DOCIMENT'RESUE ED 12d 712 FL 007. 811 IF . a AUTHOR Holde,.Bertil - 'TITLE , ' Language Planning in Sveden. :INSTITUTION Hawaii Univ.. Hono1u1u. East-west Center" PUB SATE Aug 75 -3 ., 0 NOTE 4p. ,JOURNAL CIT - Language Planning Newsletter; v1%n3 p1, 4 Aug *. 1975 . - EOS PRICE HF-$0:133, HC-$1.67 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Institutions; *Language Planning; Languages for Specitl Purposes; *Language Usage; Language Variatiom;-*National Norms; National Programs; Norvegian; Official Languages; Socio4inguistics;, *Standard Spoken Osage; Technical Writing IDENTIFIERS Danish;'Faroese; Iceratdic;"Sweden; *Swedish ABSTRACT This article discusses langta'ge Planning in Sveden.\ The Svedish Academy,. has as'its goal to developsthe-punity,strength and nobility of the,Svgdish language bymeans. of dictionaries, grammars, and the codification of'vooebulary. Swedes also Hasa National Language Committee,.one of a network of such committees existing 4m the Scindinavian countries. They are the, resultof the po]itical, economic, cultural, and social connectiofts betimenthe Nordic countries, and they cooperate With each other itmatters of . language planning and cultivatiot. The principal -field- of activity iS general usage, but-the language of the sciences and of special professions is also hatdled'. To this end,Sweden,has the Centerfor Technical Tefminology. Tae evedisg Language Committee hasmembers repregtting five universit4.eA, the SvedishAcademy, and ivariogs royal academies, the public schoo4, the broadcasting'compani4g and the press, writers,,and theatres. The'Committee follows the development of spoken an written Svedish,/ and carries odt language planning and, cultivation activities. Its. main scientific interest is inthe changes in modern'Svedish. The publications of the Committeecover a wide-field of linguistic and language panning topici, and include diCtionaries, and a quarterly.,Other'pfivate language associations described concern themselves vith language cultivation.(CLK) L. % ****************v******le********************************************** * - Documents acquired by ERIC include ,many informal unpublished * * materials not available from other sources. ERIC makesevery effort * * to obtain the best copy available. Nevertheless, items ofmarginal' * * reproducibility are often'encountered and this affects the quality * * of the microfiche and hardcopy reproductions ERIC makes available * * via the ERIC Document Reproduction Service (EDRS). EDRS is got * responsible for the quality-of the original document.'Repkoductions* 4; supplied by EDRS are thebest-that can be made frcm the original. * ****************e*******************%***************e****************** East-West Center Honolulu, Hawaii EAST.VVEST CENTER Hattiail EAST-WEST CULTURE' LEARNING INSTITUTE VOL. 1 0.'3 . ite Language.Plannirig in Swedn,... r-4 EDUCATION &WELFARE By BERTIL MOLDE-* NATIONAL INSTITUTE Of EDUCATION N- .- . .47 The Swedish Academy 11-tIS 00CUMENT HAS EtE0EN REPRO. OUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM MI THE PERSON qR ORGANIZATION ORIGIN. "FAZIO,. In 1786 Gustavus III, king of Sweder< founded ATING IT POiiiTS OF OPiNrONS , r...4the Swedish Acadqrhy. According to its statutes the sTA TED 00 NOT NECESS ILY REPRE SENT OFF1CiAL NATIONAL i TiTuTE OF air main purpose of the Academy should be "to develop EOUCATION POSiTION OR POOCY the p6rity, strength, apd nobility of the'Swedish Ian- retorm, however, was made oy the government, not U.! guage." The Academy should (,ulfill thispurpose by by the Academy, wt)ich, asa matter of fact, was , working and publishing awedIsh dictionary, a very strongly opposed to certain parts of it. Since' grammar. and -such.treatise that can contribute to then it has been.accepted that Vie Academii can the consolidation and prorrioti of .good taste." The make mitaor changes In s.pellinOnd flexion (.in the Swedish Academy thus Vas the first language plan- word-list) without consulting anybody about it, but ning agency of Sweden. Its main linguistic work it cannot by itself undertake a reatspelling reform.. ',during its almost,200 years of existrce has been If a spