however, is conservative, based upon conventions that were de- veloped from the sixteenth century on. In fact, Danish orthography today re- flects a phonological system which resembles Norwegian Bokmål speech more than modern Danish proper (especially if pronounced with a Norwegian south coast accent, because this part of Norway had some early phonetic develop- ments in common with the then contemporary Danish, probably because of lan- guage contacts between both sides of the Skagerrak during late medieval times). This means that when Norwegians read a Danish written text aloud, they can read it with their own Norwegian pronunciation, as if it were a tradi- tional Bokmål text with a few deviations which are reflected in the spelling. To Norwegians, this feels almost like reading a (Dano-)Norwegian text from the nineteenth century. But as we have seen, Norwegian itself consists of a number of markedly dif- ferent varieties, often without clear boundaries between them. They have dif- ferent Norwegian names which are not only neutral designations, but also carry ideological and psychological connotations, and therefore become the objects of struggle and strife themselves. I shall analyse the most important ones of these, on the background of the picture sketched above. As we have already seen, the two official written standards of Norwegian are called Bokmål “Book Language” and Nynorsk “New Norwegian”. Both of them have had different names during the time they have existed, partly desig- nated for different varieties of the languages. Besides, the amalgamation policy needed a separate name for its intended goal: Samnorsk (“Common Nor- 22 Lars S. Vikør wegian”). I concentrate on the two existing varieties one by one first, and con- tinue with Common Norwegian afterwards. Bokmål has, as has already been shown, evolved from the Danish written language, pronounced in “Norwegian mouths”. Already around 1830, shortly after Norway’s separation from Denmark, there grew an uncertainty as to what to call the language. Some preferred Danish, just as most American nationals called their language English. Others insisted on Norwegian, just as some Americans preferred American; this usage, however, caused sharp reactions from some Danish circles. A third position was to avoid the problem altogether, using Modersmaalet “the mother tongue” – which of course did not work. These discussions were the start of the process leading towards the Nor- wegianization of the Norwegian linguistic scene, which we have already sketched. But the naming problem remained: When a partly norwegianized version of the written language had come into existence towards the end of the nineteenth century, what should they call it? There were different proposals, but no official regulation. Skriftsproget “the written language” was enough for many, or Bogsproget “the book language”. The parliamentary decision implying equalization of the two standards (from 1885) used the wording det almindelige Bogsprog “the general book lan- guage”. Some of the most distinguished experts in the field who were in favour of continued Norwegianization used dansk-norsk “Dano-Norwegian”, among them Knud Knudsen. On the other hand, the “enemies” of this language, the Nynorsk adherents, preferred norsk-dansk “Norwegio-Danish”. The difference was that the latter saw the language as (more or less) norwegianized Danish, while Knudsen and his adherents saw it as Norwegian derived from Danish (the latter part of such a compound in Scandinavian, as in English, carries the main meaning of the word, while the first component is a modifier; therefore, dansk-norsk was interpreted as a kind of Norwegian, norsk-dansk as a kind of Danish). The (preliminary) winner of this somewhat disorganized competition, how- ever, was a new alternative, Riksmål, meaning “language of the state”. The first component riks- was developed from rike “kingdom, realm, state”, actually in- spired by German Reich (thus, Riksmål by German Reichssprache). Both in German and in Scandinavian the meaning of Reich / rike was and is somewhat hazy; it may imply both “state” (in the institutional European sense of the word, not the American sense), “country” and “nation”. Words with the prefix riks- in Norwegian often imply “nationwide” as opposed to “regional”, the latter en- compassing only parts of the country, such as province or municipality. Riks- thus represents the highest in a hierarchy of units. Even some Nynorsk adher- ents wanted to call their variety Riksmål because of the formal and social posi- tion this word implies. One of their more militant slogans was: Nynorsk som einaste riksmål i landet! ”Nynorsk as the only Riksmål in the country!’ But in reality, Riksmål in the early twentieth century was established as the usual name of the language we now call Bokmål. The Norwegian language situation 23
The change from Riksmål to Bokmål took place in 1929, when it was effec- tuated by Parliament. This was the first time a formal decision concerning the names of the language varieties was taken by an authoritative body. In informal speech, however, Riksmål had been firmly established, and it remained in use. After World War II, when the struggle about the amalgamation policy hard- ened, a struggle about naming also developed. The resistance movement de- fending the traditional (thus Danish-like) forms of the language now codified a separate version of the standard, based on the traditional variety of the 1917 re- form (see above), but accepting some (minor) features of the 1938 spelling (which had already been accepted in general usage). The movement itself was called the Riksmål movement, and the word Riksmål therefore marked an ideol- ogy, not only a linguistic variety. The term Bokmål, on the other hand, was now used to designate the officially standardized variety of the language, which was marked by much optionality, so that Bokmål encompassed a variety which in- cluded many Nynorsk-derived and dialect-inspired forms as well as a variety of a more traditional kind, but less traditional than the pure Riksmål. This pat- tern remained until the 1980s, when the official language policy had become more accommodating towards the Riksmål movement. This meant that the bor- derlines between the “oppositional” Riksmål and the state-run Bokmål became increasingly diffuse. Bokmål itself had been polarized into two varieties with numerous transition forms, marked by the adjectives moderate and radical. Moderate Bokmål was the most Riksmål-marked, radical Bokmål was stretch- ing towards Nynorsk and popular speech. The problem was that official mod- erate Bokmål resembled Riksmål more and more, while radical Bokmål was definitely non-Riksmål. From the other side, the Riksmål movement opened its language codification towards moderate Bokmål, accepting a (limited) number of non-Riksmål forms where the Riksmål equivalents had clearly been margin- alized in general usage, thus blurring the borderline towards moderate Bokmål even more. This policy took effect during the eighties and nineties. This is the situation today. Riksmål and Moderate Bokmål are more and more blended into each other, not only linguistically, but also within ideo- logical rhetoric. Radical forms within Bokmål are excluded from this unity, but they still exist within the official Bokmål standard. There, they are mostly used by people who are ideologically committed to a policy of opening the Bokmål standard to common and popular speech of both rural and urban areas, above all in the populous southeastern part of the country. Radical Bokmål is also to a certain extent used in literary fiction, with Per Petterson being the most prom- inent and internationally acclaimed author using this Bokmål variety today. Now we pass on to the Nynorsk side. Ivar Aasen called the book where he launched his new language standard Prøver af Landsmaalet i Norge “Samples of the Landsmål in Norway” (1853). Landsmål meant “the language of the country”. But land in Norwegian is used both in the general sense of “country” and the more specialized sense of “coun- tryside”. The word landsmål was not taken into use at once. Its adherents pre- 24 Lars S. Vikør ferred simply norsk “Norwegian”, considering this word to be the only objec- tive and correct term (implying that the alternative and dominant standard was “un-Norwegian”, of course). In the 1885 parliamentary decision, the term det norske Folkesprog “the Norwegian people’s language” or “the Norwegian popular language” was used as the counterpart of “the general book language”. But it was discussed what Folkesprog really was supposed to mean: standard- ized Nynorsk (in Aasen’s codification or some alternative form) or the spoken dialects in themselves? The latter view was the most common. Landsmål gen- erally established itself as the most used term, but mostly in official discourse or among those who did not use the language themselves. Its adherents dis- favoured Landsmål because of its rural connotation, since one of the main problems of the movement promoting the language, was that it proved difficult or nearly impossible to have it accepted in the urban communities throughout the country, even though it spread quite efficiently throughout parts of rural Norway. Nynorsk “New Norwegian” was rarely used at first in its modern sense, but it was taken into use as a term of periodization in descriptions of the history of the language, denoting the (dialectal) Norwegian spoken language after the six- teenth century, as a successor of gamalnorsk “Old Norwegian” (the language which in English is called Old Norse and encompasses both Old Norwegian and Old Icelandic). Norwegian language histories also operate with a Middle Norwegian (mellomnorsk) stage, marked by a process towards a simplified morphology and a more international vocabulary (particularly influenced by Low German) during the fifteenth century and the immediately preceding and succeeding decades. Nynorsk “New Norwegian” was a natural term for the more recent period, and it was generally accepted that the structural features of popular Norwegian speech around 1600 had already reached the “new Nor- wegian stage”. This “new Norwegian” speech was of course the basis which Aasen built his codification on. But only after 1900 did Nynorsk begin to be used as the designation of the language variety which had evolved from Aasen’s works and subsequent reforms, the variety, thus, which at the time was officially called Landsmål. The parliamentary decision about the names of the varieties in 1929, however, also formally introduced Nynorsk as the name of Landsmål, and – unlike Bokmål for the other variety – Nynorsk soon came into use, both among friends and foes. Landsmål was after the war simply seen as the old name of Nynorsk, and discarded as a living term (except for use in his- torical contexts). Høgnorsk “High Norwegian” is a quite recent term designating Nynorsk in its most traditional form, approaching the shape it had in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Some circles within the Nynorsk movement have re- acted to the amalgamation policy and advocated a turn towards these older forms, which would bring the variety closer to Aasen’s original codification. This traditionalist Nynorsk movement has always been there, often very active, but the designation Høgnorsk is relatively recent. It has never had an official status. The Norwegian language situation 25
Finally, we take a look at Samnorsk “Common Norwegian”. This term was designated around the turn of the former century, around 1900. It denoted the planned or imagined aim of the amalgamation policy, i.e. a future language whose exact form remained unknown. The word received no official status, but after 1945 it was taken into use on a broad scale, especially by the Riksmål movement, who used it in their propaganda as a “hate word”. This movement dominated much of the discourse of the 1950s, and they changed the contents of the Samnorsk concept to mean “radical Bokmål”, thus a known extant lan- guage variety, not only a future aim. They campaigned heavily against the variant forms which they called Samnorsk, often popular dialect forms of the Oslo area, and they succeeded in compromising the whole idea of gradually merging Bokmål and Nynorsk. Samnorsk is not very much discussed at pres- ent; it is mostly used in historical contexts, although it may still be used as a catchword for linguistic forms within Bokmål which are so “radical”, contain- ing Nynorsk-like or urban dialectal forms, that many Bokmål users would re- gard them as utterly strange or even impossible to use in witing.
The Samnorsk project As I have already stated, the idea of a fusion of Bokmål and Nynorsk (I use these names irrespective of which period I treat, for the sake of simplicity) into a future Samnorsk originated at the turn of the century (around 1900). This was supposed to be attained through a gradual process of mutual linguistic rap- prochement (tilnærming) between the two varieties. I shall now show how this was planned to be done, and assess the results. The basic condition for such a policy to take effect was the relatively great similarity between the two written varieties and the dialect patterns of different parts of the country. Bokmål was, as we have seen, based on a phonetically Norwegian spoken variety of the Danish written standard. Its users lived in close contact with locally spoken dialects in different areas, but the most im- portant area here was the south-east, where the capital is located. This south- eastern popular speech was closer to neighbouring Swedish and Danish varie- ties than the speech of Western and Northern Norway. Ivar Aasen, however, based his Nynorsk standard on the dialect forms most closely resembling Old Norse, and they were best preserved in Western Norway and some inland mountain areas in Southern Norway. Thereby, maximum distance was sought between the two written varieties, although they were still mutually intelligible. The Nynorsk movement, on the other hand, had the ambition to unite all Nynorsk dialects and their speakers in a common Norwegian standard lan- guage. The archaizing tendency in the codification sprang from the view that the most common features were those that reigned at the stage when the dia- lects split from each other; Old Norse was conceived of as a unified language without or almost without dialectal variation (a conception which later research 26 Lars S. Vikør in the medieval Norwegian manuscript literature has modified considerably). Ivar Aasen’s Nynorsk standard was in many ways an impressive creation in its systematicity and its aesthetic qualities, which made it well suited for poetic and artistic purposes, and some of its users reached a high literary quality in their works. But in its original form, Aasen’s standard was too “perfect” to be realized by a whole language community in practice, since a full implementa- tion of his meticulously elaborated system presupposed quite advanced insight into grammatical rules and structures and partly also language history. Few of the potential language users approached Aasen’s level in this respect. There- fore, and against his warnings, an increasing degree of variability and adjust- ments towards different dialect groups became a characteristic of much Nynorsk usage. In other words, it proved to be more flexible than Aasen would have liked, since flexibility is often achieved at the cost of systematicity. The same happened in Bokmål, as southeastern dialect features crept into the language, particularly in literary and informal functions. This tendency was strengthened by the demographic development of Norway, since the popula- tion in and around Oslo expanded more rapidly than elsewhere in the country (where urban centres like Bergen, Trondheim etc. also grew at the cost of their rural surroundings). As the twentieth century wore on, the linguistic features of southeastern popular speech were seen as markedly expansive. This was the key which unlocked the language to the rapprochement policy with full amal- gamation, Samnorsk, as the future goal; the catchword which expressed this goal was “linguistic unification” (språklig samling). Through the introduction of popular southeastern dialect forms in the two official standards, Bokmål be- came more representative in a social sense, less onesidedly attached to the speech of societal elite groups – which many saw as an asset when the labour movement also expanded and gradually transformed the society in the direction of an increasingly democratic welfare society. Nynorsk also gained in its rep- resentativity, but here in a geographic sense, by accepting southeastern forms on a par with the western ones (also northern dialect forms were accepted and taken more into use during these years). This was the policy which reached its zenith in 1938. After World War II, the Labour Party governed the country for twenty years, and the non-socialist coalition which took over in 1965, in many respects con- tinued the basic elements in the social democratic policy, including the lan- guage policy. The Riksmål resistance did however succeed in securing a modification and a gradual change of this policy, which has been described above. Here, I shall sketch the main forces behind the developments from the 1950s on. The resistance phase was strongest in the 1950s. The language planners, viewed in hindsight, had underestimated the forces of habit and tradition among language users. Large groups of people, not least in the traditional so- cial and cultural elite, felt that an authoritarian government was in the process of taking their language from them by forcing them to use forms they felt to be The Norwegian language situation 27 strange and vulgar. This provoked widespread resistance, especially in the cities and towns, where the traditional Bokmål had its strongest position. A big additional problem is indicated by the use of the adjective “vulgar” – since many of the new forms were not necessarily brand-new and unknown, but had been in traditional use in popular dialectal speech, associated with urban and rural working class. To the Labour Party, this was a reason for promoting them, to reduce social prejudice also in language matters, but even among those who used such forms in speech, they gave a connotation of lacking dignity. People in particular resented that their children were taught in school that such forms were standard, and the language of school textbooks was at the heart of the struggle. The school was to a dominant degree state-run, and there were regulations as to which kinds of books could be used as textbooks, also regard- ing linguistic usage. These regulations were the first to be softened and modi- fied in face of the resistance of hundred thousands of parents – already in the fifties. However, an opposite development took place in a more discrete and less visible way, namely a growing acceptance of many of those new forms which were already most widespread in speech and thus less tainted with the “vulgar- ity” stamp. In usage, a difference developed partly along political lines, for ex- ample in the press: The most conservative papers followed the private Riksmål (see above) norm, while more centrist and radical ones kept inside the official standard, using the optionality to such a degree that they preferred “moderate” forms to the more “radical”, but still keeping a distance to “Riksmål”. The long-term result was that the most marked “radical” (dialectal or Nynorsk- marked) forms disappeared from use, although remaining as optional “stand- ard” forms in the dictionaries and school spelling lists (until 2005), while more “moderate” rapprochement forms gradually gained currency in use and were regarded as acceptable and “neutral” in the language struggle. “Riksmål” coun- terparts of these forms, through this development, were increasingly seen as “snobbish” or “old-fashioned”. A kind of “middle course” between the “radical Bokmål” and “Riksmål” thus developed and became increasingly dominant. In the 1970s, a strong anti-authoritarian movement with leftist inclinations among the youth challenged the Riksmål movement, favouring Nynorsk and the use of dialects, but also promoting the use of “vulgar” forms from urban (above all Oslo) working class speech. This wave waned again after 1980, when the political right gained power within economic and social policy, but continued dialect use and a freer attitude to the written forms strengthened the “middle course”, where optionality between popular forms and more tradition- al forms continued to exist and established itself more permanently. The new trends promoted, again, in particular by the youth, led to a more relaxed view on language, leading to a more informal style in writing which favoured many of the popular forms in Bokmål, in so far as they had already gained currency in use. Both on the “Riksmål” side and on the opposite “rapprochement” side, many forms simply gradually disappeared from use, being seen as old-fash- 28 Lars S. Vikør ioned. The new Bokmål spelling of 2005 based itself on these new attitudes to the language form and the usage that developed from it. The present trends in language development are dominated by generations that were unborn during the intense language struggle phases, and therefore relatively untainted by the feelings and attitudes of their grandparents’ generation. I end with a brief sketch of the present situation, based on three catch-words. The first is stabilization, which is clearly the aim of the most recent spelling reforms. Official policy is now to maintain Bokmål and Nynorsk as separate standards, although Bokmål is vastly dominant and the Nynorsk community actively struggling to keep its language strong. As a cultural elite language, Nynorsk asserts itself well, but among the “grassroot” youth, active endeavours are still needed to maintain it. The official spellings of the two varieties seem to stabilize on a course in between the most traditional styles of the past and the most “radical” elements of the rapprochement policy, which are now also seen as “old-fashioned” The second catchword is fragmentation. In the social spheres outside the of- ficial (both governmental and private) ones, many new stylistic levels are being developed and explored, often based on traditional dialect speech, but also ex- ploiting resources taken from English and from the urban registers based on non-Western immigrant languages. These oral styles are now eagerly used even in writing, by young people and in the so-called social electronic media. Here, creativity abounds, and new linguistic resources constantly pop up. How this all will influence developments in the future is impossible to indicate now. The final catch-word is accommodation, and this applies to informal spoken language. While dialects have been widely used in Norway, even in official and national contexts, at least since the seventies, they have not remained un- changed. They are constantly influenced by neighbouring dialects, in particular the dialect of the nearest city, developing into larger units, more regional than purely local, as before. They are also influenced by the standard languages, mostly Bokmål, but in Western Norway also by Nynorsk (in the regions where people are accustomed to see Nynorsk in writing). A long-term oral merger into a kind of Samnorsk is possible (independently of any official policy), but so is a future stable coexistence of several regiolects in the different parts of the country. Norway’s language policy 29 Norway’s language policy: universalism under pressure
Eli Bjørhusdal, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences
Introduction The written standards of Norwegian, Bokmål and Nynorsk, were officially put on a par by a Parliament1 resolution in 1885. There are currently 500,000– 600,000 Nynorsk users, mainly in western parts of Norway. By analysing a se- lection of government documents from 1885 to 2010, focusing on political practices and their justifications (Bjørhusdal 2014), I will explore the state’s administration of Norwegian bilingualism, sometimes called bidialectalism (Trudgill 2003: 15, Vangsnes & Söderlund 2015: 108). From 1885, the Norwegian Liberal Party (Venstre) implemented a wide range of language regulations. The party was also the power behind economic and political welfare regulations, often described as universal regulations (Kildal & Kuhnle 2005, Kildal 2006, Kuhnle & Ervik 2011). The Labour Party (Arbeidarpartiet) was in office 1935–1965, continuing and completing both welfare and language reforms introduced by the Liberal Party. The policy for Nynorsk and Bokmål was not challenged by the governments of the late 20th century. However, the Conservative Party (Høgre) and the populist-liberalist Progress Party (Framstegspartiet) came into office in 2013, criticizing Nor- way’s language policy for being illiberal. Thus, the overarching aim of this paper is to explore the history and status of the two Norwegian written languages from the perspective of linguistic univer- salism and differentiation. My second objective is to assess whether Norway’s linguistic universalism is currently at a watershed.
Negative and positive linguistic universalism Numerous works on political rights and language policy have discussed the dis- tinction between universal linguistic rights and group-differentiated rights (see, e.g., Kymlicka 1995, Patten & Kymlicka 2003, Rubio-Marín 2003, De Schutter 2007, Réaume & Pinto 2012). A comprehensive discussion can be found in Will Kymlicka’s book Multicultural Citizenship (1995). In Kymlicka’s view, there are several kinds of group rights. Some of them belong to individual
1 Hereafter the Norwegian word Stortinget will be used. 30 Eli Bjørhusdal members of minority groups, for instance the right to translation in courts and hospitals. Other group rights belong to the group as such, not to separate indi- viduals. One example is some indigenous populations’ and “old” national mi- norities’ right to self-government according to international agreements. Both types of rights may be considered examples of political differentiation, because only members of specific language groups are entitled to them. Then there are universal rights, belonging to all individuals in the relevant jurisdiction, no matter what their linguistic group. Universal rights are thus connected to the concept of strict equality (Kymlicka 1995: 26). However, linguistic universal- ism is not a meaningful notion if not related to the concepts of negative rights/ liberties and positive rights. Negative linguistic rights are characterized by non-intervention. Their func- tion is to prevent both linguistic discrimination and state intervention in lan- guage matters. Consequently, negative linguistic universal rights are some- times conceived of as linguistic freedom of expression (Réaume & Pinto 2012: 47). These ideas are sometimes associated with concepts such as minimal gov- ernment and benign neglect, which, according to Patten and Kymlicka, “ap- plied to disputes about language policy, seem to suggest that the state should refuse to do anything that would encourage or discourage particular linguistic choices by its citizens” (2003: 32). For those who hold this view, the state should not support any particular language group more than it should support any particular religion (2003: 32–33, De Schutter 2007: 6). This theoretical position is developed and defended by many scholars, a prominent one being Brian Barry (e.g. Barry 2001). Positive linguistic rights are characterized by a state or another jurisdiction giving citizens (rights holders) permission to do something or the right to be treat- ed in certain ways. One example is the right to be taught a specific language in school as your first language. In this case, the state intervenes by regulating, and thus promoting one or several languages/linguistic groups. Essentially, the term “positive linguistic rights” seems to overlap with the terms “language regulation” and “language management” (Pinto 2009: 36–37). The concepts discussed by Kymlicka are essentially positive universalist linguistic rights. Negative linguistic universalism is value-neutral according to the traditional liberalist understanding of the concept. Positive linguistic universalism could be neutral, by giving all groups the same rights, but is always regulatory. I will refer to these positions as negative universalism and positive universalism, re- spectively.
1892–1930: Establishing the universalist policy Fundamental principles and provisions of the current Nynorsk-Bokmål lan- guage policy were, with few exceptions, adopted between 1885 and 1930. The Liberal Party was predominantly the governing party until the 1920s, when the Labour Party (Arbeidarpartiet) became its main rival. Norway’s language policy 31
In May 1885, one year after the introduction of parliamentarianism in Nor- way, Stortinget passed the following resolution (Jahr 2014: 63, Jahr’s transla- tion): “The Government is requested to ensure that the necessary measures are taken so that the Norwegian Folk Language as a language for schools and offi- cial use be given equal status with our usual written language and book lan- guage” [‘Regjeringen anmodes om at træffe fornøden Forføining til, at det norske Folkesprog som Skole- og officielt Sprog sidestilles med vort alminde- lige Skrift- og Bogsprog’] (Innst. S. nr. 111 1885: 354). It was now a fact that a new standard of Norwegian (Landsmaal, named Nynorsk from 1929) had re- ceived official recognition along with the “old” language, Dano-Norwegian (named Bokmål from 1929). Admittedly, the resolution was more of a theoretical principle than opera- tionalized realpolitik up until 1892, partly because the Liberal Party lost seats in Stortinget, partly because the moderate and Knudsen-supporting branch of the party strengthened its position. In 1892, however, the Liberals finally got enough votes in Stortinget to pass explicit regulations in the area of educa- tion, explicated by the so-called Language Article (Målparagrafen) of the Education Act of 1889. The Article states that Nynorsk is a legal first (writ- ten) language in primary education along with Bokmål (Haugland 1985: 133–153).
A universalist territoriality principle Still, important questions had to be tackled: Which language should be taught as the first language in school, and who should have the right to make this de- cision? One option was to make individual parents rights holders, entailing bi- lingual classrooms, thus pursuing, or rather establishing, a personality principle (Williams 2012: 180). Another option was to give every citizen in every school district the right to vote on a first language, consequently launching a territor- iality principle (Williams 2012: 176). In 1892, Stortinget responded by institut- ing the local language referendum. All eligible Nynorsk and Bokmål users were given equal rights to vote on Nynorsk or Bokmål as the first written lan- guage in their particular school district (Bjørhusdal 2014: 141–143). Such voting is still used to select the first written language of Norwegian pri- mary schools. Language referendums are initiated either by the municipal council or by the voters in the district if at least 25 per cent of them have signed a petition. However, the referendums cannot be held more frequently than every fifth year (Søberg & Tangerås 2003: 3–4) The territoriality strategy was adopted in the area of public services in 1930. Nynorsk was gradually adopted by municipal administrations in the 1920s and 1930s, mainly in western and eastern Norway. Some local administrations also required public bodies to use Nynorsk in correspondence with Nynorsk muni- cipalities (Lilleholt & Gramstad 1983: 13). 32 Eli Bjørhusdal
In 1930, Stortinget passed Norway’s first language act concerning public ad- ministration and services, guaranteeing every Norwegian (individual, munici- pality, company) the right to receive replies to correspondence in the same lan- guage in which it was written, accordingly requiring civil servants to master and use both Nynorsk and Bokmål. The new language act formalized the mu- nicipal councils’ right to decide if Nynorsk or Bokmål should be used by public (state) bodies located in the municipalities, for instance the police and the na- tional insurance service. Public bodies were additionally required to issue all kinds of information in both languages in a reasonable proportion, and infor- mation regarding Nynorsk municipalities and counties had to be communicat- ed in Nynorsk (Lilleholt & Gramstad 1983: 21, Vikør 2001: 98). These regulations are still in force. They are territorial in that they constitute the municipality as the decision-making authority concerning the local admin- istrative language, and they are positive because they give citizens and institu- tions the right to receive public documents and information in their own lan- guage. The Language Article (added 1892) of the Education Act of 1889, and the Public Administration Language Act of 1930 have created numerous mono- lingual territories within the Norwegian bilingual state, at least at the adminis- trative level. The choice between Nynorsk and Bokmål as a territory’s first lan- guage is made by the (people of the) territory itself, by direct and indirect elec- tions (Bjørhusdal 2014: 179). Nynorsk and Bokmål users have equal rights in these decisions. The right to vote is universal. The arguments supporting the universal right to vote on language were closely related to the Liberal Party’s ideas about decentralizing political power from the central government to local democratic institutions (the municipal councils). In 1887, a report from the committee working on the new education act concluded that it was “obvious” that a school district’s first language should be adopted by vote and that the (elected) school board should be given the au- thority to make the final decision “according to the status and the duties of school boards in other areas” [‘At der maa gives Adgang til Valg og at Af- gjørelsen inden de af Loven optrukne Grændser som Regel tilhører Skolestyret, er en Selvfølge efter den Stilling, det i vort Forslag indtager i Skolen’] (Folke- skulelovkommisjonen, 1887, p. 99; Innst. O. XIII (1917)). This kind of argu- mentation can also be found in the parliamentary bill proposing the 1930 Public Administration Language Act: “Because the 1885 resolution recognised Nynorsk as an official language, it implicitly recognised the people as holders of the right to decide which language should be used in public administration and services” [‘På hi side tydar dei stortingsvedtaket av 1885 slik, at når det vart fastslege, at nynorsken skulde vera offisielt mål, so vart det og i røynda slege fast at det var folket som hadde retten til å avgjera kva for eit av dei tvo offisielle mål skulde nyttast i det offentlige styringsverk’] (Innst. O. V. (1929), p. 2). Norway’s language policy 33
A universalist personality principle However, territoriality has not been an absolute principle. Modifications, in the shape of provisions permitting individuals to overrule the territory, appeared relatively soon. In 1917, primary school pupils were given the right to use text- books in the “other” language, that is, the language which was not the district’s first written language. Furthermore, parents living in school districts with a dif- ferent first language than the one that they actually preferred were given the right to establish linguistic parallel classes for their (primary school) children (Lover 1917: 46, Bjørhusdal 2014: 157–160). Today, organizing such parallel classes is possible if a minimum of 10 children can be found for a class. The territoriality principle was modified for public services as well. The act of 1930 included the individual citizen’s personal right to correspond with pub- lic bodies in their preferred language regardless of where in the state they were located, in other words, regardless of whether they were living in a Nynorsk or Bokmål territory (Målbrukslova 1932, Bjørhusdal 2014: 157). The interests and needs of local linguistic minorities played an important role in argumentation for personal rights, as seen in a parliamentary proposal from 1917, concerning free choice of the language used in primary school text- books. The regulation, the committee argues, “is a right of parents which will be strongly appreciated by the linguistic minorities in all school districts” [‘den (ordningen) gir forældrene en ret som minoriteten i de forskjellige kredser vil sætte stor pris paa’] (Innst. O. XIII (1917), p. 1). The regulation and the argu- mentation applied to Nynorsk users in Bokmål territories and to Bokmål users in Nynorsk territories. Hence, individual minority rights were universal too.
Welfare universalism Norway’s language policy practices and justifications seem to be connected with the state’s social welfare model. As stated in numerous welfare studies, universalism has been the foundation of social policy reforms in the Nordic countries Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland as well (see, e.g., Kuhnle & Ervik 2011, Kildal 2006, Kildal & Kuhnle 2005). In economic welfare, univer- salism is often contrasted with selective policies of a means-tested, group-dif- ferentiated kind, targeted at the poor (Kildal & Kuhnle 2005: 13–14, Kildal 2006: 3). Nordic welfare universalism refers to systems of general coverage in sick- ness and unemployment insurance and pensions, introduced in the 1930s, and to the general child allowance, implemented immediately after World War II. General coverage in sickness, general child allowance, unemployment insur- ance, and pensions are arguably the core schemes of the Norwegian and Nordic welfare states. The Scandinavian states extended social insurance to cover the entire population instead of compensating only the wage earners for lost in- 34 Eli Bjørhusdal come, and in this way the systems of relief for the poor and dispersed insurance funds were terminated (Kildal & Kuhnle 2005: 18–24, Kildal 2006: 5–7). By establishing universal access to basic welfare services, the Nordic countries sought to promote solidarity with the state’s policies across social classes, and between classes as well. Thus, the main argument for welfare universalism is that everyone, including elites, has a political interest in supporting the system (Kildal & Kuhnle 2005: 25, Kildal 2006: 8).
After World War II: Consolidation of the universalist policy The Labour Party came into office in 1935 and remained in power until 1965. Universalism seems to be the foundation of Norway’s language policy in this period too. The administration of Nynorsk and Bokmål has to a very limited ex- tent gone beyond the principle of universal equality. The most salient example of linguistic group differentiation is the national government’s financial sup- port for funding the publishing of Nynorsk textbooks and educational material, because of an Education Act article passed in 1969 requiring publishers to pro- duce such material in both languages (Grunnskulelova 1969, § 39, Bjørhusdal 2014: 248). A common argument for linguistic group differentiation is the purported im- portance of securing minority languages and linguistic diversity, and conse- quently, of meeting the specific needs of minority language users. In this case, the argument could be conceived of as being underpinned by the language’s in- trinsic, cultural value (see, e.g., Patten & Kymlicka 2003, Rubio-Marín 2003, De Schutter 2007, Réaume & Pinto 2012). However, citing a language’s intrin- sic cultural value is not how the very few examples of linguistic group differ- entiation are justified in Norway’s official language policy documents. Instead, the documents use universalist argumentation to defend not only equal rights, but also group-differentiated provisions. I will give some examples: Stortinget first gave financial support for publish- ing textbooks in Nynorsk in 1894. The parliamentary committee’s argument was that the languages had to be ensured “equal competitive terms” [‘like Vil- kaar’] (St.tid., 1894, p. 1232, Haugland 1985: 170). “Equal conditions” has also been the rationale of more recent regulations concerning educational ma- terials and general literature in Nynorsk. A White Paper from the Ministry of Culture in 1981 stated that Nynorsk literature needs support “to be able to com- pete with literature in Bokmål on relatively equal terms” [‘for å kunne tevle med bokmålslitteratur på tilnærma like vilkår’] (St.meld. nr. 23 (1981–82), p. 143). At the end of the 20th century, however, the discourse was somewhat altered. The idea that Nynorsk, like all languages, does have a cultural, intrinsic value Norway’s language policy 35 and that as a lesser-used thus vulnerable language it needs targeted provisions and particular support, was explicitly articulated in official documents in the 1990s (Bjørhusdal 2014: 348–353). Yet, I will argue below that the new rhet- oric did not affect the practical politics of language. The Public Administration Language Act of 1930 remained in force until 1980. Then Stortinget passed a new act, proposed by the Labour government. The new Public Administration Language Act of 1980 included an article on language reports (mållovsmeldingar) to be published every fourth year (Mål- lova, 1980, § 10). Formally, these reports are White Papers, documenting the status and use of Nynorsk and Bokmål in public bodies (Lilleholt & Gramstad 1983: 62). The 1987 language report, by another Labour government, required all public bodies to produce at least 25 per cent of their national publications in Nynorsk (St.meld. nr. 27 (1986–87), p. 13). Specifying a percentage was a new and somewhat controversial provision. Then how did the Government justify its 25 per cent provision on the basis of universalism and equal rights? Fifty per cent would arguably be more in line with the established policy, but that would obviously be politically impossible. In 1987, the Ministry of Culture defended the 25 per cent regulation as follows: “Approximately 25 per cent of the municipalities and 21 per cent of the coun- ties (4 out of 19) have required the state to correspond with them in Nynorsk” [‘Om lag 25 pst av kommunane har kravd nynorsk i skriv frå statsorgan og om lag 21 pst av fylka (4 av 19) har nynorsk som fleirtalsmålform’] (St.meld. nr. 27 (1986–87), p. 13). The allegation was that the quantity of Nynorsk in offi- cial publications should mirror the quantity of Nynorsk users (or administration territories) in society. Thus, the 25 per cent provision was legitimised as strict quantitative and neutral administration of Nynorsk and Bokmål. This argumentation was sure to cause difficulties. Five years later (i.e. 1992) the (still Labour) Government launched a new language report, defending the 25 per cent provision in a completely different manner. The report mentioned the fact that 17 per cent of Norwegian pupils by then had Nynorsk as their first language. However, this time the argument was that “these numbers are not crucial” because “[t]he public administration must in any case show best prac- tice in supporting the interests of a vulnerable linguistic minority […] there- fore, it may be necessary to favour Nynorsk by introducing group-differentiat- ed provisions” [‘Men det er ikke disse prosentene som er avgjørende. Staten bør uansett gå foran med et godt eksempel for å ivareta interessene til en språklig minoritet [...] det kan da være nødvendig med positiv forskjellsbe- handling’] (St.meld. nr. 53 (1991–92), p. 8). This time, the argument is not sup- ported by the concept of (strict) equality or universalism, but by the political and cultural interests of one of the linguistic groups. In 1987, the Government justified the 25 per cent regulation as a tool for equal treatment. In 1992, it was justified as group differentiation The next language report was launched in 1997, now by a Conservative- Centre coalition government. There was a public debate prior to this launch re- 36 Eli Bjørhusdal garding the fact that the number of Nynorsk municipalities and the number of Nynorsk primary school pupils had now decreased to well below 20 per cent. The Government responded in its report by arguing that “it is perfectly clear” that the Nynorsk language is in an exposed minority position [‘Det er på det reine at nynorsken som privat bruksmål står i ein markert mindretalsposisjon’], and that this implies that the Norwegian state should “uphold and even strengthen the provisions for Nynorsk, in order to try to stimulate the private use of the language as” [‘halde oppe eller heve grensa for å stimulere ny- norsken i von om auka oppslutning om målforma også som privat bruksmål’] (St.meld. nr. 13 (1997–98), p. 17). This response may look like a step off the universalist path. However, the re- port defended language regulations by equality arguments as well: “When adopting provisions to protect the Norwegian language we have to consider the fact that Nynorsk is far more vulnerable than Bokmål […] an important politi- cal task is always to try to find the best way of promoting linguistic” [‘Tiltak for å styrkje norsk språk vil måtte ta omsyn til at nynorsk blir utsett for enda sterkare press enn bokmål […] det er ei oppgåve å vurdere korleis den språklege likestillinga best kan fremjast til kvar tid’] (St.meld. nr. 13 (1997– 98), p. 33). This was an argument referring to the intrinsic value of Nynorsk and to the importance of securing the language on the one hand; on the other hand, and simultaneously, it was grounded in the universalist idea of equal con- ditions. This ambivalence was also articulated in a voluminous White Paper on lan- guage, power, and politics published by the Centre-Left coalition government in 2008, probably the most comprehensive language policy document ever published by a Norwegian government (St.meld. nr. 35 (2007–2008)). The re- port certainly contained the “intrinsic” and cultural kinds of arguments, for in- stance by declaring the Government’s intention to “identify and implement provisions that promote and highlight the Nynorsk language and the Nynorsk linguistic culture” [‘identifisera og gjennomføra tiltak som kan vera med og synleggjera og fremja nynorsk språk og kultur’] (St.meld. nr. 35 (2007–2008), p. 212). Still, no specific provisions or regulations were legitimised by this kind of argumentation. It served as rhetorical framing of reflections on language, language power, and language diversity rather than as justification for specific provisions and regulations (Bjørhusdal 2014, p. 455). Consequently, the ex- tensive report did not suggest any policy provisions beyond strict equal treat- ment. The language policy established in Norway between 1885 and 1930 is still viable, implying that municipalities, school districts, and individuals are en- titled to choose freely between the two written languages. The task of public bodies and the central government is to ensure that the languages are treated (formally) equally, it is not to intervene in or guide people’s language choices. As long as language policies are founded on fair and democratic procedures, it is none of the state’s business whether one of the languages grows stronger at Norway’s language policy 37 the expense of the other. From the 1990s, however, differentiation arguments are also observable in government documents Governments and parliament majorities have come and gone, and the socio- logical contexts for the two Norwegian linguistic groups have altered a lot. Yet the main principles of Norwegian language policy and planning have endured, decade after decade, with few steps off the universalist track. I have tried to il- lustrate the latter by demonstrating the Government’s attempts to fit the argu- mentation for the 25 per cent regulation into the universalist rationale in the 1980s. One obvious reason for the endurance of universal provisions and dis- course is that their endurance has been in the interest of both linguistic groups. Another important reason is their relation to the general welfare model.
Challenges to the language policy Negative universalism? The Conservatives continued resisting the Nynorsk-Bokmål policy throughout the first half of the 20th century. During the debate on The Public Administra- tion Language Act in 1930, the Conservative Party protested against the dom- inant interpretation of the concept “linguistic equality”. While the Stortinget majority, consisting of the Liberal Party and Labour Party representatives, claimed that linguistic equality had to imply implementation of Nynorsk in central and local administration, in schools, and in churches, the Conservative Party maintained the view that equality meant “permission” – not regulation (Ot.tid. 1930, p. 826). From their perspective, all individuals were free to choose and use either language, but there was no need for policy implementa- tion. After World War II, Conservatives continued their criticism of positive uni- versalism. They were particularly critical of the requirement that public bodies communicate in Nynorsk with individuals or institutions using Nynorsk, de- scribing the regulation as a threat to employees’ negative linguistic liberties. On several occasions, Conservatives proposed to give civil servants the indi- vidual right to use their preferred language at work (Bjørhusdal 2016: 189– 190). As we have seen, in 1980, a new language act replaced the 1930 act, and the Conservative Party articulated their views during this process as well. Eventually it had a small victory, as civil servants were entitled to use their pre- ferred language in internal proceedings (Bjørhusdal 2016: 190). In 2013, the Conservative Party came into office in coalition with the Pro- gress Party, a party founded on calls for tax reform and for opposition to immi- gration. Their coalition government platform promised to abolish the obliga- tion of civil servants and public bodies to use both languages (Sundvolden- plattformen 2013). 38 Eli Bjørhusdal
More differentiation, less universalism? However, the Nynorsk-Bokmål language policy is criticized not only by those who want less government regulation, but also by those wanting more regula- tion. The context of the latter position has several elements: recent socio- linguistic research on and increasing political awareness of language shift and language death; international institutions focusing on multilingualism and lan- guage policy questions, for instance the Council of Europe and UNESCO, and Norway’s Sámi language policy (Bjørhusdal 2016: 190–191). Norway’s Sámi language policy differs from the Nynorsk-Bokmål policy in important aspects. Several official government documents, for example the Plan of Action for Sámi Languages from 2009, emphasize that a major goal of the Norwegian government is to increase the number of Sámi language users (Handlingsplan 2009, pp. 8–9). Several provisions have been implemented to reach this goal. One example is public campaigns to convince parents to choose Sámi as the first language for their children; another is governmental super- vision of the implementation and teaching of Sámi as a first language in schools; a third example is public financial support to students of Sámi lan- guages. Regarding Sámi, the aim of Norwegian language policy and planning is not to treat Sámi languages in the same way as Norwegian is treated. In other words, its aim is not linguistic neutrality, but differentiation. One probable reason the Norwegian government’s strategy for Sámi differs from its strategy for Nynorsk is that Sámi language regulations were estab- lished later, that is, at the end of the 20th century, in a rather different context (Bjørhusdal 2014: 483). From about 1990, there has been a new language policy situation in Norway, involving calls for implementation of immigrant language rights in education, for stronger measures and rights for old linguistic minorities in Norway, in particular for the Sámi and the Kven peoples, and for comprehensive measures to restrict the use of English in business and academic domains. These may be some of the reasons that there are now increasing ap- peals for a more conscious public administration of Nynorsk. From a Nynorsk user’s perspective, linguistic universalism is required, be- cause it guarantees language rights. As users of a lesser used language, the Nynorsk language group is dependent on the regulations cited. Compared to the situation of a numerous other official yet lesser used lan- guages, Nynorsk is seemingly in a favourable position. Nevertheless, we should ask whether universalism is sufficient for a minority language group. In the area of economic welfare, the universal model surely is sufficient. The Nor- dic welfare schemes were established to protect weak and exposed persons, and the economic welfare rights are essentially individual. Let us have a look at some examples: My father’s welfare rights, e.g. his pension or his right to free hip replacement surgery, are not affected by the fact that other people do not exercise their welfare rights. This is however not how it works with lan- guage rights. If my neighbour does not exercise her right to use Nynorsk pub- Norway’s language policy 39 licly, or if my neighbour’s children do not exercise their rights to use Nynorsk in the classroom, it will be more difficult for my children and me to exercise our rights to do so. That some people in an exposed language group cease to use the language in a particular domain, affects all the people in the domain, since they will be exposed to the language to a lesser degree. When people are less exposed to a certain language, even if it is their first language, they will, in the long run, experience that their language competence is reduced. This could give rise to negative attitudes towards the language. Thus, my argument is that individual use of a language is dependent on a group using and appreciating it (Rubio-Marín 2003). I will illustrate the problematic aspects of linguistic universalism by one ex- ample from the Norwegian education domain. With its half a million users, Nynorsk is not a threatened language, but it is vulnerable. Educators and teach- ers are particularly worried about the lack of strategies regarding the shift from Nynorsk to Bokmål in school. After primary school, Norwegian pupils indi- vidually choose their first language, regardless of which school district they originally belonged to. More than 30 per cent of Nynorsk students shift to Bok- mål as their first written language in secondary and high school (Garthus 2009). Nynorsk students are less exposed to their first language than Bokmål students are, both at school and outside school. The conditions of first-language learning are therefore very different and more difficult for students using Nynorsk than for those using Bokmål, despite universal rights. This is arguably an important factor in the language shift from Nynorsk to Bokmål. This language shift is a sociolinguistic fact generally accepted, but its polit- ical implications are not generally accepted. Scholars and teachers have argued that more support and differentiated curriculums may be needed, permitting more and different education in Nynorsk as a first language (Garthus 2009, Bjørhusdal 2014: 478–479). However, the universalist language regime tends to resist such differentiation pleas, because they attempt to promote one of the languages at the expense of the other Language policy has become more important in Norway, with two conse- quences. On the one hand, the traditional Norwegian language regulatory pol- icy concerning Nynorsk and Bokmål receives less political attention than be- fore. On the other hand, new policy perspectives arise, and new tools can be found for the administration of the Nynorsk-Bokmål situation. The universalist language policy is now challenged by a negative universal- ist approach on the one hand, and by arguments supporting more regulation and group differentiation on the other. From the current conservative government, still in office after the 2017 election, there are reasons to expect language de- regulation provisions in the coming years. The potential corresponding legisla- tive and political processes may be a crucial opportunity for holders of the po- sitions mentioned above to renegotiate central institutions of Norway’s lan- guage policy. 40 Eli Bjørhusdal
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Kuhnle, S. & Ervik, R., 2011: Velferdsstatens politiske grunnlag. In: A. Hatland, S. Kuhnle & T. I. Romøren (eds.), Den norske velferdsstaten. Oslo. Pp. 40–66. Kymlicka, W., 1995: Multicultural citizenship. A liberal theory of minority rights. Ox- ford. Kymlicka, W. & Patten, A. (eds.), 2003: Language rights and political theory. Oxford. Lilleholt, K. & Gramstad, S., 1983: Lov om målbruk i offentleg teneste. Med kommen- tarar. Oslo. Patten, A. & Kymlicka, W., 2003: Introduction: Language rights and political theory: Context, issues and approaches. In: Kymlicka, W. & Patten, A. (eds.), Language rights and political theory. Oxford. Pp. 1–51. Pinto, M., 2009: Who is afraid of language rights in Israel? In: Nachtomy, O. & Sagi, A. (eds.), The multicultural challenge in Israel. Boston. Pp. 26–51. Réaume, D. & Pinto, M., 2012: Philosophy of language policy. In: Spolsky, B. (ed.), The Cambridge handbook of language policy. Cambridge. Pp. 37–59. Rubio-Marín, R., 2003: Language rights: Exploring the competing rationales. In: Kymlicka, W. & Patten, A. (eds.), Language rights and political theory. Oxford. Pp. 52–79. Søberg, M. & Tangerås, T. P., 2003: Voter turnout in direct democracy: Theory and evi- dence. In: Working paper 596. The research institute of industrial economics. Stock- holm. Trudgill, Peter, 2003: A Glossary of sociolinguistics. Oxford. Vangsnes, Ø. & Söderlund, G., 2015: Språk og læring – finst det nynorske tospråksfor- delar? In: Langfeldt, Gjert (ed.), Skolens kvalitet skapes lokalt: Presentasjon av funn fra forskningsprosjektet Lærende regioner. Bergen. Pp. 97–120. Vikør, Lars S., 2001: The Nordic languages. Their status and interrelations. Oslo. Williams, C. H., 2012: Language policy, territorialism and regional autonomy. In: Spolsky, B. (ed.), The Cambridge handbook of language policy. Cambridge. Pp. 174–202. 42 Eli Bjørhusdal Creating a creoloid as a national language 43 Creating a creoloid as a national language: the case of Dano-Norwegian
Kurt Braunmüller, University of Hamburg
0. Introduction and overview The present paper tries to give a short survey of Norwegian language history as far as Danish in Norway and later Dano-Norwegian/Bokmål is concerned. It focuses on the two main linguistic movements in Norway in the 19th and 20th century, namely the struggle between (a) stability towards keeping Danish as the traditional written language – but with modifications, and (b) divergence from Danish as the former “colonial” language by creating a totally new na- tional written language from the scratch, based on local dialects. Starting with insights into contact linguistics and second language acquisition, what follows will show the factors and mechanisms which can be considered responsible for the emergence and implementation of a so-called creoloid (term due to Peter Trudgill) in Norway, i.e. a kind of closely related contact language that shows simplifications and other modifications which turn out to be typologically simi- lar, for example Afrikaans compared to its origin, standard Dutch. Moreover it will be demonstrated why establishing a new contact variety of Danish outside Denmark was a real option during nation building in Norway after 1814. The limits and restrictions, seen both from a systemic linguistic and a socio-politi- cal view, will also be highlighted. Finally, the following will evaluate whether or not the creation of a creoloid was a good choice for Norway.
1. Remarks on the origins of national languages 1.1. There are various different origins and conditions to be observed when establishing a, that is to say, one language as the national language: this process can, for example, be the result of an internal political development concerning nation building (cf. France: the dialect of the Île-de-France/Paris at the expense of all other indigenous languages) or the linguistic dominance of the biggest group of immigrants (in the case of the United States of America: English, overriding other groups speaking German, French, Spanish or Chinese). A na- tional language may also be a direct outcome of (European) colonisation as this is the case for all nations in Central and South America (Spanish and Portu- guese in Brazil), to name only some well-known examples. 44 Kurt Braunmüller
1.2. National states in Europe with more than one official language include Fin- land (with Finnish and Swedish), Belgium (with Dutch, French and German) and Switzerland (with German, French, Italian and Rhaeto-Romance), with some states in Africa having far more as the default (e.g. 11 in South Africa; see van der Merve & van Niekerk 1994: esp. map 4). Similarly in Asia (India: predomin- antly Hindi and English as official languages plus 120 other regional languages; cf. http://www.censusindia.gov.in/2011-documents/lsi/ling_survey_india .html). This reflects both political history and the structure of these countries’ multi- ethnic local populations. One of these languages, a formerly colonial language such as English may further serve as a lingua franca, e.g. in India, Kenya (along with Swahili), Singapore or Hong Kong. Even pidgin languages which have gained native speakers of their own, then called creole languages, may serve as national languages in formerly colonial states such as Papua New Guinea (Tok Pisin, based on English) or Haiti (Haitian Creole, based on French), to name only two well-known cases. The colonial languages (here: English and French, re- spectively) can, however, still be used as linguae francae. 1.3. The case of Norway has to be considered a category in its own right. Since 1885 Norway has had two officially recognised written forms, Dano-Nor- wegian (based on [Danish] Rigsmaal > [Norwegian] Riksmål; after 1929: Bok- mål) and New Norwegian (created by Ivar Aasen as Landsmaal; after 1929: Nynorsk) which are today supposed to be two faces of one and the same (writ- ten) standard language, although some of their grammatical features are, strict- ly speaking, structurally incompatible with each other (cf. the divergences in their gender systems and in pronominal reference), not to speak of their lan- guage policy with respect to word formation and the treatment of loan-words in the vocabulary. Danish, the dominant (written) language in Norway since the end of the late Middle Ages and up to the early 20th century, might be regarded as some sort of a colonial language though Norway was never a Danish colony but rather was treated as an integral part of the Danish empire including its overseas possessions in the North Atlantic (Iceland, the Faroes and Shetland). After Denmark had lost its last battle in the Napoleonic Wars, the Norwegians took the chance to gain independence from Denmark. They succeeded – but not in getting full independence from their neighbour Sweden, and a Swedish-Nor- wegian union lasted until 1905. Danish in Norway cannot thus be considered a true colonial language but rather a language that has lost its ties to its parent country as an immediate con- sequence of the Treaty of Kiel (in January 14, 1814). This part of the Danish kingdom, situated on the opposite side of the Skagerrak, declared then its inde- pendence in Eidsvoll, in May 17, 1814, now celebrated as the national day of Norway. The incorporation of Norway under the Danish crown in 1380 means that Danish in the year 1814 was actually an indigenous, although predomi- nantly written language of Norway. During these 434 years the citizens of Nor- way had the same rights as their fellow citizens in Denmark and those people that were used to reading and writing felt that Danish was their genuine form of writing (if it was not Latin or Low German in earlier times). The old local Creating a creoloid as a national language 45 written language, Old Norse, the language of the sagas, of Skaldic and Eddic poetry died out by early modern times, replaced by a genetically related variety which became the language of the church, the government and later education. So, the linguistic situation of Norway is not that of a typical colonial language but rather similar to the situation of English abroad, e.g. in the United States of America or in Australia. The only difference is that a larger group of people de- parted from England or became deported whereas in the case of Norway it was a part of the kingdom itself that broke up its (political) ties to Denmark due to post-war developments.
2. The status and development of Danish in Norway after 1814 As stated above, Danish was the official (written) language in Norway be- tween 1380 and 1814 – and far beyond. Until 1907, viz. since the first general writing reform for Rigsmaal in Norway, the orthography and all other gram- matical norms were still the same, both in Denmark and in Norway. Devia- tions from this norm occurred but were not generally received or acknowl- edged by the authorities, except for special (topographical or cultural) Nor- wegian terms (særnorske ord), such as fjæld (attested e.g. in Wergeland’s writings (cf. Norsk Riksmålsordbok 1983, I: 1058), today written as fjell “mountain”) or sæter (attest e.g. in Ibsen’s and Asbjørnsen and Moe’s writ- ings (Norsk Riksmålsordbok 1983, III: 1473), today: seter “mountain dairy farm”). Though there were attempts by some authors to customise Danish or- thography in line with the local pronunciation or to make use of more expres- sions taken from local dialects, this did not mean a Norwegian language ac- tually emerged in its own right. The situation was rather similar to the regional variants of German seen in Switzerland or Austria, where one comes across some local terms, such as Velo (standard German Fahrrad/Rad) “bicycle”, Sack (st. G. Tasche) “bag; pocket” or allfällig (st. G. etwaig) “possible” for the German standard in Switzerland or Jänner (st. G. Januar) “January”, Paradeiser (st. G. Toma- ten) “tomatoes” or Obers (st. G. Schlagsahne) “whipped cream” for the Ger- man standard in Austria. Anyway, we are not talking here about diverging languages but only about a few regional features which do not really affect the common grammatical norm.1 Thus Danish could have continued as a pluricentric language2 as sug-
1 The only exception is the letter ß which does not belong to the orthography of German as prac- tised in Switzerland, mostly due to historical reasons, esp. since the 1930/40s, but in a way also due to the multilingualism of the state. This letter is therefore not part of the German keyboard either. 2 Danish as used today in the Faroe Islands (cf. e.g. the survey in Kühl 2015) and Norwegian Riksmål in its 1907- or even in its 1917-form could still have been part of a linguistic continuum around the Danish norm, in a way comparable with American English in relation to British English. 46 Kurt Braunmüller gested in the case of German. But in the age of early nationalism this was not a real option: an (almost) independent state, a new nation without a national language of its own was seen as incomplete and a contradiction in terms of na- tionalistic ideology. To then call the country’s traditional written language “the Norwegian language” (det norske Sprog) or even more concealed “the mother tongue” (Modersmaalet) did not really help either. So, the situation of the Danish language in Norway did not change after the dissolution of the Union with Denmark in 1814. On the contrary (cf. Larsen 1978: 17f.), Danish in Norway became more puristic, and the theatres engaged new actors directly from Denmark in order to support the correct Danish/Co- penhagen norm as the guiding principle for the highest oral register onstage (cf. Skard 1980: 13f.). Any influence of Swedish, the language of the new sover- eign, also called “amalgamation”, was to be prohibited. One of the reasons for this attitude can be seen in a deep-rooted antagonism between Norway and Sweden. But the national romantic period also gave rise to a new indigenous language which was supposed to replace the former “foreign” or “colonial” Danish lan- guage. It started with P. A. Munch’s ideas and got finally implemented by Ivar Aasen in the middle of the 19th century (for more information see Jahr 2014, 2015 and Askedal & Aarnes Breder 2002). Giving up Danish Rigsmaal would have resulted in a complete break not only with the traditional (written) stand- ard language and its culture but would also have led into severe conflicts with its supporting class, the urban upper-middle-class mostly living in Kristiania/ Oslo, Bergen and Trondheim. All these developments endorsed the inherited Danish language and streng- thened the social position of the predominant upper-middle-class in Norway al- though some influential intellectuals strongly supported all efforts towards a radically new indigenous language, later called Landsmaal, to be understood either as “language of/for the (whole) country” or rather as “rural language”, the language of the people living in the countryside, as interpreted by the bourgeoisie.
3. Stability vs. divergence 3.1. One of the main issues in 19th century Norwegian language history was finding a balance between highlighting the country’s new independence from Denmark after 1814 and preserving its national cultural and literary continuity. Landsmaal stands for a radical cut, a fresh national start from scratch, build- ing up a new Norwegian identity by means of a language based on the less al- tered, and thus more “pure”dialects outside the towns and in sharp contrast to the sustaining urban elites of Norway. Creating a creoloid as a national language 47
The use of Rigsmaal on the other hand represented continuity with Denmark along with the affiliation to an influential nation in northern Europe.3 Their rep- resentatives, in fact almost all people who were used to reading and writing, could not see any reason why they should give up their common literary and cultural heritage and learn (!) a completely new language consisting of an opaque mixture of (mostly) western and central Norwegian dialects they were not used to, especially those from the southern and eastern parts of Norway. This new vernacular was considered inadequate to reflect the urban upper- middle-class culture. 3.2. The literary continuity between Denmark and Norway in the 19th and in early 20th century was guaranteed by a common writing norm and indeed a common book market. Renowned authors such as Henrik Ibsen, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson or Knut Hamsun were well aware of this fact and fought for linguistic continuity and for Riksmaal as their language. That way, their writings could still be easily received not only in Denmark but also beyond. The only concessions gradually made, esp. after the reforms of 1907 and 1917, were some peripheral changes, mainly based on the local urban upper- class pronunciation, called dannet dagligtale “educated colloquial language”. To give some examples licensed by the 1907-reform:4 (a) b, d, g after long vowels were replaced by their voiceless counterparts p, t and k,5 (b) inaudible d’s in nd- and ld-clusters were dropped (Dan. Tand 6 > Nor. tann “tooth”) un- less they were historically motivated as in land “land, country”, (c) partly in- audible preterit verb forms such as Dan. sagde “said” or lade “let” became re- duced to Nor. sa_ and la , respectively, (d) some frequent past participles be- came contracted, as in the case of Dan. givet > Nor. gitt “given” or Dan. blevet > Nor. blitt “become, got(ten)”,7 and finally (e) short vowels were now indi- cated by writing the following consonant twice, as in Dan. Tak > Nor. takk “thanks” (vs. Dan. Tag [taːʔg/γ] > Nor. tak “roof” with a long vowel). Apart from the use of the so-called særnorske ord (cf. sec. 2) some locally occurring forms were permitted as well, e.g. Nor. hand (vs. Dan. Haand 8 [hɔnʔ]) “hand”
3 This picture did not change before Denmark had lost important parts of its territory to Prussia and Austria after the defeat in the Second War of Schleswig in 1864. 4 For more details see Jahr (1989: 43f.; 2014: 93f.). 5 The word for ‘(medical) doctor’ represents, however, a rather unmotivated exception to this rule (cf. Dan. læge). It is not *læke (cf. Swed. läkare) or *leke as one might guess but lege (only mod- ified by the preference of West Nordic e to East Nordic æ or ä). By the way, a similar case with a preference for the Danish form can also be found in Swedish: the corresponding noun to the verb baka ‘to bake’ is bagare ‘baker’ and not *bakare, but baker in Nor. 6 Until 1948, Danish nouns were written with initial capital letters, as is still practised in German orthography. 7 Both the infinitive blive [bliː] ‘to become, to get’ and the corresponding present tense form bliv- er [bliːʁ] show an overt i. By choosing blitt (and not *blett) the dominant vowel of this verb be- came generalised: bli, blir – blev – blitt and the paradigm simplified, an observation which is typ- ical of second language learning (see 4.2.2.). 8 Likewise until 1948, aa was used in Danish orthography to express /o(ː)/, in sharp contrast to Swedish and Norwegian which had used the letter å long before. 48 Kurt Braunmüller or Nor. glømme or still glemme (cf. Dan. glemme) “to forget”.9 Some of these changes could also occur together, as in Dan. Bold [bɔl(d)ʔ] > Nor. ball “ball” or (optionally) as in Dan. Æble ['æːblə] > Nor. eple [xεplə] “apple”, now pro- nounced with a tonal accent. In short: stability in terms of orthographic and lexical continuity as well as the focus on the common cultural heritage with Denmark supported by the ur- ban population were the main characteristics of the socio-political develop- ment in the 19th century as far as Riksmaal is concerned.
4. On the nature of creoloids The first question to be answered is what has been called a (natural) creoloid. The definition of this term goes back to Trudgill (1995: 171): a language, which demonstrates a certain amount of simplification and admixture, relative to some source language, but which has never been a pidgin or a creole in the sense that it has always had speakers who spoke a variety which was not subject to reduction, we can call creoloid. In contrast to this, pidgins and (pidgin-based) creoles10 had gone through re- ductions in grammar. These forms of contact languages have to be seen as inter-linguistic compromises between people originally speaking completely different languages, e.g. a local dialect and a colonial language. Not only pidgins but also creoles have lost several of the source languages’ basic struc- tures and became, especially in the case of pidgins, more dependent on con- textual factors. All this does n o t apply to creoloids; they stand for linguistic continuity be- tween the source language and the emerged new variety which became sep- arated by national borders or long distance due to colonisation (as this is the case for Afrikaans in relation to Dutch). The following issues have to be con- sidered when discussing Dano-Norwegian as a creoloid, related to Trudgill’s definition given above:
9 The parallels to Swedish and its dialects are obvious (cf. Swed. hand and glömma, respectively). They are, however, not the result of an “amalgamation” between Swedish and Danish but founded on a common phonological and lexical dialectal basis on the Scandinavian peninsula. 10 We should keep in mind that not all creoles are results of pidgins (sc. trade jargons). They can also be due to incomplete language acquisition by adults or simplified language learning: “Cre- oles and indigenized varieties are, nonetheless, similar to outcomes of non-native appropriation of a language by populations which have influenced it with features from languages they spoke pre- viously” (Mufwene 2004: 480). – Moreover Whinnom (1971: 105) has pointed out that pidgins – and creoles, I would like to add – may show not only proper stable norms but also linguistic items or structures which cannot directly be traced back to the native or a target language. This presup- poses, however, that no classical target language, e.g. a colonial language, exists and that more than one substratal language is involved. One might see such kind of pidgins/creoles as fossilised inter-languages to serve basic needs in everyday communication. Creating a creoloid as a national language 49
(A) What is the nature of this kind of simplification? Is it due to second lan- guage learning, late sequential bilingualism or even non-native lan- guage acquisition? (B) Which kind of admixture (i.e. language contact) are we talking about? Contact between which forms of language or varieties? (C) What is the source language of today’s Bokmål? Which language has to be considered the referential language? (D) If the result is a non-reduced variety, what does this variety look like in detail?
4.1. Why was supporting a creoloid an option? Keeping almost all features of Danish preserves cultural and linguistic continu- ity. Thus the emancipation from the Danish source language can be performed step by step without risking a break with a long tradition in writing, i.e. the tran- sition towards a new nationalised variety can be executed continuously and thus smoothly. But this policy also has disadvantages: there are several generally minor changes without having previously defined when this reforming process will have reached its end. Nobody can tell (a) when the final state of this codifica- tion process will be reached, nor can anyone tell (b) which final state of Nor- wegian Bokmål is actually intended. It seems that all reforms and regulations of Bokmål after 1917 (viz. in 1938, [1951], 1959, 1981 and 2005) are primarily driven by political and social movements and their ideas of how to establish a Norwegian (written) language according to their ideological premises. Lin- guistic considerations only play a marginal role in this process (cf. e.g. the ar- bitrary list of about 900 obligatory feminine nouns due to the reform of 1938; for more details see Jahr 1989: 71). The only place where these changes can be implemented is in schools. But when Norwegians had left school they would in most cases still use the form of their national language they learnt unless they became teachers themselves or civil servants who were obliged to accommodate and follow the implementa- tions to come. The final result was a mixed bag of many varieties of Norwegian and by no means a standardised vernacular. There is a chance that the last re- form by Bokmål in July 2005 will put an end to these reforms but this process of standardisation will take at least two generations where further ways of writ- ing Norwegian circulate. The abolishment of most variants in 2005, namely the approved equivalent (jamstilte hovedformer) and optional forms (klammefor- mer) will help in the long run to establish a codified/standardised Norwegian creoloid. (A) The simplifications to be observed will be presented in detail in section 4.2. (B) The admixture (language contact) takes place between the (mostly 50 Kurt Braunmüller
written) H(igh)-variety Bokmål and the local rural L(ow)-varieties which were used only orally, viz. the dialects (in Norwegian called målføre). (C) The source language was primarily the written standard as practised in Denmark. But the local spelling pronunciation (dannet dagligtale) also served as a received benchmark for “fine” oral Dano-Norwegian. (D) Reductions in grammar could not take place because of the continuity of the Danish language in Norway. No foreign populations had to learn this language. Danish had always been there but was socially distributed with a clear preference by the upper-middle-class.
4.2. Systematic changes and its causes: Simplifications due to second language acquisition There can be no doubt that Dano-Norwegian shows many simplifying features that are typical of both late sequential bilingualism and second language learn- ing by school children and younger adults. 4.2.1. After Norway’s independence from Denmark, educated Norwegians could not understand why they should continue writing, for example, outdated obscure conventions of Danish orthography dating back to the second half of the 15th century (see Skautrup 1947: 186), such as the non-audible d’s in consonant clusters with nd and ld, e.g. in Dan. Mand > Nor.11 mann “man” or Dan. falde > Nor. falle “to fall”. Exceptions were only permitted when the d’s were supported by etymology such as in Dan. Land = Nor. land “land”, al- though not all cases by far were perspicuous, such as in the case of Nor. kveld “evening”:12 This word was not the default term in contemporary Danish ( aften; cf. Germ. Abend), but was rather of local origin and kept its d because this letter was still to be found in the West Nordic sister language, Icelandic: kvöld. The only support for the selection of kveld (and not the retaining of Dan. aften) for “evening” could be found in dialectal contiguity (cf. Swed. kväll, cf. also sec. 5). Many words (here: restricted to verbs) containing historically motivated d’s such as in Nor. sende “to send”, vende “to turn (around)”, vinde “to wind” or holde “to hold” and folde “to fold” etc. keep their d’s though they are n o t pronounced. Surprisingly, some of the etymological inquiries do not go further than the late Middle Ages, the golden age of Norwegian literacy. Words like Nor. grunn “ground” (cf. Germ. Grund), Nor. finne “to find” (Germ. finden) as well as Nor. funn “fund, finding” (Germ. Fund), Nor. munn “mouth” (Germ. Mund) or tann “tooth” (cf. Middle High Germ. zant (with final devoicing indi-
11 “Nor.” means further on “Dano-Norwegian” or Bokmål. 12 Wergeland once wrote kvel but vacillated later, along with Ibsen, between kvæld and kvell (Norsk Riksmålsordbok 1983, II: 2803). The default term in Danish was (and is still) aften (cf. Swed. afton). Creating a creoloid as a national language 51 cated in orthography); genitive: zandes) make it very clear that some etymo- logical efforts stop when these d’s do no longer occur in Old Norse texts as a result of an internal West Nordic assimilation process, as this has been the case in ON grunnr, finna, munnr and tǫnn (plural: tenn/r) respectively. This is an amazing observation in terms of the blossoming age of historical comparative philology whereas it nicely fits Norwegian national romantic beliefs and their admiration of the Middle Ages. In short, abolishing superfluous Danish letters seems, at first glance, to be a good and useful idea but fails in practice, making the new way of writing in Norway not much simpler than the older one: one still has to learn the correct spellings of many Norwegian words by heart, for example, why finne is written without d but sende /-nː-/ with d.13 Another kind of simplification is the maintenance of some basic word forms when they are part of an inflection. In nouns ending on the resonants l and r the definite article just gets added to the noun (without any further morphophono- logical changes): artikkel + DEF. > artikkelen “the article”, bibel + DEF. > bibelen “the Bible”; sommer + DEF. > sommeren “the summer”, register + DEF. > regist(e)ret “the register” etc. whereas one writes in Danish artik_len, bib_len – sommeren (but without -e- in def. plural: som_rene “the summers” as well as still in Norwegian), regist_ret and in Swedish artikeln, bibeln – sommar(e)n but registret (and fönstret “the window” etc.): the Norwegian way lies in between and thus keeps both parts of this derivation unchanged: artikkel + -en > artikkel|en, a clear case of simplification due to second language learn- ing. 4.2.2. In line with these simplifications are some reductions of frequent words, such as Dan. anden > Nor. annen [aːnː] “the other/second”, Dan. bedste > Nor. be_ste “best”, Dan. Spørgsmaal > Nor. spør_smål “question”, Dan. Tvivl > Nor. tvi_l “doubt”, the infinitiv marker Dan. at [ɔ] > Nor. å [ɔ] “to; in order to”, Dan. give > Nor. gi_ “to give”, blive > bli_ “to become”, tage > ta_ “to take” etc., to name only a few of them. The guiding principle behind all these changes seems to be, again: “What you hear is what you write!” – but it turns out to be likewise misleading, as demonstrated above in the case of ld- and nd-clusters. 4.2.3. The same orthophonic principle has also been applied to words with inconvenient pronunciations as Dan. fortov14 > Nor. fortau “pavement”, and especially to frequently used foreign words, e.g. Eng. bacon > Nor. beiken, Eng. timing/catering > Nor. taiming/keitering. More examples of the use of adapted international English terms in newspapers can be found in Linneweh (2005).
13 Going back to German as the leading foreign language in the Nordic countries until ca. 1930 does not help either since both words are written with d in German: finden – senden. 14 The diphthong /ɔw/ is not part of the Norwegian phonological system but /æʉ/ though it seems more difficult to pronounce. 52 Kurt Braunmüller
4.2.4. Reductions within the inflectional system are very typical of second lan- guage learning. As expected we find enough evidence for this assumption in Bokmål (in contrast to Danish): (a) There is no longer a final -t in adjectives and adverbs ending on -ig (cf. Dan. et festligt tøj vs. Nor. et festlig_ tøy15 “a festive garment”; hun synger (Dan.) skrækkeligt > (Nor.) skrekkelig_ “she sings awfully”). The adverb aldri_ (< Dan. aldrig) “never” even dropped the mute g in ig-clusters in the official spell- ing. But the adjective marker -t has, however, not been abolished in general; it is still to be found in noun phrases like et stort hus NEUTER “a big house”. More- over agreement inflections in nominal predicates are still there: det her huset er stort NEUTER “this house is big” and de her husene er store PLURAL “these houses are big”.16 This development may also be classified as a further instance of “inconsequent spelling” or rather “deficient language planning”. (b) A true advancement in simplifying Danish declension classes is the abol- ishment of e-plurals in favour of a unified plural on -er: Dan. hest-e > Nor. hest-er “horse-s”. Plural forms on -er do also occur in Danish but in comple- mentary distribution, cf. Dan. hest – hest-e vs. bog – bøg-er “book – books”. Words such as Dan. hest “horse” and uge “week” now we have the same plural endings in customised Norwegian: hest-er “horses” and uke-r “weeks”, re- spectively. (c) The merger of the forms for the preterit and the past participle is another obvious instance of simplification. In the source language Danish vaskede “washed” was clearly distinct from the past participle vasket “washed” but the creoloid process levelled out this morphological distinction, as this was also the case in the history of English:17 Nor. vasket (or vaska, a form which is still per- mitted in spite of the reform in 2005 which intended to eliminate double forms and other variants). (d) A certain preference for the most unspecified preposition på “on, at” can also be observed as e.g. in kvart på 12 “quarter to 12” in contrast to the source language Danish: kvart i 12. Bokmål also permits hybrid constructions such as å gratulere med x “to congratulate on x” < (a) Dan. (at ønske) til lykke MED x and < (b) peninsular Scandinavian (Swedish) att GRATULERA på x. These ob- servations show that the rules for a creoloid are less strict than for a stand- ardised language with a long writing tradition. It apparently follows the prin- ciple “whatever works”. 4.2.5. There are a number of inconsistencies and inherited relicts from the Danish source language which makes Norwegian more complicated than ne-
15 More details on the vacillation between i, j and y (in diphthongs) in Norwegian are presented in sec. 5. 16 In Jutish dialects these forms of agreement became lost as for example in modern German. 17 By the way, English itself is a good candidate for a creoloid as well (see Trudgill 1992: 22: “Some writers have argued that English is in origin a creoloid: a simplified, mixed form of Old English that arose in the Old English-Norman French-Old Norse contact situation”). Creating a creoloid as a national language 53 cessary. Foreigners might get the impression that Bokmål is still “currently un- der construction”. Let us look at the so-called consonant vocalisation in Danish which is the result of far-reaching weakening processes in intervocalic conso- nant processes which started in the 12th century. Norwegian has kept some rem- nants of non-overt Danish diphthongs, e.g. Dan./Nor. regn /[εi, æi]/ or even /eg/ “rain” or løgn /løin/, occasionally also /løg/ “lie”, whereas New Norwegian started and proceeded in more consequent manner, without referring back to those “invisible diphthongs”: regn /ʀeŋn/ and løgn or lygn /løŋn; lyŋn/, respec- tively. Another source of complication is the pronunciation of the cluster rd in Bok- mål. In Swedish things are quite clear: rd is pronounced in all occurrences (in- terlude, coda) as a retroflex: /ɖ/, in Bokmål, however, the pronunciation of rd diverges considerably depending on the context: (a) as zero () in the coda of words after a long vowel (ord [uːr] “word”, jord [juːr] “earth; soil” or nordlig [xnuːrlɪ] “northern” as still practised in Danish, (b) distinct as two separate pho- nemes /-r.d-/ after short vowels if a syllable boundary /. / lies in between (as in herde “to harden”), and (c) as a retroflex /ɖ/ as in ferdig ['fæɖɪ] “ready”, and generally in standard central Swedish which does not really make things easier to understand. This means that there has never been a consequent and clear-cut separation from Danish, which is not really surprising for creoloids. But the new national standard stopped halfway and thus gave rise to inconsistent spellings and pro- nunciations and other “exceptions”. A subsequent cleaning-up to remove all remnants and peculiarities dating back to the old written language – and there are many of them! – did not take place. Dano-Norwegian is therefore by no means easier to master (and to learn as a foreign language) than its source lan- guage Danish. 4.2.6. To conclude: some of these changes can be attributed to second language learners. As demonstrated they either simplify or overgeneralise grammatical rules (4.2.2–4.2.4) or retain certain patterns they have been used to ever since (4.2.5.). So far we have observed several changes departing from the Danish source language but most of them were not conducted conclusively. In the next section we are thus looking for some other reasons for this behaviour and for the motivations of national language planning.
5. Covert bilingualism and the shining through effect in Bokmål 5.1. The aim of this section is to demonstrate that the local dialects in Norway can be made responsible for some of the inconsistencies met in the new lan- guage. Many of these occurrences can be explained by an observation frequent- ly found in bi- and multilingual societies, a phenomenon which we have called 54 Kurt Braunmüller
“covert bilingualism” or in German “verdeckte Mehrsprachigkeit” (for more details see Braunmüller 2001, 2015). A reinterpretation of the Danish orthography of the 19th century based on lo- cal pronunciation patterns took place: (a) post-consonantal j’s, as for example in Kjøbenhavn,18 were abolished in modern Danish or are no longer pronounced as e.g. in the family name Kjær [kʰæːʔʁ]. In Norwegian, however, the indigenous dialectal palatalisation rule reinterprets the Danish spelling of Kjøpenhamn or kjær as [ç/ɕ/(ʃ)-]. (b) The letter i in diphthongs, as commonly written in 19th century Danish, was either kept, as in arbeid(e) “(to) work” or reise “(to) travel” or was re- placed by y, as e.g. in pløye “to plough” (19th c. Dan. pløie, today pløje), in- fluenced by Norwegian dialects. Therefore we get Nor. røyk “smoke” (and not røg as in Danish) which is related to the verb å ryke “to smoke”. (c) The most obvious impact of the local (dialectal) varieties emerges in terms of the replacement of post-vocalic Dan. b, d, g with the unvoiced counterparts p, t, k. With the exception of some southern parts in Norway, which always had very intense contacts with Denmark, this way of pronun- ciation has been the default one – in spite of the usual Danish orthography. One of the reasons was that the Danish spelling kept most words with voiced post-vocalic obstruents distinct while in Denmark they were more or less weakened in their pronunciation. So using a spelling pronunciation and strengthening the post-vocalic consonants was a good idea, not just for re- taining the original word forms but also for keeping up the genetic ties to the local dialects.
5.2. To summarise: the main sources of the re-modelling of Danish in Norway were: (1) Various signs of second language acquisition, such as (a) reductions, (b) simplifications and overgeneralisations, and (c) merger of grammatical forms. Dano-Norwegian shows a development towards a fossilised learner variety. (2) The results of developments are somewhat inconsistent and not always rule-governed since some patterns and pronunciations of Danish are retained and now in conflict with more recent developments. (3) Reinterpretation of the original Danish orthography in terms of local pro- nunciations, followed by the integration of new diphthongs as found in western Norwegian dialects. This can be considered an initial step towards a national language in its own right.
18 The form used today is different: -hamn is the peninsular Scandinavian equivalent of -havn and thus preferred (cf. Swed. Köpenhamn). Creating a creoloid as a national language 55
(4) Signs of local pronunciation, for example palatalisations, devoicing of inter- and post-vocalic obstruents and indeed media diglossia (an insurmount- able antagonism between oral dialectal and written Danish-based communica- tion). (5) One of the consequences of covert bilingualism is that there is no linear de- velopment from Danish to Dano-Norwegian/Bokmål: (a) The definite (enclitic) article feminine singular cannot be traced back to its Danish counterpart -en: words such as sol|a/i “the sun”, bok|a/i “the book” etc. had never been part of the standard Danish grammar.19 The deri- vation from Old Norse sól|in “the sun” or bók|in “the book” to sol|a and bok|a, respectively, is a special indigenous development to be observed in some dialects where the reduced vowel of definite article (fem./sing.) -in [ɪ]20 became more and more centralised to [ə] or [ɐ] which were written as -a due to the lack of a more appropriate letter. Later a spelling pronunciation of this weakened a as [ɑ/a] prevailed. (b) The form of the definite article neuter plural cannot be traced back to its Danish counterpart either: all (!) neuters, e.g. år “year” or hus “house”, may receive a special article form ending on -a, again based on local dialects: år|a “the years” and hus|a “the houses”, respectively. The traditional forms in Bokmål are like in Danish: år|ene and hus|ene. The same can be said about the a-forms in the verbal system (cf. vaska (pret./past part.) vs. Dan. vaskede (pret.) and vasket (past part.): “washed”, respectively).
5.3. In all these cases covert bilingualism played an important role. What we generally observe when analysing this new Norwegian language is a shining through effect of the vernaculars and their diverging ways to express the local offspring of the Nordic linguistic heritage. Bokmål can therefore be considered some sort of a hybrid language, based on Danish spelling but accommodated to local pronunciations and grammatical restructurings due to second language learning (typically by school children who are beyond the critical period of na- tive language acquisition which ends somewhere around the age of 5; cf. e.g. Meisel 2004: 103–108). The price to pay for this indigenisation has been high: on the one hand Nor- wegians could rely on the common inherited language, on the other they have had to cope with learning several inconsistencies and exceptions due to impact
19 So it does not matter that the eastern parts of Denmark (esp. Funen and Zealand) and the north- ernmost top of Jutland still have the old three-gender-system in their dialects too (cf. Brøn- dum-Nielsen 1927: map 23). The export of the Danish language was confined to the language of the upper classes and especially to the written standard. Danish dialects did not therefore play any role in the implementation and elaboration of the new standard in Norway. 20 Older grammars and textbooks of Old Norse render words of the type sólin/bókin as sólen/ bóken (cf. e.g. Noreen [1923]/1970: 317f. or Gutenbrunner 1951: 115–117) in order to mark the weakened/centralised form of the inflectional i (thus not -inn/in/it but rather -enn/en/et for the def. art. sing. nom.). 56 Kurt Braunmüller from (even distant) local dialects. Covert bilingualism thus leads in the long run to code mixing (as demonstrated in Braunmüller 2009) and shows that getting a new national linguistic identity in terms of a creoloid is not for free! The only way out of this dilemma would have been to develop Danish into a supranational pluricentric language but this was not a real option in the age of nationalism, especially as the Danes could not have seen why they should accept locally accommodated varieties from outside after they had lost these territories, in this case Norway.
6. The results of the reforms in the 20th century and beyond 6.1. The reform of 1938 failed, among other reasons, because the urban upper- middle-class was not willing to accept the official recognition and integration of dialectal (viz. non-standard) forms in their inherited standard language. One of the main points of controversy was the integration of about 900 feminine nouns as mandatory in a language with a completely different gender system, consisting of the opposition between “common” and “neuter”, and not of “mas- culine/feminine/neuter”. It was not the overt marking of feminine nouns as such which caused problems – everybody in Norway, except the inhabitants of the city of Bergen, master a dialect with a three gender system and could thus easily recognise all feminine nouns – but this reform failed rather due to the mixture of some dialectal features with a well-established literary language of a (partially) typological different type. Such a mixture will cause non-natural rules for pronominalisation in this Danish-based creoloid: (a) non-animate nouns are referred to by pronouns of the Danish common-neuter system: e.g. bok|a FEM.“the book” den “it”, bil|enCOMM./(MASC.) “the car” den “it” or hus|etNEUT. “the house” det “it”, but (b) persons (and higher animals) are referred to by the Norwegian-based masc.-fem.-neut. system: e.g. jent|a FEM. “the girl” hun/(ho) “she” but ex- cludes rules of the type sol|aFEM.–ANIM. “the sun” hun/(ho) “she” as is default in the other national language New Norwegian. Moreover the new creoloid now also permitted forms based on western dialectal features which no longer exist in Danish and Swedish due to the so-called East Scandinavian monoph- thongisation in the early Middle Ages. These western dialects still use the old Germanic forms such as stein “stone”, heil “whole” or auga “eye” and not the East Scandinavian/Danish forms (with long monophthongs) sten, hel and öje (cf. Swed. öga) respectively. 6.2. The new regulation of counting beyond 19 launched in 1951 did not find general acceptance either because counting of composed numerals became re- versed and, what is more, was totally incompatible with the way of counting in Danish. Now speakers of Bokmål name first the tens and then the ones, as in Creating a creoloid as a national language 57
English and, unfortunately, as in Swedish as well: 21 = “twenty one”, 22 = “twenty two” and not “one and twenty”, “two and twenty” etc. (as in the source language Danish and in German). But not enough: the words for 20 and 30 should also be changed, namely from (Dan./Riksmål) tyve tjue “20” and from (Dan./Riksmål) tred[i]ve tretti “30”. Today, both ways of counting co- exist and are often used side by side by the same speakers, often within the same utterance or discourse depending on stylistic considerations (such as “sounds better here”, “fits better the rhythm of the utterance” etc.). 6.3. In July 2005 the series of spelling and grammatical reforms came to a cer- tain end, at least for now, when the last regulation took place. Its major aim was to reduce grammatical variation and to give Bokmål more focus and a more standardised shape as found in other European standard languages. This gives clarity as to what is correct in fulfilling the spelling and grammatical norms. Before 2005 teachers were obliged to use only the officially licensed so-called “main forms” (hovedformer) but they could not mark side forms (side-/klam- meformer) as non-allowed deviations from the current grammatical norm. This situation was unique in Europe and should therefore be changed. Finally this reform implemented most of the main linguistic targets of the upper-middle- class which says that all changes after 1917 were completely unnecessary and harmful to the traditional written language they preferred. This movement had been strongly supported by the so-called Riksmål Movement, and by renowned authors and the most influential daily newspaper in Norway, Aftenposten. These people completely disagreed with the changes and adaptations to the local vernaculars which were launched after 1917 and which finally prevailed in 2005. 6.4. But what was the ultimate purpose of all these reforms? The intention was to bridge the diglossic gap21 between writing (Danish) and speaking (a local dialect) and to thus create greater acceptance for the new national language. This language should show some essential local features distinct from the tra- ditional written language of Danish. The launch of all these changes to Danish was accompanied by great tolerance towards variation in grammar and spell- ing, allowing people to decide to use forms which were closer to the form of Norwegian they felt most familiar with. In the end the result was confusion (what is accepted for now and what is not (yet) permitted?) and uncertainty. Another idea was that Norwegians follow up with all changes during their life- time, but most of them did not. So, when you read texts by fellow Norwegians one could never be sure whether this way of writing was “correct”, be it the cur- rently accepted version of Bokmål, an outdated version or a non-approved per- sonalised version of Norwegian.
21 The German speaking part of Switzerland shows a quite similar distribution between written and oral communication. The main difference is, however, that they adhere to the German stand- ard language as used in Germany, Austria and beyond but use some local terms which are not well-known abroad, sometimes of French origin, and occasionally outdated terms. But there are no doubts in terms of the guiding standard. 58 Kurt Braunmüller
7. Perspectives and an attempt to conclude 7.1. The question is whether all these “improvements” of Dano-Norwegian/ Bokmål have now come to an end. Initially one can say that many of the salient characteristics of the inherited Danish language have been restored by the 2005 reform – pace some modifications due to covert bilingualism and entrenched “exceptions”. Secondly, most of the requirements of the influential Riksmål Movement are now fulfilled. And finally Dano-Norwegian has now become a sort of standardised language (trying, at least in theory, to ban all parallel and side forms) and in line with almost all other national languages in Europe.22 On the other hand one could say that many inconsistencies still remain, for example, “exceptions” in pronunciation (cf. regn /ai/, løgn /oi/ or ord /u:r/) and in grammar (cf. e.g. bok|a and bok|en “the book” or vasket and vaska “washed”). Moreover all Norwegians are at least receptive bilinguals which means that any form of inter-linguistic code mixing cannot be prohibited be- cause both varieties, the written and the oral one, are genetically closely re- lated. 7.2. The final issue to be discussed is whether creating a creoloid was a good choice for Norway or not. One can agree and say that Dano-Norwegian/Bok- mål was an acceptable compromise between marking national independence and preserving cultural (esp. literary) continuity. One can also argue that this kind of language planning preserved linguistic continuity and has been sup- ported by an overwhelming share of Norwegians, especially in the towns where most people live. Furthermore one can say that all changes and reforms be- tween 1907 and 2005 preserved the traditional diglossia, supported linguistic conservatism with respect to Danish to some extent and thus prohibited a com- plete break with a long literary tradition. New Norwegian/Nynorsk focused, however, on such a complete break with Danish but the result turned out to be less radical (or consequent) as might be expected. Going back to the medieval roots of Norwegian dialects would have resulted in a language similar to modern Faroese but the gap between such a radical new national language and the traditional local variant of Danish would then have been insurmountable. New Norwegian has been less radically codi- fied so this new written standard is not completely incomprehensible for the rest of the population in Norway. The only real problem in understanding New Norwegian which some proponents of Bokmål might have are some items of the (puristic) vocabulary that have to be learnt but which can often be inferred from the context. In any case, creating a creoloid as a national standard was not the best solu- tion because the distance between oral (dialectal) and written (Danish-based) communication is still great, especially for those speakers living outside Oslo
22 Luxembourgish (Letzebuergesch), the recent non-fully codified national standard in Luxem- burg, may be considered one of the exceptions. Creating a creoloid as a national language 59 and eastern Norway in general. Therefore writers tend, at least in informal situations, to mix the varieties they are used to bridging thus the uncomfortable diglossic gap. One might also say that Dano-Norwegian has no direct local roots but has become legitimised by more than 430 years of a common Danish-Norwegian political, cultural and literary history. But does this fact jus- tify “grafting” some sort of customised or manipulated Danish with many opaque grammatical and spelling rules onto a nation speaking genetically re- lated dialects? One way out of this dilemma would have been to consider standard Danish as a pluricentric language and follow the example of Switzerland, writing standard German and speaking a local dialect. Or in Norwegian terms: to keep on writing Danish as Henrik Wergeland did and admit a few minor local sup- plements and accommodations, mainly in the lexicon. But the situation in the first half of the 19th century did not permit such a solution: bilingualism/diglos- sia with Danish, a pluricentric written language, alongside Norwegian dialects. The reform in 2005 came too late and Norwegian language history could not really be rolled back to its status in 1917, not to speak of Henrik Wergeland’s time. Moreover all reforms of Dano-Norwegian could not ignore the increasing acceptance of New Norwegian since 1885, especially during the Second World War. That is also why any attempts to merge both written standards into a uni- fied Pan-Norwegian language (samnorsk) and/or Radical Bokmål, an informal convergence variety towards Nynorsk, failed: one can never go back in time and ignore all time-honoured motivations for language planning and imple- mentation.
References Askedal, John Ole & Breder, Ann-Britt Aarnes (eds.), 2002: Ivar Aasen – vandreren og veiviseren. Oslo. Braunmüller, Kurt, 2001: Verdeckte Mehrsprachigkeit. In: Robert Peters, Horst P. Pütz & Ulrich Weber (eds.), Vulpis Adolatio. Festschrift zum 60. Geburtstag von Huber- tus Menke. Heidelberg. Pp. 117–128. Braunmüller, Kurt, 2009: Converging genetically related languages: Endstation code mixing? In: Kurt Braunmüller & Juliane House (eds.), Convergence and divergence in language contact situations. Amsterdam–Philadelphia. Pp. 53–69. Braunmüller, Kurt, 2015: Zur Entstehung neuer Regionalsprachen aus kollektiver Zweisprachigkeit. In: Robert Langhanke (ed.), Sprache, Literatur, Raum. Festgabe für Willy Diercks. Bielefeld. Pp. 129–142. Brøndum-Nielsen, Johs., 1927: Dialekter og Dialektforskning. Copenhagen. Gutenbrunner, Siegfried, 1951: Historische Laut- und Formenlehre des Altisländischen [...]. Heidelberg. Jahr, Ernst Håkon, 1989: Utsyn over norsk språkhistorie etter 1814. Oslo. Jahr, Ernst Håkon, 2014: Language planning as a sociolinguistic experiment. The case of modern Norwegian. Edinburgh. Jahr, Ernst Håkon, 2015: Språkplanlegging og språkstrid. Utsyn over norsk språkhisto- rie etter 1814. Oslo. 60 Kurt Braunmüller
Kühl, Karoline, 2015: Faroe Danish: An unknown variety. In: Eivind Torgersen et al. (eds.), Language variation – European perspectives V […]. Amsterdam. Pp. 157– 168. Larsen, Erling Georg, 1978: Norsk språkutvikling. 5th edition. Copenhagen. Linneweh, Karen, 2005: „Bacon oder Beiken”? Eine Darstellung der aktuellen Sprach- politik Norwegens am Beispiel neuerer Anglizismen in der Tagespresse. (Unpub- lished) M.A. thesis. Hamburg. Meisel, Jürgen M., 2004: The bilingual child. In: Tej K. Bhatia & William C. Ritchie (eds.), The handbook of bilingualism. Malden, Mass.–Oxford. Pp. 91–113. Mufwene, Salikoko, 2004: Multilingualism in linguistic history: creolization and indig- nization. In: Tej K. Bhatia & William C. Ritchie (eds.), The handbook of bilin- gualism. Malden, Mass.–Oxford. Pp. 460–488. Noreen, Adolf, 1923: Altnordische Grammatik In: Altisländische und altnorwegische Grammatik (…). 5th edition. Tübingen 1970 (reprint). Norsk Riksmålsordbok (1983), Trygve Knudsen & Alf Sommerfelt (eds.), 4 vols. Oslo. Skard, Vemund, 1980: Norsk språkhistorie III: 1814–1884. 2nd preliminary edition. Oslo etc. Skautrup, Peter, 1947: Det danske Sprogs Historie II: Fra Unionsbrevet til danske Lov. Copenhagen. Trudgill, Peter, 1992: Introducing language and society. London etc. Trudgill, Peter, 1995: Sociolinguistics: an introduction to language and society. 1st edi- tion 1974. London etc. van der Merve, I. J. & van Niekerk, L. O., 1994: Language in South Africa. Distribution and change. Stellenbosch. Whinnom, Keith, 1971: Linguistic hybridization and the “special case”of pidgins and creoles. In: Dell Hymes (ed.), Pidginization and creolization of languages. Cambrid- ge etc. Pp. 91–115. Language conflict research 61 Language conflict research: a synopsis and some ideas on how to advance it
Jeroen Darquennes, University of Namur
1. Introduction Some 25 years ago, Haarmann (1990: 1–2) stated that the study of language conflict phenomena was in need of a more solid methodological and theoretical framework. Notwithstanding a number of recent valuable contributions to the field (MacGiolla Chríost 2003; Rindler Schjerve 2003, 2007; Conill 2007) that observation still holds today. A factor that considerably stunts the theoretical and methodological advancement of language conflict research is that the over- arching domain of which it is part, i.e. conflict research, is a vast domain that is approached from a variety of disciplines including peace studies, (conflict) sociology, political science, (social) psychology, translation studies, communi- cation sciences and sociolinguistics. Quite similar to what Grin (2003: 175) has observed in the case of the study of language diversity, each of those disci- plines maintains its own professional culture that crystalizes around its own conference circuits and journals as well as its formal and informal networks in which interactions with researchers from other disciplines are all in all rather limited. On top of that, the information flow within disciplines does not always seem to function properly. Browsing through the edited volume on Language policy and the promotion of peace. African and European case studies (Alex- ander & von Schehila 2014), for example, one quickly notes that the contribu- tors (the majority of which are sociolinguists) did not really make a great effort to consult readily available sociolinguistic literature on language conflict that could have helped them to more solidly frame the rich ideas presented in their papers. In order to contribute in a positive way to the information flow of socio- linguistic ideas on language conflict, this contribution starts with a brief ac- count of the history and the scope of language conflict research. It subsequently homes in on societal language conflict and presents a number of features of so- cietal language conflict that are repeatedly dealt with in language conflict lit- erature. Inspired by recent studies of language conflict in Norway (Jahr 2014) and South Africa (Du Plessis 2013) and a rare case of open language conflict in Friesland, the contribution ends with a tentative exploration of a number of research avenues that could contribute to a further refinement of language con- flict theory. 62 Jeroen Darquennes
2. Language conflict research: its history and scope in a nutshell Although language conflict as a topic is dealt with in linguistic literature prior to the second half of the 20th century (Kremnitz 1990), it took until the 1960s before language conflict phenomena started to be more systematically ex- plored. During the 1970s and the 1980s political scientists, sociologists, social psychologists and sociolinguists contributed to the multidisciplinary advance- ment of language conflict studies. As Vetter (2015: 105–108) notes, language conflict in European sociolinguistics was soon approached from two (slightly) different angles: one that took root in Catalan and Occitan sociolinguistics (Aracil 1966; Lafont 1971; Ninyoles 1969) and one that developed on the basis of the ideas expressed in research on language contact and language planning (Haugen 1953, 1966). The Catalan and Occitan approach to language conflict is essentially based on a critique of the concept of diglossia as it was presented in literature on so- cietal bilingualism in the 1960s. Catalan and Occitan sociolinguists stress that diglossic situations are not to be seen as situations that are characterized by a more or less stable distribution of language varieties across domains of lan- guage use. They emphasize the dynamic and inherently conflictual nature of di- glossia in settings like the Catalan and the Occitan ones where one of two co-existing speech communities politically dominates the other. The conflict phenomena described in Catalan and Occitan sociolinguistics predominantly pivot on the concepts of “substitution” (i.e. the fact that the language (variety) of the dominated speech community is replaced by the language (variety) of the dominant speech community), “normalisation” (i.e. the language (variety) of the dominated speech community replaces the language (variety) of the domi- nant speech community) and “auto-odi” (i.e. the sort of self-hatred that can be observed at the individual level in situations of societal language conflict). To- day, the Catalan and Occitan tradition of language conflict research is, for ex- ample, present in the work of Boyer (2009) and Conill (2007). Next to the Catalan and Occitan approach to the study of language conflict, a second approach emerged in the 1970s that does not centre on the concept of diglossia. It rather reflects ideas and concepts used in literature on language contact, language policy and language planning in European and North Ameri- can (minority) settings (see, for example, McRae 1983). Edited volumes such as Nelde (1980, 1990) and Jahr (1993a) contain a good sample of the three areas of research that are covered by scholars interested in language contact and conflict. Drawing on Nelde (1992) and Clyne (1996) these areas of focus can be defined as “language”, “the individual language user(s)” and “society”. The next sections aim at briefly illustrating the nature of language conflict re- search in each of these three areas. Language conflict research 63
2.1. Conflict at the level of language A considerable part of language contact research focuses on mechanisms that tend to block or hamper processes by which one language (or, in broader terms: a language variety) borrows morphological, phonological, phonetic, lexical and syntactic features from another language or language variety (Wölck 1997; Görlach 2009). Rather than using a notion such as contact-induced conflict, re- searchers refer to (morphosyntactic or other) constraints on codeswitching (Myers-Scotton 1993) or they discuss the unborrowability of linguistic features (Treffers-Daller 2010). Thomason (2001: 63) reminds us, however, that a cer- tain prudence is called for when claiming that certain features would be un- borrowable or not transferrable from one language to another. In principle, any- thing can be borrowed as long as the individual language users – who, follow- ing Weinreich (1968 [1953]: 1) are “the locus of language contact” – allow for it. Haarmann (1990: 2–3) describes this as follows: Strictly speaking, a language contact is not a contact of two or more abstract sys- tems of linguistic signs, but rather is contact between people who use those lan- guages. … A language conflict is not a state of affairs where one linguistic sys- tem is in conflict with another system. A language conflict results from contact set- tings whose conditions are controversially evaluated by people who are involved. The evaluation of the surrounding living conditions illustrates the working of the individuals’ cultural ability. Without the capacity of evaluating events in his/her environment the individual would not be capable of even identifying a language contact as a conflict. Since the evaluation of a situation in terms of a language con- flict is an activity in the individual’s mind, the actual language conflict exists in the person’s consciousness. Hence, when studying the constraints that characterize the speech of individual language users in certain contact settings it is important to be aware of the in- tricate interplay between intra-linguistic phenomena, the psychology of the language users and the social environment in which they are active.
2.2. Language conflict at the level of the language user(s) A second type of research on language conflict is closely related to the fields of intercultural as well as intracultural communication. Attention is given to conflicts – others use notions such as “Kontaktkonflikte” (Werlen 1997) or “communication disruptions” (Ehlich 1994) – that occur both in situations of interpersonal language contact in which persons use different languages be- longing to different diasystems as well as in situations of interpersonal lan- guage contact in which persons use varieties belonging to the same diasys- tem. As illustrated in the work of Janicki (1993, 2015), contact conflicts or communication disruptions arise because of what people do with words and how these words are interpreted. For example: Sometimes a person produces a certain speech act that is misinterpreted by his/her communicative counter- part; sometimes a person (deliberately or not) uses politically incorrect lan- 64 Jeroen Darquennes guage that upsets other people; sometimes a person is vexed because of the way in which another person pronounces certain words; and sometimes so-called “hotwords” (like the German words “Heimat”, “Kopftuch” or “Ver- gangenheitsbewältigung”) create problems for and among language learners (and even native speakers) because they are loaded with cultural content that is controversially evaluated so that it is almost impossible to use them in an appropriate way without having sufficient knowledge of the culture and his- tory of a specific language community (see Heringer & Wimmer 2015: 175– 176 for details). Next to literature on inter- and intracultural communication also some of the language management literature that follows the principles of Neustupný and Jernudd’s language management theory tackles phenomena that – at least from the perspective that is adopted here – could be labelled language conflict phe- nomena at the level of the individual speaker. As explained by Nekvapil (2016: 15), simple language management includes the evaluation (and, in case of a negative evaluation: the adjustment) of derivations from the “norm” or the rul- ing ideas and beliefs about language that catch the attention in one’s own or the interlocutor’s utterances. Language management theory (LMT) thus not only concentrates on the possible communicative problems that arise but also on the way in which they are mended. As things stand now, LMT has not yet been ex- plicitly applied in studies on language conflict. However, given the fact that it focuses on the actual discourse of interlocutors and the way in which this re- flects certain (possibly) conflicting norms and language ideologies, it might have the potential to contribute to a better understanding of how language con- flict at the micro level of individual language use actually functions and is man- aged. It might also help to show how individual discourses reflect and/or fuel broader social discourses and as such help to illuminate how the micro, the meso and the macro level of language conflict intersect. Following Watts (1988, 2015), a focus on the micro-macro link (something that is at the heart of language management theory) would be most welcome.
2.3. Language conflict at the level of society The bulk of literature on language conflict deals with language conflict at the level of society. Those parts of the world that are associated with “notorious cases” of societal language conflict include, for example, Belgium, Québec, Corsica and Pakistan (see MacGiolla Chriost 2003 and Lo Bianco 2016 for other examples). Most of the documented cases of language conflict address situations of what Nelde (1993: 173) refers to as “natural language conflict”, i.e. language conflict that emerges from the (long-standing) co-existence of dif- ferent speech communities on the same territory. Only recently attention has also been paid to language conflicts in settings where historically grown ethno- linguistic tensions hardly play a role or did not gain momentum. Examples can be found at the level of the European institutions (Ammon 2006) or at the level Language conflict research 65 of other supranational institutions (www.languageandtheun.org) or multi- national companies (see some of the contributions in Truchot 2009). Nelde (1997: 294) labels such conflicts as “artificial” or “self-imposed” language conflicts that arise “out of situations of compromise in which one or more lan- guage communities are disfavored”. He adds that such conflicts especially oc- cur “when, motivated by the need for rapid international communication, po- litically influential economic powers export their languages (and their resulting socioeconomic influence) to their trading partners”. Whether the labels “arti- ficial” or “self-imposed” (rather than, for example, “institutional”) are the best possible labels for this type of conflict deserves to be questioned. At any rate, such “artificial” or “institutional” language conflicts will not be dealt with in the remainder of this paper. The focus will be on natural societal language con- flict and some of the “aspects” of this type of conflict as they have been previ- ously addressed in literature.
3. Some “aspects” of societal language conflict Based on a more comprehensive account presented in Darquennes (2015), the following sections briefly cover a number of “aspects” of societal language conflict that are regularly mentioned and commented on in literature and allow for a more or less systematic description of language conflict, namely: the causes, the visibility, the manifestations, the focal points, the management and the outcomes of language conflict. Readers should realize that apart from being concise, the tentative list of aspects as presented below is only based on a part of the available literature and affected by the writer’s scholarly focus on the situation of European indigenous minority language communities.
Causes of language conflict: As Haugen (1980) notes, language conflict at the societal level comes about in situations of societal language contact. Such situ- ations are characterized by asymmetrical rather than symmetrical multilingual- ism. When a speech community A finds itself in a situation of contact with a speech community B, the differences in prestige, status, power, social organiz- ation, values, and beliefs as they exist between a speech community A and a speech community B are reflected in the prestige, status, legitimization and institutionalization of language (or: language variety) A vis-à-vis language (variety) B (Nelde, Strubell & Williams 1996). As a consequence of these dif- ferences – others refer to them as “divisions” or “cleavages” (McRae 1983: 16– 23 and Labrie 2003: 41) – language often develops into a significant symbol of social conflict, even if language itself is not the direct cause of the conflict. Mattheier (1989: 1) characterizes language conflicts as diverted social con- flicts. Schmid (2001: 4) notes that language has rarely been the major source of conflict, but instead “has been the proxy for other conditions that have challenged the power relations of the dominant group(s)”. Alexander & von 66 Jeroen Darquennes
Schehila (2014: X) consider language “always and necessarily one of an en- semble of causal pressures that lead to one or the other outcome”.
Visibility of language conflict: When language conflict was debated at the Con- grès de Cultura Catalana (1978: 13; quoted in Klug 2000: 2) a distinction was made between “latent” and “acute” conflicts (see also Vetter 2015: 106). In- spired by Krysmanski (1971), Nelde (1987a) reproduced this distinction as a distinction between “latent” (or: subcutaneous) and “manifest” language con- flict. This distinction inspired him to claim that “language contact means lan- guage conflict” (Nelde 1987b). At first sight, this one-liner might seem far- fetched. However, if one takes into account the asymmetrical nature that – al- beit to different degrees – characterizes every situation of language contact, one is forced to conclude that language contact is pre-programmed (Willemyns 2009: 60), yet might not always be visible. A distinction is possible between latent language conflict, manifest language conflict, latent language conflict that is on its way of becoming manifest, and manifest language conflict that is on its way of becoming (more) latent again.
Manifestations of language conflict: How language conflict manifests itself is very much dependent on the context in which it emerges. Laitin (1999: 24) states that in cases of language conflict in the OECD states “none of them was linked in any way to significant guerrilla activity”. In democratic societies lan- guage conflict rather seems to be battled out on a discursive level (see Rindler Schjerve 2003: 49–50; Chilton 1997). The study of language conflict – most certainly in Europe and North America, yet not necessarily elsewhere (Lo Bianco 2016) – concentrates on the study of differences of opinion or incom- patibilities between two or more opinions over language in society and hardly focuses on the relation between language conflict and physical violence. The intensity with which these differences in opinion are voiced varies. In an article entitled “Language conflict and change in language visibility in South Africa’s Free State Province number plate case” Du Plessis (2013: 145), for example, mentions “degrees of language conflict, ranging from language discontent to more full-blown language conflict”. However, language conflict literature is rather silent on how to determine the degree of discursive language conflict and thus, for example, the difference between “language discontent” and more “full-blown” language conflict.
Discursive focal points of societal language conflict: In cases where language conflict is battled out on a discursive level, the differences of opinion usually primarily pertain to either what a language is or to what a language has (Dua 1996: 8–9). In the latter sense (what a language has), the distribution of a lan- guage (variety) A and a language (variety) B in so-called private, semi-public or public domains or contexts of language use is at the centre of interest. In the former sense (what a language is), the structural properties of a language (va- Language conflict research 67 riety) are addressed. Language conflicts that primarily (yet not necessarily ex- clusively) center around structural language features seems to prevail in the case of contact between speech communities using a language variety that be- longs to the same diasystem. Examples can be found in literature on linguistic nationalism or on the standardization of majority and minority languages (e.g. Baggioni 1997; Darquennes & Vandenbussche 2015). Discussions on lan- guage use seem to be more typical of language contact involving speech com- munities that use a language (variety) belonging to a different diasystem. The question is to what extent the use of language (variety) A versus language (va- riety) B is institutionalized (i.e. taken for granted or not in particular contexts) and the way in which the use of A versus B is legitimized by means of laws or (in)formal language policies that support the use of a language in a specific context or not. The degree of institutionalization and legitimization of a lan- guage mirrors its status and prestige in society and is obviously also linked to the status, prestige, social power, and balance of the group that uses the lan- guage. Discussions about the use of certain languages in a particular context are thus not to be seen as discussions about the languages themselves but about the weight that these languages have in society, about the relationship between lan- guage and social mobility, and about the social pressure exerted by one speech community on another speech community (Gasquet-Cyrus & Petitjean 2009; Janssens 2015; Levine 1990; Witte & Van Velthoven 2011). Sometimes con- flicts over language use also occur in “monolingual” communities, i.e. in com- munities in which different varieties of the same diasystem are used by differ- ent groups (Mattheier 1984; Kachru & Bhati 1978; Gasquet-Cyrus 2015).
The management of language conflict and its outcomes: Given the particularity of each language conflict, it is difficult to give a precise description of the mechanisms that are or can be used to provide solutions to language conflict as a societal language problem. In more general terms, one can claim that lan- guage policy and planning come into play when attempts are made to tone down or neutralize language conflict. Language policy and planning activities that aim at the status, the prestige and the acquisition of a language or a lan- guage variety (for example: the introduction of inclusive bilingual education, measures aiming at the positive discrimination of a certain language group, the introduction of territorial language rights, etc.) might help to settle language conflict over the use of languages (Labrie, Nelde & Williams 1993; Wolff 2014; Sadembouo & Tadadjeu 2014). Language policy and planning activities that aim at the “corpus” of a language (variety) can help to provide solutions to language conflicts with language features as a focal point. A rather well-known approach to settle conflicts over the selection of a variety of a language (or to avoid them from the onset) is to resort to the method of “dialect synthesis” (Wölck 2006: 322). This basically means that a standard variety is developed based on common characteristics of all the available varieties of the language. However, quite some institutional support and a positive political and social 68 Jeroen Darquennes climate is needed for such an initiative to be accepted at the level of the lan- guage community. If the necessary support and a positive climate are lacking, then corpus planning efforts meant to settle conflict over language matters might very well intensify existing conflicts and/or create new ones. The same holds true for measures aiming at – depending on one’s point of view: positive- ly or negatively – correcting the asymmetry as far as the status, the prestige and/or the acquisition of languages in a contact setting are concerned. As Jahr (1993b: 1) observes, language policy and planning activities may themselves “ultimately be the cause of serious problems as well as major conflicts”. Or, in the words of Du Plessis (2013: 129): It … appears that language conflict can arise from either too little or too much lan- guage policy, aimed at correcting a situation of asymmetrical multilingualism. Lan- guage legitimisation as an instrument for institutionalising a designated language (whether active, as in the case of the titular languages in the post-Soviet states, or non-active, as in the case of the autochthonous minority languages of Europe), and language delegitimisation as an instrument for de-institutionalising a former im- perial or “established” language (Edwards 2004, 173–181), both play a central role in provoking language discontent.
4. Which way forward for language conflict research? It cannot be stressed enough that the paragraphs above only offer a partial ac- count of certain aspects of language conflict. In order to further develop the theoretical foundations of research on societal language conflict, the already available knowledge on the causes, the visibility, the manifestations, the focal points, the management and the outcomes of such conflict has to be elaborated in a constructive critical way. In the following sections a modest attempt is made to contribute to the advancement of research on societal language con- flict. Above all inspired by recent studies that address issues of language con- flict in Norway (Jahr 2014) and South Africa (Du Plessis 2013) and a rare case of open language conflict in Friesland in the 1950s, it tries to identify a number of potential intersecting avenues of future research. As mentioned above (section 3), a lot of research on societal language con- flict starts from the assumption that language contact settings are asymmetrical settings in the sense that socio-political differences exist between the language groups that are in contact. Those differences are reflected in the languages (or: language varieties) used by the members of these language groups. The societal multilingualism in situations of language contact can be characterized as asym- metrical. In some language contact settings, the situation of asymmetrical mul- tilingualism is experienced as unproblematic. People live with the language differences and the socio-political differences that they reflect. Pre-pro- grammed language conflict does not materialize and is considered to be only latent. In other cases, the situation of asymmetrical multilingualism is experi- enced as being problematic. Certain actors start to openly question (some as- Language conflict research 69 pects of) the language differences and the social differences that they reflect which turns the pre-programmed latent language conflict into a case of open, manifest language conflict. As illustrated by the following examples of lan- guage conflict in Norway, Friesland and the Free State province in South Afri- ca, the events that trigger (or at least in retrospect and at first sight seem to have triggered) the process of turning a latent language conflict into a (more) mani- fest one are – at surface level – quite different in nature.
Norway: In his account of 200 years of language policy and planning in Nor- way, Jahr (2014) presents a rich analysis of three subsequent periods of lan- guage policy and planning in which different solutions to the main societal lan- guage problem (the development of Standard Norwegian) have been proposed, debated, put into practice and revised. The first phase starts in 1814, the year in which Norway and Sweden entered into a bilateral union. Earlier the same year, a Norwegian constitution had been adopted, which in the Swedish-Nor- wegian negotiations later on included – upon insistence of the Norwegians – a clause “stating that the business of the state should be conducted ‘in Nor- wegian’” (Jahr 2014: 17). Although “the Norwegian language” is mentioned in the new constitution, it was not entirely clear what “the Norwegian language” – with the exception of the intended meaning “not Swedish” – was supposed to refer to. In 1814 “the Norwegian language” was not used to name one of the varieties used on Norwegian territory. At the beginning of the 19th century the upper-middle class throughout the country used a spoken, high-status variety that was closely connected to the Danish written standard and is considered to be a creoloid (a mixed language that is used as a mother tongue but unlike a creole has no prior history as a pidgin; Trudgill 1986 and Jahr 2014: 21). The lower classes (peasants and fishermen) used low-status vernacular dialects. Since that situation seems to have worked fairly well, the decision could have been made to use “Norwegian” as a name for the written standard inherited from the Dano-Norwegian Union when used in Norway (Jahr 2014: 25). Yet, in an age of nationalism it was deemed important for every separate and inde- pendent nation (or a nation that apart from king, defence arrangements and for- eign policy was as good as fully independent) to have its own distinctive lan- guage. In the case of Norway this meant that “Norwegian” should be clearly distinguishable not only from Swedish (the language of the country with which Norway would build a rather loose union until 1905) but also from Danish (the language of a country with which it had built a union from 1380 until 1814). So, as Jahr (2014: 24) explains, “the question of a Norwegian language surfaced and needed to be addressed. How could, or should, the new nation de- velop a language standard of its own, with national characteristics which made it worthy of the name ‘Norwegian’?” At the onset, the discussion was to a large extent a philological discussion that, however, also had a public dimension since philologists spread their converging and/or diverging beliefs and ideas about what “Norwegian” was or ought to be in books and journals. The discus- 70 Jeroen Darquennes sions on the nature of “the Norwegian language” gained momentum when the language question was put on the political agenda in the second half of the 19th century. The written standard proposed by Ivar Aasen and called Landsmaal (i.e. “the language of the country”; it could also be interpreted as “the language in the countryside”) was not only promoted by several Landsmaal organisa- tions but also “became part of a national political programme adopted by the peasant opposition and the Liberal Party” (Jahr 2014: 59). It was seen “as the written manifestation of the peasant dialects” (Jahr 2014: 58) and as a tool that could both help the rural population to develop “a new cultural sense of self- esteem” (Jahr 2014: 59) and allow political forces to attack the ruling classes whose upper-middle-class speech was not considered to be “Norwegian”. The proponents of the Dano-Norwegian upper-middle-class speech and the related written standard also got better organized and decided to transform (one could also say: Norwegianize) the Dano-Norwegian standard (based, i.a. on the lit- erary works of Ibsen and Bjørnson) into Riksmaal. Until the early years of the 20th century the Norwegian language conflict continued to be a Landsmaal vs. Dano-Norwegian/Riksmaal conflict and, as Jahr (2014: 75) notes, “was a ques- tion of either/or”. Soon, however, a third option – Samnorsk (a pan-Norwegian single-standard) – would enter the scene and would cause sometimes heated debates among proponents of both Landsmaal and Riksmaal throughout the 20th century (see Jahr 2014 for details).
Friesland:1 In the collective memory of the (older) population of the Dutch province of Friesland, language conflict is inextricably bound up with a riot that took place on 16 November 1951 and is known as Kneppelfreed (i.e. “trun- cheon Friday”). Truncheon Friday was the outcome of an all in all rather trivial incident that had happened a month before. On 17 October 1951 Sjirk van der Burg, a Frisian vet, had to appear before court in Leeuwarden because of a traf- fic offense. Since the case took place in Friesland, Mr. van der Burg wanted to conduct his defence in Frisian. The judge (Mr. Wolthers), however, did not al- low him to do so. Mr. Wolthers kept Mr. van der Burg waiting for hours for an interpreter and then informed him that interpretation was only available for per- sons speaking a foreign language. Eventually the judge allowed Mr. van der Burg to speak Frisian but immediately added that he officially did not under- stand Frisian. Mr. van der Burg nevertheless conducted his defence in Frisian, was fined and immediately settled his debts. The judge based his refusal to hear Mr. van der Burg in Frisian on a language policy that had been issued at the court in the 1930s and that strongly discouraged (or even prohibited) the use of Frisian. It only allowed the use of Frisian before court as a sort of last resort (when suspects really did not master Dutch). The incident at the court was soon
1 The account is based on information available on the following websites: http://www.kneppel- freed.nl/ (last access on 8 September 2017), https://anderetijden.nl/ (special item on ‚Kneppel- freed’, last access on 8 September 2017) and https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kneppelfreed (last ac- cess on 8 September 2017). Language conflict research 71 picked up by the Frisian press. On 18 October an article appeared in the Heerenveensche Koerier that criticized the judge and stressed that his way of behaviour was in flat contradiction to a directive of the Dutch government that called on public servants active in Friesland to respect and give their full atten- tion to the Frisian language. On 19 October the editor in chief of the Heeren- veensche Koerier, Fedde Schurer, accused the judge of childlike, insulting and provocative behaviour. A member of the Provincial States, Tjebbe de Jong, also criticized the judge in a column that was published in the Bolswarder Nieuwsblad. Both were summoned for having insulted the court and had to ap- pear before court on 16 November. There was quite some interest in the case that was perceived as a sort of clash between the Dutch-speaking elite and the Frisian-speaking population, among which Frisian students took a prominent place. Since the case was handled in a very small courtroom, most of the sym- pathizers were forced to wait outside. They started to demonstrate and because of that the local police tried to restore order with the help of the water cannon. In the meantime, Schurer – who defended himself in Frisian and refused to plead guilty – was sentenced to 14 days in prison. Tjebbe de Jong pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 7 days in prison. After the court session, the de- fendants had to leave the court building through the backdoor. Once outside, Schurer was welcomed as a hero. The police made a charge and people – in- cluding Schurer – were wounded. The whole case was followed by a wave of indignation in Friesland and the rest of the Netherlands. Two ministers were sent to the province for a period of two weeks to investigate the incident and to pour oil on troubled Frisian waters. The Dutch government soon decided to meet certain demands of the Frisian Movement. In 1955 the use of Frisian at the level of primary education was allowed, in 1956 the right to use Frisian in court was officially confirmed. These Frisian language rights would later be extended.
The Free State: When a new government took power in 1994, South Africa faced a number of changes, including a new territorial division of the country into 9 provinces instead of 4 provinces and 10 so-called homelands. That new territorial arrangement had consequences for the shape of and the text used on South African number plates. As Du Plessis (2013: 132) explains, number plates were among the first public signs to be changed after 1994. Prior to 1994, 14 different systems existed, one system in each of the 4 provinces and the 10 “homelands”. A common feature of all the number plates was “the convention- al number plate mark (either at the beginning or end of the plate) denoting the province (or homeland), namely ‘O’ for Orange Free State, ‘X’ for Transkei, and so on”. When 9 new provinces were established and new names for those provinces were proclaimed, each province introduced new number plates that also featured a new number plate mark. The big challenge was to find a way to meet “the constitutional requirement of using at least two official languages and elevating a language that was previously used as an official language only 72 Jeroen Darquennes in the homelands” (Du Plessis 2013: 136). In the case of the Free State (a prov- ince with a majority of L1 speakers of Bantu languages and a relatively high proportion of L1 speakers of Afrikaans who clearly outnumber the L1 speakers of English), proposals to use the letters “FV” (reflecting Free State/Freistata/ Vrystaat) or to opt for a double system (“FS” alongside “VS” based on the choice of the vehicle owner) were rejected. In 1997 the decision was made to adopt the “FS” licence mark, thus reflecting the Bantu name (“Freistata”) and the English name (“Free State”), not however the Afrikaans name (“Vrystaat”) of the province. The provincial government claimed that the letters “FS” did “not represent a linguistic item” (Du Plessis 2013: 140). According to the gov- ernment, they rather fulfilled a purely administrative function and were meant to help to cultivate a new provincial identity. It did not take political actors long to react. Already in 1997 the Freedom Front (a national South African political party protecting the interests of Afrikaners) launched an anti-FS campaign marked by threats about courts cases, protest actions and a complaint lodged with PanSALB (the Pan South African Language Board). Concerned citizens started sending letters to the press. Prominent Afrikaans organisations got in- volved and made appeals to reconsider the possibility of using “VS” as an al- ternative for “FS”. Newspaper editorials were published on the matter while political parties did not cease to bicker and the Freedom Front worked round to a confrontation with the provincial authorities about “FS”. When a new illus- trated number plate was introduced in April 2002, the number plate “saga” (Du Plessis 2013: 140) was brought to a close. Hardly any fuss at all was made over the fact that an English phrase (“Free State Province”) was added to the number plate. It seems that the illustrations that were chosen for the number plate (roll- ing hills and grassland, the running Cheetah that is also the symbol of the Free State rugby team, and the “Brandwag” rock at the Golden Gate National Park) contributed to neutralizing the language conflict and indeed contributed to the creation of a “new” provincial identity. The fact that citizens were given the op- portunity to put personalized number plates on their vehicles might also have contributed to the neutralization of language conflict.
On the one hand, the cases above are – as already mentioned – indeed quite dif- ferent. The presented case of Norwegian language conflict (1814–1917) was triggered by a phrase in the constitution, fuelled by national romanticism, and centred around the options related to the creation of one or more written stand- ard varieties of Norwegian. The case of Frisian language conflict was triggered by a court case on a traffic offence involving a Frisian-speaking vet and devel- oped into a discussion over the rights of Frisians to use their own language in education and public domains of language use. The case of language conflict in the Free State was triggered by a change of the design of the provincial num- ber plates. On the other hand, the three cases presented also have some points in common. Language conflict research 73
If one is willing to accept a broad definition of language policy as “the whole body of oral and/or written (in)formal texts that aim at (re)affirming or chang- ing the language dynamics in (a part or different parts of) society” (Darquennes 2013: 12 based on Kaplan & Baldauf 1997: xi; Ricento 2000: 23, 2010: 212; Schiffman 2013: 3087), then one could claim that it was a language policy act that triggered each of the language conflicts to develop from a state of latent into a state of manifest language conflict.2 In the Norwegian case, a formal written text (the new constitution) that failed to clearly define “the Norwegian language” left open the possibility of being interpreted as a text that aimed at affirming or changing the corpus, status, prestige and acquisition of the varie- ties in use at the beginning of the 19th century. In Friesland the judge’s deliber- ate act of affirming a language policy that had been issued at his court in the 1930s, yet ran counter to much more Frisian-friendly governmental directives, provoked a conflict that surpassed the use of language before court. In the Free State, the decision of the provincial government not to include a reference to the Afrikaans name of the province on the number plates on the basis of the ar- gument that the use of letters would not have a linguistic but a purely adminis- trative function and was meant to contribute to the creation of a new provincial identity clearly upset Afrikaans-speakers. They were forced to accept that their language (which is more prominent than English in the Free State) was all of a sudden rendered invisible. Apart from being sparked off by a language policy act, the three cases also have in common that they are marked by the conditions that, broadly relying on Giegel’s model of conflict generation (Giegel 1998: 17), turn latent into manifest conflicts: language conflict is communicated and defined (see also Bonacker 2008: 14) by one or more types of actors who are willing to invest a certain amount of energy and resources in spreading the conflict. The way in which the conflict (discursively) manifests itself and is filled with content is strongly dependent on the beliefs and ideas about language of all the actors in- volved and, in sociological terms, the “institutional arrangements” (“institu- tionelle Regelungen”, Giegel 1998: 16–18) that surround them. In order to advance the study of language conflict, it would not only be worthwhile to further investigate the kind of language policy acts that trigger off societal language conflict and to see in how far they match current subdivi- sions used in language policy literature ranging from overt/covert and formal/ informal language policy to language policy actions aiming at the corpus, sta- tus, prestige and/or acquisition of a certain language (variety). It would also be worthwhile to try and find out if the three conditions as they feature in Giegel’s model of conflict generation apply in other cases of societal language conflict. With the help of discourse analysis and possibly also Janicki’s ideas on the role of “conceptual essentialism” in the discursive elaboration of language conflict
2 This seems to be at least partly in line with Du Plessis (2013: 126) according to whom “lan- guage conflict often starts out as discontent arising from changes in a language regime”. 74 Jeroen Darquennes
(Janicki 1993), it could also be worthwhile to more closely investigate with what sort of linguistic and stylistic means language conflict is communicated and defined by the different parties involved (see also below). Apart from that, a fine-grained analysis of the “institutional arrangements” that surround or “frame” societal language conflict could, for example, help to shed some light on how societal language conflicts gain or lose momentum. That societal language conflicts are not stable but rather subject to unpredict- able context-dependent changes has been repeatedly put forward in the litera- ture. However, ideas on how to advance the more systematic study of the dy- namics of language conflict (including the different degrees of visibility that such a conflict might have over a longer period of time, the different – discur- sive and/or other – ways in which conflict manifests itself, the different parties and coalitions involved, etc.) are few and far between. The previous section al- ready stressed that in order for a language conflict to turn from a latent into a manifest one certain (groups of) actors (individuals, philologists, journalists, politicians, etc.) have to be willing to invest energy and resources in defining and communicating the conflict. Once they do so, one could argue that they start to develop activities that can be considered as different sorts or types of “language activism”. In a report for PanSALB and taking a language rights per- spective, Lubbe et al. (2012) developed a language activist typology the core of which is summarized by Du Plessis (2013: 131) in the following way: The typology suggests a language-activist sliding scale, ranging from relatively more moderate to relatively more confrontational types of language-activist instru- ments. More moderate action would include activist research, activist media cover- age, language complaints and lobbying. More confrontational action would include the mobilisation of a discontented group of people (which in turn entails petitioning, boycotting, demonstrations, protest, etc.), litigation and violence (which might in- volve vandalism). The tentative typology summarized by Du Plessis aims at classifying the ac- tions of language activists by trying to identify how (i.e. with what means) they spread their take on a perceived language problem, what kind of coalitions they try to build, and to which degree their actions are violent. The typology would deserve to be further elaborated and refined. At first glance (and based on an all too superficial reading of Lubbe et al. 2012), the concept of “agenda set- ting” could be used to enrich the typology. The above cases of language con- flict suggest that a language conflict gains momentum considerably once it is put on the political agenda. It then either gets “inflamed from above” or is de- bated in such a way that it (temporarily) tones down or is neutralized. Next to the political agenda, also the journalistic agenda seems rather strongly to im- pact on the definition, the scope, the intensity and the “life cycle” of language conflicts. As Bonacker (2008: 12) notes, media rather strongly live on different sorts of conflicts and – through using a certain language and/or certain images – have a strong impact on the way in which conflicts (including language con- flicts) are staged. The role of different sorts of media as well as politicians and Language conflict research 75 political parties as “messengers” in cases of language conflict would deserve to be more carefully analyzed especially with regard to the sort of (metaphorical) language that is used by the messenger(s), the potential connections between language use and the provocation of physical violence and, more generally, the way in which language conflict is (re)defined over longer periods of time. That (language) conflicts are redefined is beyond questioning. Next to the fact that socio-political changes at large have an impact on the way in which language conflicts are defined, different sorts of actors pursuing different sorts of goals cover language conflicts with different layers of meaning (Giegel 1998: 20). One should therefore be careful to pay due attention to the way in which lan- guage conflicts “change face” over longer or shorter periods of time and make sure to embed the description of language conflicts in the broader ecology of a certain language contact situation. Jahr (2014), Lubbe et al. (2012) and McRae (1983) but most certainly also MacGiolla Chriost’s elaboration of Haar- manns’s language-ecological variables (see Haarmann 1986, 1990) could serve as a guide post for accomplishing that goal (MacGiolla Chriost 2003).
References
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Olle Josephson, Stockholm University
1. Introduction This article compares the language policy history of Norway and Sweden from 1814 until today. It ends in 2017 with the conclusion that the two states are very alike in language policy. How is that to be explained? The lesson learned is that in spite of striking dissimilarities, which should not be neglected, fundamental parallels are to be found in the language policy histories of the two countries. During the 19th and 20th centuries, both Norway and Sweden had to address the characteristic problems of language planning and policy for a modern na- tional state gradually transforming into a democratic, industrialized welfare state. The language ecology of Norwegian and Swedish, to use the concept de- veloped by Einar Haugen (1972), very much resembled each other. Both Swe- den and Norway were perceived as monolingual states. Both populations ex- perienced a development of literacy practices. This started with elementary reading skills applied on rare occasions, and continued – via a more skillful use of literacy in well-defined domains such as school or religion – to an advanced degree of literacy and extended literacy practices. However, for the majority of the population, this advancement was separate from working life. The funda- mental questions of language policy of the two nations were in many aspects the same: different social classes gathered many times in the same way in the linguistic debates and used the same sort of arguments – but the answers came to be different. In the 21st century, the national state is still the key arena for language plan- ning, but the language ecology has changed (Vandenbussche et al. 2013). The context is multilingual and globalized, and the literacy practices are involved in everyday life and communicative praxis to an extent unseen in the previous centuries. New issues are raised for Norwegian and Swedish language policy; today, the language policy problems of the two nations are more alike than ever, and so are the solutions. The theoretical implications of this story are, therefore, that the language policy experiences and discourses of previous periods are less important to the 82 Olle Josephson formation of contemporary language policy than current linguistic practices, language ecology and general political and societal conditions. This – fairly trivial – fact illustrates well the relation between practices, beliefs and explicit policy making in language policy, as has been pointed out by Bernhard Spolsky (2004). These claims will, hopefully, be shown in the rest of the article, which is di- vided into five sections, including this brief introduction. Trying to do justice to both dissimilarities and similarities, I will start in section 2 with the import- ant differences, three of them in particular: the two standards, the reversed hi- erarchies and the explicit indexicalities. I comment upon the Swedish under- standing – or non-understanding – of these characteristics. In section 3, it is the other way around: I compare Swedish and Norwegian language history in three periods between 1814 and 2002, with an endeavor to discover the similarities. In section 4, I compare contemporary Swedish and Norwegian language poli- cy, claiming that the issues of today are very different from those of the pre- vious centuries. In the concluding section 5, I briefly discuss why the historical experiences are at least seemingly of minor importance today.
2. The striking dissimilarities, and the Swedish under- standing of Norwegian language policy To repeat well-known facts, I start by mentioning two fundamental differences between Norwegian and Swedish language history. First, in Norway, a national standard language was established in conjunction with the struggle for national independence: politically from Sweden, and culturally from Denmark. There- fore, Norwegian language policy was loaded with the national romanticism of the 19th century. Swedish, on the contrary, belongs to the group of European languages that had reached the position of a fairly well standardized national language by the end of the 18th century and the Enlightenment period. It has been claimed that Swedish language ideology for that reason still draws on the rationalism of the 18th century, putting the 19th century into brackets (Pedersen 2009, cf. Pedersen 2005). Second, in Norway there has been an ongoing and explicit language policy debate since the midst 19th century. With the exception of a few decades around 1900 (cf. below), there has not until the very end of the 20th century been an understanding of a “language question” of that kind in Sweden. The phrase lan- guage policy (“språkpolitik”) in Swedish public discourse has very seldom re- ferred to Swedish society, but rather to Norway or Finland (i.e. the relation be- tween the two national languages of Finland, Finnish and Swedish). “Do we need a national language policy?” (“Behöver vi en nationell språkpolitik?”) was the characteristic title of an influential 1997 article written by two leading Swedish language planners in Språkvård, the quarterly journal of the Swedish A Swedish perspective on Norwegian language policy 1814–2017 83
Language Council. This perhaps marked the shift of reference regarding the word språkpolitik in public debate (Teleman & Westman 1997). However, a nation cannot do without a language policy: the language choice of the educa- tional system, the legislative authorities, the army, the clergy, etc., is a question of language policy even if not considered as such. Thus, while Norwegian lan- guage policy was overt, the Swedish one was covert for 200 years. Of course, as a result of history, there are still today important differences between the Norwegian and the Swedish language situation; it would be foolish to pretend anything else. I will point to three of them; they are all not very well understood by the Swedish public. The first one is, of course, the existence of two standards for written Nor- wegian. I do not know of any study of the average Swede’s perception of the Norwegian two standard situation, but I do not think it is familiar to a major- ity of Swedes (just as many Swedes do not comprehend that Swedish is the mother tongue of 300,000 Fins). A sample in the media may provide a hint of how much the two standards are known in everyday discourse. I searched for the words bokmål and nynorska in a huge corpus of Swedish daily papers (among them leading papers such as Aftonbladet, Göteborgs-Posten, Dagens Nyheter and Svenska Dagbladet) in the database Mediearkivet from January 1st 2016 to March 31st 2017. Bokmål was mentioned 8 times and nynorska 17 times; it is certainly not a coincidence that the marked variety is referred to twice as often. In two texts, the base of New Norwegian in the spoken dialects is briefly explained (Göteborgs-Posten 2016-01-01; Svenska Dagbladet 2017-03-07), and linguistic properties are discussed in some detail in two articles found in Länstidningen Östersund (2016-02-16 and 2016-07-11) on morphological variation in Scandinavian languages; Länstidningen is the leading paper in the very Norwegian oriented region of Jämtland. Otherwise, the two standards as such, or the relation between them, are never thematized. Most frequently, nynorska occurs in phrases like “its originally new Nor- wegian form” (“sin ursprungligen nynorska språkform”, Nordvästra Skånes Tidningar 2016-04-16). As a comparison, jiddisch and romani, the name of two of Sweden’s national minority languages, occur 181 and 483 times re- spectively during the same period. The second characteristic I will entitle the reversed hierarchy in spoken lan- guage between the standard language and dialects, i.e. on many occasions, in- cluding more formal ones, it gives a higher prestige to speak a dialect rather than a standard variety. (I know that the concept of spoken standard is problem- atic in the Norwegian context, but I leave that aside in this discussion, cf. NLT 2009/1). Obviously, it is hard to say how reversed this hierarchy, in fact, is. Still, it is evident that already since the Norwegian Parliament Resolution of 1878 on the use of “the children’s own spoken language” in common school, there has been a much wider acceptance of dialect use in public and semipublic settings in Norway compared to Sweden. To follow Jahr (2015: 146), the core conflict of the whole period 1917–1966 was the endeavor to downgrade the 84 Olle Josephson spoken variety of the upper classes in favor of the dialects of the common man. However, according to Norwegian sociolinguists (Sandøy 2011: 123, Nesse 2015, Røyneland 2017), it seems that this acceptance or even promotion of dia- lects has increased considerably from 1970 and the following decades, thus paralleling the tendency towards the destandardization and demotization of standard language in many West European countries (Coupland & Kristiansen 2011). Nevertheless, it goes beyond any doubts that the prestige and status of local and regional varieties is higher in Norway than in Sweden. Without being based on any study whatsoever, I will claim that this fact is very little known to the huge majority of Swedes. The third characteristic may be named explicit indexicalities. I understand indexicality or indexical ordering in the way Penelope Eckert puts it, that is, as the process when a feature of the speech of a social group “[…] may attract at- tention. Once recognized, that feature can be extracted from its linguistic sur- roundings, and come, on its own, to index membership in that population. It can then be called up in ideological moves with respect to the population […]” (Eckert 2012: 94). Of course, this indexical ordering is an ever ongoing process in every speech community. However, in Norway it is made explicit and a topic of public discourse to an extent unknown in Sweden. It can be said to be a con- sequence of the two written standards and the high status of dialects. Morpho- logical variants or alternative forms (“sideformer”) have been the object of bit- ter language political fighting. The variants are taught and overtly indexical- ized in school, and seem to be permanently under debate. A popular quiz pro- gram on public service television, such as “Har det på tunga” in the 1980s where different teams competed regarding knowledge of local dialects, is un- thinkable in a Swedish context; it would be impossible even to gather compet- ing teams from outside a very small group of professional scholars in dialect- ology. The explicit indexicalities and the reversed hierarchy also means that the tendency of linguistic essentialism (Bucholtz 2003), which seems to be in- evitable in language policy debate, is in Norway more oriented towards dialects and morphological or phonological variants than in Sweden, where it adopts the (perceived) standard language. It could be illuminating to study how these three characteristics have been perceived and explained to a Swedish audience by authoritative linguistic ex- perts in Sweden. For that reason, I have looked through the article “Norska” or “Norska språket” in the leading encyclopedias of the 20th century. In the Nordisk Familjebok (2 ed.) the article on “norska språket” was printed in 1914 and written by Adolf Noreen and J. A. Lundell, two leading linguists. Noreen, a professor of Scandinavian languages, is known in Sweden as the open-minded founding father of modern linguistics (in the neogrammarian tra- dition). Lundell constructed a highly elaborated phonetic alphabet for docu- menting Swedish spoken language and dialects; it was frequently used until the 1960s. Both Noreen and Lundell were heavily engaged in the spelling reform movement of the late 19th century (cf. below). A Swedish perspective on Norwegian language policy 1814–2017 85
The information on the two written standards must be said to be confusing. The history of what is today “bokmålet” is first traced without mentioning the New Norwegian: In the end of the 19th century, the language was further developed by Bjørnson, Ibsen and Lie, and it has rightly been said that it by Ibsen has reached its classical state. In contrast to Danish (Danish-Danish) on the one hand and “Landsmaalet” (Norwegian- Norwegian, see Landsmål) on the other hand, the real Norwegian is also called Danish-Norwegian. [Sw.: I slutet af 1800-talet utbildades språket ytterligare genom Bjørnson, Ibsen och Lie, och man har med rätta sagt, att det hos Ibsen nått sin klassi- citet. Till skillnad från å ena sidan danskan (dansk-danska) och å andra sidan ”lands- maalet” (norsk-norska, se Landsmål) kallas den egentliga norskan äfven dansk- norska.] For the average reader of the Familjebok, it cannot be very clarifying to dis- cover that “real” Norwegian is Danish-Norwegian, while the Norwegian-Nor- wegian is not. The reversed hierarchy and the explicit indexicalities are, at the most, hinted at, but they are embedded in concepts such as “cultivated High Norwegian” and “simple everyday language”: The language has not yet reached a complete stable form, and there are still often shared meanings about what is considered to belong to the cultivated High Nor- wegian and what is, in contrast, either dialect or simple everyday language (“piper- viksk”); the language is by one speaker more Danish, by the other one more Nor- wegian. [Sw.: Språket har ännu icke fått i allo fast form, utan meningarna äro ofta ännu delade om hvad som skall anses tillhöra den vårdade högnorskan och hvad som i motsats därtill är antingen folkmål eller simpelt hvardagsspråk (”piperviksk”); språket är hos den ene mera danskt, hos den andre mera norskt. [“Pipersviksk” refers to Pipervika, at that time a very proletarian area in Kristiania.]] It is evident that Noreen and Lundell perceive the Norwegian language through the lenses of the Swedish situation and their own language policy program (Teleman 2003). As said, they were both leading figures in the spelling reform movement and opted for a strict and consequent phonematic spelling, which was intended to be taught in schools and based on the contemporary spoken language. In their opinion, the success of such a reform demanded that all Swedes were familiar to the same spoken variety, named “riksspråket” (“the nation language”). In the Nordisk familjebok, Lundell was also the author of the article “riksspråk”, which he defined as “the variety, in which the national lit- erature is written, and which in speech (and written form) is used by those classes in possession of a higher literate and social education” [“de sam- hällslager som äro i besittning af högre litterär och social bildning”]. Noreen, in his unfinished descriptive grammar of Swedish, Vårt språk, made the distinction of six stylistic levels in the spoken “riksspråk”, with higher style, middle style and lower style as the main varieties. Each was divided into two subvarieties; middle style was separated into “cultivated middle style” [“vårdad mellanstil”] and “familiar middle style” [“familjär mellanstil”], while “lower style” was separated into “everyday style” [“vardaglig stil”] and “vul- gar or simple style” [“vulgär eller simpel stil”] (cf. Widmark 1991 and below 86 Olle Josephson on school master Swedish). It is this hierarchy, combined with the option for a unified spoken language as the basis of the written language, that is mirrored in Noreen’s and Lundell’s understanding – or lack of understanding – of Nor- wegian language policy around 1900. Now to 1952 and the hegemonic encyclopedia of the middle of the 20th cen- tury, Svensk uppslagsbok. The article “Norska språket” was written by Erik Noreen, a professor in Scandinavian languages and specialist in medieval phil- ology (he was also the son of Adolf Noreen; since Erik Noreen died in 1946, the article must have been written some years before it was printed). He is much clearer on the two standards – but one can observe that he hesitates to re- strict them to the written language: “Thus, Norway has nowadays – which may be needed to state explicitly – two official languages.” [Sw. “Norge har sålunda numera – vilket kanske behöver uttryckligen framhållas – två officiella språk, ‘riksspråk’.”] Noreen touches upon the reversed hierarchy when he mentions the 1878 decision, but he has nothing to say about explicit indexicalities. The most important Encyclopedia of the late 20th century is the National- encyklopedin. The article “norska” from 1994 is written by Björn Hagström, a scholar in West Nordic phonology and philology. He is very precise on the two standards, and he also points out the reversed hierarchy: […] by establishing the Landsmål, Norway ended up with two written languages […] There is no official pronunciation standard for either bokmål or nynorska. In school, standardization of spoken language is not permitted since the decision of the parliament, already in 1878. […] Dialects have always been strong in Norway, and they enjoy a relatively high prestige. [Sw.: Med etableringen av landsmålet hade Norge fått två skriftspråk […] Någon officiell uttalsnorm finns inte för vare sig bok- mål eller nynorska. I skolan får talspråksnormering inte förekomma enligt beslut i Stortinget redan 1878. […] Dialekter har alltid haft en stark ställning i Norge och åt- njuter relativt hög prestige.] Like Erik Noreen, he says nothing about explicit indexicalities; the lack of this perspective may be explained by the fact that neither Noreen, nor Hagström, was a sociolinguist by training. It is, of course, unfair to claim that short articles in encyclopedias give a true picture of Swedish linguists’ insights into Norwegian language policy. It is easy to find proofs of much deeper knowledge (e.g. Teleman 1992, gently ad- vocating a ”samnorsk” policy). To sum up, however, when it comes to experts writing to a broader audience, the two written standards are conspicuous to the Swedish eye, and even if their character is misunderstood in 1914, it is well comprehended in 1994. The higher status of the dialects is also fairly easy to discover and describe, but the consequences of these two conditions, the ex- plicit indexicalities, are not mediated to the Swedish public. This will make the Swedish understanding of Norwegian language and language policy somewhat superficial, I think. We do not grasp some fundamental traits of the everyday Norwegian discourse on language. However, if these singularities are rooted in the past, how much do they matter for the understanding of the present day situ- ation? That is the question for section 3 and especially section 4. A Swedish perspective on Norwegian language policy 1814–2017 87
3. Different solutions to the same problems? A brief historical comparison 1814–2002 I will now turn this story the other way round and examine the similarities. As the differences between Norwegian and Swedish language history are at a first glance so striking, there is a risk to make the Norwegian story more exotic than it is. Going beyond the written standard issue, the language policy problems raised in the two countries during the last two centuries are in fact the same in many aspects, but the solutions and the arguments may differ. I will try to demonstrate this by a sketchy comparison of Swedish and Norwe- gian language policy history since 1814. I will mainly follow the Ernst Håkon Jahr partition of the history into three periods (Jahr 2003: 351, 2015: 9), i.e. 1814–1917, 1917–1966 and 1966 until today. I will add a fourth period, starting 2002, and there is also a need for slight modifications re- garding the exact years when it comes to Sweden. In accordance with the context of this paper, and to avoid repeating other contributions in the present volume, I will be brief on Norwegian conditions and a bit more ex- tensive on the Swedish ones.
3.1. 1801/1814–1906/1917 During the main part of the 19th century, Norway and Sweden were both poor, protestant countries, with a mainly agrarian population, slowly moving to- wards a breakthrough for industrialization and democracy by the end of the century. The preconditions for popular use of the written language were the same: the adult population in the 18th century already possessed some elemen- tary reading skills, but widespread reading and writing abilities did not exist until the 1880s (Vannebo 2005; cf. Liljewall 2013, who questions the reading skills of the Swedish population during the first half of the 19th century). How- ever, the literacy practices of the main part of the population were restricted to domains such as religion or school. Only a minor part concerned everyday communication. As already said, this picture holds for the main part of the 19th century, while the decades around 1900 were a turbulent period, demograph- ically (urbanization and emigration), economically and politically, as well as in popular literacy practices. When it comes to Norway, this first period is entitled by Jahr the national one, with the aim to “develop a national standard different from the other Scandinavian languages” (2015: 9). Of course, this was not the case in Swe- den, as the standard already existed. The main language policy project may instead be characterized as a quest to modernize the earlier established stand- ard language in order to improve a broader, popular use of it (cf. for language policy and planning history in the 19th century: Tarschys 1955, Loman 1986, Teleman 2003, 2005). The ultimate goal, however, can be said to be the same 88 Olle Josephson in Norway and Sweden: to unify the nation around a “modern”, reformed writ- ten standard norm that is easier to use for a majority of the people than the pre- vailing norm. The year of 1801 marks more the end of an old process than the start of a new one: The Swedish Academy published a treatise on Swedish orthography, which settled a more than 100 year long debate. However, these spelling rules were not broadly implemented until the 1830s, partly because of a widespread handbook by the well-known Swedish author C. J. L. Almquist (Loman 1986). At that time long lasting debates about further spelling reforms and reformated morphology also started. In the decades around the 1850s two camps were dis- cernable: the one promoted a “simplified” written language close to the spoken language of the educated classes, while the other advocated a written standard norm relying on historical evidence, and to some extent, rural dialects. The choice of a two or three gender system for noun inflection is an illustrative ex- ample. From the 1870s the debate was intensified, focusing on orthography and ending with a governmental decision in 1906 on a very moderate spelling re- form, as a sort of compromise. If there is any correspondence to the Norwegian language conflict in Swedish language policy history, it is the period 1870– 1906 (cf. Josephson 2004a), but the two camps in the conflict did not gather their supporters or militants the Norwegian way. The spelling reform was ad- vocated by modern linguists (cf. above), by the teachers of the common school, who since 1880 were well organized in their union Sveriges Allmänna Folk- skollärareförening, and by the rising popular movements (the free religious movement, the temperance movement and labor movement), a very dynamic force in Swedish political and social history between 1870–1920, not least in training broad masses in more advanced literacy practices. The opponents of the reforms were found among representatives of the “old society”: civil serv- ants, the clergy of the state church, secondary school teachers – these schools were by that time restricted to the upper classes – and the Swedish Academy, although the Academy under the leadership of the linguist Esaias Tegnér the younger gradually modified its position (cf. Loman 1986). An important ex- ample is the word list of the Swedish Academy, today the uttermost, un- questioned authority of Swedish orthography (cf. Thelander 2011). It was first edited in 1874 as a response to intensified spelling debates and a growing de- mand of orthographic manuals. The first edition listed a limited number of words, preferred historical morphological variants, and the noun inflection fol- lowed the three gender system. It furthermore omitted for purist reasons many loan-words, e.g. diskussion (“discussion”), protokoll (“minutes), rapport (“re- port”) and kommitté (“committee”), all of which were important to the new po- litical culture in the popular movements. Due to the work of Tegnér, the sixth edition of the word list in 1889 was modernized. (It may be tempting, but is in- deed very far-fetched, to characterize Tegnér as the Knudsen of Swedish lan- guage policy history and Noreen the Aasen.) A Swedish perspective on Norwegian language policy 1814–2017 89
There was also a conflict between two spoken standard norms, although this was not so clearly articulated. The spoken language of the upper classes, “the cultivated style” (cf. above), was a variety of high prestige. The lower classes, however, did not master it and kept still closer to the written language in public and semi-public speech. This spoken variety, nicknamed “bookish Swedish” or “school master Swedish”, was mocked by the upper classes, but it made con- siderable progress around 1900, and the standard spoken norm of the 20th cen- tury is best described as a combination of the “cultivated everyday language” and “school master Swedish”. As could be seen, the school teachers appeared as a sort of main agent for both the reformed written standard and the reformed spoken standard, and the opponents of the new standards warned against “com- mon school teacher power” (Landahl 2016: 347–360). In contrast to Norway, the opposition between rural and urban culture was not a theme of the language fights, nor did the authors play the same role as in Norway; there was no Swedish Garborg or Bjørnson. August Strindberg e.g. adapted reluctantly to new spelling rules without any deeper engagement. However, Selma Lagerlöf, his equal as a “national author” of the epoch, was encouraged by Adolf Noreen to use not only the reformed spelling of 1906 but also a slightly simplified morphology in her extremely influential school book Nils Holgerssons underbara resa (1906–1907). Two arguments for the reform movement are well known from the Nor- wegian context: the written standard should be easy to learn by the pupils of the common school (thus the firm support of the common school teachers), and the primacy of the spoken language (proclaimed not least by the neogrammarians). There was also a third argument, characteristic of Swedish language planning throughout the whole 20th century and perhaps going back to the rationalistic enlightenment tradition. This was the rationalistic so-called “functionalistic” argument (“funktionella normen”): “best is what by the audience is most exact- ly and fast perceived and by the sender easiest to produce” to quote the defini- tion by Adolf Noreen (1895). It is a typical consensus argument, largely failing to consider that what is best for one language user or social group is not neces- sarily the best choice for another. This “sociological innocence” (Teleman 1991) would adhere to Swedish language planning up until the 1970s. It is a clear sign of the after all limited social scope of the Swedish standard language conflicts and thus the lack of explicit indexicalities. Looking back at the language planning conflicts in Sweden at the end of the 19th century, it is striking that they ended in a sort of class compromise; con- sensus was at the end constructed around varieties that combined characteris- tics of different agendas. This was not, however, the case in Norway.
3.2. 1906/1917–1970/1966 Jahr characterizes the Norwegian language policy during period 1917–1966 by the endeavors to unite the two standards into what was called samnorsk and to 90 Olle Josephson replace the spoken standard of the upper classes, the riksmål, with rural and ur- ban dialects. In other terms, the overall language policy project can be classi- fied as a project of national coherence on a democratic base. Mutatis mutandis, the same could be said about Sweden, where the main language policy project is the same as in the previous period: to modernize the earlier established stand- ard language in order to improve a broader, popular use. The national coher- ence in Sweden was to be constructed by the written standard resulting from the conflicts around 1900 and the spoken standard of the “riksspråk” (cf. above); in contrast to Norway, the dialects were more or less persecuted in schools. It is important to note that the language planning project was clearly monolingual in both countries: minority languages such as the sami language were openly oppressed. These projects are launched in societies that were very much alike. They were industrialized democracies, although the rural population remained an important group (more so in Norway than in Sweden), and they both slowly transformed into social democratic welfare societies. What differs are the very divergent experiences of World War II. The degree of literacy was high, but lit- eracy practices were still separated from daily work for a large part of the popu- lation. From a language policy perspective it is natural to consider the period’s Swedish beginning 1906, when the spelling conflict ends in a compromise. It is less obvious when the period ends, but the last years of the 1960s seem to be a good choice. There are big stylistic changes in spoken and written lan- guage at that time (Josephson 2004b: 17–48, Malmgren 2007: 179; they are not isolated to Swedish, cf. Gregersen 2015 for Danish); the definite regress of the old rural dialects is to be dated to the 1950s and 1960s, according to Thelander (2011: 130). The most conspicuous singular change is the simpli- fication of ways of addressing with a generalized du (pers. pron. 2 sing.). Among language cultivators, decisive initiatives were taken to simplify the language of law and jurisdiction (Teleman 2003: 222). Another event that can be retrospectively assigned a symbolic value is the set-up of a parliamentary committee on the immigrant question in 1968, which according to its report in 1974 was intended to initiate the first steps towards a multilingual lan- guage policy in Sweden. In sharp contrast to Norway, there were no heated language planning battles during this period. The most debated issue was probably the inflection for num- bers of the finite verb, with special plural forms to agree with a subject in plural. This inflection was abandoned in the spoken language of the educated classes, as well as in a huge number of dialects, already in the 18th century, but it was preserved in the written language. In Danish, the plural verb agreement just faded away at the end of the 19th century without any notable noise (Jacob- sen 2010: 139–145), but the issue was rendered symbolic value in Sweden. As well as in the previous period, the school teachers were the foremost advocates of a simplified morphology that was closer to the spoken language, but this A Swedish perspective on Norwegian language policy 1814–2017 91 time it was strongly supported by a new generation of writers, often of prole- tarian origin and with connections to the labor movement. However, the lead- ing university linguists in the 1920s and 1930s did not adhere to the reform par- ty. They had abandoned the idea of the written language mirroring the spoken language, and were inclined to remain skeptic towards active planning of the standard norm. The Swedish Academy also opposed the reform. The decision by the leading News Agency “Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå” to, along with the active support of the newly founded (1944) Swedish Language Council, abandon the plural verb forms in 1945, is often described as the deci- sive triumph of the simplified verb inflection, even if the plural forms were still used in very formal style until the beginning of the 1960s. Compared to the previous period, the arguments pro et contra were, as al- ready said, slightly changed. The school teachers still relied on the primacy of spoken language, but so did not the university linguists, who promoted the written language in its own right. The rationalistic argument of Noreen et al. was still used, but it was interpreted in different ways, e.g. a dimension of the importance of linguistic resources for stylistic differentiation was added. An important line of argument was the skepticism towards state intervention in language planning, with some similarities to the Riksmål campaign in Norway in the 1950s. In sum, to a superficial view, the language policy histories of Norway and Sweden seem very dissimilar during the period 1906 (1917)–1970 (1966); in Norway the bitter fights concerned two – or even three – standards, while in Sweden there was a quiet discussion on some morphological details. Neverthe- less, applying the perspective of a modernized standard for the purpose of fos- tering broad popular use, it is possible to find resemblances.
3.3. 1970/1966–2002 In Jahr’s description, the third period starts in 1966 and is still continuing; it is entitled “from one standard strategy to a permanent two standard state”. However, I find it convenient to introduce a fourth period from 2002, the year when Stortinget formally declares the end of the Samnorsk policy and ac- cepts a permanent two standard situation. It is also the year a Swedish parlia- mentary committee publishes a report proposing an explicit, overt national language policy for the first time in Swedish history, focusing on the relations between different languages in a multilingual Sweden (Mål i mun SOU 2002: 27). These two political initiatives serve well as symbolic markers of a new era of language policy. The main issue is no longer the corpus planning of the national language, but the multilingualism of the nation state in a globalized world. Thus the period limited to the years 1966/1970–2002 may consequently be seen as a sort of transition or reorientation period. It is not as easy as in the pre- vious periods to find a “main language planning project”. The industrial society 92 Olle Josephson is partly followed by the “information society”; the number of white collar em- ployees gradually surpasses the number of blue collar employees in the 1970s and 1980s. This means an increase in work place literacy practices for a sig- nificant portion of the population. The intensified language planning activities concerning the language of the public authorities are characteristic of this period. It is a period of growing multilingualism. There was a considerable increase in popular knowledge of English. In Sweden, a language policy for immigrant languages took shape since the 1970s, although it was not perceived as lan- guage policy but rather as an educational or labor market policy. Further, it is also a period of stylistic informalization, destandardization and demotization of standard languages, although the transformations may have started a bit earlier in Sweden than in Norway. When it comes to changes in the style of written and spoken language as well as in interactional patterns, the 1970s seem to have been the most turbulent decade (e.g. the “dialect wave” in Norway), but the introduction of digitalized language use around 1990 goes even deeper. The end of the 1990s differs very much from the early 1970s. During the 1990s both Norway and Sweden become more closely involved in the EU. Moreover, the Internet was introduced to a ma- jority of the population, the media landscape was quickly changing with the introduction of international tv channels, and there was intensified debate on language policy and globalization. Until the beginnings of the 1990s, the language planners’ understanding of the situation still seemed to be anchored in the tradition of the former periods. To get a quick but representative overview of ongoing debate, I have rapidly looked through the annual yearbooks of the Nordic Language Council, Språk i Norden, edited since 1970. In the 1986 volume there is a debate on the “so- ciolinguistic climate” in the Nordic countries. All authors more or less agree to place Denmark and Sweden in one common category as centralized, stand- ard language focused speech communities, while Norway is the opposite: heterogeneous, concerned with variation and with a high degree of language awareness (see Lund pp. 34–45). The themes are mainly the traditional ones: written standard(s) versus the spoken language, the spoken standard variety versus regional and local varieties, and the degree of lexical purism in rela- tion to English loanwords. An article by the director of the Swedish Lan- guage Council, Margareta Westman, stands out by highlighting the issue of an increasing Swedish multilingualism due to the immigrant population (Westman 1986). However, in the years 1992 and 1993, the focus in Språk i Norden shifted to the Nordic countries and languages in relation to Europe. To summarize, in retrospect, there are in the period 1970–2002 clear signs of a slow convergence of the language situation, as well as language policy, in Norway and Sweden. A Swedish perspective on Norwegian language policy 1814–2017 93
4. Same problems, same solutions? The convergence of today The key arena for language policy, as well as politics in general, is still the na- tion state, but all decisions made nowadays are more or less parts of a glo- balized context. In both Norway and Sweden, English has conquered the posi- tion of second language, and 10–20 per cent of the population have another na- tive language than a Nordic one. Digitalization and the Internet have meant the possibility for almost everyone to communicate personally with almost anyone else in the world, and furthermore that written and oral practices are inter- twined in an almost inseparable way. Thus, new central issues are raised in language policy making, and language policy itself takes place in a more internationalized context; an illuminative ex- ample is the European minority language convention and the introduction of linguistic rights as a central theme in Scandinavian language policy. To my ex- perience, there are two recurrent themes in the language policy debates in all (Western) European countries: 1) the relation between English and the national language(s) and the fear of what is called loss of functional domains, and 2) the multitude of mother tongues – how do we monitor a language community with more than 150–200 mother tongues. The language policy debates that started in the Nordic countries in the 1990s tried to answer these questions. The first attempt to present a full scale national language policy in the new context was the report Mål i mun (SOU 2002: 27) by a Swedish parliamentary committee in 2002. It resulted in a political process, and Parliament decided on four goals regarding a national language policy; they were slightly reformulated in the first language law in Swedish in 2009: The Swedish language is to be the main language in Sweden. Swedish is to be a complete language, serving and uniting society. Public Swedish is to be cultivated, simple and comprehensible. Everyone is to have a right to language: to develop and learn Swedish, to de- velop and use their own mother tongue or national minority language and to have the opportunity to learn foreign languages (cf. Värna språken SOU 2008:26, p. 20).
I will only briefly comment upon these goals, which can be summarized as a policy for a multilingual society, with Swedish as the common language for all inhabitants; thus, it is a new way of creating national coherence. It is note- worthy that the term national language is avoided; instead, the phrase main language is used (in the wording of the language act of 2009 this is changed to principal language). The phrase complete language in the second goal is to be understood as a language that can easily be used in all functional domains of any importance. Public language in the third goal refers mainly to the language used by the public authorities. 94 Olle Josephson
A similar political process took place in Norway some years later, resulting in the parliamentary report Mål og meining (Stortingsmelding 35/2007–2008). Five goals for a national language policy are proposed (my translation): Norwegian is to be the main language and the national language in Norway. Norwegian is to be a language serving and uniting society and be a complete language. There will be special efforts to make Nynorsk more equal to Bokmål in prac- tice. The public sector will pay special attention to correct and comprehensible language use. Everyone is to have a right to language: to develop and learn the Nor- wegian language, to develop and use their own mother tongue or first lan- guage, including sign language, their own indigenous language or national minority language, and everyone is to have the opportunity to learn foreign languages.
It is evident that the Norwegian goals are verbatim inspired by the Swedish ones, but the minor differences are sometimes noteworthy. Of course, a special point is added on the two written standards, but it is not more than one point of five – the focus of the language policy has apparently shifted. More interesting- ly, perhaps, the Norwegians do not hesitate to use the phrase national lan- guage, a heritage from 19th century national romanticism, neither do they hesi- tate to characterize language use as correct, while the Swedes chose the more vague expression cultivated. This may be the result of all the Norwegian de- bates in the previous centuries on correct and incorrect orthographical and mor- phological variants. The Norwegians also provide a more precise description of different categories of languages in the last goal; I think that is best explained as a result of the ongoing debate on individual and societal multilingualism in the years between 2002 and 2007. Despite these small but noteworthy differences, it must be said that the Nor- wegian and Swedish language policies of the 21st century seem very much alike when it comes to overall goals. It is tempting to conclude that the two standard conflict is fading away, and that Norway linguistically has become a European country like many others. The impression is not undermined if you go a bit closer in the comparison of politics on multilingualism. Table 1 presents an overview of some themes. I have inserted Denmark to get another point of comparison. Some facts and concepts in the table need to be commented upon. The term parallel language use denotes a normative concept, launched by Nordic lan- guage planners in order to create a policy for the relation between English and the Nordic national (or principal) language in important domains, most of all in Academia (Källkvist & Hult 2016); it has also been applied to attempts to regu- late the use of Finnish and Swedish in Finland in this sector. It is originally de- fined as “the concurrent use of several languages within one or more areas. A Swedish perspective on Norwegian language policy 1814–2017 95
Table 1. Language policy themes related to multilingualism in Denmark, Nor- way and Sweden. Denmark Norway Sweden English: parallel Applied and relative- Applied but not so Applied but not so language use ly well known con- well known well known cept National minority German Sami, Kven, Roma- Sami, Finnish, Meän- languages ni, Romanes kieli (Tornedalian Finnish), Roma lan- guage, Yiddish Immigrant languages No rights As long as you do not 1–2 h/week under and mother tongue understand Nor- certain conditions instruction wegian Immigrants, national CEFR level B2 for Right and duty to Right to learn CEFR language and citizen- citizenship learn 650 h. for level B1 – no duty ship citizenship
None of the languages abolishes or replaces the other; they are used in “paral- lel” (Declaration on a Nordic Language Policy, 2006). It has been promoted more in Denmark than in the other Nordic countries, but the concept is accept- ed and can be found in official documents on language policy in all the Nordic countries. The Danish success may be explained by the fact that the reluctance towards concepts such as bilingualism and multilingualism is more significant in Danish language policy discourse than in the other Nordic countries; the Danish word tosprogig (“bilingual”) has negative connotations (Anne Holmen, p. c.). Thus Denmark has a more urgent need for a neutral term denoting the use of more than one language. The position of national minority languages, recognized by the ratification of the European Charter of Regional or Minority Languages, shows a similar pattern. The differences between Norway and Sweden are as follows: first, Norway was the first country to sign the charter for the Sami language in 1992; second, the positions of Yiddish and Finnish, for purely demographic reasons, are unique to Sweden; third, and most interestingly, Norway recognizes two Roma varieties, with Romani being the variety of Romani associated with people living in Norway since the 17th or 18th century (“the travellers”) and Ro- manes being the language of the immigrant Roma people of the late 19th and 20th centuries. These two groups are represented in Sweden as well, but as mi- nority language speakers they are gathered into one. It has been proposed that this different grouping of minority language reflects a higher esteem of histor- ical tradition in Norwegian language policy (Tove Bull, p. c.), perhaps due to the stronger influence of national romanticism. However, both Norway and Sweden stand in contrast to Denmark, where only German, a European supra- national language of high prestige, is recognized. This can only partly be ex- plained by demography; Romani, for one, has a considerable number of speak- ers in Denmark. 96 Olle Josephson
The immigrant language speakers must in this context be separated from na- tional minority language speakers. The latter may be included in a national his- toric narrative with a slight multicultural touch. The former challenge, how- ever, the idea of a fixed and limited number of languages being spoken for cen- turies in well defined territories. The rights of immigrant children to mother tongue instruction differs. In Denmark there are no rights, with the exception of English-, German- and French-speaking pupils, although mother tongue in- struction is organized on the local level in many places, e.g. in Copenhagen. In Norway, the right exists as long as the pupil in question is judged to be without the linguistic competence to follow instruction in Norwegian. In Sweden, every immigrant child has this right, even if it has a higher capacity in Swedish. How- ever, the right is restricted to only 1–2 hours per week, and at least 4–5 pupils must request instruction in the language and there must be professional teach- ers available. (National Minority Language speaking children enjoy a stronger protection and have more extended rights; the instruction cannot be questioned even if there is only one pupil.) A fourth point of comparison is the level of knowledge concerning the national language requirement by immigrants applying for citizenship. In Sweden, there are no such formal requirements – in practice, however, participation in Swedish societal life demands a very good knowledge of Swedish. An immigrant is of- fered instruction in Swedish until he or she has reached the level B1 of the CEFR-scale, Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, which equals “the ability to express oneself in a limited way in familiar situations and to deal in a general way with nonroutine information”. In Denmark, you have to pass a test to show that you have reached the level B2, “the capacity to achieve most goals and express oneself on a range of topics”, which is among the highest demands in the whole of Europe. The Norwegian policy, at least until 2018, rep- resents a sort of middle way, where the immigrant has a duty to take part in 650 hours of instruction in Norwegian language and Norwegian society. In sum, when it comes to language policy on multilingualism, Norway does not stick out. It rather occupies a position in between Denmark and Sweden (cf. Brochman & Hagelund 2012). Thus, a special heritage from the two standard conflict into a multilingualism policy is hard to trace. Moreover, in the case of language policy attitudes, it is not easy to find a dis- tinct Norwegian profile. There is a limited number of comparative Scandinav- ian studies on popular language policy attitudes. However, in the Nordic re- search project on English loanwords during the first decade of this century – the MIN project, “Moderne importord i Norden” – attempts were made by dif- ferent methods to depict attitudes towards English and English loanwords (Kristiansen & Vikør (ed.) 2006, Kristiansen (ed.) 2006, Kristiansen 2010a, b; cf. Kristiansen & Sandøy 2010). Table 2 compares answers to telephone inter- view questions by around 1000 informants in each country to the results of a matched guise test and the numbers of loanwords, i.e. linguistic practice. Num- bers in bold signify statistically significant deviances. A Swedish perspective on Norwegian language policy 1814–2017 97
Table 2. Language attitudes to English in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Tele- phone interview, matched guise and practice. Denmark Norway Sweden Interview: Positive towards everyday language 2,54 1, 82 2,82 being used instead of standard language in broad- casting and tv (1–5, the lower, the more positive) Interview: Agrees that it would be convenient if 3,97 4,09 3,64 everyone in the world had English as a native tongue (1–5, the lower, the more positive) Interview: Agrees that there are “too many Eng- 3,02 2,35 2,65 lish loanwords” (1–5, the lower, the more they agree) Interview: Prefers the word mail to e-post 81,3 % 33 % 51 % Interview: Prefers the word bodyguard to livvakt 42,9 % 5,6 % 6,7 % Interview: Prefers the word design to formgivning 78,8 % 59, 1 % 58, 1 % Matched guise: Positive evaluation of the English 3,33 4,60 4,15 version in matched guise (1–5, 5 most positive) Practice: English loanwords in daily papers in the 0,82 % 0,88% 0,72 % year 2000
The numbers presented in the first row do not concern attitudes towards Eng- lish, but the reversed hierarchy between the spoken standard and dialect varie- ties. The result is very expected, completely in line with the Norwegian stand- ard language history, and it is the only result in the table where Norway really sticks out. The numbers in the second row show that the Swedes are a bit more positive than Danes and Norwegians to the very hypothetic claim of English as univer- sal mother tongue. You could try to apply some speculative explanations to this somewhat puzzling result. First, probably the history of the national language of Sweden is less loaded with national romanticism than that of the Danes and Norwegians; the Swedes have a tendency to be rationalistic in language policy matters (cf. above), and the predilection for a single language for all humanity is a seemingly rationalistic standpoint. Second, it has been claimed that one im- portant feature of Swedish post World War II-identity is the high esteem of in- ternational values linked to an understanding of English as the modern and in- ternational language (Dahlstedt 1976, Oakes 2001, 2005, Salö 2016: 11). The numbers in the third row mirror the official language policy of the three nations. The Danish policy towards loanwords is more positive than in Sweden, which in turn is slightly more positive than that in Norway (Vikør 2010). How- ever, the difference between Norway and Sweden is very small. The numbers in rows 4–6 are in line with the results found in the numbers of the third row. Denmark stands out, and the Swedes are more positive than the Norwegians towards the word mail in place of the Nordic e-post; otherwise, Norway and Sweden are at the same level. In the seventh row, the results of a matched guise test are reported. In each country, around 600 informants listened to and evaluated five voices reading a 98 Olle Josephson news telegram. Two of the voices belonged to the same person, but the tele- gram was manipulated so that one version had a higher number of English loan- words (Kristiansen 2006 (ed.) and 2010a). The results are unexpected, espe- cially compared to row 3: when it comes to subconscious attitudes, the Danes are the most hostile towards English loanwords, while the Norwegians are the most positive. Why so? Tore Kristiansen, who conducted the study, is cautious in his conclusion: “Further research is needed before we can begin answering these questions” (2010a: 95). Also, the results shown in the last row are a bit unexpected: the number of loanwords is lower in Swedish daily papers (in the year 2000), although the dif- ference to Norwegian and Danish is small. In sum, it is problematic to get a clear picture of the pattern of relations be- tween practice, overt attitudes and covert attitudes. Even if it is possible to in- terpret the results of the MIN-project as Norway being a bit more purist in re- lation to English loanwords than Sweden, and especially Denmark (cf. Kris- tiansen & Sandøy 2010), the main impression is the difficulty to catch a char- acteristic Norwegian profile. In any case, it is impossible to group Denmark and Sweden together, in contrast to Norway, as was done in the 1980s. In the answers to questions about everyday language use in broadcasting, the traces of traditional Norwegian language policy (and language conflict) are easy to discover, but how much of it can be traced in the answers to the other ques- tions? The impact of the two standard conflict on the language policy attitudes of today could be doubted.
5. Conclusions I am well aware of the somewhat arbitrary way the comparisons were made in the previous sections. Swedish language history could easily be delimited in other periods, and other issues could also be raised. (For example, there are good reasons to propose the years around 1945 as a dividing line; the Swedish Language Council, “Svenska språknämnden”, was founded in 1944; the school switched from German to English as the first foreign language taught; and, as mentioned above, the verb inflection of the standard written language was sim- plified, etc; cf. Hellberg 2005.) It could also be said that the similarities pointed out in section 3 have such an abstract or general character that they become next to meaningless, and that it is confusing to raise the multilingual perspec- tive in the present context. However, I will claim that there are some lessons learned. I have tried to single out the two standards, the reversed hierarchies and the explicit indexi- calities and show that they were indeed exotic and hard to grasp for the Swedes in the 20th century. How big is their impact on Norwegian language policy to- day, when other issues are raised? That is the overall question of this article. And my answer is that the impact is not so big, in fact. A Swedish perspective on Norwegian language policy 1814–2017 99
I have two explanations for these findings. The first one is an empirical les- son: Perhaps Norwegian language policy was not so odd in the 19th and 20th centuries. I have tried to demonstrate that if you go beyond the striking peculi- arities of Norwegian language history, the fundamental problems to be solved were very much alike those in Sweden. You could point to at least five under- lying similarities in Norwegian and Swedish language (policy) history during the 19th and 20th centuries: – Language policy was a tool to create coherence in a modern nation state. – Society was perceived as monolingual. – Languages and linguistic varieties (e.g. dialects) were seen as territorially bounded. – The element of linguistic essentialism in linguistic ideology was consider- able. – The degree of literacy was high (or became high) during the period, but literacy practices were, for a large part of the population, separated to distinct domains in everyday life and e.g. not so much a part of working life.
The Norwegian as well as Swedish language policy was framed by these cir- cumstances. They promoted the language policy debate to thematize the writ- ten standard of the majority language. There is no reason to blame history for that; on the contrary, this orientation could in many cases very well serve a so- cietal development of democracy and social equality. However, today when multilingualism and the blend of written and spoken language characterize so much of everyday communication, the written standard of the majority lan- guage, although still important, cannot be at the very heart of all language policy. New issues are raised. The other explanation is perhaps of a more theoretical kind. What does form the language policy of a language community? Bernhard Spolsky (2004) has given a well known three part answer to that question: language practices, lan- guage beliefs and language planning (and policy), the first factor having by far the largest impact. So, when it comes to the new practices of the 21st century, and the new ex- periences made, the attitudes and beliefs related to the language conflicts of the previous century have more or less lost their relevance. They cannot explain the Norwegian language policy of today. The linguistic attitudes and beliefs of a people are, of course, partially shaped by history, but only partially. As stated earlier, daily communicative practices are more important. In the study of language policy, it is very fashionable today to advocate a combination of discourse studies on the macro level and ethnographic work on the micro level (e.g. Berthoud & Lüdi 2011, Johnson 2013: 4–5). I agree with this approach. It means that if we want to know more about Norwegian lan- guage policy history and search for a better understanding of the outcomes of the conflicts, we have to go deeper into some sort of historical ethnography. If 100 Olle Josephson we want to understand the language policy of today, we have to go deeper into what is done, spoken and written today. This may be the lesson of Norwegian language policy history.
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Andrew Linn, University of Westminster
Turning to history The principal purpose of this paper is to focus attention on the significance of a historical perspective on language planning and language policy-making. The reasons for intervention in languages (corpus planning) and in the relationship between languages (status planning) are not different with each new genera- tion, and neither are the tools available to the language planner. Language plan- ning, at least in the form of establishing writing systems, setting standards and teaching languages, is possibly the oldest field of applied linguistics (broadly conceived). It seems obvious therefore that those involved in language plan- ning today should take an interest in the experiences, the perceived successes and failures, of our predecessors, but this is seldom the case in practice. The formal institutionalised study of the history of linguistics in the western tradition only dates back around half a century. Consequently, historians of lin- guistics have felt the need to justify their endeavour and to persuade others of the value of a historical perspective on our contemporary work. Even Hovd- haugen (1982: 10–11) makes the case with great passion: History gives us a frame of reference to understand our own situation, problems, and achievements as well as for evaluating these in a proper perspective. A knowledge of the history of our science may in the long run lead to fewer revolutions and greater leaps forward, but also to fewer dead ends and less wasted work. Above all it may make us conscious of what we are doing and why we are doing it—a reasonable de- mand to make of any scholar […] in my opinion the most striking aspect of our science is the gradual accumulation over the centuries of an immense knowledge about language which we all to a large extent draw upon. To become aware of this may perhaps be one of the most significant revolutions in linguistics. So the historiography of linguistics reminds us of the “immense knowledge” of language, theoretical and applied, which is to be found in writings from the past and which we are at best naïve and at worst arrogant to overlook. However, sociolinguistics generally has been accused of failing to learn from history. Back in 1999 Jan Blommaert was calling for “the historiography 104 Andrew Linn of language ideologies” (1999: 1), and in 2010 Mufwene was still calling for “more historical depth than is exhibited in the current linguistics literature”, echoing Marnie Holborow’s concern that “many linguists write out history”. Norwegian linguists (such as Hovdhaugen, whom we have just cited) have been prominent in bucking this tendency and combining historical and socio- logical perspectives in pioneering ways, from Einar Haugen, who Bernard Spolsky (2010: 3) regards as one of the “founding fathers” of sociolinguistics, to Ernst Håkon Jahr (cf. Jahr 2014). It may be that the particular Norwegian ex- perience of current language challenges arising very directly from a specific set of historical social and political circumstances has rendered this approach a more natural one than in some other polities. On the importance of learning from past practices in planning for the future, Darquennes (2016: 33) has writ- ten more recently still that [t]he outcomes of this kind of [historical] research […] deserve to be taken into consideration by those who reflect on the future language policy of Europe in general, and language learning and teaching strategies in today’s Europe in par- ticular. There is then a groundswell in the field of sociolinguistics that the history of linguistics perspective is ignored at our peril. Given the impossibility of for- ward-look, of seeing into the future to find out what the effects and side-effects of a particular language policy might be, then a backward-look to actual ex- periences in the past is essential for any responsible language planner since “we are in transition, just as much as every past era was part of a process of transi- tion and change” (Law 2003: 7). Historical sociolinguistics, a research movement at the interface of sociolin- guistics and historical insight (cf. e.g. Conde-Silvestre & Hernández-Campoy 2012), is one of the historical tools in the language planner’s toolbox, but I’m focusing in this paper on something different, on past ideas rather than lan- guage practices. In her 1994 book on the Polish linguist Mikołay Kruszewski, Joanna Radwanska Williams explores the use of counterfactuals as a method in the historiography of linguistics, but I’m not going there either, tempting though it is to ask: What if the architect of Landsmål, Ivar Aasen, had never been born? What if the explorer Leif Eriksson had had more followers and North America had ended up Nordic-speaking? The historiography of linguistics is based on the view that making sense of language is a dynamic process that does not start afresh with each new theoretical movement or “paradigm shift”. Lin- guistics today is poorer if, to continue to echo the well-known historian and philosopher of science, Thomas S. Kuhn, it “destroys its past”. Just because a particular scholar of language is dead and unread, that does not mean that their ideas and insights become redundant and irrelevant to today’s thinking. The big language questions keep on coming around and many wise heads have already given a lot of thought to them. The historian of linguistics is “a sort of go-be- tween, bringing to life the voices of the past” (Cuttica 2014: 198), and an im- portant aspect of the interpretation of language planning debates both now and Language planning and language policy-making: Johan Storm 105 in the past is precisely listening to its voices (cf. Linn 2010): what they said, how they said it, what characterised their discourse, who was or was not listen- ing and why, and what all of this can teach us. Richard Whatmore writes in his 2016 book, What is Intellectual History?, that the intellectual historian seeks to restore a lost world, to recover perspectives and ideas from the ruins, to pull back the veil and explain why the ideas resonated in the past and convinced their advocates (Whatmore 2016: 5). The eminent historian of ideas, John W. Burrow, has described this activity as “eavesdropping upon alien conversations, exploring neglected perspectives and translating sometimes difficult ideas for readers who need help in recover- ing their meaning” (Whatmore 2016: 99). In short, for Burrow, we become “an informed eavesdropper on the intellectual conversations of the past”, acting as a medium to mitigate the parochialism of the present. So, the past gives us a body of language planning experience and practice to draw upon. Intellectual history, and specifically its subfield of the histor- iography of linguistics, gives us a means of engaging with that experience and practice. In this paper we will be eavesdropping briefly on the debates which flourished in the latter part of the 19th and early part of the 20th centu- ries, the often overlooked period between the initial interventions in stand- ard Norwegian by Ivar Aasen and Knud Knudsen and the period in which language planning proper (Jahr’s “sociolinguistic experiment” (Jahr 2014: Part II)) got underway in earnest. The voice to which we will be paying clos- est attention is that of the leading Norwegian linguist of the period and the first professor of modern languages at Norway’s university, Johan Storm (1836–1920).
Multiple voices in post-independence Norway After Norway gained independence from Denmark in 1814 there were certainly plenty of voices raised in suggesting how to address the language situation in the newly independent country. The changed political status of Norway meant that to continue to use the written language associated with the colonial power was problematic for nationally minded writers and think- ers. There are clear resonances here with more recent nationalist voices argu- ing that the unquestioning use of a colonialising English is similarly problem- atic and that a plan (affecting status rather than corpus in this case) is needed to shift language practices back towards Norwegian. Prior to political inter- vention in the language, however, and the de facto formulation of a language policy, it was open season in Norway, and language enthusiasts had free rein to explore a range of possibilities. (Language reform without the formal structures imposed by an agreed policy and a formal language institution is 106 Andrew Linn in the hands of the “well-meaning enthusiast” – witness the number of web- sites proposing changes to English spelling.) There was on the one hand what Jahr (2014: 25–27) calls the “easy solution” of simply calling the inherited written language Norwegian whenever it was used in Norway, a solution also favoured by the leading grammarian of the day, Maurits Hansen (1794–1842), whose grammar was first entitled Forsøg til en Grammatik i Modersmaalet [Attempt at a Grammar of the Mother Tongue] (1822), leaving the status ambiguous, and then later (1828) Grammatik i det norske og danske Sprog [Grammar of the Norwegian and Danish language]. Others took a more radical line and seized the opportunity to follow their own dialect, a movement characterised by Johan Storm as “Dilettanteri”. Again, there is a parallel with the various approaches to the “English problem” which has bubbled up across the Nordic countries over the past decade or so, with a number of practical responses subsumed under the overarching principle of parallel language use. Anna Kristina Hultgren pointed out in a 2014 article that in practice the policy of parallel language use is interpreted at the University of Copenhagen as meaning more use of English and in the Danish Ministry of Culture as more use of Danish! It may be unhelpful to press the parallel be- tween Norwegian language-internal planning in the 19th century and “lan- guage-external” planning in the 21st too far for now (but cf. Linn 2014). How- ever, the fact remains that language planning does not start afresh with each new challenge, and what has and hasn’t worked in the past should better inform the planning of today and tomorrow. Returning to the variety of voices in the folk linguistics of post-independ- ence Norway, there was another “major position taken on the language ques- tion”, as Jahr puts it, namely the maintenance of the status quo: Full attention has been given to those individuals who suggested that something had to happen linguistically in the newly established state. Since something did indeed happen, the opinion of the vast majority of people at the time—who were either totally uninterested in language matters or who were in favour of sharing a common written standard with Denmark—has clearly been neglected in the literature […] (Jahr 2014: 31). With this in mind we now turn to someone who could absolutely not be said to be “uninterested in language matters” but who was the principal voice in the status quo camp. Given his constant presence in Norwegian language de- bates for thirty years and his contemporary authority, it is striking that his name doesn’t appear once in the most extensive recent account of the history of Norwegian language planning, Jahr (2014), and this despite Jahr lament- ing the fact that the majority position has been overlookd in the literature. What did that voice sound like, what was it saying, and what can we learn from it? Language planning and language policy-making: Johan Storm 107
Johan Storm and his role in the planning of Norwegian In 1907, after the language debates had been rumbling on for several decades in Norway, the Nobel-Prize-winning author Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (1832– 1910) called for Storm to be consulted, since up to this point the views of the experts had (in Bjørnson’s view) been ignored, and he regarded Storm as “the highest authority on language”. Johan Storm’s authority may not have been fully appreciated in Norway where the advocates of more interventionist lan- guage planning had the strongest voices, but his standing internationally in the European community of linguists was considerable (Linn 2004). As Ar- thur Sandved writes, “Storm was an object of great distinction even amongst Europe’s leading language scholars” (1998: 120). He was a friend and col- laborator of Henry Sweet (1845–1912), the leading light in the new philology based on phonetic science which developed during the 1870s and 1880s. Others with whom Storm corresponded, many of whom came to visit him in Norway, included Paul Passy (1859–1940), founder of what would become the International Phonetic Association, and also the leading Danish linguist, Otto Jespersen (1860–1943). As a young man Jespersen sought Storm’s ap- proval for his work on French, as Storm was not only the leading linguist in Norway but also within Scandinavia. Passy described him as “the greatest practical linguist, as also the greatest phonetician, in the world” (Passy 1886). He was a key figure in what Jespersen called the “Anglo-Scandinavian School” which is, as has been suggested elsewhere, where the discipline of Applied Linguistics was born (Linn 2008). The Reform Movement in lan- guage teaching was part of it, but Storm, Jespersen, August Western (1856– 1940) in Norway, J. A. Lundell (1851–1940) in Sweden and others were driven by their commitment to the Living Language, living in speech and writing and in all portions of society, and this led them to a range of linguistic and indeed non-linguistic activity. New legislation for the upper secondary schools in 1869 allowed for the teaching of modern foreign languages, which called for the training of lan- guage teachers. In response, Storm was appointed Professor of English and Ro- mance Philology at Norway’s only university in 1871, making him the first professor in modern languages in Norway and one of the first such appoint- ments anywhere in Europe. His commitment to the Living Language principle led him to publish language teaching textbooks as well as substantial studies of English philology on the one hand and French syntax on the other. As the only teacher of these languages at the University, his workload was heavy, as he re- hearsed in an 1877 application to Parliament for funding to write what he called a Værk over det norske Sprog [a work on the Norwegian language] (Linn 2004: 276–279), which exists in incomplete draft in the National Library in Oslo (Storm 1877a), but at the start of his career his principal scholarly interest was in Norwegian, despite the demands of his teaching position. Until the appoint- ment of Moltke Moe (1859–1913) as professor of “norsk Folkesprog” in 1886, 108 Andrew Linn
Storm was in practice professor of Norwegian as well. Moe was a folklore spe- cialist and, by his own admission, no linguist, and a “professor i landsmål og dets dialekter” [professor of Landsmål and its dialects] in the person of Marius Hægstad (1850–1927) (Venås 1992) did not arrive on the scene until 1899, nearly 30 years after Storm’s appointment. Consequently Storm gave various series of lectures on Norwegian between 1875 and at least 1903. For several generations of linguistically interested Norwegians, he was the authority on that language, reporting in his 1877 funding bid that he had “held popular lec- tures on our mother tongue, also for a group of about 100 listeners”. Storm’s published work on Norwegian is extensive. He was the leading dialectologist of his day, devising a fully phonetic alphabet, Norvegia. His expertise in language matters was recognised by the Norwegian establish- ment towards the end of his career, drawing him in to national literary pro- jects, as language adviser to the 1904 translation of the New Testament (Linn 2004: 288–289) and as contributor to the national Ibsen Festschrift of 1898 and the official commemorative edition of Ibsen’s works from 1908 (Linn 2004: 289–292). So in his day Storm was no marginal voice in the study of the Norwegian lan- guage or, more significantly, in the international linguistics community. It might be considered that he was intellectually adrift between his national inter- ests and his international outlook, maybe too Norwegian for international re- nommé (a lot of what he wrote was in Norwegian and so inaccessible for many) and too international in outlook to respond to the national zeitgeist. This might in part explain the stilling of his voice, his disappearance into the footnotes, but given his extensive knowledge of Norwegian, its history and its varieties, Nor- wegian language planning is less well informed if it fails to ask what Storm’s view was on what was going on, and what his voice can tell us today.
What did Storm say about Landsmål? Even after the Language Equality Resolution of 1885, as Jahr implies (2014) via his writing of “the Landsmaal movement” and “Knudsen’s programme / agenda”, there did not exist two separate written varieties; rather they were pro- grammes. Storm was no party man. He was typically an honorary member only, rather than an active participant in the various language reform groups established during his lifetime both in Norway and beyond, so temperamentally he was not going to get behind any programme or agenda. As a linguist (rather like Louis Hjelmslev (1899–1965), the Danish progenitor of the theory of Glossematics), he failed to produce any coherent statement of his linguistic philosophy or theory, as he was, again temperamentally, a critic rather than a proponent. He filled pages of newspaper columns with trenchant critical ana- lyses of others’ works as he pursued practical applications of his Living Lan- guage ethos. Language planning and language policy-making: Johan Storm 109
A key point to make is that Storm was an enormous admirer of Ivar Aasen. “Maalstrævere” (e.g. Storm 1877b), or language activists, was a term of abuse for Storm, but Aasen, whom he called the “old master” was “an honourable ex- ception” (Storm 1885). He saw him as “the father of Norwegian linguistics” (1884a). He also loved Aasen’s Landsmål, and it is worth quoting Storm’s post-mortem tribute to Aasen: It is recognised by all parties that, with his death, a great man has passed away, a man of fundamental importance for the Norwegian people. Ivar Aasen was great in everything he did […] Norwegian Landsmaal is a beautiful language. It is the lan- guage of the heroic ballads, of fairy tales and folk tales. We read Vinje and Ivar Aasen, Garborg and Mortenson; we are seized by a strange power (Storm 1896). What Storm objected to was not the idea or Aasen’s “magnificent experiment” but that the Landsmål project was not a living language. It manifested itself as a series of individual experiments without basis in a singular spoken form or a written tradition. Storm, the Norwegian, was attracted to the grand patriotic endeavour of Aasen, but Storm, the student of English, French, Spanish and Italian, who wrote his magnum opus in German, found it artificial and he didn’t tire of saying so. An anonymous piece in the journal Den 17de Mai from 1902 entitled “Johan Storm on the warpath” made a fair point that “at least once every equinox he has to come out”: And it’s always the same notes that “blast” out of him. He knows that people have short memories, so the thing is to grind out the same thing over and over again (Linn 2004: 237). He understood the power of the media and had a close relationship with the right-wing organ Morgenbladet in particular, and he understood the force of striking imagery and hyperbole. Storm prophesied that Landsmål, noble though it was in Aasen’s hands, would not last, that it would “suffer the fate of all artificial languages: it will pass quietly away” (Storm 1896: 115). Rather he predicted that only the language which was common to the whole of Norway would survive “the Dano-Norwegian usage of the towns and the language of literature” (Storm 1888: 99). So did that point of view make him a Knudsenite?
What did he say about Dansk-norsk? To begin with, Storm saw Aasen, himself and Knud Knudsen as kindred spirits. They agreed that Norway should develop its own written language, and they agreed that this should have its basis in actual usage, what Knudsen called “det dannede talesprog” [the educated spoken language] and what Storm called “det levende, dannede Talesprog” [the living educated spoken language] (Storm 1888: 115), and that one word – levende – was the tipping point. Writing in 1878 Storm was quite complimentary towards Knudsen, stating that he had “exercised a great and a beneficial influence” (Storm 1878: 4). However, some 110 Andrew Linn bad-tempered newspaper articles by both men in the following years caused an enormous rift to open up between them. While Landsmål was for Storm tasteful and stylistically admirable but arti- ficial, Knudsen’s Dano-Norwegian was both tasteless and artificial, showing “no respect for reality, for the educated spoken language which exists in reali- ty” (Storm 1896: 3). His view of the Knudsen project, generating new Nor- wegian words to insert into the existing written language, comes across very nicely in his recipe for how to make Knudsen “sour slop”, which will maintain maximum force if I leave it in the original Norwegian, as it seeks to imitate how the language would look if the Knudsen programme were to prevail: Gi bymålet et Knudsensk opkok av hårde medlyd og nystavermål. Slæng ind en tvilyd her og der, så det blir en passelig målgraut. Spæd så op med østlandsk vasvil- ling, og strø på nogen avløser-nøtter til atpåsleik og krydder. Så er Maalrøra færdig og kan smøres utover hele landet (Storm 1904: 109). [Reheat the urban language à la Knudsen with hard consonants and new-spellers. Throw in a diphthong here and there so that it forms a suitable language porridge. Dilute with a gruel of eastern dialect and sprinkle on some alternative-word nuts as dressing and seasoning. And so the language mixture is ready and can be spread across the whole country.] Storm became increasingly colourful in his use of images, and although this recipe appears in his own two-volume set of proposals for Norwegian orthog- raphy, it started life as an article in the newspaper Aftenposten.
What did he actually think should be done? His approach to developing written Norwegian rested, like all he did, on com- mitment to the Living Language and the guiding principle that the language must be allowed to develop naturally, that it must be allowed to live a normal life like other languages and that this natural development must not be stunted by any form of artificial intervention. He was no radical, but neither was he content just to accept the status quo. What he advocated was moderation, let- ting things happen in the fullness of time, responding to natural change in the written language following development in the living, educated spoken lan- guage, i.e. the laissez-faire approach to language planning. He did not just theorise but sought to put his cautious authentic modernising into practice where he could. Thus he gives “a brief account” of his orthogra- phy in the preface to his first publication, a travelogue published in 1871: I shall give a brief account of my orthography. It is for the most part that which should now be regarded as the most general. In foreign loans I keep c, where it is pronounced as s, otherwise I change c, like ch, to k; ph I alter to f, but I keep th, though I write t after other consonants. In his 1904 orthographic reform proposals, he did, as we established at the be- ginning of this paper, what all language planners would like to be able to do: he predicted the future: Language planning and language policy-making: Johan Storm 111
The only language reform work which is any good is the moderate conservative, which builds on what is there, seeks to protect and ennoble what we have by choos- ing the best and removing excrescences, adopting the new which takes hold and be- comes generally accepted, in short working on a good language, not on a new lan- guage. It is the gardener’s work we need, not the radical’s (1904: 108).
What can listening to Storm tell us? Storm wasn’t right in all his predictions about the future. Landsmål didn’t die a gradual death, becoming an attractive historical curiosity, although it may have done had political conditions been different. His example of what one of the traditional folk tales collected by Peter Christen Asbjørnsen (1812–1885) would look like in 2004 if the “New Spellers” got their way isn’t too wide of the mark (Storm 1904: 42), but of course there have been plenty of Bokmål re- forms to interrupt the logic of the Knudsen programme, so Storm didn’t have a crystal ball for Bokmål either. However, I maintain that listening to his voice remains relevant for several reasons: 1. He knew the whole of the language, its history and its varieties, and the principles of international linguistics far better than anyone at the time when the language was being planned for the first time. His views should not have been so readily sidelined in his day, and responsible language planning should have allowed them to continue to resonate to guide con- tinued thinking after his death. 2. He was right to point to the unacceptability of artificial intervention in the corpus. Had this objection been adopted as a central principle of language reform, the whole sorry Samnorsk saga could have been avoided. Unn Røyneland has written about the approach taken in the most recent Nynorsk reform “to ensure democratic legitimacy and user acceptance of the proposed reforms” (Røyneland 2013: 53), and Storm could have pointed out the need for this 150 years earlier. Ad- mittedly Storm had a Victorian view of where the democratic line end- ed, but his insistence on practice over policy has indeed won out in the end. 3. Hearing Storm’s voice “blasting out the notes” is a timely reminder for all who seek to influence in language matters of the need for tolerance and strategies to engage with rather than just rail at opponents. The way that certain prominent Norwegian sociolinguists rose up in the first dec- ade of the 21st century against the then Language Director, Sylfest Lom- heim, and his rhetorical statement (echoing Storm) of the possible death of Norwegian, suggests that it has always been tricky to ensure that all stakeholders understand one’s voice, even for those like Storm and Lom- heim experienced in working with the media. 112 Andrew Linn
4. Certain forms of discourse don’t die, and each new generation of users of that voice should seek to understand why. In March 2004, exactly a cen- tury after Storm’s major statement on reform in Norwegian, Lomheim wrote in the national newspaper Dagbladet of the need for language battle [språkkamp], and Storm wrote in a letter to his Danish colleague Vilhelm Thomsen in 1900 about his battle “pro aris et focu” [‘for God and country’] against both Landsmål and the New Spellers. The 1966 committee on the language situation in Norway, chaired by Hans Vogt, was dubbed the “language peace” committee, and Storm had written in 1904 that “it will probably be best to leave the language and the public in peace”. Here it turns out again that his long view did prevail: despite the best efforts of half a century of intervention, the 2008 parliamentary white paper on the language Mål og meining also commits to a need for språkfred [language peace], leaving the varieties of Norwegian to de- velop in peace. It is striking in that same language–political document that the word living [levande] crops up 35 times, on average once every 7 pages, so the keyword at the heart of Storm’s view of language plan- ning lives on, characterising the principal voice of language planning a century later. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Finally, it is true that it is the gardener’s work that has prevailed over the en- gineer’s in Norwegian language planning, and that was Storm’s key lesson. Whether official policy on the status of English had learned that when it sought to implement a policy of parallel language use, I’m not sure, but, again, in prac- tice, in universities and in business, practical needs, living language practices, have typically prevailed over language planning. That is another big question for another day, and, given how much Storm knew about and wrote about Eng- lish too (cf. Storm 1892/1896), we could do worse than to keep eavesdropping on him and heeding his voice.
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Storm, J., 1892/1896: Englische Philologie. Anleitung zum wissenschaftlichen Studium der englischen Sprache. Vom Verfasser für das deutsche Publikum bearbeitet. [Eng- lish Philology. Guide to the scientific study of the English language. Revised by the author for the German public.] Zweite, vollständig umgearbeitete und sehr vermehr- te Auflage. Leipzig. Storm, J., 1896: Norsk Sprog. Kraakemaal og Landsmaal. [Norwegian language. Crow language and country language.] Kjøbenhavn. Storm, J., 1904: Norsk Retskrivning I. Nystaverne og deres radikale Reform. [Nor- wegian orthography 1. The new spellers and their radical reform.] Kristiania. Venås, Kjell, 1992: I Aasens fotefar: Marius Hægstad. [In Aasen’s footsteps: Marius Hægstad.] Oslo. Whatmore, R., 2016: What is Intellectual History? Cambridge. Language policy, dialects and spoken standard in Norway 115 Language policy, dialects and spoken standard in Norway
Sylfest Lomheim, University of Agder
Most Norwegians are unaware of the fact that they live in a linguistic society different from other European societies, also if we look to our neighbours, the Nordic countries, which are far more “normal” as far as the language situation is concerned, than we are. How has this come about? It all started in modern times, hundred and fifty years ago, around 1870/1880, with the decision in Stortinget that the Nor- wegian language should have two officially accepted written varieties (Jahr 1994). Another dramatic shift took place in the years after 1970 when attitudes towards spoken language varieties changed radically (Lomheim 2007: 369– 370). Thus, the conclusions are, first, the characteristics of the language situation in Norway, making it quite different from other European nations, are a fairly modern phenomenon. Second, as part of the situation, there is no agreement, among Norwegian linguists, about how to define the concept of standard speech. Language policy and planning, in our sense of the term, did not exist in the medieval period. There was copying of books by hand, and there was one lan- guage of prestige all over Europa – Latin. And that was it. Norwegians do not easily see how important Luther’s Reformation project five hundred years ago has been for the language history of Norway. Luther’s great idea was to give the Bible to the people – no more language suppression in the churches and in religious teaching. And this did happen, in Germany, England, Denmark, Sweden. Even in Iceland. The Reformation wave was two-sided: language democracy and religious liberation. As a consequence, in the years before 1600 the Christian church divided Europe into a Northern and a Southern sphere – not only in religious terms, but also in language practice (Lomheim 2007: 197f.). Luther’s principle had been that people should have the opportunity of reading the Bible in their own vernacular. And – just in time, the invention of printing books complete- ly changed the written language situation in Europe. This was a technological revolution far more important than the use of Internet five hundred years later. Norway, of course, was part of this, through the union with Denmark. But in our country the outcome of this fundamental change was the opposite of Lu- 116 Sylfest Lomheim ther’s intention: his reformation introduced four hundred years of language suppression in Norway. German-speaking Europe got their Bible with Luther. Shortly after, King James and the English-speaking people got their Bible – which explains one of the fundamental differences of daily language in England and in France today. Biblical expressions in English are far more numerous and frequent then in French, Italian and Spanish. In France they evolved towards a written standard, not because of Catho- lic activity, but through their literature – we speak of the classical period from around 1600 and onwards (Racine, Corneille, Molière). “La France” was developing a “français standard” that later on spread all over “la nation”. France was at that time by far the biggest country and the leading power in Europe. Northern Europe was different. The Protestant church played a key role in establishing the national written standards. Denmark got its Bible, Sweden got its Bible – and by consequence they got a written language. Norway did not. The irony is that the Reformation was a deadly blow against what was left of the Old Norse writing tradition. The Norwegian language had a dramatic weak- ened position. The opposite, as we have already said, of what was intended and proclaimed by Luther himself. Iceland got its Bible due to a priest from Bergen, thus probably saving the Icelandic language. With sermons in the mother tongue in the churches, and private reading from the Bible aloud at home, the 17th century saw the starting point of a spoken Icelandic standard. The Bergen priest, Oddur (Gottskalksson) Norski, has probably been more important for the survival of the old Icelandic language through the dark centuries than the writings of Snorre Sturlason (Lomheim 2007: 196). I have gone through this, briefly – the standardization of written languages in Europe – because everywhere, the written standard is the beginning and ba- sis of a spoken standard. What happened in the 17th and 18th hundred is the start- ing point for and development of Received pronunciation, Bühnensprache and Français de référence. No surprise then, though it is not the whole explanation, that Denmark, Sweden and Iceland today are “normal” societies where standard speech dominates the public scene, whereas Norway is less of a “normal” society in this respect.
Norway – from quite normal (1870) to quite special (1970) Norway was still, up to around 1870, quite a normal society, linguistically speaking. A handful of people had started writing the Aasen “Landsmaal”, but Language policy, dialects and spoken standard in Norway 117 in reality, there was only one written language, Danish, “det almindelige Bog- sprog”, while most Norwegians were speaking one of a wide variety of dia- lects. Very few were speaking anything close to a “reading Danish” variety (Nesse 2015: 97). One point, however, must be made clear: the distance between written lan- guage (Danish) and spoken language (Norwegian) was not more dramatic in our country than was the case in several European countries – Switzerland, Italy, France, etc. Due to the fact that Norwegians read Danish and listened to Danish in the churches, but for the rest of their time spoke their own mother tongue undis- turbed, the dialects flourished more freely than in Denmark and Sweden, where the influence of a written standard was stronger. The Danish domi- nance as a written language from 1600 to 1900 was, ironically, developing a solid basis for the vitality of Norwegian dialects in modern times (Lomheim 2007: 195). The Danish period is of course not the main explanation of today’s situation in Norway, but it is an important aspect of the total picture, an essential part of the background story. Our “freedom” of speech under Danish rule has undoubt- edly contributed to the vitality of today’s Norwegian use of dialects. In the last decades of the 19th century, our language policy was mostly “na- tional” – the Norwegian written language had to be reestablished (Jahr 1994), even though the social aspect of language policy started in 1878, with the Nor- wegian parliament’s resolution on language use in the primary schools. Later on, and especially after 1917, the language policy became predominantly ”so- cial” (Jahr 1994). And in 1878, in 1917 and in 1938 we may observe the same political division in Stortinget – Right contra Left before 1900, Right contra Left/Labour Party after 1920.
The Great Shift The 1970s are the real turning point in modern Norwegian language history, when it comes to our topic, the attitude towards the use of dialects versus the use of a spoken standard. Paradoxically, this change in attitudes has its roots far away – in Paris, May ‘68. Around 1970, a special Norwegian language climate evolved as regards spoken language (Lomheim 1994 and 1996), in broadcast- ing, politics and public life in general. It still rules the country. Norway ac- quired a language situation that we do not find elsewhere, according to Peter Trudgill (Jahr 2014: 170). Standardization of language itself does not represent a big mystery. Three aspects dominate the process: system, prestige, function. Sandøy (2009: 15) points out that these are the dimensions of the existence of any standard lan- guage – written or spoken. How these three dimensions interact, decides the status and existence of the linguistic standard(s) in question. The actual inter- 118 Sylfest Lomheim play creates differences of standard and explains the situation in different coun- tries, Norway, of course, not excluded.
Norway, “annerledeslandet”! The revolutionary waves from Paris brought questions of environment, gender equality, and democracy to institutions (in the universities, for instance) and on the job market – private or public. Typically, the “grass roots” in Norway voted against the EU in 1972 and again in 1994. The poet Rolf Jacobsen wrote a poem in 1994, for use in the campaign prior to the EU-referendum: “Det er langt dette landet, nordover, nordover, endeløst […]” [It streches far, this country, northwards, northwards, endlessly […]]. It was entitled Annerledeslandet, that is “The Different Country”. In Norway, the grass root-wave acquired an additional powerful local im- pact: equal respect for the use of dialects and the use of spoken standard, in all official situations. And that is how it has been, ever since. The tolerance for linguistic diversity in Norway is extraordinary, states Peter Trudgill (Jahr 2014: 170). In the introduction to this book, Ernst Håkon Jahr writes that there is “no generally accepted spoken standard” in Norway (Jahr 2014: 3, cf. Jahr 2007). In February 2008, Ernst Håkon Jahr and Brit Mæhlum organized a confer- ence in Røros, a small Norwegian mining town on the UNESCO-list. The topic was standard spoken Norwegian: analysis and discussion. Jahr and Mæhlum observed that there was no common understanding among Norwegian linguists concerning the question of whether or not there is a spoken Norwegian stand- ard, i.e. comparable to the spoken standards we find in other countries like Sweden, Denmark, Germany, France, etc. The title of the conference in Røros was: “Do we have a spoken standard in Norway?” One could, in my opinion, just as well have asked: Does NRK, The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, exist? Because, to my mind, the answer is obviously “yes”. But quite a number of linguists claim that the answer is “no”, thus contributing to making the Norwegian language debate an even more special one. Agnete Nesse (2015) is one out of few who have treated the existence of a spoken standard in the 20th century. And Helge Sandøy points out the obvious mistake some linguists make by maintaining that Norway has no spoken norms. “NRK has had, and has, norms of speech” (Sandøy 2009: 31). Per Riste, veteran of the radio news, states the same and discusses the benefits and im- portance of the spoken standard in NRK (Riste 1987: 127). Considering the norms of spoken standard in NRK, I think it is fair to say that many Norwegian linguists probably dislike the whole idea of a spoken standard. According to them all varieties are “varieties” – varieties that only differ in status and number of users. My understanding is that Norway has had Language policy, dialects and spoken standard in Norway 119 a spoken standard since the 1930s, although it is a fact that standard speaking has played, and plays, quite a modest role in Norwegian society, compared to neighbouring countries. I also think we might conclude that much of the disagreement in the Nor- wegian debate has to do with definitions. The term “spoken standard” in Nor- way must be defined differently than in most other countries, like Sweden, Great Britain, France, etc. The spoken standards of Nynorsk and Bokmål are not linked to a specific pronunciation of a given social class, for instance in Oslo or elsewhere. They were, and are, spoken standards based on rules for pro- nouncing the written standards. Sentence melody or intonation is normally not a topic. This is linked to the fact that the center of standardized speech has un- doubtedly been NRK, the public broadcaster. Parliament and the Ministry of Culture had decided on some “frame rules” [rammevilkår] for broadcasting activity, and cultivating the Norwegian lan- guage was one of them. NRK never discussed the meaning of this, and to the journalists of NRK the impact was evident. The first general director of NRK, Olav Midtun (director 1933–1940) wrote in a booklet about the language of NRK: “To speak correctly on the radio demands specialized knowledge, much strength and lasting endeavour!” (Lomheim 1994: 17). That is why it is fair to say that we have had a public institution implementing standard spoken Nor- wegian since the 1930s. Earlier, from around 1900, we might talk of the theatre and the church as standard language promoting institutions, but they were without any political or official support. (The theatre in the 19th century favoured a Danish- flavoured way of speaking.) On the other hand, the public primary school played quite an opposite role. The resolution of Parliament in 1878 concern- ing the respect of the children’s own dialect was internationally unique and marks the starting point of an important period in our language history (Jahr 1994). Only one of the key speakers at the Røros conference 2008, professor Helge Sandøy, stressed the fact that NRK for two generations had established and cul- tivated a spoken standard. But Sandøy’s lonely position is not a surprising one. The policy of the Norsk språkråd [The Norwegian Language Council] since the 1980s had been a total rejection of giving advice about questions concerning standard spoken Norwegian. As a consequence, the whole matter of establish- ing rules for standard pronunciation was left to the NRK and its two language consultants/advisors (Bokmål and Nynorsk). NRK was, not surprisingly, quite happy with the situation. I know this, since I was the language advisor for Nynorsk from 1980 to 1994. There was practically no interference in the field from institutions outside the broadcasting corporation. This may explain why many linguists at the Røros conference seriously maintained that a standard spoken Norwegian, compared to for instance standard English, French or Hungarian, does not exist. And this is a common view. In 2005, the preface of Tanum Bokmål Dictionary stated, as a commen- 120 Sylfest Lomheim tary to giving advice about “correct” pronunciation of certain words, that there has never been an official standard of spoken Norwegian in modern times.
What has been the influence of the spoken language in the Oslo area (“high prestige variety”)? It is quite common among Norwegian linguists to argue that the traditional pri- vate and unofficial “Riksmål” standard (building solely on upper-middle class Oslo West speech) has been a key factor in shaping what quite a few Nor- wegians consider a received pronunciation. This is especially the case among those who support the prestige and position of the Oslo West variety (Det Norske Akademi for Språk og Litteratur, 1993). Mæhlum (2009) also argues that this “Oslo-variety” is the only possible candidate for a standard speech in Norway. Research findings in recent years (Sandøy 2009 might serve as an example) show, however, that “Riksmål” plays a less important role in the development of spoken language. “Riksmål” is definitely a factor in the process of standard- ization, but other social and regional varieties are just as important. The pres- tige of the Oslo West sociolect is high, no doubt, especially in the area around Oslo and the central part of Eastern Norway. However, it plays a minor role in the changing of spoken language in other parts of the country. The key force around the country is “regional leveling”. The over-all force of language change is not the “Oslo influence” (Sandøy 2009: 44). There is only one con- clusion possible: Spoken “Riksmål” has a fairly weak position today as Nor- way’s received pronunciation. NRK has, through its policy and practice of em- bracing and using spoken varieties from all over the country, “even weakened the position of a possible south-eastern Norwegian standard speech” (Sandøy 2009: 31).
Three movements – and one conclusion Looking at the international history of language standardization, there are ac- tually three really dominating tendencies – one is based on the fact that there exists a variety of prestige, normally in the capital (or biggest city) that spreads out and gets stronger and stronger (France, Denmark, Sweden may serve as examples). The two other movements are actually two mechanisms of the same relationship – the relationship between writing and speaking (cf. Sandøy 2009). One of these two goes from the written standard towards the speaking – writ- ten language as a basis for the speaking (spelling tradition). The other one goes Language policy, dialects and spoken standard in Norway 121 from the spoken language, in widespread phonological forms, towards the writ- ten standard (ortophonia). In many cases, i.e., in many countries, we can observe a mixture of these three movements, but one or two of them are normally dominating. Norway is a country where the last two movements (from spoken to written and from writ- ten to spoken) are dominating, and on fairly equal terms. This becomes clear when we consider how questions of language policy (Bokmål and Nynorsk) are dealt with by Parliament and the Ministry of Culture/The Language Council ]Språkrådet]. When it comes to spoken Norwegian in general, the use of dialects/ non-standard language dominates completely – in all public areas – after the 1980s. And there are definitely no signs of change. This may explain why the Norwegian debate after the year 2000 about standard spoken language has been quite confusing. It is true that there does exist a high prestige variety (the Oslo region), but this variety has not achieved a position of general influence and importance. And as a matter of fact, it has less importance than before. In current European terms, Norway therefore hardly has any standard speech. On the other hand, Norway has institutionalized a public spoken stand- ard (in radio and later on television) since the 1930s, a policy and practice sup- ported by the government. Agnete Nesse, for instance, takes the concept of spo- ken standard [standardtalemål] in NRK for granted in her survey article about spoken public language in Norway (Nesse 2015: 105). The disagreement among Norwegian linguists when it comes to a spoken standard, is – as I see it – directly linked to the question of definition: There are clearly two different ways of defining the concept, as illustrated by Sandøy (2009) and Mæhlum (2009). This specific situation is part of a broader sociolinguistic picture, where it is fair to say that during the last generation, Norway has, linguistically speaking, become more of an “annerledes” [different] language society than we find any- where else in Europe.
References Det Norske Akademi for Sprog og Litteratur, 1993: Standardspråk og dialekt. (Semina- rer i Oslo 1991 og 1992.) Oslo. Jahr, Ernst Håkon, 1994: Utsyn over norsk språkhistorie etter 1814. 2nd edition. Oslo. Jahr, Ernst Håkon, 2007: Bruk av omgrepa ‘standardtalemål’, ‘normalisering’ og ‘knot’ for å skildre språktilhøva i Noreg i dag. In: Akselberg, Gunnstein & Myking, Johan (eds.), Å sjå samfunnet gjennom språket. Heidersskrift til Helge Sandøy på 60-års- dagen 14. 06. 2007. Oslo. Pp. 93–98. Jahr, Ernst Håkon, 2014: Language planning as a sociolinguistic experiment. The case of Modern Norwegian. Edinburgh. Lomheim, Sylfest, 1994: Nynorsk i NRK – frå A til Å. Oslo. Lomheim, Sylfest, 1996: Målføra og nynorsk uttalenorm. In: Mål og Makt 1996, 1–2. Pp. 109–120. Lomheim, Sylfest, 2007: Språkreisa. Norsk gjennom to tusen år. Oslo. 122 Sylfest Lomheim
Mæhlum, Brit, 2009: Standardmål? Naturligvis! En argumentasjon for eksistensen av et norsk standardtalemål. (The Røros Conference, 8–10 February 2008.) In: Norsk Lingvistisk Tidsskrift 27. Pp. 7–26. Nesse, Agnete, 2015: Bruk av dialekt og standardtalemål i offentligheten i Norge etter 1800. In: Sandøy, Helge (ed.), Talemål etter 1800. Oslo. Pp. 89–112. Riste, Per, 1987: Språkbruken i NRK. In: Mæhle, Leif, Lundeby, Einar & Grønvik, Oddrun (eds.), Fornying og tradisjon. Oslo. Pp. 118–127. Sandøy, Helge, 2009: Standardtalemål? Ja, men ...! Ein definisjon og drøfting av begre- pet. (The Røros Conference, 8–10 February 2008.) In: Norsk Lingvistisk Tidsskrift 27. Pp. 27–48. 1905–1945 – a substantive period in Norwegian language history? 123 1905–1945 – a substantive period in Norwegian language history?
Gro-Renée Rambø, University of Agder
Perhaps the area of applied linguistics which most clearly illustrates the full complexity of societal phe- nomena which the sociology of language may some- day enable us to understand is that which is concerned with language planning (Fishman 1972: 186).
Introduction A large group of linguists at Norwegian universities and university colleges have since 2008 been involved in the project “Ny norsk språkhistorie” [A New Norwegian Language History]. The aim of the project has been to write the very first comprehensive language history of Norwegian, supplementing and bringing together perspectives and knowledge from earlier works on Nor- wegian language history, by Brynjulv Bleken (1966), Gustav Indrebø (1951), Didrik Arup Seip ([1931] 1955), Einar Haugen (1959, 1966, 1969) and Ernst Håkon Jahr (1989, 2014, 2015), among others. When ended, the project will re- sult in four volumes (Sandøy 2016, Bull 2018, Mæhlum 2018 and Nesse 2018). The goal has been to provide an updated and modern reference work based on newer research, covering different written and spoken varieties of Norwegian, and to some extent also covering the situation and use of other languages his- torically used in Norway. The four volumes are intended to provide new in- sights and new understandings of significant, or defining, coherence patterns and contexts that are important in Norwegian language history and in Nor- wegian language communities. Whereas the three first volumes are thematical- ly organized, the fourth volume, Time Lines, provides an overview of the whole history of the Norwegian language, divided into separate chapters dealing with different time periods. One of the chapters is called “Independent Norway (1905–1945)”, and it is authored by the writer of this article. Based on my own work with this chapter, I will discuss how different explanatory models and perspectives have laid the foundation for periodizing Norwegian language his- tory, and discuss if and how 1905–1945 is a substantive period in Norwegian language history, while at the same time discussing why it is an important and interesting question to ask in the first place. 1905 and 1945 are not in themselves particularly significant years in Nor- wegian language history. What characterizes both 1905 and 1945 is that these years mark hugely significant political happenings in the history of the Nor- 124 Gro-Renée Rambø wegian nation. The years 1905 and 1945 are both associated with Norwegian independence, though each involving very different circumstances. Between 1814 and 1905 the separate kingdoms of Sweden and Norway were in a per- sonal union with the same monarch and common foreign policy, until reaching a relatively peaceful dissolution in 1905. Finally, after several hundred years of government by another kingdom (Denmark until 1814, then the union with Sweden between 1814 and 1905), Norway was once again fully independent – in all cultural, social and political matters, and as regards both internal and for- eign affairs. However, the years 1940–1945 again forced Norway under the domination of another nation, as Germany invaded and took control over Nor- way during World War II. In 1945, the German occupation ended, and five years of harsh rule by Nazi Germany were finally over. The independence reached through these two crucial events – independence from Sweden in 1905 and the defeat of Germany in 1945 – both had a great direct impact on argu- mentation, legitimization and ideology connected with cultural, political and social questions and discussions in Norway at that period. Indirectly also this impacted on the language question, and on the debate about what and how to constitute, or further develop, a truly Norwegian language – a debate which had started back in the 19th century. Even though there is no question concerning the overall political importance of the years 1905 and 1945, does it make sense to have these years defining a period in Norwegian language history?
A new Norwegian language history – new periodizing? Historical knowledge is of great importance. In an ever-changing world, histo- ry provides perspectives on the past concerning the relationship between hu- man beings and nature, between groups of people, and on how thinking and de- velopments have affected conditions for ways of living, how various sources provide different answers and understandings of the world, etc. All these fac- tors, and others, influence what we can know about the present time – why things are the way they are. A written language history is in this respect also important as it provides the premises for cultural self-understanding in a so- ciety. This is also the reason why the discipline of language history (or histor- ical linguistics) is central in the teaching and learning of the school subject of Norwegian at all levels in the Norwegian school system – from primary school to the universities. Norway is well-known for language planning efforts, and hence also for endeavoring to describe and explain all the different language planning reforms, language conflicts and debates that have taken place over the last centuries. As a result, there is no lack of written work on language history, language planning and language politics in the Norwegian linguistics tradition. However, as society changes, new questions are asked, new research is con- ducted, and new knowledge is attained, which changes the premises for our un- derstanding, making room for new perspectives on what we are already famil- 1905–1945 – a substantive period in Norwegian language history? 125 iar with from earlier works. It is in this respect the question of periodizing be- comes relevant and important. Jahr (2014) points out that research on modern Norwegian language history has mostly involved empirical work, but that there have been fewer overall analyses focused on providing deeper insights into the social and political driving forces behind Norwegian language planning (Jahr 2014: xi). Discussing periodization is important in this respect. Periodizing means to “divide (a portion of time) into periods” (Oxford Eng- lish Dictionary), and hence periodization is the process of categorizing the past into discrete, quantified blocks of time, though “periods” are in themselves es- sentially arbitrary conventions on which there is no absolute agreement. Periodizing is the most important method (or tool) for describing and explain- ing history in general, for improving our knowledge of stability and change. It is in Buchanan’s words (2016: 364): […] the attempt to delineate and characterize a particular period of history as an “age”, e.g. postmodernism. It assumes two things: first, that there is a difference in kind (not just degree) between one moment in history and another; second, that there is something that gives a particular segment of time a certain kind of unity. A historic period may function as a chronological clue that can be used as a tool to achieve an overview of major historic sources and societies, which are im- portant to understand the present. However, historic periods or eras are not to be taken for granted, as they are always the result of an active decision made by the historian as to what stands out as important enough to frame a specific time span. In certain respects, periodizing therefore resembles a concept like a paradigm, as it is thought of as something that replaces something else because it is crucially different. Periodizing is also what makes it possible to achieve an overview and understanding of historic events and historic societies, of causal effects and driving forces. However, every choice regarding periodizing forces us to consider a set of events, phenomena and processes as being more impor- tant than certain others, thereby rejecting other possible alternatives. Present- ing a convincing case for periodization has the potential to alter the way we un- derstand the past, and consequently how we understand the present. This makes periodizing both difficult and interesting. When trying to describe and explain the past, we describe historical periods based on ideologies, events, etc., of the period in question. However, we are also influenced by the ideologies, events etc. defining our own period, and hence our own understanding of what is more important. This is of course something that everyone working within the field of history, or within historical disciplines, knows very well. Depending on the intended audience for whom we write a language history book, for instance, we might accept, or suggest, different connecting points between these two param- eters when making specific choices, for instance on how to periodize, or what events to cite as having explanatory weight. This holds true for Norwegian lan- guage history writing as well. Numerous books and articles have been written on modern Norwegian lan- guage planning and language politics (see above), but the time span 1905–1945 126 Gro-Renée Rambø has never been treated as a specific period, though other periodizations have been promoted. Actually, there have not been very many attempts at periodiz- ing modern Norwegian language history. Jahr (2014: 13) states that [m]ost accounts of Norwegian language history from 1814 onwards have been very detail oriented, comprising an enormous amount of empirical data about various language reforms, the programmes and actions of the opposing parties in the lan- guage conflict, official documents discussing the linguistic situation, the treatment of the language issue in Parliament, in newspapers, and by local school boards, and so on. While these historical accounts present details in a very systematic manner, they often fail to explain what all these data really tell us about the choices that were made and the actions that were taken. In this article the aim is not to discuss language planning efforts or language politics in Norway through detailed descriptions of empirical data, nor is it to account for structural changes in linguistic varieties, but instead to discuss how to make sense of the long-lasting contest over linguistic hallmarks and rights. This will be based on a specific way of periodizing language planning and pol- icy between 1905 and 1945. As such, the article may be considered a small con- tribution to what Jahr calls for in the quotation above. Taking this as our point of departure, I will discuss what implications for our understanding of Nor- wegian language history in the 20th century are brought to the fore by framing it within the period 1905–1945, years of crucial significance to the Norwegian nation. In addition I will compare it to the way Jahr periodizes modern Nor- wegian language history in his newest publications (Jahr 2014 and 2015), as this is the periodization most commonly used and referred to. What character- izes Norwegian language history in the first half of the 20th century is above all intensified language planning efforts and a greater understanding of language and the language situation as a prominent political and, above all, social issue.
The language situation in the beginning of the 20th cen- tury It is natural that languages change, but there are in principle two different ways in which a language or a language variety can change. Either it changes “nat- urally” over time, due to the way the variety is used and passed on to new generations, which is in turn driven by linguistic, social and psychological forces. Or it is changed through deliberate cultivation, for instance through various kinds of language politics and language planning efforts, regulations and laws (Vikør 2007: 13ff.). Language planning is a deliberate effort to influ- ence the function, structure or acquisition of a language or a language variety within a speech community in a society (for a thorough discussion of the term, see Vikør 2007: 94ff.). Even though language planning is often associated with governmental planning, diverse non-governmental organizations can equally well be involved in language planning. Sometimes there is a strong connection 1905–1945 – a substantive period in Norwegian language history? 127 between the language planning of non-governmental organizations and the government, for instance between ideology reflected in different political par- ties and ideology reflected in non-governmental organizations (Vikør 2007: 100ff.). This was definitely the case in the first half of the 20th century, as there were strong and obvious connections between political parties and different non-governmental organizations. In some cases, language planning can change social structures in a speech community, or between speech communities, by leading to language shift or influencing the acquisition of languages. This was also an important aspect of language politics and language planning of the first half of the 20th century. The overriding issue, when it comes to language plan- ning and language politics, is the relationship between written and spoken va- rieties – and the cultural and social structures in the society in question. The language situation in Norway at the beginning of the 20th century cannot be un- derstood without taking the developments of the 19th century into account, and I will therefore – very briefly and not exhaustively – outline some essential fea- tures. In 1814, when Norway achieved independence from Denmark, Danish was the official written standard due to the union with Denmark, which had lasted from 1380 to 1814. Given the fact that the influence of romantic nationalism coincided with Norway gaining its independence from Denmark, the question of having a Norwegian written standard that differed from Danish, became a matter of importance for the “new” state. National romanticism emphasized strongly the connection between a nation and its language. Without the ideo- logical climate associated with national romanticism, it becomes difficult to ex- plain why the “language issue” during the 19th century developed the way it did, and why there was a “language issue” at all (Jahr 2007). There was not much controversy when it came to the question of the need for a Norwegian written standard differing from Danish – but how should this Norwegian writ- ten standard be reached, and what should it look like linguistically? The rela- tionship between written standards and spoken varieties was the main issue. A written norm in a society usually corresponds to one or more spoken var- iety of the language in question. Spoken language varieties often change much more and much faster than the written standard. How much and how often changes are made in written norms varies a lot. The process of standardization frequently involves one specific variety of a language taking precedence over other social and regional varieties of a language. If one variety of a language is chosen, that variety usually comes to be understood as supra-dialectal and the “best” form of the language. The choice of which variety takes precedence has important societal consequences as it confers privilege upon speakers whose spoken variety conforms most closely to the chosen written standard. The standard that is chosen as the norm is thus generally spoken by the most power- ful social group within the society and is imposed upon the less powerful groups as the form to emulate. This often reinforces the dominance of the powerful social group. 128 Gro-Renée Rambø
By the time of independence from Denmark, there were in principle two groups of spoken varieties in Norway; educated urban classes spoke a mixed variety of Danish and Norwegian, while farmers and the working classes all over the country used supposedly “pure” Norwegian dialects (see Jahr 2014: 20f.). Two different proposals for a national language in Norway arose after in- dependence in 1814: a radically new one by the dialectologist Ivar Aasen (Landsmål – rural speech) and a reformist one by the schoolteacher Knud Knudsen (Riksmål – the speech of the realm). In 1885 the Norwegian parlia- ment recognized both Norwegian varieties. Knudsen and Aasen were to some extent diametrically opposite poles with respect to their assessment of who was to decide what should count as “Norwegian” and the national standard. Both took contemporary everyday spoken language as their point of departure. Knudsen wanted to build on the language of senior officials and the upper- middle classes, who constituted the segment of the population that had fostered and brought about independence in 1814, and who were the politically and cul- turally dominant group in the new nation. Aasen, on the other hand, used the popular local dialects of the rural dwellers to establish a link to the Norse past (Jahr 1914: 36ff.). However, the two written standards were linguistically ra- ther similar, so around the beginning of the 20th century the idea of fusing the two varieties gained ground. The fusing process was conducted by the govern- ment, which introduced several extensive language reforms. Somewhat simpli- fied one could say that the fusing procedures were to 1) gradually incorporate more Landsmål (later termed Nynorsk) forms into Riksmål (later termed Bok- mål), and 2) to replace the archaic dialectal forms in Landsmål with the more modern forms found in contemporary dialects. This was the main aim of lan- guage planning efforts in the first half of the 20th century, and it is what Haugen (1968: 673) defines as “an unusually interesting experiment in language plan- ning”, and Jahr calls “a sociolinguistic experiment” (2014). The constitution of the independent nation of Norway in 1905 intensified an already fiery and com- prehensive debate regarding how and on what grounds to constitute a common and truly Norwegian written language, carrying on the debate that was initiated in the 19th century. That had resulted in the two written standards of Landsmål and Riksmål (which from 1929 were called Nynorsk and Bokmål). However, now the main aim became to change the written standards and blend them to- gether. The argumentation changed, in accordance with the social conditions in the society. Within the scientific field of language history, the development of modern written Norwegian standards has been subject to controversy related to ques- tions of nationalism, rural versus urban, social class differences, dialect ver- sus standard language, spelling reforms and orthography, etc., and the dis- cord surrounding all these matters has been described, discussed and ex- plained in different explanatory models in Norwegian language research. I will roughly describe four such different models, as formulated and described by Jahr (1993), since these have been fundamental in determining how we 1905–1945 – a substantive period in Norwegian language history? 129 view what constitutes periods in Norwegian language history (Jahr 1993, 2014).
Explanatory models in Norwegian language history The first model has been called the Seip model (after Didrik Arup Seip) by Jahr (1993: 127ff.): Up until the 1960s, Norwegian language history research was characterized by what has often been labelled a national language ideology. Independence from Denmark made room for a debate on what premises and issues should provide the foundations for reaching the overall goal: an inde- pendent Norwegian written standard, significantly different from Danish. Within this model, language history research came to focus on the fact that when Copenhagen was no longer the capital of Norway, the strong influence from Danish necessarily had to end (a teleological point of view), since Nor- way’s administration and official government was no longer Danish (Jahr 1993: 128). The development within the written standards is solely explained by focusing on the opposition between the linguistic differences between Danish on one hand and Norwegian on the other. Hence, the model fails to ex- plain the influence exerted by different Norwegian varieties (spoken or writ- ten). This was simply of no interest. Consequently, what other models recog- nize to be social oppositions are within this model interpreted as purely nation- al oppositions – the question was “what is Norwegian, in opposition to Danish?” However, this model does not leave room for any other kinds of ar- gument, which were actually very much present in the debate from the very be- ginning. In addition to the Seip model, Jahr also recognizes what he calls the peda- gogical explanatory model. More precisely, he defines this model as a some- what secondary model, supplementing the Seip model (Jahr 1993: 130f.). How- ever, even though Jahr does not recognize the model as a fully developed one, he argues that it has the potential, in principle and in theory, of being developed into a fully-fledged model. Following this model, one could argue that the de- velopment when it comes to written standardization in Norway has pursued ar- guments, reasoning and ideology linked to the difficulties met by Norwegian pupils and the Norwegian general public in their dealings with a written stand- ard (Danish) that was far from their own spoken varieties (Norwegian dialects). The question which then arises is: How can the written standard be turned in the direction of the spoken varieties in order to make the written standard bear a closer resemblance to Norwegian spoken language? It should be added that pedagogical arguments have always been used by all groups in the language debate, so what the model is supposed to reflect is not just the level of argu- ment, but also the ideological level. This model would not make a good starting point for a debate on periodization, as the pedagogical arguments have always been present in the Norwegian language debate. 130 Gro-Renée Rambø
The third model is called the sociolinguistic explanatory model (Jahr 1993: 130ff.). This model takes insights reached through language sociology as a starting point. Language sociology explicitly focuses on the relationships be- tween society and language. Following the emergence of language sociology or sociolinguistics as a scientific discipline in the 1960s and 1970s, a new interest in the rationale behind language planning and language conflicts emerged. Most important of all is the shift in focus from written language to spoken lan- guage. The development within the written standards in Norway is now de- scribed from the basic premise that it is a clear advantage for a social group of people (a social class) that there is a close connection between the standardized written language and their spoken variety when it comes to phonology and morphology (Jahr 1993: 130). Following such reasoning, the national argu- ment is no longer the prevailing one. Instead, the driving force behind the con- flicts and the development has been the struggle between different social groups aiming to gain this advantage for themselves as much as possible. Ac- cording to insights from theories within language sociology, sociolinguistics, there is no universal explanation for language change. Every individual change must be explained by analyzing the society in which the change occurs to shed light on power relations between distinct groups of people, thereby lending prestige and power to their different cultural expressions, including language. When it comes to linguistic varieties, what is regarded as good or bad, nice or ugly, traditional or modern, etc., all stems from stereotypes linked to the pres- tige and political and/or cultural standing of user groups of the different varie- ties. Within this explanatory model, the question that might best shed light on written language struggle and development would be: Which spoken varieties should be reflected in the written standardized language, and which social groups would benefit from the choices made? The fourth model is called the national-social explanatory model (Jahr 1993: 132ff.). Jahr points out that there is one thing that the language sociology ex- planatory model fails to explain in a good way, and that is why there was a lan- guage struggle in Norway at all. The situation in Norway was after all quite normal in 1814; we had a standardized written norm, and this was the norm that was in use among the leading social class in Norway, and it was also linked to the spoken variety used by this class: “det dannede talesprog” [educated speech]. Consequently, we must acknowledge the national arguments for kick- ing the debate off, following the demand within a romantic national ideology for a national language of one’s own in order to meet the qualifications of being a nation. Be that as it may, since two different solutions to the problem of lack- ing a truly Norwegian written standard arose, the social dimension has to be taken into account with regard to everything that ensued. When Ivar Aasen founded the written standard of Nynorsk in the middle of the 19th century, he tried to find a common base for the Norwegian dialects. Most of the Norwegian dialects were not influenced by Danish, and they were therefore intrinsically Norwegian going back to the time before the rule of the Danes. However, it was 1905–1945 – a substantive period in Norwegian language history? 131 not the leading social class who used these dialects – it was instead the farmers, people living in the countryside, the domain of the lower social classes. When Knud Knudsen suggested a second solution to the problem of lacking a Nor- wegian written standard, he, on the other hand, chose to take the spoken variety of the upper class as a starting point, aiming at adjusting the written Danish lan- guage into Norwegian in accordance with the spoken variety of the upper classes. Since the two written standard solutions were right from the outset so clearly associated with different social groups of people, then, arguably, the prevailing social conditions by far overshadow the national dimension as an ex- planatory factor for why there was such a long-lasting struggle. In his book Language planning as a sociolinguistic experiment, published in 2014, Jahr structures modern Norwegian language history using a national- social explanatory model, arguing that this model can account for what happened in Norwegian language history from 1814 up until 2002, dividing Norwegian language planning into three main periods: 1. 1814–1917: the nationalist period, when national arguments dominated. The main goal during this period was to develop a national linguistic standard. 2. 1917–1966: the sociopolitical period, when social arguments were the driving force behind developments. The main political goal during this period was to reach a linguistic compromise between the two standards. 3. 1964–2002: the period of transition from a single-standard strategy of language planning (up until 1966) to a two-standard strategy (Jahr 2014: 12f.).
After Jahr first published his article on explanatory models in 1993, Vikør (1994) commented on the divisions made by Jahr. He pointed out that what Jahr outlines as divisions between the two latter explanatory models does not really divide them. Instead, he argues that the national-social explanatory model is no more than an improved language sociology explanatory model. This, he argues, is because all the social divisions that come into play in the 20th century are after all rooted in social oppositions dating back to the 1870s and 1880s (and even earlier, one could add), empowering laborers and farmers po- litically and socially, which again changed power relationships in Norwegian society. Hence, the national argument lost much of its meaning due to general historical developments, almost right from the beginning. The question of what is national and who are Norwegians is after all a question of social power and social standing, and a national group in this respect shares most characteristics with a social group (apart from size and name). Instead, one could claim that the language debate has always been a matter of cultural and social struggle but has in some historic periods been fought through a conspicuous national rhet- oric. Consequently, I also think that the periodization in Jahr 2014 (see above) may be contested. I will highlight some important developments and happen- 132 Gro-Renée Rambø ings concerning language history, which I find to be defining for the period 1905–1945, and let these serve as examples of how social factors become so tremendously important, thus making 1917 seem too late a starting point for a sociopolitical period in Norwegian language history. These aspects, which will not be dealt with in detail, relate to changing views on urban dialects and new-dialect formation, the Norwegianization process towards the Sami and the Finnish people, largely living in Northern Norway, and the developments in communication infrastructure.
1905 – a new united and independent Norway? The full state of independence reached in 1905 set Norway completely on a par with Sweden and Denmark, and hence, one might be led to believe that it be- came less important to insist on “Norwegian” as opposed to Danish; this lan- guage opposition lost some of its symbolic importance. Instead, Norwegians could now really turn their gaze inwards, towards what happens between Nor- wegians, and between groups of people, social groups, special interest groups, etc. The beginning of the 20th century stands out as new and different for the people of Norway, not only because of the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden. The first half of the century brought new and better com- munication infrastructure, better school facilities for larger groups of people, improved information channels, and all these factors led to people being more aware of each other and knowing more about different structures in society at large (Nielsen 2011b: 10). Better communication infrastructure also meant that more people had the chance to participate directly in discussing different so- cietal questions. This is conspicuous among other things through school elec- tions, more people subscribing to newspapers and magazines, and a flourishing organizational life, which are all important aspects of what happened in the lan- guage struggle. Language issues became more and more directly connected with politics, and social structures came to be crucial for the debate itself and for specific decisions made in linguistic matters, right from the beginning of the century. At the beginning of the 20th century, several spoken varieties in the cities in Norway were commonly considered “impure”, “mixed” varieties by many, both within the Landsmål movement and within the Riksmål movement, and these varieties were disregarded in many ways. However, perspectives on spoken varieties in the cities changed, especially around 1910–1920 (Jahr 1984). The first scientific work on a spoken variety in a city was Idar Handagard’s work on the spoken variety of Kristiansund, published in Syn og Segn in 1901, in which he concluded that the spoken variety of Kristiansund was to be considered as good a Norwegian spoken variety as any other variety. Most of what has been written on the revaluation of the spoken varieties of the cities relate the developments to clearly national arguments. 1905–1945 – a substantive period in Norwegian language history? 133
However, the social arguments are also present from early on, and the reso- lution of 1878, and the interpretation of this resolution, were what triggered the important and intense struggle over spoken language in city schools from 1911–1912 (Jahr 1984). The changed views on the spoken varieties of the cities were also related to the formation of new dialect varieties, and to changing attitudes to urban dia- lects as the result of linguistic research. The beginning of the century brought opportunities for the foundation of new spoken varieties because of industrial- ization processes. As new industrial towns were founded, like Sauda and Årdal (Neteland 2014) and Høyanger (Omdal 1977, Solheim 2010), people from dif- ferent places moved there to find work, bringing with them their home dialects. The industrial towns became meeting places for a range of different spoken varieties, and new dialects gradually formed among the new generations of in- habitants. Besides, not least important, because of the restructuring of Nor- wegian industry in the period 1905–1915, employment patterns were changed in large parts of the country. The ensuing transition from agriculture and fish- eries to industry led to a higher rate of mobility in the population, which in turn caused social unrest and displacement of power. The industry-oriented work- ing class grew rapidly, and the major work conflicts in 1907 and 1911 were ex- pressions of the increased power of the working class (Nielsen 2011a: 130f.). At the same time, the agricultural workers lost their position as the most impor- tant democratic driving force in society. What impact did such developments have on the Norwegian language debate and language planning in this period? Above all, it had an impact on how the distribution of spoken varieties was per- ceived as demographic factors were reshaped. More and more people moved to the towns and cities and this caused social and cultural tensions between urban and rural dwellers (Stugu 2012: 13, 28ff.). As the industrial working class ex- panded, the fight for social and cultural standing was brought into the fore- ground, including the fight for their language – for instance in the school sys- tem. The first decades of the 20th century also brought important debates con- cerned with the principle of the parliamentary resolution of 1878, which had regulated oral instruction in primary schools. This resolution stated that the oral instruction in primary schools should be based on the home dialects of the pu- pils. In 1879 Parliament also changed the regulations for schools to reflect this view (Jahr 1984: 51, see Jahr 2014: 61). Changing social conditions brought changing attitudes towards the language situation in the country. As power relations and communication possibilities al- tered, the fear of more disunity in the country grew, and this too affected the language conflict. Some people argued that after the end of the union in 1905, it was now important to cherish the sense of unity in the Norwegian people, and they wished for that reason to conclude the language conflict. Moltke Moe, tra- ditionally considered the founding father of the term “samnorsk” [pan-Nor- wegian], although Arne Garborg was probably the first person to coin the term (Hanto 1986: 114), put it like this in an essay in 1906: 134 Gro-Renée Rambø
[…] et ord både til bymåls-mænd og til landsmåls-mænd, til Aasens fylking som til Knudsens. Et ord om tålsomhet og samarbeide; et ord om at sætte det som fælles er, over det som skiller, over stridspunkter og særmeninger og partisyn [a word both to people using “town speech” and people using “rural speech”, for Aasen’s camp fol- lowers and for Knudsen’s. A word about forbearance and cooperation; a word set- ting what is shared over what divides, over conflicts and personal sentiments and po- litical views] (Moe 1906: 2). The first half of the 20th century was the period of “pan-Norwegian” lobbying and continuous efforts to plan language in the direction of a united and com- mon written standard. Even though the first language reform came in 1917, bringing the two written standards of Riksmål and Landsmål closer together – something Moe and others had argued in favour of – nonetheless, the ideology and the social background, the strengthened social argumentation and debates, all took place much earlier. Moreover, the controversy over the 1878 decision, concerning spoken language in schools, was debated in the first decade of the century, following decisions to make Riksmål the oral language of instruction in schools in several cities: in Bergen (1904), Trondheim (1904) and Kristian- sund (1911). Riksmål was commonly regarded as the oral variety of the cities, as it was the spoken variety used by the upper class of these cities (Jahr 1984). Even though the regulation of oral instruction through the School Act was de- creed by Parliament in 1917, the important influences and debates took place earlier on.
Sami and Kven-Finnish population in Norway – also Norwegian? Today, Norway is commonly recognized as a multicultural and multilingual so- ciety, often characterized as such due to migration and mobility in modern so- ciety. However, Norway has as far back as we can trace the historic sources been neither monocultural nor monolingual. This especially holds true for the northern parts of the country. Multiculturalism and multilingualism are also not only an urban phenomenon, but a highly rural one. At the beginning of the 20th century, several minority languages were the mother tongues of stable groups of people settled on a permanent basis in Norway, often in small rural commu- nities. The Sami and the Kven-Finnish groups of people are among these. During the first half of the 20th century, the Norwegianization policy directed at the Sami and the Kven-Finnish groups of people in Northern Norway is a dark and shameful chapter in Norwegian history. Parallel with the struggle for Norwegian independence, the Norwegian government fought for internal consolidation at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th in other arenas. Specifically, the governmental policies directed at the Sami and the Kven-Finnish people in the North were a direct attack on their culture, and es- pecially their language (or languages), forcing them to get rid of their cultural 1905–1945 – a substantive period in Norwegian language history? 135 traits and especially their use of Sami or Kven-Finnish languages in all areas, in particular in the schools. Assimilation to Norwegian culture, and to what was considered a Norwegian way of life socially, was the openly expressed goal on the part of the Norwegian government. From around 1880 all teaching in schools should be in Norwegian, and in boarding schools in Finnmark, the northernmost county, the children were not allowed to speak Sami or Kven-Finnish at all – not even in their spare time. So there is no doubt that some sort of nationalism was a driving force behind these policies, as were matters of national security. Still, it is interesting to note that social arguments were also highly foregrounded. For instance, there were people associated with Noregs Mållag [the Norwegian Language Society], founded in 1906, who openly supported the Sami people in their struggle against the Norwegian au- thorities, stating that the important factor to take into account was the principle about supporting people’s mother tongue, their first spoken language. Among the supporters were Torleiv Hannaas from Agder, professor of Scandinavian linguistics, who said that the Landsmål movement ought to give full support to the Sami people’s fight for their own language (Eriksen & Niemi 1981: 271, 316). Noregs Mållag as an organization never took any principled decision on this, however, but it is still interesting to note that prominent people within this movement took an active standpoint, and that it is related to supporting the spo- ken language of a specific social group, even though it is not (yet) the language of the Norwegian nation. Even though the attempt to make Norwegian the com- mon language of the Sami and the Kven-Finnish people fits well with national arguments on the surface, it was really all about social and cultural positioning. Language assimilation was the means of achieving changes in the Sami and the Kven-Finnish people’s ways of life, and politically it was considered important from a security perspective. The Norwegian government feared Russian expan- sion in Norwegian border territories, as this would give Russia the benefit of having ice-free ports westward. Finland had been until 1917 a Tsarist princi- pality of the Russian Empire and on those grounds could be considered a satel- lite state of Russia. Hence, Finnish immigration to the northern parts of Troms and Finnmark could pose a problem, as it could be considered an extension of Russia into Western Europe (Eriksen & Niemi 2002: 28). The Kven-Finnish people were considered to be as much Russian as Finnish (Eriksen & Niemi 1981: 322). With the emergence of Finnish nationalism, which played a major role in making Finland an independent nation in 1917, Finland was also more directly feared by the Norwegian government; it was afraid that Finland could make demands in Norway through the Finnish immigrants. The Sami people were also considered a potential security threat on account of their movements and connections across the whole Sápmi area (previously called Lapland). So- cial Darwinism played a significant role in the Norwegianization policy as it gave ideological legitimacy to the notion of more primitive cultures – the Sami and Kven-Finnish cultures. In this respect, it is obvious that social cohesion was the goal (Eriksen & Niemi 1981: 37). 136 Gro-Renée Rambø
Communication infrastructure in the period 1905–1945 Another important aspect changing the premises for the Norwegian language debate and language planning in the first half of the 20th century is found in new developments in communication infrastructure and in new technological achievements enhancing communication possibilities over long distances. Among these developments were radio telegraphy at the beginning of the 20th century. The first telegraph traffic was opened in Sørvågen and Røst in Lofoten in 1906, and the development and spread of radio (in Norway from the 1930s onwards) enabled people to listen to different spoken varieties in their own homes, no matter where they lived. This bound people together as they now had access to the same news and the same entertainment at the same time, building a shared sense of social identity – but in addition making social diversity even more visible. More than half a million radios were sold in the 1930s (Stugu 2012: 69), revolutionizing communication in society. Communication infra- structure also contributed to spreading knowledge about Norwegian society as such, throwing light on social and cultural differences, as people became more aware of each other, and thereby aware of how different the opportunities were for diverse groups of people in Norway due to their living conditions. This also indirectly triggered argumentation based on social reasoning in the language question. The school sector was, as always, of the utmost significance. Traditionally high schools were located in the cities, as were middle schools, which preceded high school. In consequence, middle school and high school were less available to children from the countryside as parents there would have had to send their children away from home as early as the age of 11 when middle school started. Changes in communication infrastructure, along with in- creased awareness of social structures, made the establishment of high schools in the countryside a target issue for people fighting for social equality. Both within the cities and in the countryside, there were people fighting for a higher level of general education (Slagstad 1998). Even though the founding of the first “landsgymnas” [a rural high school with facilities for boarders] was cam- paigned for on the platform of a nationalist argument to begin with, the reason- ing behind the campaign was social: the promotion of more equal educational opportunities for all groups of people in Norway.
1905–1945: a substantive period in Norwegian lan- guage history From 1878 onwards, the nationalist arguments were in fact to a considerable extent already secondary to the social arguments – if not in principle or on the surface, at least in practice. Of course, both pedagogical, practical, social and nationalist arguments had been present in the Norwegian language debate throughout the previous two decades, so that when we define periods, we do so 1905–1945 – a substantive period in Norwegian language history? 137 on the basis of what we consider to be of the greatest importance for what hap- pens. What is of consequence and what is merely on the surface? Can the argu- ments be recognized in the public debate, or in the decision-making processes? Beyond a doubt, the resolution by Parliament in 1878 on schoolchildren’s right to use their own spoken dialect in the class-room is extremely important. We are dealing here with the main arena in society for introducing planned lan- guage changes, namely the school sector; and the Parliament resolution points directly to the importance of spoken varieties as the basis for approaching writ- ing. Therefore, even though this resolution did not have anything to do with the written standards as such – which is what language planning of the first half of the 20th century was so deeply concerned with – it still became immensely im- portant for everything that happened subsequently in the language debate. The resolution indirectly states that language could be more or less difficult for chil- dren in school, depending on the similarities between spoken varieties and written language – paving the way for all kinds of arguments in favor of making the transitions better or easier between different spoken varieties, or between written varieties, or between different spoken varieties and written varieties. This is obviously a pedagogical question primarily, but also very much a socio- logical one, as it was also obvious that different spoken varieties were linked to various social groups, and hence it was in the end a question of power bal- ances and decision-making in society. From now on, the nationalist arguments were even more often than before connected with social arguments (or practi- cal, pedagogical arguments, which were still also indirectly directed towards specific social groups in society). However, the effects and influences of the resolution itself belong to the beginning of the 20th century, starting with the decisions made in the major cities about what should be regarded the spoken variety of these cities. 1905 makes a good starting point for a specific period in Norwegian language history because the language struggle through argumen- tation, suggestions, legitimization is openly anchored in general politics and societal developments. The harsh language struggle following the 1917 reform was caused by ideological and social developments preceding the reform itself – the reform itself was just a political result of an attempt to accommodate the social and cultural divisions in the language question. The attempt did, as we know now, not succeed – because of social conditions, which were conspicuous long before the language reform. From the few (and limited) examples I have touched upon, I conclude that 1905, the year when Norway regained full inde- pendence, is a good starting point for a period in Norwegian language history. But is 1945 a justifiable year to terminate this period? In 1945 we are talking about a very different year marking independence, since this was the year that World War II ended, a war in which Norway was an active participant, but un- der German control from 1940 to 1945. The year 1945 is undoubtedly of the utmost importance for Norwegian society as a whole, of course, and World War II is still very much debated both in research and among people in general. Every year new books are written about World War II in Norway, and these 138 Gro-Renée Rambø books are usually bestsellers. The year 1945, as the year 1905, does not, how- ever, stand out as especially significant for Norwegian language planning and conflict, but it could nevertheless be argued to be symbolically important for the language planning debate and language struggle in Norway. First of all be- cause the question of who is “Norwegian” or “sufficiently Norwegian”, which was the main trigger underlying the question that kicked off the language de- bate in the first place, was now really impossible to link to anything apart from which side people were on during the war years, so it does not even work rhe- torically. Secondly, because the positioning of the different contestants in the language struggle would now have to relate to what choices the organizations had made during the war years. For instance, it would be impossible to have leaders who had supported Nazi Germany during the war. Thirdly, because af- ter the war the whole of Norwegian society was focused on consolidating and rebuilding the country. This also meant that tolerance of minor differences was far greater. It also affected the views on minorities. After the end of World War II, the attempts at assimilating the Sami and the Kven-Finnish people to Nor- wegian culture and way of life, ceased to be an official policy (if not in all prac- ticalities). Even though it still took a couple of decades until the revitalization processes kicked off for real, it is still clear that, on the part of the Norwegian authorities, no more attempts at assimilating these groups of people were fore- grounded. The end of World War II stands out as a true change in the ideo- logical and social climate, which also severely affected language planning ef- forts and language policies in the country.
Conclusion The first half of the 20th century was characterized by official language plan- ning efforts, and as a period in Norwegian language history it is the fight for the cultural and social rights of distinct groups of people that stands out as im- portant. The nationalist argument had already lost most of its power by the be- ginning of the 20th century, even if it was still used to some extent, and I would argue that the three main periods that Jahr (2014) draws up could be slightly altered. Whereas Jahr has made important direct political decisions concerning the written standards define his three periods, I argue that there are really good reasons to turn our gaze towards the changing social climate and major political decisions and changes in ideology, and instead make these serve as defining turning-points in Norwegian language history. I would suggest that the first pe- riod Jahr singles out, the nationalist period, could define the period 1814–1905. The second period could be called the sociological period and could be defin- ing for the years 1905–1945. The last period, 1945 to the present day, could be called the pragmatic or the consolidation period. It does not really matter that we still find many arguments expressing nationalist views also in the beginning of the 20th century – what matters is how the arguments succeed in defining 1905–1945 – a substantive period in Norwegian language history? 139 and/or convincing different social groups, and thereby in changing the prem- ises for political and social developments in society. This is what changes lan- guage planning efforts and language history. Political processes are frequently delayed compared to changes in society, but when writing a language history, it is in principal better to periodize on the basis of cultural, political and social structural patterns in the society in question, rather than on the basis of specific acts of Parliament. Rhetorically, national arguments were important also in the beginning of the 20th century, but maybe there is also a need to differentiate be- tween leading contestants and politicians in the official debate, and the lower classes of people in Norway. For the people belonging to the different social groups, with their very different conditions of life, what was considered Nor- wegian or not was probably of less importance than the social conditions and opportunities they had to make their voice heard and to influence their own everyday life. Dividing Norwegian language history according to general na- tional political and social events and tendencies will probably also cognitively encompass much more stable divisions. For future generations it is important to be able to connect very specific events to larger understandings of patterns in society. This has been important for the periodization found in the new four-volume series on Norwegian language history, making the period 1905– 1945 a substantive and justifiable one.
References Bleken, Brynjulv, 1966: Om norsk sprogstrid. Oslo. Buchanan, Ian, [2010] 2016: A dictionary of critical theory. Oxford. DOI: www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/978019953219.001.0001. Bull, Tove (ed.), 2018: Ideologi. Norsk språkhistorie III. Oslo. Eriksen, Knut Einar & Niemi, Einar, 1981: Den finske fare: sikkerhetsproblemer og mi- noritetspolitikk i nord 1860–1940. Oslo. Fishman, Joshua A., 1972: The sociology of language. An interdisciplinary social science approach to language in society. Massachusetts. Handagard, Idar, 1901: Er folkemaale i byarne gode norske maalføre? In: Syn og Segn 1901. Pp. 97–110. Hanto, Knut Ihle, 1986: Ideologiar i norsk målreising. Oslo. Haugen, Einar, 1959: Planning for a standard language in modern Norway. In: Anthro- pological Linguistics 1. Pp. 8–21. Haugen, Einar, 1966: Language conflict and language planning: The case of Modern Norwegian. Cambridge. Massachusetts. Haugen, Einar, 1968: Riksspråk og folkemål. Norsk språkpolitikk i det 20. århundre. Oslo. Indrebø, Gustav, 1951: Norsk målsoga. Bergen. Jahr, Ernst Håkon, 1984: Talemålet i skolen. En studie av drøftinger og bestemmelser om muntlig språkbruk i folkeskolen (fra 1874 til 1925). Oslo. Jahr, Ernst Håkon, 1989: Utsyn over norsk språkhistorie etter 1814. Oslo. Jahr, Ernst Håkon, 1993: Forklaringsmodeller i nyere norsk språkhistorie. In: Ivars, Ann-Marie (ed.), Språk och social kontext. Festskrift till Mirja Saari på 50-årsda- gen. Helsingfors. Pp. 121–136. 140 Gro-Renée Rambø
Jahr, Ernst Håkon, 2007: The planning of Norwegian as a sociolinguistic experiment. In: Elspass, S. et al. (eds.), Germanic language histories ‘from below’ (1700–2000). Berlin/New York. Pp. 379–403. Jahr, Ernst Håkon, 2014: Language planning as a sociolinguistic experiment. The case of Modern Norwegian. Edinburgh. Jahr, Ernst Håkon, 2015: Språkplanlegging og språkstrid. Utsyn over norsk språkhisto- rie etter 1814. Oslo. Moe, Moltke, 1906: Norsk og dansk sprogdragt. Retskrivningssakens vei og tempo. Fo- redrag i Bymålslaget 31. mars 1906. Kristiania. Mæhlum, Brit (ed.), 2018: Praksis. Norsk språkhistorie II. Oslo. Nesse, Agnete (red.), 2018: Tidslinjer. Norsk språkhistorie IV. Oslo. Neteland, Randi, 2014: Språkutvikling på industristader. Unpublished PhD-thesis. Bergen. Nielsen, May-Brith Ohman, 2011a: Norvegr. Norges historie 1840–1914. Oslo. Nielsen, May-Brith Ohman, 2011b: Norvegr. Norges historie etter 1914. Oslo. Omdal, Helge, 1977: Høyangermålet – en ny dialekt? In: Språklig Samling 18:1. Pp. 7– 9. Reprinted in: Vikør, Lars S. & Wiggen, Geirr (eds.), Språklig samling på folke- måls grunn. Artiklar frå bladet Språklig Samling. Oslo. Pp. 75–77. Pride, J. B., 1973: The social meaning of language. Oxford. Rambø, Gro-Renée, 2018: 1905–1945: Det selvstendige Norge. In: Nesse, Agnete (ed.), Tidslinjer. Norsk språkhistorie IV. Oslo. Sandøy, Helge (ed.), 2016: Mønster. Norsk språkhistorie I. Oslo. Seip, Didrik Arup, [1931] 1955: Norsk språkhistorie til omkring 1370. Oslo. Slagstad, Rune, 1998: De nasjonale strateger. Oslo. Solheim, Randi, 2010: Sosial smeltedigel – språklege legeringar. Om talemålsut- viklinga i industrisamfunnet Høyanger. Trondheim. Stugu, Ola Svein, 2012: Norsk historie etter 1905. Oslo. Vikør, Lars S., 1994: Korfor fekk vi språkstrid? Forklaringsmodellar i nyare norsk språkhistorie. In: Myking, Johan, Sandøy, Helge & Utne, Ivar (eds.), Synsvinklar på grammatikk. Helsing til Lars Vassenden på 70-årsdagen. Bergen. Pp. 217–224. Vikør, Lars S., 2007: Språkplanlegging: prinsipp og praksis. Oslo. Language history and the power of symbols 141 Language history and the power of symbols
Gunnar Skirbekk, University of Bergen
Not all of it is known. Thus, there is a need to review some of the central events of the history of the Norwegian language – an ideological “archeology” (to talk in Foucauldian tongues). I will do so by highlighting five events that have been pivotal to the development of the Norwegian language, five events that, each in its way, have been under-communicated in educational contexts and in pub- lic debate, five events in the history of the Norwegian language that are rela- tively unknown to most people and seldom brought up or referred to in a straightforward way: (i) This is the case for the articles concerning language in the Constitution from November 4, 1814, as an expression of the defining power of the State author- ities, with far-reaching implications. (ii) It is the case for the gradual Norwegianisation of written Danish that first picked up speed long after 1814. (iii) It is the case for the education required for the Lutheran confirmation, based on Pontoppidan’s explanation of Luther’s catechism, a regimentation in the Danish language of all Norwegian youth, for more than 150 years, under the auspices of the State Church. (iv) It is the case for the market forces of the book trade at the end of the 1800s, when Norwegian authors en masse, including Ibsen and Bjørnson, were pub- lishing their books in Copenhagen, in Danish. (v) And it is the case for “the parents’ campaign” (in the early post World War II period) in favour of linguistic forms close to Danish, a well-organised cam- paign, with major implications, that raises interesting questions as to its organ- isation and financing and its use of “social capital” and rhetoric defining power, and still it was never investigated sociologically. Why?
(I) The linguistic coup in the Constitution of November 4, 1814 The final version of the Norwegian Constitution, debated in the autumn of 1814 following the short Swedish-Norwegian war during the summer of 1814, con- 142 Gunnar Skirbekk tains several articles that make reference to “the Norwegian language” (“det norske Sprog”, §§ 33, 47, 81). In these articles, among other things, it was an- chored in the Constitution that “all laws were to be written in the Norwegian language” (“alle Love udfærdiges i det norske Sprog”, § 81). Interestingly enough, here Danish was defined as Norwegian. A linguistic “coup”, to quote the Norwegian historian Øystein Sørensen (2001). However, it did not stop here: this linguistic usage (of the term “det norske sprog”) was endorsed in 1815 by the newly established Royal Frederik Univer- sity in the capital Kristiania (Oslo), a clear but curious conclusion: Danish in Denmark is Danish, but Danish in Norway is Norwegian! To support this view, the University referred to the fact that Norwegians, for a long period of time, had used this language (i.e. Danish) in writing and that Norwegians (e.g. Lud- vig Holberg) had taken part in the development of the written Danish language. However, the same can be said of English in Ireland;1 but the Irish do not call English Irish when it is used in Ireland.2 Thus, there is something strange here in what the Norwegian University argued for. Why did the University express such a view? What was the point of this curious definition, this “linguistic coup” of 1814? Politically, there were clear strategic reasons for calling the language of the Constitution of Novem- ber 4, 1814, Norwegian: The union was now a fact, with Sweden as the stronger military partner, so it was important to make a stand, also linguis- tically. From the Norwegian side there was an anxiety that the Swedish lan- guage would conquer the country, partly because of Swedish ambitions and partly because many Norwegian dialects are more closely related to Swedish than Danish. Consequently, it was important to establish in the Constitution that the legal language should not be Swedish (Jahr 2014: 17f.). That was the main point: not Swedish. But why not “call a spade a spade”? Why not call Danish Danish? Finn-Erik Vinje (2004) formulated it as follows: “After the events of 1814, it was not ac- ceptable to refer to Danish as the official language of Norway.” [Etter begiven- hetene i 1814 gikk det anstendigvis ikke an å snakke om dansk som offisielt språk i Norge.] Since the Norwegian delegates in the negotiations with the Swedes in the autumn of 1814 had no written Norwegian language to refer to (Old Norse had not been in use for a very long time) they chose to hold on to Danish – and to call it “Norwegian”. That was understandable enough, in that situa- tion.3
1 Or also English in India, cf. that the author Salman Rushdie writes in English, not “Indian”. 2 I once asked the Irish ambassador if her “Irish” was good. She hesitated before answering, since for her the question evidently referred to Irish, the Gaelic language, and not English. 3 The State officials (embetsstanden) had strong cultural and personal connections with Denmark. That is where they went to university. (The first university in Norway, Det kongelige Frederiks Universitet, first opened in Christiania (Oslo) in 1813.) Many of them were married to Danes. Many were Danish, cf. Feldbæk (1998: 390). Language history and the power of symbols 143
However, this linguistic trickery turned out to have major implications, all the way until our time.4 For this definition expresses the dominant view for a long time to come, bluntly stated: call it Norwegian and keep it Danish.5 On the one hand, avoid calling Danish Danish (rather use terms like “mother tongue” [Modersmaalet], or “our common literary and written language” [vort almin- delige Skrift- og Bogsprog]).6 On the other hand, keep the Danish language free from Norwegian influences! Do not Norwegianise the Danish language!
(II) Norwegianisation of the Danish language – so late, and so reluctantly However, this is not how the history of the Norwegian language is usually por- trayed, in retrospect, once the written Danish of Norway had gradually been Norwegianised. Now, in retrospect, this pivotal time in Norwegian language history is usually described as if a wish to Norwegianise the Danish written lan- guage was mainstream right from the start and that the effort to Norwegianise commenced shortly after 1814. References are often made to Henrik Werge- land and what he said and did early in the 1830s, as well as to Knud Knudsen a little later. In a textbook for secondary schools we may read the following: Most people agreed that we needed a genuine Norwegian language after liberation from Denmark. The question was how to best attain this new language. Three possi- bilities or methods in particular were debated: 1) Keep Danish as the written lan- guage in Norway; 2) gradually Norwegianise written Danish by introducing Nor- wegian words and expressions and by adjusting the spelling of the written language in compliance with Norwegian pronunciation; 3) develop a new Norwegian lan- guage with Old Norse as the starting point.7 The first model was rejected by most, but the other two constituted the basis for what we now refer to as the Norwegian language conflict (Fjeld 2008: 226).
4 For example, during a discussion in the Faculty of Law at the University of Bergen about the in- troduction of human rights paragraphs to the Constitution, Inge Lønning, professor of theology and prominent member of the Conservative party, insisted (emotionally) that the language of the Constitution is Norwegian. 5 Cf. the historian Øystein Rian (2009: 164–169): “the Danish-Norwegians had a strong aversion to the Swedish language. They knew that Norwegian dialects were much more similar to Swedish than to Danish and they feared that this would lead to a Swedish-Norwegian language. To fortify the legitimacy of written Danish in Norway, they made haste to call it alternately either Nor- wegian or the “mother tongue” and they held a purist attitude against any Norwegianisation of this language.” 6 These are the names used in the law for language equality of 1885, in order to avoid using the word “Danish”. At the same time, it was impossible to use the word “Norwegian” because now we had “the Norwegian vernacular language” (‘det norske Folkesprog’). Thus the term “our com- mon written and literary language” (‘vort almindelige Skrift- og Bogsprog’) was chosen. The name “Bokmål”, disliked by Riksmål activists (cf. Arnulf Øverland: Bokmålet – et avstumpet landsmål; ‘Bokmål a blunted Landsmål’), has in this way a prehistory, being used in 1885 in or- der to avoid the term “Danish” or “Norwegian-Danish”. 7 This sounds more like P. A. Munch's suggestion in the 1830s than Ivar Aasen, who had the con- temporary rural dialects as his starting point. 144 Gunnar Skirbekk
In reading this, we might get the impression that there was wide consensus in favour of Norwegianising the Danish written language straight away from 1814, and moreover that the path taken led directly to the written language of Bokmål that we have today.8 But that is not the case. Rather the other way around. The prevailing opinion supported the status quo, to go on with Danish as the written language. This was the dominant view after 1814 and for a long time to come. In this context, Henrik Wergeland was a marginal figure. There were people like P. A. Munch who represented the dominant view: that Danish should not (and could not) be Norwegianised.9 Admittedly, in the 1840s and 1850s Knud Knudsen emerged with his “Danish-Norwegian language en- deavour” [dansk-norske sprogstrev], a programme for gradual Norwegiani- sation of written Danish (in competition with Ivar Aasen and in opposition to P. A. Munch).10 Furthermore, the spelling had been somewhat simplified in 1862: f for ph, k for ch, hus “house” for huus, li “slope” for lie (cf. Jahr 2014: 40f.). An end was also put to conjugating verbs in the plural and the capital- isation of nouns, as was done in Danish and Swedish. But the Norwegianisa- tion of Danish did not start making headway until the spelling reforms in 190711 and 1917, and at that time under pressure from landsmålet and mål- rørsla (inspired by Ivar Aasen) that made major advances in the late 1800s and into the 1900s.12 As late as in 1899, the same year that the name “Riksmål” was launched, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson said: “I see it as an asset that we share the written lan- guage with the Danes” [Jeg ser det som et Gode, at vi deler Skriftsprog med Danskerne] (Sørensen 2001: 389). The separation (between Danish and Danish-Norwegian) came late. The first parallel publishing of the same book, one version in Danish and one in Danish- Norwegian, occurred in 1919 (Jahr 1994: 45), more than 100 years after 1814,
8 For similar disinformation, cf. the book given to new Norwegian citizens: Sørensen, Øystein (2006) Velkommen som ny statsborger (‘Welcome as a new citizen’). Arbeid- og inkluderings- departementet, p. 22: “In 1814 the written language was Danish and it continued to be Danish in the years after 1814 [!]. Many [!] of the Norwegian elite saw this as highly inadequate.” 9 Cf. Jahr (2014: 30): “Munch [Norsk Sprogreformation 1832] completely rejected the notion that it would be possible to alter written Danish so that it was more Norwegian without creating a state of complete linguistic chaos. Munch felt that written Danish in Norway should be kept as it was, […]” Ibid. p. 31: “Munch’s primary concern was to keep the Danish standard as it was […] This view has been greatly under-represented in previous accounts of Norwegian language develop- ment.” 10 Cf. Knud Knudsen Haandbog i Dansk-Norsk Sproglære from 1856, and Kortfattet redegjørelse for det dansk-norske målstrev, 1887. 11 Jahr (2014: 79): “After the reforms to Dano-Norwegian in 1907, the nation faced a situation whereby it now had to accommodate two distinct and officially recognized written standards, both of which differed from Swedish and Danish standards. Before then, it could be claimed that only one clearly Norwegian standard existed, that is, Landsmaal, since the other was only slightly dif- ferent from the Danish written in Denmark.” 12 Jahr (2014: 55): “Only when the Landsmaal project became an imminent threat as a result of the political development of the 1870s and 1880s did Knudsen’s language programme finally become more acceptable to the upper-middle classes.” Also ibid p.72. Language history and the power of symbols 145 and on the verge of the interwar period.13 The process of Norwegianisation up un- til the 1917 spelling reform had brought “our common literary and written lan- guage” [vort almindelige Skrift- og Bogsprog] so far from written Danish that the book trade now saw them as two languages.14 So belated, and so reluctantly.
The uniqueness: Norwegianisation of Danish In 1814, Norwegians were faced with different strategic choices with regard to the written language: (i) We could continue with Danish. To continue with the language of the colo- nial ruler is a well known strategy in former colonies that have gained their in- dependence – French in Senegal and English in Nigeria. In a Norwegian con- text this strategy was even more tempting since Danish is a closely related lan- guage. And, as already mentioned, from 1814 and for a long time after that, this remained the predominant strategy. (ii) Another option, returning to Old Norse. In principle, that was possible, and was hinted at by the influential historian P. A. Munch. Israel chose to revive He- brew, an ancient liturgic language. And they managed the transition into a mod- ern age, with nuclear physics and pop culture. But the situation of the Jewish set- tlers was quite special. A similar choice was hardly realistic for a Norwegian con- text (even though we could have made a common cause with the Icelanders). (iii) We could have chosen to switch to Swedish. The union was a fact. Many Norwegian dialects are close to Swedish. However, as already mentioned, for political reasons this was not an alternative for the Norwegian elite. (iv) We could choose to gather data from Norwegian dialects and formulate a modern written Norwegian language on the basis on these data. A similar strate- gy has been chosen in many countries both in Europe and other places (e.g. Far- oese, Macedonian, Slovakian15). This is exactly what Ivar Aasen did in Norway.16 (v) Then, there was one further alternative: to Norwegianise written Danish, step by step. And so it became, eventually. But this is special, a unique project. There is nothing else like it. No one has ever considered Ukrainianising the Russian language step by step, and then calling the result Ukrainian. Gradually changing a written language in this way, such that little by little a new language evolves, is unparalleled. The fact that this strategy was eventually chosen and implemented can only be explained by a set of peculiar circumstances. These
13 The Gyldendal Norwegian publishing house was established in Oslo in 1925. Before that, Gyl- dendal was a Danish publishing house in Copenhagen. 14 Cf. Feldbæk (1998: 398) for more on written language and market forces from 1850 to 1890. 15 Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson fraternised with members of the Slovakian language movement, but dis- liked the Norwegian Landsmål movement (målrørsla). 16 Aasen was very exact in recording words and expressions. Everything he used was document- ed. He did not construct words or expressions. But he emphasised the inner cohesion of the lan- guage, and the development from Old Norse to the time of his fieldwork, the 1840s. Borrowings from other closely related languages (such as Danish and German) were not seen as important and most often disregarded. This view (“purism”) is certainly debatable. 146 Gunnar Skirbekk are social and political circumstances as well as the close relationship between the languages. In short, it is Bokmål that is unusual and unique, not Nynorsk.17
(III) Lutheran Confirmation and Language instruction orchestrated by the State Church In the 1730s, Erik Pontoppidan was commissioned by the Danish king to write an exposition of Luther’s catechism to be used in Lutheran Confirmations.18 His book, entitled “Sandhed til Gudfrygtighed” [Truth to piety], which contained 759 questions and answers, was published in 1737 and was the most widely used text- book in Norway for 150 years. Its full title translates as “Truth leading to piety, in a simple and when possible short but sufficient exposition of doctor Martin Lu- ther’s Small Catechism that contains all that one who wants to be blessed has to know and do. Commissioned by the king for general use”.19 This was serious: any- one who could not – in church and in the front of the entire congregation – give correct answers to the priest’s questions would have to retake the examination.20
17 Cf. Jan Terje Faarlund, “Verneverdig bokmål” (‘Bokmål worthy of protection’), Morgenbladet June 2.-8. 2006, p. 16. Similarly, cf. Jahr (2014: 4): “In Norway, the Nynorsk standard has always been regarded by a majority of people as the odd one out, a special case, ‘constructed’ and ‘artificial’ in nature. Bokmål, on the other hand, is generally seen as the ‘natural’ and ‘obvious’ language choice. However, from a more global perspective, there is no doubt that Bokmål is the more unusual case, in part due to its special history. There is no known parallel to Bokmål in any part of the world.” 18 Confirmation became obligatory in 1736 and in Norway it remained obligatory up to 1912. Pontop- pidan (1698–1764) was an interesting figure. He was Bishop of Bergen 1745–1754. He wrote on many subjects, among other things Norwegian language and nature; he published a fictional travel novel, Menoza, about an Asian prince who travelled the world in search of true Christianity, and he edited a Danish-Norwegian economic journal in 8 volumes. A faithful servant of the Danish-Nor- wegian State Pietism (statspietisme), but at the same time an active protagonist of the Enlightenment. 19 (‘Sandhed til Gudfrygtighed, udi en eenfoldig og efter Muelighed kort dog tilstrekkelig Forkla- ring over Sal. Doct. Morten Luthers Liden Catechismo, Indeholdende alt det, som den, der vil bli- ve salig, har behov, at vide og gjøre. Paa Kongelig allernaadigst Befalning, til almindelig Brug.’) 20 759 questions and answers that should be drilled and learnt by rote, in Danish. (Dispensation was possible for those with special difficulties.) The text is partially straightforward and argumentative, partially antiquated and odd. – Question 213. Hvad Ont forbydes os i det siette Bud? Horerie, Ukyskhed, Bloskam, bæstisk Utugt, Legemets Besmittelse, Ægte-Stands Foragt, Lyst til fremmed Deylighed og alle-haande Urænlighed i Tanker […] (‘What evil does the sixth commandment for- bid? Whoring, unchastity, incest, sodomy, adultery, coveting what your neighbour has and all kinds of impure thoughts […]’.) – 225. Hvad er der mere, som kan friste til Ukyskhed? Ørkesløshed, li- derligt Selskab, Romaner og løsagtige Elskovs-Bøger eller Billeder, letfærdige Leege, Dands, Skue-Spil og alt det, som føder Øyens-Lyst, Kiøds-Lyst og et overdaadigt Levnet. (’What more can lead to unchastity? Idleness, bad company, reading novels, permissive romance stories or pictures, frivolous games, dancing, theatre and all things that foster desires for the eyes or flesh and for a lavish life’.) – 226. Hvad for gode Tanker kan være beqvemme til at dæmpe de kiødelige Fristelser? At man ihukommer den allerhelligste Guds Aasyn og Nærværelse, den korsfæste Jesum i sin legem- lige Pine, de Fordømtes gruelige Smerte i Helvede, og den urene Synds korte Glæde efter det be- kiendte Vers: Du skal og ey bedrive Hoer, det monne saa mangen Daare, Ukyskheds Synd den snart forgaaer, men Pinen længe varer. (‘What kind of good thoughts are convenient for suppressing temptations of the flesh? That one remembers the Almighty God’s sight and presence, Jesus’ body suffering nailed to the cross, the damned being painfully tortured in Hell, and the short-lived pleas- ure of impure sins after the known verse: Thou shalt not commit adultery, like so many fools do, and unchastity’s sin fades away quickly but the anguish lasts a long time’.) Language history and the power of symbols 147
If you were not confirmed by the church, you could not marry (and this was before contraceptives). Here the people were being disciplined, by the State, using differ- ent kinds of power, from social class to shame and sexuality.21 However, at the same time, people were also taught how to read. And when the people start reading, the authorities do not know what they might read, and what they might start to think. In this way, it was a liberation, a cultural mod- ernisation,22 as we see it manifested by many folk movements (folkelege rørsler) in Norway during the 1800s (Skirbekk 2010). Mandatory Confirmation and Pontoppidan’s Danish exposition, which was to be learnt verbatim. These were important events, also for Norway’s linguis- tic history: all Norwegian young people, boys and girls, were drilled and disci- plined in Danish, written as well as oral, from the 1730s and a long period.23 A decisive event in Norwegian linguistic history, but seldom mentioned in that connection. It surely does not fit, however, into the traditional narrative of free linguistic development, without State coercion and class power.
(IV) Market forces and books During the 19th century, it was beneficial for Norwegian writers to publish their books in Denmark. It ensured a larger audience, and higher incomes. Accord- ing to the Danish historian Ole Feldbæk, there were as many as 90 Norwegian authors publishing their books with Danish publishing houses in the period from 1850 to 1890 (Feldbæk 1988: 398). This included “the great four”: Henrik Ibsen, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Alexander Kielland and Jonas Lie, but also Ama- lie Skram and many others.24 Similar figures are found by Jens Arup Seip (1981: 21–22), who quotes Nils Collett Vogt: “A book published in the writer’s home country [i.e. in Norway] during this period (1880s–1890s) was a weirdo condemned to be unsold and unread” [En bok trykt i forfatterens hjemland var i hine tider (i 1880–90-årene) et misfoster, dømt til å bli usolgt og ulest]. Seip adds: “It was only during the interwar period [1918–1940] that the liberation (as it may be called) from Den- mark was completed.” The market forces were unambiguous. If you wanted to earn a living from writing, you had to write in Danish and publish in Denmark. It was against this
21 It is just what critical intellectuals, inspired by Foucault, would dream of, as a case of sexuality- based discipline imposed on people by State authorities – if these intellectuals had cared about Norwegian cases. 22 As Max Weber, the classical theoretician of modernity, saw it, in contrast to the post-modernist Michel Foucault (e.g. Weber 1966 and Foucault 1961). For introductory comments on Weber and Foucault, cf. Skirbekk/Gilje 2001, ch. 24, pp. 400f. and ch. 27, pp. 463f. 23 The Danes replaced Pontoppidan’s book with Biskop Balles lærebog (‘Bishop Balle’s text- book’) in 1794, but in Norway Pontoppidan was used throughout the 1800s and even longer. Cer- tain parishes supposedly still use the book today. 24 Cf. the inscription on Amalie Skram’s gravestone: “Danish citizen, Danish subject and Danish author”. 148 Gunnar Skirbekk backdrop that Bjørnson in 1899 wrote: “I see it as an asset that we share a writ- ten language with the Danes.” [Jeg ser det som et Gode at vi deler Skriftsprog med Danskerne] (from Sørensen 2001: 389) – not hard to understand, given the market forces. Nevertheless, an amazing declaration, since it explicitly states that the dominant written language in Norway at that time (1899) was Danish. Furthermore, this is said in the same year that Bjørnson launched the name Riksmål for this language – as a symbolic countermove directed against Lands- målet (later Nynorsk) and Målrørsla, in strong progress at that time.25
(V) The “parents’ campaign” for a written Norwegian close to Danish In the autumn of 1949, a group of parents from the affluent areas of Oslo and Bærum came together to protest against the language used in textbooks26 – especially against the use of -a in the definite form of singular feminine nouns, common in spoken Norwegian,27 but which does not exist in Danish. “The parents’ campaign in the language issue” [Foreldreaksjonen i sprogsaken] was established. In 1951, the “Riksmål Society” [Riksmålsforbundet] joined in, and the “national committee for the parents’ campaign against Samnorsk” [Landskomiteen for Foreldreaksjonen mot samnorsk] was established. The parents’ campaign was active on several levels and had high impact. They collected 407,119 signatures with a petition in 1953.28 In the same year, they started an initiative to “correct” with pen and ink the language used in school- books. An amplification of this was the burning of Samnorsk books – 10–15 years after World War II, with similar atrocities by the Nazis.29
25 As mentioned above, in the “Equality Decision” (jamstillingsvedtaket) from 1885, the expres- sion used is “vort almindelige Skrift- og Bogsprog” (‘our usual written and book language’). Hjal- mar Falk and Alf Torp used the adjective “Danish-Norwegian”, as in the titles of their books: Dansk-norsk lydlære (‘Danish-Norwegian phonetics’), 1898, and Dansk-norskens syntax (‘Danish- Norwegian syntax’, 1900. 26 According to the Oslo decision (Oslo-vedtaket) of 1939. 27 With the exception of the Bergen dialect, that in return has “eg” and “ikkje”, as in Nynorsk. 28 For comparison: The campaign against the distribution of condoms to Norwegian soldiers in the Norwegian Brigade in Germany in 1947 collected 440,000 signatures. The campaign against the liberalisation of the abortion law in 1974 collected 610,000 signatures. 29 Cf. for example Jahr (2014: 135f.): “Some of the means employed by the Riksmål supporters in their struggle were very insensitive. For instance, only a decade or two after Nazi atrocities had taken place in the country, young high-school Riksmål supporters threw school textbooks onto bon- fire because they were written in Radical Bokmål, which was branded as ‘pan-Norwegian’ [‘sam- norsk’] by Riksmål advocates. The first of these book burnings occurred in 1956, the final in 1963. […] Many Riksmål supporters were not able to see that this was a totally unacceptable form of ac- tion, with unpleasant recent associations. The poet André Bjerke (1918–85), one of their ideological leaders and the founder and editor of their magazine Ordet, actually wrote enthusiastically about this deed – one of his articles carried the title “Books as fuel for the bonfire!” [‘Brennstoff til et bokbål’, i Hårdt mot hårdt, published by Riksmålsforbundet, 1963, p. 81, 89]. – For more about the burning of books, see Kjartan Fløgstad, Brennbart, Oslo 2004, and more recently, the burning of books by the youth politician of the Right Party (Høgre), Harald Hove, in 2005, cf. ftn. 40. Language history and the power of symbols 149
The parents’ campaign is an interesting phenomenon. Not because there were people who thought that the Norwegianisation process had gone too far. Due to the fact that the Danish written language gradually had become Nor- wegianised, in particular due to the writing reforms of 1907 and 1917, it is un- derstandable that there were different opinions as to how far the Norwegiani- sation should go and also in view of the social anchoring of language standard- isation. The cultural dispute that included nation and classes is well known from the 1800s. The interesting point is the following: the Riksmål activists had such a strong and long-lasting impact; and they themselves did not realise (or indeed care) that they simultaneously hurt and stigmatised people who used words and forms that the Riksmål activists perceived as foul and vulgar;30 and the Riksmål activists did not want to (or could not) understand that there are many kinds of power, not merely from the State or elected politicians but also from the market, from social status and social networks, and from obtaining the power to define terms in the social sphere.31 In this setting, there are many interesting issues for social research: how was the campaign organised? How did they proceed? What kind of social and professional background did the activists32 have? Which networks were activated? What about contacts with publishing houses, newspaper editors, cultural institutions and po- litical parties?33 What about the finances? When key actors in the business community systematically supported publications of the Riksmål association such as “Frisprog” [Free speech] and “Ordet” [The Word], did they only do this in support of the language policy or was this also directed against the Labour
30 Jahr (2014: 134): “Riksmål supporters […] saw it as totally unacceptable that the current offi- cial Bokmål standard required their children to use forms which they had always considered ‘sloppy’, ‘ugly’ and even ‘vulgar’. Riksmål supporters could not or would not recognize that this viewpoint implied the social denigration of speakers who used these so-called ‘vulgar’ forms in their everyday speech.” Ibid., 134: “The sociolinguistic aspect of the conflict was obvious, but mostly denied by the Riksmål supporters.” 31 Hence, it is problematic to refer to Norwegian linguistic history in the 18th and 19th centuries as “free language development” (‘fri sprogutvikling’). 32 What kind of education and professional experience? What about knowledge of and friendship with people from other backgrounds and other social classes, and from other parts of the country? What about knowledge of the political history of our language? 33 A central activist and organisor, Sofie Helene Wigert (1913–1989), came from a shipping family (née Olsen) and was herself a shipowner and married to the Aftenposten editor, J. S. Huit- feldt in her first marriage. She was editor of Frisprog (1953–1981), which was supported by key business figures who regularly advertised in Frisprog. She was honoured as a Knight of the Saint Olav’s Order. – Another activist was Henrik Groth (1903–1983), known for his declaration that the fatherland had been subject to two fatal disasters: the Black Plague (Svartdauden in the 14th century) and Ivar Aasen. Groth was managing director of Cappelen publishing company (1947– 1973), chairman of the Norwegian Booksellers Association and of the Norwegian Publishers As- sociation, member of the board and later deputy chairperson of the National Theatre, referred to as “the leading publisher in the history of Norway” (alongside Harald Grieg, according to Nor- wegian Wikipedia (https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrik_Groth), received Fritt Ords Pris (‘free word prize’) in 1977, Riksmålsforbundets litteraturpris (‘Riksmål Society Literature Prize’) in 1980, and Knight, 1st Class, of the Saint Olav’s Order. – What does all this tell us about power in the form of networks and social capital? (Cf. Bourdieu.) Good topics for social scientific re- search? 150 Gunnar Skirbekk party?34 What about the power of symbols in the form of social capital, the power to define and the designation of social status?35 And what about the rhetoric? There are lots of interesting questions, for researchers in sociology and other social sciences. Yet there is hardly any social scientific research into this cam- paign.36 This is strange. As a contrast, consider all the themes about social power and covert discrimination that have been investigated thoroughly by social scien- tists in Norway, again and again. But not this one. We have to ask why? It is interesting that this topic was not seen as interesting. That is in itself a challenging sociological question, for social scientists.37 Not only that: there is power in being allowed to act in peace, to act politic- ally without becoming a research topic of critical and publically accessible re- search. The author and Riksmål activist Arnulf Øverland, with his rhetorical trickery, could thus safely avoid any effective correction.38 The “parents’ campaign” has been allowed avoid being investigated by critical research by social scientists.39 Even the burning of books, as a deliber- ate political action 50 years later, could pass without public reaction.40 In short,
34 And what about the negotiations (behind closed doors) between Riksmål supporters and central people in the Labour party, when the campaign obtained a political impact and the leadership of the Labour party wanted to have peace about the language question (bearing in mind the upcom- ing elections)? Cf. Trygve Bull (1980: 250). 35 Cf. Bourdieu (1979) on class power in terms of designation downwards. 36 All I have been able to find are works written by researchers and scholars in philology. 37 Does this tell us something about the role and force of a taboo? Or about linguistic blindness or one-sided cultural formation? About narrow recruitment and narrow social experience? Or about a lack of self-critical reflection? 38 Cf. Arnulf Øverland’s (1949: 11–13) curious reference to a strange letter, in Bokmålet – et avstumpet landsmål, commented on in the next section. 39 Jahr (2014: 133): “The political right and private enterprise supported the Riksmål movement, private enterprise contributed to it financially, among other ways by advertising in every issue of the Riksmål movement’s publications Frisprog (‘Free Language’) and Ordet (‘The Word’).” 40 Cf. from Bergensavisen 12 August, 2005: “Harald Victor Hove [Høgre; politically right] burns Nynorsk books to win young voters. – By now, three commercials have been made to help the 22-year old Hove to get a seat in Norwegian Parliament. The youth candidate in fifth place cam- paigns against car taxes, the ban on alcohol for those under 18, and against Nynorsk as a second- ary language at school. In one of the commercials, he throws a copy of Alf Hellevik’s Nynorsk ordliste [‘Nynorsk dictionary’] into a burning oil barrel. – “Yes, it is the yellow one. We called it the “spynorsk mordliste” (approximate translation ‘vomit-Norwegian murder-list’), hee hee. I am burning it to show that we want to abolish the second Norwegian language requirement. Nynorsk is a problem for many people who are trying to learn how to write good Norwegian, says the Høyre politician. The commercials are meant to impress young voters. – They will probably be shown at the cinema house in Bergen. In any case, they will be put up on my homepage, stem- harald.no, that will be up and running on Monday, says Hove.” – Hove became the city counsellor for schools in Bergen, delegated into this position by the ruling party, the Høgre. However, good rumours have it that Hove has changed over the years. Such things happen. As when Knud Blaauw, a former leader of the Riksmål association in Bergen, made a transition and joined the Noregs Mållag (‘The Norwegian Language Society’ – promoting Nynorsk). Bergen is diverse, in ways that people around the Oslo fjord do not always comprehend. As when the Bergen enthusi- ast, Sjur Holsen, went in for Bergen as the “Nynorsk capital” (‘nynorskens hovedstad’). – “Here we use Nynorsk, here we are different” (De hårsåres diktatur, 2013: 43ff.). Or the arch-Bergen- sian, Arild Haaland, who was honorary member of the Vestmannalaget (the oldest association in favour of Ivar Aasen’s language), with his diploma hanging at the entrance to his university of- fice. Language history and the power of symbols 151 they were able to exercise rhetoric-defining power without research-based cor- rection. What does that mean, for us today?
(VI) Linguistic trickery That uniqueness of the Norwegian language situation lies in the step by step Norwegianisation of the Danish written language. There is nothing else like it. And it is a contentious process, with tensions all along: how far should this new language be removed from Danish? Which social groups and which regions should be allowed to determine the standardization of the new language? However, the very term “Norwegianisation” [fornorsking] is now seldom used: in 2014, changes to the Danish language in the Norwegian Constitution were currently referred to as “modernisation”, not as Norwegianisation. In exams at secondary school, authors who wrote in Danish, such as Ibsen, Bjørn- son or Skram, are said to have been “facilitated” or “modernised”, not “Nor- wegianised” [fornorska]; also when books by these authors are published to- day, the texts are said to have been “modernised”, not Norwegianised. How- ever, the Danes too can “modernise” Danish texts written by Amalie Skram and Henrik Ibsen, or by Ludvig Holberg. The difference is that when Norwegians “modernise” Holberg and Ibsen, it is at the same time a Norwegianisation. But hardly anyone speaks of Norwegianisation in such contexts. Why? Why this avoidance of using the term “Norwegianisation”? In his day, Arnulf Øverland fought against what he sarcastically called “down-Norwegianisation” [nednorsking]: “And remember that ‘Bokmål’ is not a language but a harassment, […] this public clownery” [Og husk at bokmål ikke er noget sprog, men en chikane […] dette offentlige klovneri] (Øverland 1949: 51). “It is the babbling of the dummies” [Det er sinkenes babel] (Øver- land 1948: 29). Here, Øverland is quoting a letter to illustrate linguistic coer- cion by the State and the dreadfulness of “Bokmål”. But this is not a letter from the State, but a letter to the State, written by a private (not named) person, com- plaining about taxes (and who apparently dislikes the State). At the same time, it is unclear how (and why) precisely Øverland came into possession of this let- ter.41 In short, it is something for a rhetorical analysis to seize on! Lars Roar Langslet (a conservative politician and Riksmål activist) pub- lished a Festschrift for the “Riksmål association” [Riksmålsforbundet] entitled “Fighting for Norwegian culture” [I kamp for norsk kultur] – not “for Nor- wegian language”, reasonably enough, since the Riksmål association was established in 1907 to defend a written language that was close to Danish, in reaction to the Norwegianisation movement. However, in this book Langslet refers to this curious private letter as a “public ‘paper’” [et offentlig “skriv” ] and to Øverland’s rhetorical trickery as an “agitatory master piece” [et agita-
41 Cf. footnote 38. 152 Gunnar Skirbekk torisk mestergrep]: “After this, Bokmål and Samnorsk were equal terms for what the Riksmål movement is fighting against” (Langslett 1999: 188). Per Petterson is an author of superb language, and a living proof that Riksmål activists, with Øverland in the lead, were shamefully mistaken when they stamped Bokmål as “useless” and “vulgar”. Per Petterson writes in the Bokmål variety closest to the dialects and hence also closest to Nynorsk (in Norwegian: “Radikalt bokmål”). He has received numerous prizes for his books: “Språklig samlings pris” (1993), (the publishing house) Oktober’s Prize (1996), the Brage Prize (2000 & 2008), Klassekampen’s Literature Prize (2003), Norwegian Booksellers’ Prize (2003 & 2012), Norwegian Critics’ Prize for Literature (2003 & 2008), Nordic Council’s Literature Prize (2009), (the publishing house) Gyldendal’s Prize (2013), Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (2006), Le Prix Littéraire Européenne Madeleine Zepter (2006), Le Prix Mille Pages (2006), International IMPAX Dublin Literary Award (2007), Prix des Lecteurs de Littérature Européenne (2007), New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year (2007). His novels have been translated into 50 foreign lan- guages, his most famous novel being “Out stealing horses” (2003). Up until 2005, the Riksmål movement was fervently trying to abolish the dif- ferentiation between so-called main forms (meaning forms that could be used in school text books) and allowed forms (allowed for all but for text books in school) in Bokmål. Their goal was clear: It must be allowed to use more lin- guistic forms close to Danish; for example, all feminine forms in Norwegian (that end in -a) could be changed to common-gender words (ending in -en), e.g. kuen (instead of kua “the cow”), huldren (instead of huldra “the fairy, the forest spirit”), merren (instead of merra “the mare”), hurpen (instead of hurpa “the hag”), våronnen (instead of våronna “the spring work”), på fyllen (instead of på fylla “being intoxicated”), ta rotten på (instead of ta rotta på “gang up on”) etc. However, this led to Bokmål having a tremendously large number of double forms. Ironically so, since the supporters of Bokmål with linguistic forms close to Danish have always fought for a strict norm. And they have criticised Nynorsk for being difficult due to the many optional forms (before the 2012 reform). However, after the Danish forms were set free in Bokmål in 2005, it is Bok- mål that formally had a wild chaos of optional forms. For example, if you took this – admittedly – constructed Nynorsk sentence: “Ei lita jente kasta dokka si djupt nedi graset på framsida av løa der kua beita” [a small girl threw her doll deep into the grass in front of the barn where the cows were grazing], there is only one way to write this sentence in Nynorsk. How many ways for Bokmål, formally, after the permitting of Danish forms in 2005? The answer is 213 times. That is 8,192 – eight thousand one hundred and ninety two. In short, the norm in Bokmål is now so broad that it opens the way for wild chaos. It opens the way for Bokmål emerging as two languages, i.e. a language as close to Danish as possible (called Moderate Bokmål or Riksmål), and Per Petterson’s lan- guage closer to the popular dialects (called Radical Bokmål). Language history and the power of symbols 153
Hence, it is obfuscating when Trond Vernegg, leader of the Riksmål associ- ation, writes about Riksmål and Bokmål in the Norwegian daily “Klassekam- pen” April 21, 2014, as if this is just one harmonic language norm. It was never that simple, and is not that simple. There are now two paths for Bokmål: either tighten its norms, for example, opt for the consistent use of the feminine forms – such as kua “the cow”, øya “the island”, hytta “the cabin” – with these forms becoming the only correct forms, or to differentiate between Bokmål and Bokmål close to Danish as two separate languages. Moreover, it is possible to love Nynorsk and still – in good faith – pursue a politics that undermines Nynorsk. That is schizophrenic, but possible. How- ever, if Trond Vernegg and the Riksmål association truly care about Nynorsk as they claim they do, when they state that Nynorsk is “an important part of our culture and cultural heritage and important […] for our society” (“Klassekam- pen” April 21, 2014), they ought to read the 2014 PhD. dissertation “Mellom nøytralitet og språksikring” [Between neutrality and language protection], written by Eli Bjørhusdal (cf. also her paper in this volume), where she lists reasons for an active protection of Nynorsk – under the premise that one sees Nynorsk as “an important part of our culture and cultural heritage and im- portant for our society”.
At the end And then, at the end, in the conciliatory light of an afterthought, there might be reasons to appreciate that all Scandinavian languages now and in the future are our languages, we who are so lucky as to grow up in this part of the world at this time. It is all ours from Ibsen to Garborg, from the Old Norse sagas to Per Petterson, from Selma Lagerlöf and H. C. Andersen to Haldor Laxness and Piet Hein and many more. We should be thankful for that.
References Balle, Nicolai Edinger, 1794: Lærebog i den evangelisk-christelige Religion. Køben- havn. Bergensavisen, 12 August, 2005. Bjerke, André, 1963: Hårdt mot hårdt. Oslo. Bjørnhusdal, Eli, 2014: Mellom nøytralitet og språksikring. PhD diss. University of Oslo. Bourdieu, Pierre, 1979: La distinction. Paris. Bull, Trygve, 1980: For å si det som det er. Oslo. Faarlund, Jan Terje, 2006. Verneverdig bokmål. In: Morgenbladet, 2–8 June. Falk, Hjalmar & Torp, Alf, 1900: Dansk-norskens syntax. Kristiania. 154 Gunnar Skirbekk
Feldbæk, Ole, 1998: Danmark-Norge, vol. 4. Oslo. Fjeld, Ruth Vatvedt, 2008: Quotation. In: Anne Lise Jomisko, Tommy Moum & Marianne Texmo: Spenn Vg3. Oslo. P. 226. Fløgstad, Kjartan, 2004: Brennbart. Oslo. Foucault, Michel, 1961: Histoire de la folie. Paris. Holsen, Sjur, 2013: De hårsåres diktatur. Bergen. Jahr, Ernst Håkon, 1994: Utsyn over norsk språkhistorie. 2nd edition. Oslo. Jahr, Ernst Håkon, 2014: Language planning as a sociolinguistic experiment. Edin- burgh. Knudsen, Knud, 1856: Haandbog i dansk-norsk Sproglære. Kristiania. Knudsen, Knud, 1887: Kortfattet redegjørelse for det dansk-norske målstrev. Kristiania. Langslet, Lars Roar, 1999: I kamp for norsk kultur. Oslo. Øverland, Arnulf, 1948: Hvor ofte skal vi skifte sprog? Oslo. Øverland, Arnulf, 1949: Bokmålet – et avstumpet landsmål. Oslo. Pontoppidan, Erik, 1737: Sandhed til Gudfrygtighed etc. København. Rian, Øystein, 2009: 1809–14 – grunnlaget for det moderne Norden. In: Nytt Norsk Tidsskrift 26. Pp. 164–169. Seip, Jens Arup, 1981: Utsikt over Norges historie, Annen del. Oslo. Skirbekk, Gunnar & Gilje, Nils, 2001: A history of western thought. London/New York. Skirbekk, Gunnar, 2011: Multiple modernities. A tale of Scandinavian experiences. Hong Kong. Sørensen, Øystein, 2001: Norsk idéhistorie. Oslo. Sørensen, Øystein, 2006: Velkommen som ny statsborger. Oslo. Torp, Alf & Falk, Hjalmar, 1898: Dansk-norsk lydlære. Kristiania. Vernegg, Trond, 2015a: Det historiske krumspringet. In: Klassekampen 21 April. Vernegg, Trond, 2015b: Ut av skyttergraven, Grepstad. In: Klassekampen 27 May. Vinje, Finn-Erik 2004: http://www.sprakradet.no/Toppmeny/Publikasjoner/Spraak- nytt/Arkivet/2004/2/Svesismer. Weber, Max, 1966: The theory of social and economic organization. New York. Unintended consequences of language planning 155 “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley”: unintended consequences of language planning1
Peter Trudgill, University of Fribourg
Language planning In the field of language planning, the term status planning refers to decisions which are taken concerning the selection of particular languages or varieties of language for particular purposes in the society or nation in question.2 Decisions about which language or languages are to be the national or official languages of particular nation-states are among the more important of status planning issues. Corpus planning, on the other hand, is the aspect of language planning in which decisions are taken about the linguistic characteristics of the variety of language in question. Typical corpus planning issues involve questions con- cerning which pronunciation to use of those available; which syntactic struc- tures and morphological forms are to be permitted; which of a number of regionally based words of identical meaning is to be favoured; and what is to be done about expansion of the vocabulary. In this paper, I examine a number of examples of language planning de- cisions which have not had all – or indeed any – of the consequences that were intended by the planners and which, more especially, have had other conse- quences which were not intended. In most cases, these unintended conse- quences might have been forseen if more consideration had been given to the natural linguistic behaviour of speakers of human languages; and if the planners had taken a more linguistically and sociolinguistically informed and sophisticated approach. In this examination, I describe a number of language-planning decisions which have been taken at both the status planning and corpus planning levels; and I outline unintended consequences of these decision at both the status and corpus planning levels, making for a four-way taxonomy in all.
1 The Scots title to this paper, as many readers will recognise, is from Robert (Rabbie) Burns’ (1785) poem Tae a moose ‘To a mouse’: agley translates as ‘awry’. 2 I am very grateful for the helpful discussions I have been able to have during the course of the preparation of this paper with Jan Terje Faarlund and Ernst Håkon Jahr. 156 Peter Trudgill
1. Unintended corpus consequences of status planning: Israeli Hebrew Under this first heading, we note that planning decisions made at the status level can have interesting unintended knock-on effects at the corpus level. That is, they can have consequences for the actual linguistic characteristics of the language variety or varieties involved even though none were intended. One very compelling example of this phenomenon is provided by the case of mod- ern Israeli Hebrew. As is well known, Hebrew had ceased to be spoken as a native language by about 200 AD at the latest; Jesus was a native speaker of Aramaic rather than Hebrew. For 1,700 years after that time, Hebrew had no native speakers at all and survived as a liturgical and literary language only, though it could occa- sionally function as a lingua franca for Jews in the diaspora, just as the similarly liturgical language Latin could function in the same way for educated western Europeans. During the last 100 years or so, however, Biblical Hebrew has been revived as a spoken language, and has once again acquired native speakers, currently around 5 million. Hebrew is now the official language of Israel, where it is used as the main means of communication in all domains of public life (Zuckermann 2006). After very many centuries as a dead language, it is once again a mother tongue: it has, rather remarkably, been revived. But what exactly is it that has been revived? The lack of normal transmission down through a continuous chain of native speakers from Old Hebrew to mod- ern Israeli Hebrew means that the results of the “revival” of Hebrew are not at all those that were intended. The language spoken in Israel today is not, as in- tended, the language of the Hebrew Bible which was used as the basis of the revival. Rather it is “a semi-engineered Semito-European hybrid language” (Zuckermann 2006: 57). Modern Israeli is a very different language from Bib- lical Hebrew. The language as it is now spoken has, it is true, Semitic morphology; but its phonology is basically Germanic and/or Slavic: “the Israeli Hebrew sound sys- tem continues the phonetics and phonology of Yiddish, the native language of almost all the revivalists” (Zuckermann 2006: 63). And the syntax is similarly also very strongly influenced by Germanic and/or Slavic : Wexler (1990) refers to it as “a Slavic language in search of a Semitic past”. This is very clearly due to the fact that most of the early Zionists in Palestine who were involved in the very difficult task of converting the biblical language into a living modern language were native speakers of the Germanic language Yiddish who had come from areas of Eastern Europe, such as Poland and Ukraine, which were predominantly Slavic speaking (Wexler 1990). It is true that modern Israelis are able to read the Hebrew Bible. But this is not at all because the modern language is identical with the biblical language: “The reason Israelis can be expected to understand the Book of Isaiah – albeit Unintended consequences of language planning 157 still with difficulty – is surely because they study the Old Testament at school for eleven years, rather than because it is familiar to them from their daily con- versation” (Zuckermann 2006: 66). According to Zuckermann, Israelis tend to read the Bible as if it was modern Israeli Hebrew and therefore often misunder- stand it. Moreover, “by and large, Israelis are the worst students in advanced studies of the Bible” (Zuckermann, 2006: 65). Zuckermann tells us that this fact is not recognised by most Israelis: “Israeli children are told that the Hebrew Bible was written in their mother tongue. In other words, in Israeli primary schools, Hebrew and the mother tongue are, axiomatically, the very same” (Zuckermann 2006: 65). Anyone arguing that, in order to facilitate the comprehension of the Hebrew Bible by modern Israelis, the Bible should be translated into modern Hebrew would apparently meet with absolutely no agreement on the part of the Ministry of Education. Language planners can plan for the revival of a dead language, but they can- not plan for how human speakers will actually execute that revival. Any such planners should assume that the mother-tongue background of the speakers who are tasked with the revival – as in the case, for example, of the anglo- phones who are currently attempting to revive Cornish (O’Neill 2005) – will inevitably play a significant role in determining the linguistic outcome. The chances of any natively-spoken modern Cornish being anything very much like what it would have been if it had been the natural continuation of the language as spoken by the last native speakers in the 18th century, with no break in trans- mission, is rather low. There is no doubt that the “revival” of Hebrew is a remarkable phenomenon, but Zuckermann makes it clear that the enormously strong ideological motiva- tion which lay behind the suceess of this revival has had the continuing conse- quence of blinding many people involved in the modern Israeli education sys- tem to the fact that Biblical Hebrew and modern Israeli Hebrew are really very different languages. To acknowledge that fact would be to concede that, as any linguistic scientist would have predicted, there is a significant mismatch be- tween the initial language-planning intentions and the actual contemporary lin- guistic outcome.
2. Unintended status consequnces of status planning: French Polynesia French Polynesia covers a vast area of the South Pacific Ocean and consists of five main groups of islands, of which 67 are inhabited. The five groups are: the Society Islands archipelago, which includes Tahiti, the Tuamotu Archipelago, the Gambier Islands, the Marquesas Islands, and the Austral Islands. Seven different rather closely related Eastern Polynesian languages are spo- ken in French Polynesia. These are Tahitian, Tuamotuan,, Mangarevan (on the 158 Peter Trudgill
Gambier Islands), North Marquesan, South Marquesan, Austral, and Rapan (on Rapa Iti, the most remote of the inhabited Austral Islands). When Captain James Cook first landed in Tahiti in 1769, it had a population of about 40,000. By 1800, as a result of the depredation of introduced diseases and firearms, the population had fallen to about 15,000, and in 1850 it was down to about 6,000 (Mühlhäusler 1987). That period also saw a large influx of English-speaking foreigners to Tahiti, and the teaching of English by Chris- tian missionaries. These same missionaries, however, also introduced literacy in Tahitian and “by about 1840 a large portion of the population of Tahiti was literate in their own language” (Mühlhausler 1987: 7). Tahiti was declared a French protectorate in 1842, and in 1880 France an- nexed Tahiti as a colony, gaining control of the whole area of what is now French Polynesia by 1889. As a result, much of the earlier work that had been done by anglophone Protestant missionaries was undone: “the availability of a standard spelling system [for Tahitian] (1805), school primers (from 1807), a Gospel translation (1837) and a bilingual English-Tahitian lexicon (1851) did the Tahitians little good under French colonial rule” (Mühlhausler 1987: 7). From 1842 onwards, French came to be used in all official and public do- mains in French Polynesia, as well as in the education system, as this devel- oped: Polynesian languages were forbidden in schools. There came into be- ing a “tradition of making French the sole language of education, against con- siderable resistance from the missionaries and the indigenous population who, for a long time, [had] favoured English. Eighteen years after French oc- cupation, in 1860, an ordinance was introduced which made education in French obligatory” (Mühlhausler 1987: 7). This was implemented in 1866. French was the language of all public services; all government publications were solely in French; and French was the only language permitted in the governmental assembly. In more recent times, however, attempts have been made to preserve and re- vive local Polynesian cultures and languages, and to counteract the dominance of French in public life. “After a century of quasi-official repression of the Ta- hitian language, it finally emerged, through legislation passed in 1977, as a co-official language with French” (Tagupa 1979: 144). This development was due to a large extent to “the efforts of Francis Sanford, a Government Council member and Deputy. Sanford’s primary concern was to make the acts and pro- ceedings of local agencies more comprehensible to the electorate, while at the same time emphasizing the cultural significance of Tahitian in a more mean- ingful way” (Tagupa 1979: 154). This has now led to strengthening the role of Tahitian. Increasing numbers of notices and advertisements are currently written in Tahitian, with a French translation; and exams for admission to posts in government include a section in Tahitian. There are two TV stations which both have several fifteen-minutes news bulletins per a day in Tahitian; and some of the radio stations broadcast almost entirely in Tahitian. “Tahitian is strongest in the domain of religion. Not Unintended consequences of language planning 159 only are services conducted fully in Tahitian, but the administration of the church is in Tahitian as well” (Rutter 2006: 3). Sanford’s proposal had been supported by the political opposition party, but some misgivings were expressed about what would happen to people who were not native-speakers of Tahitian. These misgivings turn out to have been well founded. Tahitian is demographically by far the strongest of the local Polyne- sian languages, and it has gradually assumed the role of a lingua franca across the Marquesas, the Tuamotus, the Gambiers and the Australs. One conse- quence of this is outlined by Kuki (1970: 8), who writes of “today’s rapid Ta- hitianization of the Tuamotuan language” and tells us that in many areas “only the older people really know Tuamotuan”. Mühlhäusler has also written of the “rapid Tahitianization of the Tuamotuan language” (1987: 8), something which is obviously facilitated by the linguistic relatedness and similarity of the two languages. The fight-back against French through increasing Tahitianisation has clearly begun to lead to the endangerment and even death of at least some of the six non-Tahitian indigenous Polynesian languages. The weakening of these other languages is taking place both through a process of language shift, whereby speakers abandon their native languages and switch to Tahitian (when they are not speaking French); and, if they do not abandon their native languages, then through the increasing infiltration of Tahitian linguistic features into these other languages, as we have just noted for the “Tahitianisation” of Tuamotuan. The Rapan language in particular seems to be imperilled beyond rescue. It is “highly endangered and spoken by very few people, mostly of the oldest gen- eration. Based on my field observations, I would say that Old Rapa mainly ex- ists as a linguistic memory that can be documented only in certain traditional activities or through elicitation from elders” (Walworth 2015: 18). A status planning initiative to enhance the role of indigenous languages in French Polynesia has paradoxically had the status effect of reducing the role of most of them. And it has also had the corpus consequence that the other lan- guages are acquiring more and more linguistic material from Tahitian.
3. Unintended status consequences of corpus planning As is well known, there are two official written versions of Standard Nor- wegian, Nynorsk and Bokmål, both of them the outcomes of many decades of corpus planning and status planning, as different solutions have been sought, in the aftermath of Norwegian independence from Denmark after 1814, to the problem of how to replace Standard Danish with a standard Norwegian (Jahr 2014). There is no doubt that in the modern era Nynorsk is in various ways the weaker of the two standard varieties, with many fewer publications written in it; and many fewer school districts employing it in the educational system. 160 Peter Trudgill
There are several different social, political, cultural, historical and economic reasons for why this is so. However, it has also been argued that there are linguistic – specifically, lan- guage planning – reasons for this relative weakness. In 1998, the Nynorsk sec- tion of Språkrådet, the Language Council of Norway, suggested that the early corpus-planning decision to allow Standard Nynorsk to have many different numerous alternative linguistic variants for many forms has had the effect of weakening Nynorsk’s status as a nationwide standard form of the Norwegian language. In a paper entitled “Nye prinsipp for normeringa av nynorsk” [New prin- ciples for the standardisation of Nynorsk] Jan Terje Faarlund (1998) wrote, on behalf of the Nynorsk section of the Council, that in future it was planned that “The Nynorsk standard is to have a narrow textbook norm. There is to be no freedom of choice within the norm.” (Today the norm is much less flexible than it was, but some freedom does remain.) Faarlund continues: “The background to this work is a desire to give Nynorsk a more fixed norm and thereby give Nynorsk users a more secure sense of what is right and wrong in the orthography […]. The situation today is that a third of those who have Nynorsk in primary school change language var- iety in later life. When people are asked why they have shifted from Nynorsk to Bokmål, the response is often that it is so easy to make mistakes in Nynorsk. And it is first and foremost the large freedom of choice in Nynorsk which makes it difficult to write ‘correctly’.” This point of view might seem at first glance to be rather paradoxical: one might have thought that having a wider range of possibilities that are all correct would have increased the chances of writers making a choice that is correct. The point, however, seems to be that the wide range of choices is experienced as confusing by Nynorsk learners, and that it produces a feeling of uncertainty amongst Nynorsk users. Rightly or wrongly, then, the claim is that the status of Nynorsk has been un- dermined by the nature of the Nynorsk corpus.
4. Unintended corpus consequences of corpus planning Our final set of unintended consequences consists of examples of corpus plan- ning initiatives which have had corpus outcomes other than those which were intended.
Norwegian numerals In 1951, the Norwegian government introduced a plan to change the Nor- wegian number system from the very long established units-first four-and- Unintended consequences of language planning 161 twenty type system to a new tens-first twenty-four type system. This was the only time in all the many decades of Norwegian language planning that efforts had been made to influence the spoken as opposed to the written Norwegian language. The expectation was that the change, once it had been introduced in the schools and promoted elsewhere, would take only a few years to come into ef- fect in the speech of Norwegian citizens. This was an assumption which turned out to have been wildly optimistic. It is now more than six decades years since this initiative was first taken, and it is clear that the outcome is, once again, not what was intended. The reform has had success, but it is far from being a total success. Writing well over thirty years later, Jahr says that “the old method of counting is still very much alive, especially in casual everyday speech”, but it now survives alongside the new system: “today all Norwegians use both systems” (Jahr 1989: 104). Jahr suggests that one linguistic factor that was not considered by the plan- ners when introducing the reform might have been working against it: this is the trochaic stress pattern which predominates in spoken Norwegian. Because seven out of the nine numerals from 1 to 9 consisted of monosyllables, the new tens-first system mostly led to numerals with stress on the final syllable, as in sekstifem “65”. This then often produced “a clash with the initial word-stress of the following word” which would not have been present in the original fem og seksti. In any case, the fact is that, even today 65 years after the reform, instead of a whole new counting system, Norwegian has two systems, with the old system surviving in a sociolinguistically and phonologically complicated way along- side the new (see Jahr 1989).
English We now turn to a series of examples from English. This might at first sight ap- pear to be surprising, since English has never undergone any formal language planning as such. However, there have been numerous unofficial corpus plan- ning initiatives over the last several centuries aimed at changing some of the grammatical structures of English; and a number of these initiatives have suc- ceeded in establishing conventional wisdoms about how English “ought” to be spoken and written which were traditionally accepted and propagated by older generations of schoolteachers, publishers and editors – as well as, still, by some contemporary pedants. For example, one is the admonition that one should not “split infinitives”, as in “I want to really give it a go”. This belief seems to have arisen out of the fact that Latin, which was of course traditionally considered to be a language supe- rior to the modern European vernaculars, had infinitives which are single words, e.g. dare “to give” and therefore not “splittable”. 162 Peter Trudgill
There is also the pronouncement that sentences should not begin with con- junctions such as but and and. And there is the condemnation of singular they, as in “anyone who loses their umbrella”. Another is the argument that none “is singular” and that to say “none of them are coming” is therefore “incorrect”. But, although widely known, none of these initiatives have actually had the outcomes intended by their propagators in actual modern English usage. They have been and still are being ignored by most writers, and by all speakers. The following three cases, however, represent examples of unofficial lan- guage planning attempts where there have actually been changes and outcomes in current usage – but where these outcomes are not at all those that were in- tended by the “planners”.
English preposition doubling The first of these concerns preposition stranding, as in The shelf I took it from (cf. The shelf from which I took it without preposition stranding). Preposition stranding is a highly unusual phenomenon in the languages of the world; and according to Emonds & Faarlund (2014: 87) “full preposition stranding is nearly non-existent outside North Germanic”. In fact, the pres- ence of full stranding in English, together with its absence from other West Germanic languages, is one of the pieces of evidence which Emonds & Faar- lund put forward in arguing for the North Germanic antecedents of Modern English. It is therefore not surprising that preposition stranding was absent from Latin and is, with minor exceptions absent from the modern Romance languages in- cluding French. It is this contrast between Modern English, on the one hand, and Latin and French, on the other, which has given rise to the phenomenon un- der discussion in this section. In normal native English, full preposition stranding is very much the norm. Preposition stranding occurs in a number of different types of construction. For instance, it can occur in direct questions: Who were you talking about?; in indirect questions: He asked who you were talking about; and in relative clauses: The book (which) I wrote in. That was the place (that) they’d come from. The world (which) we are living in is changing.
However, over the centuries, anglophone prescriptivists and would-be lan- guage planners have argued that “you must not end a sentence with a preposi- tion”. They have presumably been motivated in this argument by an inferiority complex vis-à-vis the supposedly superior syntax of Latin, where prepositions had to be preposed. Their goal was to remove preposition stranding from Eng- Unintended consequences of language planning 163 lish and to replace it with Romance-style structures on the model of French Le livre dans lequel j’ai écrit: The book in which I wrote. That was the place from which they’d come. The world in which we are living is changing.
Unlike the English features mentioned so far, this campaign against preposition stranding has had considerable success. Constructions such as The world in which we are living is changing have become rather normal in formal writing – there are several instances in this paper – as well as in speech of the more for- mal sorts, especially perhaps those where some preparation or rehearsal are possible. The campaign has not, on the other hand, been at all successful in col- loquial English. And it has also led, in less than totally colloquial spoken English, to the phe- nomenon of preposition doubling (Radford et al. 2012), where the preposition is both proposed and stranded: The book in which I wrote in. That was the place from which they’d come from. The world in which we are living in is changing.
What appears to happen is that, under the influence of artificial notions of “cor- rectness” as propagated in the education systems of most anglophone societies, many speakers when talking in relatively formal, somewhat monitored styles sometimes initially start off by employing the Romance-style construction, which does not come naturally to them, but then, without noticing that they are doing so, end up using the syntactic construction which does come naturally to them as well, hence the doubling (Pullum 2007). Radford et al. (2012) cite the following examples from British radio broad- casts: Israeli soldiers fired an anti-tank missile and hit a police post in which the Palestinian policeman who was killed had been in (News reporter, BBC Radio 5). Tiger Woods, about whom this Masters seems to be all about, is due to tee off shortly (Ian Carter, BBC Radio 5). They’re all striving for the health of the European Tour, of which they’re all mem- bers of (Colin Montgomerie, BBC Radio 5). It’s quite clear on which side of the Blair-Brown divide that Alistair Campbell comes down on (Political correspondent BBC Radio 5). It is perhaps not a coincidence that these examples are all taken from live BBC broadcasts where speakers are aware that, as it were, the nation is listening, but are also speaking spontaneously and concentrating on the content of what they are saying as much as on how they are saying it. 164 Peter Trudgill
English me avoidance In normal native English, the subject forms of the personal pronouns I, he, she, we, they are used only as the subject of a verb, and even then only when there is no pronoun coordination: I am leaving now. He likes coffee. She would like some. We are coming. They are going.
Otherwise the corresponding oblique forms me, him, her, us, them are em- ployed: John and them are leaving now. Who was it wanted coffee? Him! Me and Mary would like some too. Who’s there? Me. It was her that did it.
The same centuries-long inferiority complex vis-à-vis Latin mentioned above has led to attempts by the same unofficial language planners to get rid of the use of the oblique pronouns from all structures except those where they occur as objects. This is on the mistaken assumption that they are “accusative case” forms, as in Latin. It is argued that Me and him are coming “should be” He and I are coming (also involved in this particular case is the view that it is “not po- lite to put yourself first”). This particular attempted change has been partly suc- cessful, and the He and I structure is the one which is now most often used in formal speech. Similarly, it is said that It was her that did it “should be” It was she that did it. This seems to have had some success in written American English – with certain contemporary novelists for instance – but is still normally absent from the speech of the overwhelming majority of anglophones. It is much less frequently argued that the answer to Who was it wanted cof- fee? Should be He!, presumably because this sounds just too absurd. Some Americans can, however, be heard to say, when answering the phone to some- one who has asked to speak to them, This is she. This however is widely felt to be absurd by most English speakers elsewhere. For our purposes, however, there are a number of cases where the “accusa- tive case” hypothesis has had consequences in the contemporary language other than those which were intended. It has, first, produced hypercorrect forms, as when subjective pronouns are used in coordination instead of oblique pronouns, as in There was a great rapport between he and his mother. But its most notable unintended consequence undoubtedly lies in the phe- nomenon of me-avoidance. There is a long history of pronouncements by Eng- Unintended consequences of language planning 165 lish-speaking pedants that it is “wrong” to say Mary and me are coming, and that I should be used rather than me, The propagation of this view has produced great insecurity about using me on the part of speakers, who now often there- fore hypercorrect and use constructions such as He brought it for Mary and I as well as the very common Between you and I. It then of course sometimes happens that speakers are also told that this is wrong too, which causes further insecurity. This is currently leading, at least in British English, to the increasing use of myself instead of both I and me, as in There is a great rapport between John and myself and Mary and myself are coming, as a way of avoiding the problem. Unofficial planners have tried to make English more like Latin, but the result has been the exact opposite.
English adjectival complements in -ly Nonstandard varieties of English around the world typically do not distinguish formally, as Standard English does, beween adjectives and adverbs. That is, they use constructions such as She sings nice, He played brilliant, They ran good rather than She sings nicely, He played brilliantly, They ran well. At- tempts to “correct” this pan-world English phenomenon and introduce the Standard English distinction into nonstandard dialects has led to an interesting form of hypercorrection, predominantly in the USA, and involving especially the verb to feel. This appears to have happened because unofficial language planners have not made a correct linguistic analysis of this aspect of English grammar. Their argument, as taught in some schools, is that (i) adjectives modify nouns, and adverbs modify verbs; and (ii) adverbs are derived from adjectives by adding -ly, e.g. nicely from nice: so, she has a nice voice but she sings nicely. The interesting unintended outcome of this is the now rather common American usage of adjectival complements with added -ly, as most often in I feel badly about it. It is presumably thought by speakers wishing to avoid “mis- takes” that I feel bad about it is “incorrect” because bad seems to be modifying the verb feel, so it must be an adverb and should therefore end in -ly. In actual fact, of course, bad here is an adjective which is functioning as a complement modifying I. For most English speakers outside the USA, I feel badly can mean only something like “I’m not very good at feeling”.
Conclusion Language planning initiatives, both of the official and unofficial types, and both at the corpus planning level and the status planning level, may work well, as has generally been the case over the last two hundred years in Norway. Or they may not work at all. But there is also a third possibility: that they may 166 Peter Trudgill work, but not in the way that was hoped for by the planners. This may be be- cause planners have had unrealistic expectations, such as trying to change the centuries-old counting habits of millions of people. Or it may be because planners have not sufficiently consulted the work of scientists in the relevant areas of linguistics, or indeed the scientists them- selves. Given the circumstances, experts on language acquisition would have predicted nothing else than considerable linguistic influence from Yiddish on Israeli Hebrew. And any expert on dialect contact would have foreseen the in- evitability of hyperadaptations of the between he and his mother type. Or it may be that they have not taken the overall linguistic-ecological cir- cumstances sufficienly into account: sociologists of language would have known in advance that singling out one particular indigenous language for favourable treatment would inevitably have negative consequences for the others. As Burns did not quite say, without a consideration of all the relevant linguistic, psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic factors in any given linguistic situation, the best-laid schemes of language planners will often go awry.
References
Emonds, Joseph & Jan Terje Faarlund, 2014: English: the language of the Vikings. Olomouc. Faarlund, Jan Terje, 1998: Ny læreboknormal for nynorsk. In: Språknytt, 98.1. Oslo. Jahr, Ernst Håkon, 1989: Language planning and language change. In: Breivik, L. E. & Jahr, E. H. (eds.), Language change: contributions to the study of its causes. Berlin/ New York. Pp. 99–113. Jahr, Ernst Håkon, 2014: Language planning as a sociolinguistic experiment: the case of Modern Norwegian. Edinburgh. Kuki, Hiroshi, 1970: Tuomotuan phonology. In: Pacific Linguistics B-17. Canberra. Mühlhäusler, Peter, 1987: The politics of small languages in Australia and the Pacific. In: Language and Communication 7. Pp. 1–24. O’Neill, Diarmuid, 2005: Rebuilding the Celtic languages: reversing language shift in the Celtic countries. Talybont. Pullum, Geoffrey, 2007: Could preposition doubling be headed our way? In: Language Log. May 15, 2007. http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004498.html Radford, Andrew, Claudia Felser & Olive Boxell, 2012: Preposition copying and prun- ing in present-day English. In: English Language and Linguistics 16. Pp. 403–426. Rutter, K. L., 2006: Going French, going Tahitian: the Tahitianization of French Poly- nesia. In: Tenth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics. http://www.sil.org/asia/philippines/ical/papers.html Walworth, Mary, 2015: The language of Rapa Iti: description of a language in change. University of Hawai’i PhD thesis. Wexler, Paul, 1990: The schizoid nature of Modern Hebrew: a Slavic language in search of a Semitic past. Wiesbaden. Zuckermann, Ghil‘ad, 2006: A new vision for Israeli Hebrew: theoretical and practical implications of analyzing Israel’s main language as a semi-engineered Semito- European hybrid language. In: Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 5. Pp. 57–71. To what extent can Nynorsk be considered a European minority language? 167 To what extent can Nynorsk be considered a European minority language?
Alastair Walker, University of Kiel
0. Introduction The subject of this paper is the question as to whether Nynorsk can be con- sidered a European minority language.1 In order to investigate this intriguing question we first need to examine the compound noun “minority language” with its two components “language” and “minority”. What is a language and what is a minority language? These are naturally two very fundamental con- cepts but which first need to be briefly examined as a prerequisite for further discussion.
1. The concept of language In order to examine such a concept as “language”, or more specifically “a lan- guage”, a good starting point is to look at definitions already formulated. Thus in the following I shall look at some attempts to define both aspects, the general and the more specific.
1.1. In quoting definitions, I shall start with three universal dictionaries as my sources:2 Oxford Dictionaries: 1 The method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional way. [...] 2 A system of communica- tion used by a particular country or community [...] Collins English Dictionary 2011: 928: 1 a system for the expression of thoughts, feelings, etc, by the use of spoken sounds or conventional symbols 2 the faculty for the use of such systems, which is a distin- guishing characteristic of man as compared with other animals 3 the language of a particular nation or people: the French language [...] 5 the specialized vocabulary used by a particular group: medical language [...]
1 I should like to thank Ernst Håkon Jahr for suggesting this theme which has proven an interest- ing challenge. I should also like to thank Peter Trudgill for his very useful comments on earlier drafts of the article. 2 I do not always quote the whole definition but only salient points. 168 Alastair Walker
Wahrig: Deutsches Wörterbuch 2002: 1184: System von Lauten, die durch Atemluft u[nd] Sprechwerkzeuge des Menschen hervorgebracht werden u[nd] zum Ausdruck von Gedanken, Gefühlen, Willens- regungen usw. dienen, wichtigstes Verständigungsmittel der Menschen unterein- ander; Lautsystem einer menschl[ichen] Gemeinschaft [...]; [...] Fähigkeit zu spre- chen, System von Gebärden, Zeichen, die der Verständigung dienen [...]; die Art, sich schriftlich od[er] mündlich auszudrücken [...]. [System of sounds which are pro- duced by means of man breathing air and his speech organs and which serve to ex- press thoughts, feelings and desires etc, most important means of communication be- tween people: sound system of a human community [...]: [...] ability to speak, system of gestures, signs which serve communication [...] the way of expressing oneself in written or oral form [...].] If we now turn our attention to specifically linguistic dictionaries we find the following definitions: Peter H. Matthews, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics 2014: 215: 1. A language in the ordinary sense: e.g. English or Japanese. [...] 2. The phenom- enon of vocal and written communication among human beings generally; hence also of communication in writing etc. historically derived from it. [...] A formal language is accordingly defined [...] in a way that is taken to apply not only to so-called natural languages [...], or languages in the ordinary sense, but also to artificial systems in logic, computing etc. David Crystal, A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics 2008: 265–266: [...] At its most specific level, it may refer to the concrete act of speaking, writing or signing in a given situation [...]. A particular VARIETY [...] of speech/writing may also be referred to as “language” [...], and this is related to the SOCIOLINGUISTIC [...] restrictiveness involved [...]. In such phrases as “first language”, “the English language”, the sense is the abstract system underlying the collective totality of the speech/writing behaviour of a community [...] or the knowledge of this system by an individual [...]. All of these examples would fall under the heading of “natural lan- guages” – a term which contrasts with the artificially constructed systems used to expound a conceptual area (e.g. “formal”, “logical”, “computer” languages) or to facilitate communication (e.g. Esperanto). In contrast with these instances of individual languages [...], there is also the ab- stract sense of “language”, referring to the biological “faculty” which enables indi- viduals to learn and use their language [...]. At a comparably abstract level “lan- guage” is seen as a defining feature of human behaviour [...]. Helmut Glück, Metzler Lexikon Sprache 2005: 611: Der Ausdruck “Spr[ache]” hat zwei elementare Bedeutungskomponenten: (a) Spr[ache] “an sich”, die Bez[eichnung] der menschl[ichen] Sprachbegabung als sol- cher [...]; (b) Spr[ache] als Einzelsprache, d.h. die Konkretisierung von (a) in einer bestimmten Sprachgemeinschaft, zu einer bestimmten Zeit und in einem bestimmten geograph[ischen] Raum [...] und deren Ausdruck in konkreten Kommunikations- ereignissen. [...] Das Physikal[ische] Substrat von Spr[ache] sind (artikulierte) Ketten von Sprachlauten (später auch Ketten von Schriftzeichen), die in der Zeit (od- er auf einem Schriftträger im zweidimensionalen Raum) linear angeordnet sind und Elemente aller Ebenen des jeweiligen Sprachsystems ausdrücken [...]. [The expres- sion “language” has two elementary semantic components: (a) language “as such”, To what extent can Nynorsk be considered a European minority language? 169
the designation of man’s ability to speak as such [...]; (b) language as an individual language, i.e. the realisation of (a) in a certain language community, at a certain time and in a certain geographical area [...] and its expression in concrete communicative events. [...] The physical basis of language are chains of speech sounds (later also chains of graphic characters) which are in a linear sequence in time (or in written form in two-dimensional space) and which express elements of all levels of the re- spective language system3 [...]] Hadumod Bußmann, Lexikon der Sprachwissenschaft, 2002: 616–617: (1) In der Sprachwissenschaft wird die Vieldeutigkeit des Begriffes S[prache] [...] terminologisch differenziert bzw. präzisiert. Dabei werden [...] unterschieden (a) S[prache] als einzelsprachlich ausgeprägtes System von frei geschaffenen, aber konventionell überlieferten Zeichen bzw. Symbolen und Kombinationsregeln. [De Saussure “Langue”] [...]; (b) S[prache] als individuelle Tätigkeit, als konkreter Sprachvorgang [De Saussure “Parole”] [...]. (3) S[prache] im Sinn von (nationalen) Einzelsprachen wie Deutsch, Schwedisch, Japanisch u.a. [...]. (4) S[prache] im Sinn der Semiotik und Informationstheorie: Jedes zu Kommunikationszwecken verwen- dete Zeichensystem, also neben natürlichen Sprachen auch künstliche Sprachen wie Programmiersprachen, logisch-mathematische Formelsprachen, Flaggensignale und Tiersprachen. [(1) In Linguistics the many possible meanings of the concept lan- guage are differentiated terminologically and made more precise. Thus one differen- tiates (a) language as a system of signs or symbols in a single language which have been created arbitrarily but passed on according to certain conventions and com- binatory rules [De Saussure “Langue”] [...]; (b) language as an individual act, as a concrete linguistic event [De Saussure “Parole”] [...]. (3) language in the sense of in- dividual (national) languages like German, Swedish, Japanese etc. [...]. (4) language in the sense of semiotics and information theory: every system of signs used for com- municative purposes, in other words apart from natural languages also artificial lan- guages like computer languages, logical-mathematical formulaic languages, flag signals and animal languages.] These definitions show a certain amount of agreement, e.g. that language is a par- ticular faculty of homo sapiens, differentiating him from the rest of the animal kingdom, and that a language can belong to a language community or be part of an individual human’s behaviour. It is, however, interesting in our context to see that there is agreement as to language also being “the use of spoken sounds or conventional symbols” (Collins English Dictionary 2011: 928) or “[t]he method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional way (Oxford Dictionaries), to quote but two examples. Thus a language can be both spoken and written.
1.2. Although modern definitions of language seem to acknowledge language as being both spoken and written, the pioneers of linguistic science wished to make a clear distinction. Bloomfield (1939: 21) writes: “Writing is not a lan- guage, but merely a way of recording language by means of visible marks.” Ac- cording to Hockett (1958: 4)
3 The various linguistic levels mentioned are phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, prag- matics etc. 170 Alastair Walker
the linguist distinguishes between language and writing, whereas the layman tends to confuse the two. The layman’s terms “spoken language” and “written language” suggest that speech and writing are merely two different manifestations of some- thing fundamentally the same. Often enough, the layman thinks that writing is some- how more basic than speech. Almost the reverse is true. Gleason (1955: 408) is more outspoken when he writes: Written communication must be sharply distinguished from spoken. The common tendency to use “language” to refer to either indiscriminately has so frequently given rise to serious confusion, not merely among lay people, but also among professional linguists, that many are reluctant to use it of any written code at all, even with ex- plicit qualification. Many linguists consider all forms of writing entirely outside the domain of linguistics and would restrict the discipline to the consideration of spoken language only. Nevertheless, the relationships between speech and writing are close and intimate. [...] But if both are to be treated within the framework of a single discipline, it is essential that they be clearly distinguished at all times. The term language, when used in any linguistic context without qualification, should be reserved exclusively for vocal language, that is, for communication by means of speech. The qualified term, written language, will be used here, in default of any other unambiguous term, for a total system of communication based on writing. 1.3. As a result of these preliminary deliberations, perhaps I might be allowed to suggest that language can be a) purely oral (or vocal), b) both oral and writ- ten, and c) only written. Let us look at these three cases.
1.3.1. There is no doubt that language can be purely oral. Crystal (1987: 178) points out that “speech is many thousands of years older than writing” and that “[i]n the majority of the world’s cultures [...] the languages have never been written down.” Thus there seems to be no dispute that the concept “language” can refer to a purely oral variety.
1.3.2. Similarly, there seems to be no dispute that the concept “language” can refer to a variety which has both oral and written forms. Most European lan- guages are good examples here, e.g. English, French and German. Crystal (1987: 178) tries to modify the linguistic pioneers’ rejection of written lan- guage when he writes: It is understandable but regrettable that writing and speech should have been allowed to confront each other in this way. There is no sense in the view that one medium of communication is intrinsically “better” than the other. Whatever their historical re- lationship, the fact remains that modern society makes available to its members two very different systems of communication, each of which has developed to fulfil a particular set of communicative needs, and now offers capabilities of expression de- nied to the other. Writing cannot substitute for speech, nor speech for writing, with- out serious disservice being done. The scientific study of speech in its own right is now a well-developed subject [...]. The analogous study of the written language is less advanced, but has just as promising a future. To what extent can Nynorsk be considered a European minority language? 171
1.3.3. It becomes slightly more difficult when we wish to recognise a purely written variety as a language. I have the impression we are dealing here with a continuum. It is thought that writing first came into being in the 4th millennium BC, pro- ducing sources which allow the study of the earliest records of language (Glück 2005: 611). The two languages concerned were Sumerian and Egyptian. Al- though we only have written documentation of these two linguistic varieties, nevertheless the varieties are considered languages as it is assumed the records document a once-spoken language. Continuing on this continuum, one can quote Latin which generally speak- ing is today purely a written language, though it can have a liturgical function in church,4 and is also spoken by some enthusiasts. Thus orality is still some- where there, but principally it can be considered another example of a written variety with the status of a language as it derives from a once-spoken variety. Further along the continuum we find the languages which once (practically) died out but which were then revived with the help of written records. Two ex- amples are Cornish (Ellis 1974, Thomas 1984) and Hebrew which are now both spoken languages with their own language communities. So far, we have been looking at written varieties which have the status of a language because they are somehow connected to a once-spoken language which has since disappeared, or a once-spoken language which died out and was later revived. At the end of the continuum we find the many made-up or invented languages such as Klingon from “Star Trek” or the languages Tolkien invented for his “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. It is thought that the “earliest docu- mented invented language is the Lingua Ignota of Hildegard von Bingen, a twelfth-century German nun” (Okrent 2010: 10). It is not known just how many languages have been invented in the course of time but Okrent (2010) and Rogers (2011) present lists of 500 and 125 such languages respectively. The question which now arises is whether these invented or made-up varie- ties can be considered languages. Both the linguistic pioneers Bloomfield/ Hocket/Gleason and modern linguistic dictionaries (Glück 2005) see several levels of analysis in language, e.g. phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and a lexicon. These can also be found in many of the invented languages, two examples of which might be Esperanto (Blanke 1985: 219–292 and 337–367, Janton 1993) and Klingon, both of which now have a community of speakers (Okrent 2010, Rogers 2011). Both of these “languages” were based on features taken from known languages. As there is a “Klingon Language Institute” (www.kli.org) and a “Klingon Dictionary” (Okrand 1992), presumably Klingon can be considered a language although it is perhaps a moot point as to whether this status was only achieved once there actually were speakers.5
4 An example is David Crystal’s experience with Latin in Mass (2016: 198). 5 It is interesting to note that Klingon has been officially recognised as a language as it has been registered with the code “tlh” in the ISO 639-2 and 639-3 administered by the Library of Con- gress. 172 Alastair Walker
Secondly, some of the definitions quoted above see language as “a system for the expression of thoughts, feelings, etc., by the use of spoken sounds or conventional symbols” (Collins English Dictionary 2011: 928) or as a “System von Gebärden, Zeichen, die der Verständigung dienen” [system of gestures, signs which serve the purpose of communication] (Wahrig 2002: 1184). As Crystal has pointed out, a written language can be used as a means of commu- nication. Bußmann (2002: 617) goes one step further when she states that a lan- guage is “[j]edes zu Kommunikationszwecken verwendete Zeichensystem, Sprachen auch künstliche Sprachen [...]” [every system of signs used for com- munication, languages, also artificial languages]. Thus one can argue that a purely written variety can be considered a language even if one might prefer a modified term such as “written language”. As it is often difficult to find an adequate answer to such questions, the basic point is whether one is willing to recognise a given linguistic variety as a lan- guage. This brings us on to the question of language and dialect.
2. Language or dialect? When discussing the perennial question as to the difference between a lan- guage and a dialect, I shall first present a model reflecting developments in Europe since the advent of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, illustrating one criterion before continuing to assess other pos- sible criteria.
2.1. In a model devised to describe developments in Europe relating to the changing landscape with respect to the status of linguistic varieties in the course of the “Renaissance of European regional and minority languages”, starting roughly in the mid-nineteen-seventies, be they languages or dialects or something in between, I have first of all used linguistic or genetic similarity as the criterion in language-contact contexts. Thus I have taken examples of lan- guages in contact on a spectrum between two languages which are highly di- vergent so that there is no doubt as to their status as independent languages, to that of two linguistic varieties where there can be no serious doubt that we are dealing with two varieties of one and the same language, i.e. dialects or simply lects. Thus the continuum starts with a language contact situation found in Spain with Spanish and Basque. One language is Indo-European, the other not. The dissimilarity is so great that these two varieties can safely be considered distinct languages (Trudgill 2003: 1). The next step on the continuum is the lan- guage-contact situation in Wales with English and Welsh, two Indo-European languages but belonging to two different branches, i.e. Germanic and Celtic, so that again we are justified in regarding these as independent languages. We continue with High German and Danish in South and North Schleswig, in Ger- many and Denmark respectively, two Germanic languages but again belonging To what extent can Nynorsk be considered a European minority language? 173 to two different branches, i.e. West and North Germanic, which in turn enables a division into two distinct languages. Following this, we take High German and North Frisian in North Frisia, Germany, both West Germanic languages but sufficiently distinct to allow them to be recognised as independent lan- guages. Thus hitherto we have language-contact situations where the two lin- guistic varieties in question are sufficiently divergent in terms of genetic re- latedness for there to be no difficulty in recognising the two varieties as inde- pendent languages. Following Kloss, we can call them Abstand languages (Trudgill 2001). We then come into an area where we are dealing with linguistic varieties whose relative status is disputed. A classic example is the relationship between High German and Low German. For a long time, the status of Low German was a matter of debate, be it a language or a dialect (Stellmacher 1981). This also applied to other linguistic varieties such as Scots in Scotland and Aragonese and Asturian in Spain, to mention but three examples, and I believe there was also such a discussion in Norway with respect to Kven (Magga 1997, Lane 2011, Söderholm 2012).6 With the advent of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, some of these disputes have now been settled as each state ratifying the Charter has had to make a decision with respect to the status of each linguistic variety within its territory, including the contested varieties, whether they be languages or dialects. Low German, Scots, Aragonese and Asturian as well as Kven have all since been recognised by their respective states as “languages”.7 Continuing on the continuum we come to those linguistic varieties which are considered dialects and whose status has hitherto not been questioned. At the end of the continuum I posit Standard English and the English dialect as spoken in Cheadle Hulme, near Manchester, where I am sure that no one will ever claim the local vernacular to be an independent language.8 As already mentioned, with the advent of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, Europe’s linguistic map began to change. Suddenly we found that a number of linguistic varieties hitherto contested, perhaps only minimally contested, had been given the status of languages. This was no doubt at least partly due to the implementation of the well-known dictum, generally attributed to Max Weinreich,9 that a “language is a dialect with an army and a
6 The Kven case does differ from that of Scots, Aragonese and Asturian as the discussion here concerns the question as to whether Kven should be considered a dialect of Finnish, i.e. a minority language, not of the national language Norwegian, in whatever form. 7 Trudgill points out that Low German and Scots did originally have the status of independent lan- guages but that they as a result of the loss of autonomy were later accorded the status of dialects (1997: 153). Their relatively recent reinstatement as languages means they have completed a whole cycle. 8 I choose Cheadle Hulme as this is the village where I grew up. It would appear that what in my day I perceived as being an independent village has now become assimilated into the greater Man- chester conurbation. 9 Weinreich himself maintains that he is not in fact the father of this well-known quote (Höder 2016: 160). 174 Alastair Walker
Language ? Dialect
Basque Welsh Danish North Frisian Low German Het Bildts Bavarian Cheadle Hulme Spanish English High German High German High German Dutch High German English
Figure 1: The language/dialect continuum prior to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
Language ? Dialect
Basque Welsh Danish North Frisian Low German Het Bildts Bavarian Cheadle Hulme Spanish English High German High German High German Dutch High German English
Figure 2: The language/dialect continuum after the introduction of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
navy”, which might be rephrased as reflecting the political will of the people. An example of this is the Low German language community which was able to persuade the German Government to include Low German in its instrument of ratification (Oeter/Walker 2006: 259–263). Thus Weinreich’s criterion supple- mented the initial criterion of linguistic similarity, changing the division of the continuum as Low German hence moved into the area of recognised languages. On the other hand, linguistic varieties hitherto considered dialects are now seeking recognition as languages, e.g. linguistic varieties in Bavaria and in Het Bildt in the Dutch province of Fryslân/Friesland (van Sluis/Hoekstra/Van de Velde 2015). In theory it is possible that in the future the concept of dialect might dis- appear completely as any self-respecting variety differing from the standard language would want to be considered a language in its own right. This is un- likely to happen but it might be considered the logical continuation of modern- day developments.
2.2. Further possible criteria for the distinction “language” – “dialect” are a) mutual comprehensibility, which is linked to the idea of the Abstand language, b) the use and the speakers of the varieties in society, and c) the relationship between a given Ausbau variety and a dialect continuum. Even though it is gen- erally acknowledged that the question as to whether a linguistic variety should be considered a language or a dialect is not entirely a linguistic matter (Trudgill 2001), nevertheless it can be useful to examine different aspects as a possible guide. To what extent can Nynorsk be considered a European minority language? 175
2.2.1. With the criterion of mutual comprehensibility it is possible to argue that two varieties which are mutually incomprehensible should be considered inde- pendent languages whereas two varieties which are mutually comprehensible might be considered dialects. In the former case the dialect situation in Germa- ny shows that the Bavarian dialects, for example, which generally speaking are incomprehensible to High German speakers from Northern Germany, at least in the form of the basilect, are still considered German dialects and not regional languages analogous to Low German. There is admittedly a movement today to have some varieties in Southern Germany recognised as regional languages in accordance with the European Charter, but this has not yet come to fruition. On the other hand, the standard languages in Norway and Sweden are mutually comprehensible despite their status as independent languages (Trudgill 2003: 11). This would seem to indicate that the criterion of the Abstand language which refers to a “variety of language which is regarded as a language in its own right, rather than a dialect, by virtue of being very different in its linguistic characteristics from all other languages” (Trudgill 2003: 1) does not by itself suffice as mutual comprehensibility is linked to linguistic similarity.10
2.2.2. When discussing variables pertaining to “dialect” and “standard lan- guage” Löffler (2003: 1–10) differentiates inter alia a) the domains of usage, and b) the type of speakers. He maintains that typically dialect is restricted to the “[f]amiliär-intimen Bereich, örtlichen Bereich und Arbeitsplatz, münd- liches Sprechen” [intimate family domain, local area and workplace, oral speech], whereas the standard language has the domains “[ö]ffentlichen Be- reich, überortlichen Bereich, mündliche und schriftliche Rede, Literatur, Kunst, Wissenschaft, öffentliche Rede, feierliche Anlässe, Gottesdienst, Schule” [public domain, regional area, oral and written formal speech, litera- ture, art, science, public speaking, ceremonious occasions, church service, school] (2003: 5). The speakers of dialect are “Unterschicht: Arbeiter, Bauern, Handwerker, kleine Angestellte, [mit] geringe[r] Schulbildung” [lower class: workers, farmers, artisans, minor employees with limited education], whereas the speakers of the standard language are “Mittel- und Oberschicht, Höhere Beamte, Unternehmer, akademische Berufe des öffentlichen und kulturellen Lebens, [mit] höhere[r] Schulbildung” [middle and upper class, higher civil servants, businessmen, academic professions in public and cultural life, with higher education] (2003: 6). We shall explore later to what extent such cat- egorisations are applicable to the situation in Norway.
2.2.3. Trudgill further develops the concept of the Ausbau language or “lan- guage by extension”, originally coined by Kloss, by adding Haugen’s dimen- sion of heteronomy. He formulates one definition of language as follows (1997: 152–153):
10 It is interesting to note that Glück (2005: 612) regards the idea of the “Abstandsprache” as well as the “Ausbausprache” (to be discussed later) to be insufficient when trying to differentiate the concepts of “language” and “dialect”. 176 Alastair Walker
To use Haugen’s (1968) terms, dialects of Dutch are those dialects which demon- strate heteronomy to Standard Dutch: that is, they are dependent on Standard Dutch in the sense that their speakers look to Dutch as the standard language which natur- ally corresponds to their vernaculars, and they learn to use Standard Dutch for the purposes of reading and writing. Similarly, German dialects are those West German- ic dialects which are heteronomous with respect to Standard German, for the same kind of reasons. (The geographical boundary between dialects of Dutch and dia- lects of German is thus to be located precisely on the political frontier between The Netherlands and Germany.) The two standard languages, which are codified in that they have grammar books and dictionaries devoted to them, and which have bodies of literature written in them, are correspondingly to be regarded as autonomous – they have, we can say, a form of independent existence. We are thus able to give an Ausbau definition of what language is: a language is an autonomous standardised variety together with all the nonstandard varieties which demonstrate heteronomy towards it. We shall discuss later what relevance this definition may have for Nynorsk.
3. The status, name and division of languages The perception of a given language can vary according to one’s perspective and over time. Let us take Frisian as an example. According to Århammar (2000: 146–147) Frisian very early became an independent language within the North Sea Germanic continuum: Das Friesische entwickelte sich neben dem Altenglischen, Altsächsischen und Alt- niederfränkischen bereits im Frühmittelalter zu einer eigenständigen Sprache inner- halb des ingwäonischen oder nordseegermanischen Dialektkontinuums des West- germanischen. [Frisian developed alongside Old English, Old Saxon and Old Low Franconian into an independent language inside the ingvaeonic or North Sea Ger- manic dialect continuum of West Germanic as early as the Middle Ages.] Thus Frisian is here first being considered generically as a language on par with English within North Sea Germanic as part of West Germanic. There later fol- lowed an internal differentiation with the development of West, East and North Frisian which Århammar (1968: 264) calls “branches” (“Sprachzweige”) or “dialect groups” (“Dialektgruppen”). Sjölin (1969: 4) argues in a similar way when he writes: “Das Friesische ist eine westgermanische Sprache” [Frisian is a West Germanic language]. He considers West, East and North Frisian to be “dialect groups” (“Mundartgrup- pen”) (1969: 7) but then slightly confuses terminology when he also refers to them as “languages”: “Das Nordfriesische zeigt von den drei friesischen Sprachen die stärkste dialektale Aufsplitterung” [Of the three Frisian lan- guages, North Frisian shows the greatest dialectal differentiation] (1969: 7–8). Thus Frisian as such when compared at a macro level with English, Low Ger- man etc. is a language, whereas from a comparative perspective the sub- divisions can seemingly be either branches, dialect groups or languages. At the micro level each group or branch is often perceived as a language. The Fryske To what extent can Nynorsk be considered a European minority language? 177
Akademy in Ljouwert/Leeuwarden has, for example, published a comprehen- sive dictionary of the West Frisian language, the “Wurdboek fan de Fryske Taal” (1984–2011). In his dictionary of Sater Frisian Fort (2015: XIV) refers to Sater Frisian as a language: “Die friesischsprachigen Saterländer sprechen ihre Sprache nicht nur zu Hause, sondern überall im Saterland, [...]” [The Fri- sian-speaking Sater Frisians speak their language not only at home but every- where in the Saterland]. In North Frisia mention is also often made of the North Frisian language, e.g. L. C. Peters’ chapter on “Die nordfriesische Sprache” (1927), encompassing all dialects whereas Brandt’s dissertation on “Die nord- friesische Sprache der Goesharden” [The North Frisian Language of the Goes- harden] (1913) uses “language” as a synonym for “dialect”. Århammar (1990: 15) does in fact argue that some of the North Frisian dialects can be regarded as independent languages due to their genetic “Abstand” to the neighbouring dialects and usage: “Das Inselnordfriesische umfaßt dementsprechend drei Hauptdialekte, qua Form und Funktion eigenständige Sprachen [...]” [Accord- ingly island North Frisian comprises three main dialects, with respect to form and function independent languages]. At a political level the Federal Republic of Germany refers to the “Saterland [East] Frisian language” as it does to the “North Frisian language” (Council of Europe 2000: 7–8). Schleswig-Holstein also refers to North Frisian as a “Sprache” [language] (Ministerpräsident des Landes Schleswig-Holstein 2012: 62). Linguistic varieties can also change their status and name in the course of time. The Sami “dialects” in northern Scandinavia are now regarded as lan- guages, although there seems to be some disagreement as to whether there are one, six, nine or ten Sami languages (Trudgill 2003: 73, Pietikäinen 2010: 85, Rasmussen/Nolan 2011: 36), and the formerly often used exonym “Lapp” is considered derogatory. Similarly, the former language “Tornedalian” in Swe- den has now been renamed “Meänkeli”, again for political reasons (Huss 1999: 80–87). Further interesting examples can be found in Trudgill 2001 and 2004. Thus the term “language” can mean different things at different levels at dif- ferent times to different people and the denoted content can also change in ac- cordance with socio-political developments.
4. Is Nynorsk a language?11 Having now looked at various criteria for defining language as such, let us now see how they help us in the present study.
4.1. As Nynorsk can be used in all domains of society, e.g. education, church, media, literature, and has in principle “the same functional range as Bokmål” (Vikør 2001: 103) both in formal and informal settings, it can be assumed that
11 I am addressing this question as in the discussion after my paper in the conference, one partici- pant argued that Nynorsk could not be considered a language. 178 Alastair Walker it has a fully developed orthography, grammar and lexicon, making it com- parable to any other standard written variety. According to Askedal (2005: 1585) it is, however, only a written language: “At present, Nyno[rsk] is a written language without an associated spoken norm.” Braunmüller (2007: 192) expresses a similar sentiment when he writes “Norwegisch in Form von Nynorsk wird [...] als Schriftsprache verwendet. [...] Ein mündliches Nynorsk gibt es [...] bislang (noch) nicht. Nynorsk repräsentiert damit [...] eine fast aus- schließlich schriftsprachliche Varietät” [Norwegian in the form of Nynorsk is used as a written language. There is not (yet) an oral form of Nynorsk. Thus Nynorsk represents an almost exclusively written variety]. Lundeby (2005: 1992) points out that “dialects are the only true national variety of spoken lan- guage in Norway – Bokmål is [...] in its origin not Norwegian, and the Nynorsk spoken standard has a very weak position.” However, looking more closely at Braunmüller’s and Lundeby’s statements, they would seem to imply that there may in fact be some, albeit few, actual speakers of Nynorsk. Thus one might conclude that there is in fact a – possibly only minimal – Nynorsk speech com- munity. As Braunmüller (2007: 193) points out, Nynorsk is a special form of made-up language as it is not an artificial language such as Esperanto but rather a “Synthesesprache aus Dialekten” [a synthetic language made from dia- lects].12 Nevertheless it does correspond to some of the definitions of language discussed earlier, e.g. “a system for the expression of thoughts, feelings, etc., by the use of spoken sounds or conventional symbols” (Collins English Dic- tionary 2011: 928).
4.2. If we now address the question of language and dialect in the context of Nynorsk, we see that the case of Nynorsk does potentially pose problems. Nynorsk and Bokmål are two linguistic varieties, albeit as written standard lan- guages,13 which are so similar to each other that Braunmüller (2007: 143) de- scribes the relationship between the two varieties as follows: Norwegen ist [...] ein Land mit zwei offiziellen (Schrift-)Sprachen, wenn gleich sich diese Sprachen weitgehend ähneln und unter anderen politischen oder geschichtli- chen Umständen durchaus als dialektale Varianten zueinander gelten könnten. [Nor- way is a country with two official (written) languages, even if these languages are very similar and under different political or historical circumstances could be con- sidered dialectal variants.] Thus we have here from the point of view of linguistic similarity two varieties in a language- or variety-contact situation which should be near the language- contact situation Low German/High German in the continuum described earlier but which, again by means of Weinreich’s criterion, are allocated the
12 I have the impression this is doing slight injustice to the idea of invented languages as some do in fact incorporate features from living languages. 13 I follow Braunmüller here when using the term “standard language”. “Standard variety” might be more applicable. To what extent can Nynorsk be considered a European minority language? 179 status of two independent written languages thanks to Ivar Aasen’s genius and the subsequent recognition of his Landsmål by the Storting as an official lan- guage in 1885 (Lundeby 2005: 1985).
4.3. We can now look at the further possible criteria for the distinction “lan- guage – dialect” as mentioned under section 2.2, viz. mutual comprehensibili- ty, the use of the varieties in society, and the question of the Ausbau language.
4.3.1. Although it has been pointed out that the criterion of mutual comprehen- sibility for distinguishing “language” and “dialect” is problematic, it would ap- pear that in the case of Norway it would probably give cause for regarding Nynorsk and Bokmål as dialects of one language as comprehension is assured. Braunmüller (2007: 192) writes: [Es] besteht eine nahezu vollständige wechselseßwitige Verstehbarkeit [zwischen Nynorsk und der] dominierenden Landessprache Bokmål wie zu dessen konservati- ver Variante Riksmål. [There is almost complete reciprocal comprehensibility be- tween Nynorsk and the dominant national language Bokmål as well as to its conser- vative variant Riksmål.] 4.3.2. With respect to the use of the different varieties and the status of the speakers, Löffler’s criteria do not seem to hold here today as both the dialects as well as the standard written form can be used in all domains and are used by all classes of society. Akselberg (2005: 1707) writes: “In Norway today [...] it is normal to use one’s dialect in most social situations, formal and informal, private and official.” He continues (2005: 1711): “[...] today [...] everyone has great freedom to use both his or her local, social and personal linguistic varie- ty.” Seemingly the main difference in social structures with respect to the use of dialect is that “[y]oung people use their dialect in more situations than elder- ly people do” (2005: 1707). It would, however, appear that this has not always been the case as Akselberg (2005: 1711) reports that such factors as described by Löffler were the subject of great interest in the 1960s and 1970s: From the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s, many Norwegians devel- oped a special interest in dialects, and they were interested in discovering which so- cial factors have an impact on the dialects and the use of dialect. People were par- ticularly interested in what impact spoken language and dialects have on one’s iden- tity, and how the status of the dialects in society reflects the social status of the dia- lect speakers and the social power structures. This interest led to a struggle for linguistic liberation, resulting in the positive status dialects enjoy today, even though, as Braunmüller (2007: 195) points out, the stigmatisation of dialect speakers does not seem to have completely disappeared: Da Dialektsprechen voll akzeptiert ist und nur in ganz wenigen Fällen mit stigmati- sierenden sozialen Faktoren korreliert wird, stellt der Gebrauch von Dialekten die normale mündliche Kommunikationsform dar. [As it is completely acceptable to speak in dialect which is only on rare occasions correlated with stigmatising social factors, the use of dialect constitutes the normal form of oral communication.] 180 Alastair Walker
4.3.3. We can now look at the idea of the Ausbau language and its relevance for Nynorsk. Trudgill (2003: 11) defines an Ausbau language as a variety which derives its status as a language, rather than a dialect, not so much from its linguistic characteristics [...] but from its social, cultural and political char- acteristics. These characteristics will normally involve autonomy and standardisa- tion [and] they have traditions involving different writing systems, grammar books and dictionaries. According to Trudgill an Ausbau definition of a language states that a language has an autonomous standard variety, i.e. one which is codified and found in a body of literature, together with the nonstandard varieties which are dependent upon it. As in the case of Norway there is one dialect continuum with two autonomous varieties raised above it, he considers this to be a case of a single language with shared autonomy which he then refers to as a “multinorm lan- guage”. If the two autonomous varieties were to be considered separate lan- guages, this would necessitate two sets of dialects. As this is not the case, in contrast to the example of Dutch and German, he comes to a new definition of language where “a language consists of one or more autonomous standard va- rieties together with those nonstandard varieties which are dependent on it or them” (1997: 157). This leads on to a definition of the multinorm language which is a “language where there are two or more standardised forms corre- sponding to a single set of nonstandard dialects” (1997: 157). This albeit plausible hypothesis does, however, pose some problems.
4.3.3.1. Trudgill defines the concept of heteronomy as follows (2003: 58): Heteronomy is a characteristic of a variety of a language that has not been subject to standardisation, and which is not regarded as having an existence independent of a corresponding autonomous standard. A heteronomous variety is typically a non- standard variety whose speakers and writers are socially, culturally and educational- ly dependent on an autonomous variety of the same language, and who look to the standard autonomous variety as the one which naturally corresponds to their ver- nacular. This definition contains two important components, a linguistic and a socio- logical component. The linguistic component states that the nonstandard varieties are related to the autonomous standard, the sociological component states that the speakers are socially, culturally and educationally dependent on an autonomous variety. If we now return to Trudgill’s paper, which dates back to 1997, we see that, when discussing the West Germanic dialect continuum, he was at the time en- titled to refer to the dialects on either side of the Dutch-German border as “Dutch” or “German” dialects. However, with the ratification of the “European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages” by the Netherlands and Germany in 1996 and 1998 respectively, a further aspect was introduced with the recog- nition of a new language on both sides of the border, viz. Lower Saxon in the Netherlands and Low German in Germany. Both of these “new” languages are To what extent can Nynorsk be considered a European minority language? 181 autonomous to a certain degree as they are both partly codified and both have some literature. Thus the nonstandard dialects are now to a certain degree de- pendent upon another language, i.e. Lower Saxon or Low German in the sense of being more closely related to these two languages, whereas from a socio- logical point of view it does remain true that speakers of these dialects still for the most part look to Dutch and German as their standard autonomous varieties. In other words, the European Charter has added a new problem to the discus- sion and it remains a matter of debate as to what status might be accorded the dialects on both sides of the border today.
4.3.3.2. In the case of the Dutch-German border, the state border is a major de- marcation line, meaning that dialect speakers on either side of the border are naturally focused towards the national language by all national agencies, viz. administration, education, media etc. There is very little on either side of the border to focus a dialect speaker towards the national language on the other side of the border as there are no national minorities here, in contrast, for ex- ample, to the Dano-German border where there is a Danish-speaking national minority in Germany and a German-speaking national minority in Denmark. In Norway’s case there is no such strong demarcation line, although one can argue, as Trudgill admits (1997: 155), that “it is possible to relate Nynorsk especially to western Norway (and Bokmål, perhaps, particularly to southeast- ern Norway).” A further example shows that decisions about autonomous varieties and their relation to a dialect continuum can in essence be arbitrary. Sorbian in Germany consists of two main dialect areas, each with a written norm: Upper Sorbian and Lower Sorbian. Between these two areas there is a further continuum of “transitional dialects” (“Übergangsdialekte”). The status of the varieties was a matter of debate centring principally around three possible interpretations: zwei selbständige, wenn auch engstens verwandte Sprachen mit jeweils eigener Schriftvarietät, eine Sprache mit zwei eigenständigen Schriftsprachen, eine Sprache mit zwei schriftsprachlichen Varianten (Spieß and Steenwijk 2000: 192) [two in- dependent, even though very closely related languages, each with its own written variety, a language with two independent written languages, a language with two written variants]. As a result of the European Charter both Upper and Lower Sorbian have been granted the status of independent minority languages. Unfortunately, there is no explanation for this decision in the first report submitted by Germany to the Council of Europe in 2000 with respect to the European Charter. The only ref- erence is: “From the various dialects of colloquial Sorbian, two standard lan- guages developed: Upper Sorbian [...] and Lower Sorbian [...]” (Council of Eu- rope 2000: 6). The Sorbian language(s) could well fit into Trudgill’s model of the mul- tinorm language as there is a dialect continuum with a set of nonstandard dia- lects at each end of the continuum: Upper and Lower Sorbian dialects, linked 182 Alastair Walker by a group of mixed dialects. For political reasons, the two autonomous varie- ties of Upper and Lower Sorbian have both been granted the status of independ- ent languages. Let us now take North Frisian as a contrasting example. The North Frisian language consists today of 10 main dialects14 of which 8 can be considered to be to a greater or less degree autonomous as they are (partly) codified and vary- ing amounts of literature have been penned in each of them.15 Each codified norm represents an area with a number of villages, i.e. nonstandard dialects. Thus North Frisian could also qualify as a multinorm language as a) there is a dialect continuum on the mainland, and b) one could argue in a similar fashion with respect to the island dialects, although Århammar would, as already men- tioned, seemingly prefer to consider these independent languages. This means presumably according to Trudgill’s model that two multinorm languages can be postulated here, reflecting the different waves of settlement in the 8th and 11th centuries.16 In contrast to this theoretical possibility, in practice there are no speakers of these dialects claiming recognition of their dialect as an in- dependent language. Indeed, the Frisians were very grateful that their language was included in the European Charter at all and there was no discussion about further differentiation.17 There is in other words, no political desire to have any of the main dialects recognised as an independent language, in contrast to, for example, the Sorbian situation. It is also important to note that there is a similar situation here as with the Lower Saxon and Low German examples as Frisian speakers also tend to look towards German from a sociological point of view as their standard language. Looking at the examples quoted here, the Dutch-German frontier, Sorbian, Norway and North Frisian, we are perhaps dealing with a continuum. In the case of the Dutch-German frontier there is a strong demarcation line facilitating the decision with respect to language. In the Sorbian case, the situation is not so clear. A political decision has been taken concerning the legal status of the two varieties both of which have nonstandard dialects dependent upon them. As, however, there are also mixed dialects between the two main dialect areas, constituting a continuum, this will presumably allow Sorbian to be considered a further case of multinorm language. In Norway’s case there are two official written languages with a dialect continuum. In the North Frisian case the lan- guage is officially recognised as such but this is not reflected in a supra-dialect-
14 Deviating from usual practice, I am here taking the dialects of Föhr and Amrum to be two dis- tinct dialects. 15 For an overview of North Frisian dialectology, see Walker & Wilts 2001, and for an overview of North Frisian literature, see Wilts 2001. 16 The area now constituting the North Frisian islands was settled by Frisians coming from the southern North Sea coast at the beginning of the 8th century, the mainland area three centuries later. 17 The Federal Foreign Office was initially against the inclusion of both Frisian and Low German in the Charter, arguing that there were too few speakers of Frisian and too many speakers of Low German (Lemke 1998: 56–65). To what extent can Nynorsk be considered a European minority language? 183 al norm as the language consists of a number of autonomous varieties with no official status in their own right, and possibly two dialect continua.
4.3.3.3. In his discussion Trudgill mentions a further important point, i.e. that of group and personal identity, or ethnicity. He quotes the very interesting ex- ample of former Yugoslavia where Serbo-Croat had previously been the main national language, a language with two different norms with the Croatian vari- ant relating more to western dialects and the Serbian to eastern dialects (1997: 156–157). Following the break-up of Yugoslavia, the governments of both Croatia and Serbia claimed that Croatian and Serbian were now two separate languages, which resulted in the question as to how the variants in the middle of the dialect continuum in Bosnia and Montenegro were perceived. This, how- ever, had as much to do with ethnic and religious identity as with anything lin- guistic, different groups interpreting the linguistic situation in different ways. As a result, the languages ”Bosnian” and “Montenegrin” have now come into being and have been accorded official status. Trudgill states that issues of group and personal identity are also relevant in the Norwegian case which seems to find support in the postulate that users of Nynorsk constitute from a sociological perspective an ethnic group inside Nor- way as they have similar structures, networks and institutions as are character- istic of emerging ethnic groups (Höder 2017: 201). Thus, although Trudgill can argue as a “dispassionate outside observer” (1997: 157) for recognising Nor- wegian as a multinorm language, nevertheless other perceptions based on group identity, ethnicity etc. are also possible, if not indeed necessary.
4.3.3.4. I have the impression we are dealing with two different notions of lan- guage based on different premises. On the one hand we started by defining lan- guage inter alia as a system using spoken sounds or conventional symbols. This in essence relates to one discrete system which may well have relevance for questions of identity, ethnicity etc. and have a legal and political status such as an officially recognised language. On the other hand, we have language as de- fined as consisting “of one or more autonomous standard varieties together with those nonstandard varieties which are dependent on it or them” (Trudgill 1997: 157). This notion is at a much more abstract level and useful for analysis at this level. As already implied, we are dealing with language on two different levels. At one level we have the single autonomous variety as a language, at a higher level we have the possibility of including two or more autonomous varieties under the heading of one language. In an attempt to make the distinction clear, per- haps we can borrow an idea from phonology. According to Matthews the prefix “archi-” is “used for units of any kind [...] whose features are common to a set of more specific units” (2014: 25). Thus the “archiphoneme” is a “phonological unit characterized by the distinctive features which are common to two or more phonemes whose opposition is neutralized” (2014: 26). Might one not argue 184 Alastair Walker that a linguistic variety at a comparable level to the phoneme might be con- sidered a language, e.g. Nynorsk and Bokmål, Upper and Lower Sorbian, whereas at a higher level with the idea of the multinorm language we have in analogy to the archiphoneme the archilanguage, whereby the aspects of identi- ty, ethnicity, political status etc. are neutralised. Might this be an acceptable compromise to marry the two approaches?
4.4. The concept of Nynorsk has changed in the course of time. Lundeby (2005: 1985) writes: In 1885 Aasen’s Landsmål was recognized by the Storting as an official language on an equal footing with Dano-Norwegian, and its development became a state respon- sibility. During the 20th century it has been exposed to almost as many changes as Dano-Norwegian/Riksmål/Bokmål. Whereas Nynorsk was originally conceived as a Norwegian written norm based exclusively on the dialects of the countryside, disregarding the imported Danish altogether and thus offsetting itself from Dano-Norwegian (Lundeby 2005: 1984), it has in the course of time been subjected to various reforms, in- cluding the idea of bringing the two varieties Bokmål and Nynorsk closer to- gether in an envisioned process called “Samnorsk” [Common Norwegian] (Lundeby 2005: 1987). Due to the reforms, the concept of Nynorsk seems to change from generation to generation. Thus the idea of Nynorsk would seem to mean different things to different people: The reforms have come into use mainly through the schools, i.e. through children who, of course, adopt the orthography they are taught. So it may be said that the re- forms have been carried through due to the shift in generations. As a consequence written Norwegian shows a great variety of forms, a mixture of old and newer vari- ants, and it is possible in many cases to discern a person’s age by studying his or her spelling (Lundeby 2005: 1990). 4.5. The dialects in Norway began to develop out of the Old Norse language in the 13th and 14th centuries. The process was for the most part completed by the 16th century when the modern dialects were established. These remained more or less constant until the middle of the 20th century when both urban and rural dialects began to change, due inter alia to processes of simplification and levelling, resulting partly in an increase in regional varieties. This is, however, more marked in the eastern than in the western part of Norway (Akselberg 2005). Nevertheless, the dialects and regional varieties can all be considered part of a Norwegian diasystem. In addition to Norwegian being analysed as a multinorm language, it is also considered an example of a polycentric language “in which autonomy is shared by two or more (usually very similar) superposed varieties” (Trudgill 2003: 105). Thus the Norwegian diasystem consists of two standardised written varieties, as of late a number of regional varieties, though mainly in the east, and dialects. To what extent can Nynorsk be considered a European minority language? 185
4.6. Let us now summarise the first part of our discussion: Looking at the vari- ous criteria posited above with respect to “language” and “dialect”, it transpires that the main criterion to be applied here is that of the “army and navy” as Stortinget, representing the people, declared Nynorsk to be a language. We can also follow the definitions quoted above in which a purely written form or a “system of signs” can be recognised as a language, especially if, as indicated, there may actually be a Nynorsk speech community, however small. Nynorsk, which over time has changed in character and is still changing, is part of the Norwegian diasystem which includes two written varieties as well as numerous dialects and more recently possibly also regional varieties. With the introduc- tion of the concept of the Ausbau language, two approaches to the analysis of Nynorsk become evident: one sees the linguistic variety more as a discrete en- tity whereas the second encapsulates it in a model of a multinorm language. A possible solution to the problem is to posit a differentiation between the con- cepts of a language and an archilanguage.
5. On minority languages Having argued that Nynorsk is an independent language, albeit a primarily written language, we now need a definition of the concept “minority language” in order to discuss Nynorsk’s possible status as such. For this we turn to the afore-mentioned “European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages”. First of all a comment about the title “Regional or Minority Languages”. What is the actual meaning of the conjunction “or”? In my opinion there are two possible interpretations: it can join two synonyms or differentiate two dis- tinct concepts. In the sentence “the man who leads the service in church is called a vicar or a minister”, the conjunction is joining two synonyms, one used in England, the other in Scotland. In the sentence “would you like a whisky or a beer?” the conjunction is joining two different alternatives. Thus I should like to suggest that the nomenclature in the Charter can in fact be seen as two syno- nyms, reflecting the diverse use of the two concepts in Europe. In France, for example, the use of “langues minoritaires” is not encouraged (Hinderling/ Eichinger 1996: XIII), the term “langues régionales” being preferred, whereas in anglophone and germanophone literature the term “minority languages” or “Minderheitensprachen” is frequently found. Thus “regional languages” and “minority languages” were possibly initially seen as two synonyms relating to usage in different states rather than as diverging concepts. How does the European Charter define the concepts? In the Charter itself (Council of Europe 1992) we find the following definition: a. “regional or minority languages” means languages that are I. traditionally used within a given territory of a State by nationals of that State who form a group numerically smaller than the rest of the State’s population, and 186 Alastair Walker
II. different from the official language(s) of the State; it does not include either dialects of the official language(s) of the State or the lan- guages of migrants. b. “territory in which the regional or minority language is used” means the geograph- ical area in which the said language is the mode of expression of a number of people justifying the adoption of the various protective and promotional measures provided for in the Charter; In a critical commentary on the Charter Woehrling (2005: 55) writes: According to the explanatory report, regional languages are “languages spoken in a limited part of the territory of a state, within which moreover, they may be spoken by a majority of the citizens”. Minority languages on the other hand, are languages spoken by persons who are not concentrated in a specific part of the country, or lan- guages which although concentrated in a specific area are spoken by the minority of the population of that area. Thus the term “minority” refers to more than one situa- tion: – a language which is in an “absolute” minority, that is, is not spoken by the majority of the population in any area; – a language in a “relative” minority, that is, spoken by an overall minority in the state acceding to the charter but by the majority in some parts of the country. In the latter case, the term “regional language” is appropriate. Thus, taking the two Frisian languages West and North Frisian as examples, it would appear that according to this definition West Frisian as spoken by ap- prox 400,000 people in the province of Fryslân/Friesland in the Netherlands with some 646,000 inhabitants is a regional language whereas North Frisian as spoken by approx 8,000 people in the district of North Frisia in Germany with some 162,000 inhabitants is a minority language. This rather contradicts the fact that the Netherlands and Germany have both registered the respective lan- guage communities as “national minorities” in their instruments of ratification for the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. From the term “national minority” one would deduce the language to be rather a “mi- nority language” than a “regional language”. A further commentary on the European Charter would appear to confirm my impression with respect to the nomenclature used in the Charter which states: In the end, despite what is said in the Explanatory Report, for the purposes of the Char- ter it must be understood that regional or minority languages form a single category. [...] A vast majority of countries have used both categories interchangeably or else just one of them without attaching different meanings to them (Vieytez 2012: 43). This will perhaps also explain why there is a body of literature in which refer- ence is made solely to “RMLs” (= Regional and Minority Languages) without further conceptual differentiation. However, for the purpose of our discussion, a semantic differentiation is necessary. Let us now return to Nynorsk. As Nynorsk is an official language and not an officially recognised minority or regional language in Norway, it seemingly To what extent can Nynorsk be considered a European minority language? 187 does not come under the auspices of the European Charter. This is presumably why neither Nynorsk nor Bokmål are included in Norway’s reports on the Eu- ropean Charter, the latest having been submitted on 10.03.2017. If Nynorsk were included, it would presumably fall into the category of a regional lan- guage. However, having said that, if we examine the Charter a little more close- ly, we see that in Article 3, paragraph 1, provision is actually made for an “of- ficial language which is less widely used on the whole or part of its territory”. Thus in the case of Switzerland which has four official languages, we read in the Swiss report, first submitted in 1999, that it is clear that the two languages which meet the description of “official language which is less widely used” are Romansh and Italian (Council of Europe 1999b: 9) meaning that these two languages are included in the Swiss report. In a similar case we see that Finland also includes the official language Swedish in its re- port, stating: According to the Constitution Act, the national languages of Finland are Finnish and Swedish. Swedish is the less widely used official language in Finland (Council of Europe 1999a: 5). This means that an official language which is less widely used, can in fact be included in the European Charter. Norway does not seem to have chosen to go down this path, confining their report to the minority languages of Sami, Kven, Romanes and Romani, but not Nynorsk. This is a pity as such regular reports would have given the international (scientific) community a greater opportuni- ty to study the situation of Nynorsk and developments therein. I am, however, unable to comment further upon this. If we now look at the six states in the EU which are officially bi-, tri- or quadrilingual, and include Norway and Switzerland here, we see that two re- port on a “less widely used” official language, i.e. Finland and Switzerland, three do not include the official languages in their reports (Cyprus, Luxem- bourg and Norway), of which two explicitly state that the reason for this is that the official character of the languages do not allow them to be included (Cyprus and Luxembourg), and three have not ratified the Charter (Belgium, Ireland and Malta). So far we have looked at the provisional definition of regional and minority languages as found in the Charter. It is interesting that in this context Germany has developed its own definition as it distinguishes between – languages traditionally used on the territory of a contracting state, and – languages spoken by national minorities and covered by the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (Woehrling 2005: 55).
In other words, languages spoken by a national minority as set out in the Framework Convention are automatically minority languages, whereas lan- 188 Alastair Walker guages spoken by a community which has no such status are regional lan- guages. Thus Danish, North and Sater Frisian, Romani and Sorbian are minor- ity languages, whereas Low German is a regional language. It is possible that linguistic varieties spoken in Bavaria may one day join the list of regional lan- guages. I believe that Germany’s approach is hitherto unique but it does introduce the concept of the language community, as a minority language can now be de- fined as a language spoken by a national (or ethnic) minority. Moving on from the European Charter, another definition of a minority lan- guage is to be found in Wirrer’s book “Minderheiten- und Regionalsprachen in Europa”. Wirrer (2000: 8) defines a minority language as follows: eine Minderheitensprache ist eine Sprache, “die eine über Selbstdefinition konsti- tuierte ethnische und/oder religiöse Minderheit als ihre autochthone Sprache ansieht, sich linguistisch von der jeweiligen Mehrheitssprache unterscheidet, von einem un- terschiedlich hohen Prozentsatz dieser Minderheit gesprochen wird und von den An- gehörigen der Mehrheitsbevölkerung in der Regel nicht beherrscht wird. Dabei spielt es keine Rolle, ob die betroffenen Sprachen über ein bestimmtes Territorium verbreitet sind oder nicht” [a minority language is a language “which a group which has defined itself as an ethnic and/or religious minority considers to be its autoch- thonous language, which differs linguistically from the respective majority lan- guage, which is spoken by a variably high percentage of the minority and in which members of the majority population in general have no proficiency. It is of no rele- vance whether the said languages are spread over a particular territory or not”]. Wirrer is basically following in Germany’s footsteps here that a minority lan- guage is based on an ethnic or religious minority which has its own autoch- thonous language. This naturally does not apply to Nynorsk which is not based on an ethnic or religious minority even though, as already indicated, it is pos- sible to argue that from a sociological point of view certain features of an ethnic group are to be found in the Nynorsk language community. Wirrer (2000: 9) also defines regional languages which definieren sich außer durch linguistische Kriterien durch das Territorium, in welchem sie verbreitet sind. Ihre Sprecher verstehen sich als ethnisch nicht ver- schieden von den Bewohnern benachbarter Regionen desselben Staates und zählen somit ethnisch zur Mehrheitsbevölkerung. Regionalsprachen in diesem Sinne sind z.B. [...] Nynorsk und Irisch-Gälisch, welche [...], obwohl offiziell gleichberechtigt mit der jeweils anderen Staatssprache, de facto nur in einem kleineren Teil Norwe- gens bzw. Eires verbreitet sind [define themselves not only by means of linguistic criteria but also by means of the territory over which they are spread. Their speakers do not consider themselves to be ethnically different from the inhabitants of neigh- bouring regions of the same state and thus belong ethnically to the majority popula- tion. Regional languages in this sense are, for example, Nynorsk and Irish-Gaelic which, although they both officially have the same status as the respective other na- tional language, are de facto spread but over a smaller part of Norway and Eire]. There seem to be two problems here. Firstly, as already discussed, are the pure- ly linguistic criteria really sufficient to define Nynorsk as a separate regional language? Secondly, although Nynorsk is de facto restricted to certain areas, do To what extent can Nynorsk be considered a European minority language? 189 speakers actually define themselves by means of the territory? I have seen no explicit mention of this in the literature. However, of the two possibilities, mi- nority language or regional language, I agree that the idea of the regional lan- guage is gaining the upper hand for Nynorsk, principally because the concept of Nynorsk is not dependent on an ethnic or religious minority. As we have now stepped over the divide from a minority language to a lin- guistic minority, we find a definition of this new concept in Hinderling and Eichinger’s book “Handbuch der mitteleuropäischen Sprachminderheiten” (1996: XIV). A linguistic minority is here defined as an autochthone Bevölkerung, deren Primärsprache entweder a) eine andere als die offi- zielle(n) Sprache(n) des Landes darstellt, in dem die Minderheit lebt [...] oder b) zwar eine von mehreren offiziellen Sprachen des betreffenden Landes darstellt, deren Sprecher aber im Vergleich zu jenen der Hauptsprache mehr oder weniger be- nachteiligt sind bzw. sich benachteiligt fühlen [autochthonous population whose principle language is either a) another language than the official language(s) of the state in which the minority lives [...] or b) is one of the several official languages of the respective state but whose speakers in comparison to the speakers of the main language are or feel more or less disadvantaged]. The second definition might apply to Nynorsk as no mention is made here of the dependence upon an ethnic or religious minority. The question is whether the speakers of Nynorsk do actually consider themselves to be disadvantaged. I shall return to this later. Certainly though, Hinderling and Eichinger seem to be pursuing a similar definition policy as found in Article 3 of the European Charter. As already mentioned, so far the line of discussion seems to be favouring the term “regional language” as most applicable to Nynorsk as a supplementary term for this official language. However, I note that two distinguished scholars have both declared Nynorsk to be a minority language. The first example is Kurt Braunmüller (2007: 192) who writes: Norwegisch in Form von Nynorsk wird von einem relativ geringen Teil der Be- völkerung Norwegens als Schriftsprache verwendet. Es ist jedoch mit dem Bok- mål gleichgestellt. [Es] ist mit einem Nynorskanteil von 10–15 % zu rechnen. [...] Dies macht Nynorsk innerhalb Norwegens de facto zu einer Minderhei- ten(schrift)sprache. [Norwegian in the shape of Nynorsk is used by a relatively small part of Norway’s population as a written language. It does, however, have the same status as Bokmål. The percentage of the population using Nynorsk can be estimated at 10–15 %. This makes Nynorsk inside Norway de facto a minority (written) lan- guage.] I would submit that the criterion here is purely quantitative, the number of people using Nynorsk being in a minority. Thus I conclude that Braunmüller is not using the term as implied above in connection with an ethnic minority or similar but more as a synonym of regional language, as I postulated for the origins of the European Charter. The second scholar is Harald Haarmann (1993: 267) who states the follow- ing: 190 Alastair Walker
Da Nynorsk nicht über ein städtisches kulturelles Zentrum verfügt, und sein Ge- brauch im gewerblich-industriellen Bereich indominant ist, ist seine Situation die einer Minderheitensprache. [As Nynorsk does not have an urban cultural centre and its usage in the commercial-industrial domain is restricted, its situation is that of a minority language.] Here a new perspective is being introduced, namely that of the socio-economic function of a language and its prestige. It can be argued that common features of regional or minority languages are their non-dominant position in society, their lack of prestige, their lack of official recognition, e.g. in law, their lack of use in public domains etc. Such reflections have led to the development of sets of parameters designed to analyse language communities in terms of typ- ologies, generally with respect to language maintenance and revitalisation. The best-known example is perhaps the Euromosaic project, examining the produc- tion and reproduction of the minority language groups in the European Union, part one of which was published in 1996. Here the parameters family, cultural representation, community, prestige, institutionalisation, legitimisation and education were used to set up a “league table” reflecting the strength or the sur- vival probability of 48 language communities within the EU. One basic prem- ise here is the conceptualisation of minority languages as disadvantaged or even endangered languages. Although it is naturally true that regional or minority languages tend to be disadvantaged, this is not unique to such languages but can equally apply to of- ficial languages. This is shown in the Euromosaic project (Nelde et al. 1996) in which each language community is ascribed up to four points for each of the seven parameters mentioned. Thus, for example, a language community in which the language is taught throughout the whole educational system from kindergarten to university might gain the maximum four points for education. The same principle applies to all seven parameters so that a language commu- nity might gain a maximum of 28 points. The language at the top of the table does in fact have 28 points and this is German in the German language com- munity in Belgium which has official status there (1996: 65). Luxembourgish, an official language, and Catalan, a minority language, are second and third in the league respectively, each with 27 points. Irish, on the other hand, Ireland’s national and first official language, gains but 14 out of the possible 28 points and is number 13 in the table of 48 language communities in the EU. This an- alysis seems to corroborate UNESCO’s Red Book on Endangered Languages which states that Irish in Ireland is endangered whereas no mention is made of Catalan. This argument can in fact be continued for national and official languages so far not included in scenarios of endangerment as we note that the global lan- guage English is in various countries encroaching into domains hitherto re- served for official languages such as tertiary education or commerce. A recent book “English in Nordic Universities” (Hultgren, Gregersen & Thørgesen 2014) is for example investigating the internationalisation and Englishisation To what extent can Nynorsk be considered a European minority language? 191 of Nordic universities where it would appear that English is partly driving out the national and official languages from this domain, illustrating the tension be- tween the dominant ideology of internationalisation and the desire to preserve national languages as languages of scholarship and education. Thus an element of disadvantagement and endangerment is also creeping in for linguistic varie- ties traditionally regarded as majority languages. However, back to the question of minority languages. If we wish to include the criterion of disadvantagement or endangerment in a possible definition of a minority language, the question is whether Nynorsk can in fact be considered to be disadvantaged. According to Vikør (2001: 98–100) the use of Nynorsk in primary school was, for example, in decline in the nineteen-nineties, reaching about 15.3 % in 1999. In secondary education, where both varieties are com- pulsory for all pupils, there is resistance to Nynorsk among pupils who prefer Bokmål. In the Official Service sector a law came into force on 1. January 1981, the Law on Language Use in the Official Service [Lov om målbruk i offentleg teneste], in an attempt to improve the situation of Nynorsk here. Nevertheless, Vikør (2001: 101) surmises that “the real position of Nynorsk within the bureaucracy remains very weak, in spite of the requirements of the law.” One rather surprising further statement is that a comparison of the situa- tion of Nynorsk with that of Sami and Finland-Swedish shows that Nynorsk “comes out better in some respects and worse in others” (2001: 103). Thus an official language seems to be faring partly worse than the officially recognised minority languages. Vikør (2001: 104) concludes that, although the “legitimacy of Nynorsk as a parallel official variety is often questioned because of [its] closeness to Bok- mål”, nevertheless “Nynorsk is felt by its users to be an integral part of their linguistic identity, and this is one of the reasons why it has been maintained for so long in its minority position.” This sentence I find slightly ambiguous. I take it to mean that, because of the identity-confirming factor, Nynorsk has been maintained despite its minority, i.e. endangered position, and not that the identity factor has resulted in Nynorsk being in a minority position. This does, however, raise another important point which Wirrer has already touched upon with his idea of “Selbstdefinition” or self-perception. Jeroen Darquennes has established four important criteria for the classification of a social group as a linguistic minority. These are a) the group’s own linguistic variety, b) a common tradition or origin, c) the group’s own structures in its social organisation, and d) its self-perception as a minority (Marten 2016: 59–60). I would agree with this analysis but would argue that the criteria can also apply to a social group speaking a majority language. In fact, in the case of self-perception I would argue that this criterion can work the other way round: a social group may perceive itself as not being a linguistic mi- nority but rather as speakers of a national or official language, and this is what seems to be true of the Nynorsk language community. Perhaps I may quote the Noregs Mållag here (http://www.nm.no/english.cfm, accessed 05.06.2017): 192 Alastair Walker
Our language, and the Nynorsk language, is the main anchor for our local and na- tional identity, and that’s why people love their own language! Thus the criterion of “self-perception” would seem to work against the notion of a linguistic minority even though other, perhaps more objective criteria might point in this direction. As there are problems with the idea of minority and regional languages, per- haps it might be possible to introduce a third concept, that of “lesser used lan- guages”, a concept similar to the one of the “official language which is less widely used” found in the European Charter. According to Woehrling (2005: 54) this concept appeared as early as 1980 in a book on “Policies to support radio and television broadcasting in the lesser used languages of the European Community”, published in Coleraine, Ireland (Alcock/O’Brien 1980). The term was made internationally known with the founding of the “European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages” in Dublin in 1982. I would argue that it is no coincidence that this broader, neutral term was first employed in Ireland as Ireland’s national language Irish was, as already indicated, suffering the same fate as many languages traditionally known as “minority languages”. As, how- ever, the Irish were reluctant to regard their national language as a minority lan- guage, a potentially degrading term, a new term was sought which covers official languages just as well as regional and minority languages. With the in- troduction of this term, there was no problem in allowing the Irish for many years to play a leading and important role in the European Bureau. Leading on from this, it is an interesting thought to what extent Ireland might consider it possible to ratify the “European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages” if it had been given the name “The European Charter for Lesser Used Lan- guages”. Similarly, to what extent might Norway be more willing to submit a report on Nynorsk if the Charter had been given this title? Having introduced this new concept, I should like to suggest a model de- scribing the various terms mentioned hitherto in a hierarchy. At the top of the hierarchy are global languages, e.g. English. The next step contains the major- ity languages in a given land, e.g. French, German and Spanish. These are also official languages. The third step consists of the lesser used languages which can also be official languages but do not need to be. The Council of Europe’s term “less widely used official languages” can be used for the lesser used lan- guages which are official languages, e.g. Irish and Nynorsk. The lesser used languages which are not official languages are then minority or regional lan- guages. A minority language requires an ethnic and/or religious minority and may or may not be restricted to a specific territory, e.g. North Frisian and Romani. A regional language is restricted to a territory but does not belong to an ethnic or religious minority, e.g. Low German and Occitan. This hierarchy can be portrayed in the following diagram: Global language, e.g. English Majority languages, e.g. French, German, Spanish To what extent can Nynorsk be considered a European minority language? 193
Lesser used languages > +/– official languages + official languages > “less widely used official languages”, e.g. Irish, Nynorsk – official languages > minority/regional languages minority languages > + ethnic/religious minority, +/– territory, e.g. North Frisian, Romani regional languages > – ethnic/religious minority, + territory, e.g. Low Ger- man, Occitan.
If there was agreement on this basic division of languages, it would then be possible to discuss finer points such as a possible continuum of endangerment or typologies of lesser used languages. In order to analyse the status of Nynorsk with respect to its possible status as a European minority language, we have operated with the concepts of minority and regional languages as well as less widely used official languages based on both objective and subjective criteria. Objective criteria are the relative num- bers of speakers of the languages concerned, the presence or absence of an eth- nic or religious minority, and the question of disadvantagement. A more sub- jective but nevertheless important criterion is that of self-perception as wit- nessed by Noregs Mållag. There is also the complementary external perception as exemplified by Braunmüller, Haarmann and Vikør, i.e., in the case of Braun- müller and Haarmann, people looking at the linguistic situation from outside the language community. According to these different criteria, Nynorsk cannot be considered a minority language if we accept the criteria of ethnic minority and self-perception as prerequisites. Here the concept of the regional language would be more applicable in terms of numbers and territory if it were not for its official status. Thus the term “less widely used official language” is more correct which, however, can be subsumed under a more general heading such as “lesser used languages” in order to facilitate comparison of comparable lin- guistic situations and cooperation in the political arena. This in turn opens a further perspective on the question. It is possible that the language community would reject the designation as “minority or regional language” for political reasons as this, as in Ireland’s case, might be considered degrading. Thus we have to differentiate the contexts in which such discussions take place. In the scientific context we can refer to minority, regional and lesser used languages. However, in the political context the nomenclature “official language” would seem preferable as experience shows that a linguistic variety with the status of a regional or minority language, probably due in part to the negative connota- tion often connected to these terms, has far less chance of promotion than an official language. Taking a broader view, this analysis also shows that we are at present ex- periencing a shift in paradigm. On the one hand we are witnessing how various 194 Alastair Walker hitherto indeterminate linguistic varieties are now being officially recognised as languages, on the other hand hitherto undisputed national or official lan- guages are slowly drifting into a situation of endangerment, losing various do- mains to the global language English so that they one day might also be includ- ed in the category of “lesser used languages”. To conclude, it would be nice from a scientific point of view to welcome Nynorsk into the family or choir of lesser used languages and to make greater use of the exciting and unique linguistic situation we find in Norway in com- parative studies such as found in the various books and projects mentioned above. I am convinced there is a lot we can learn from Norway.
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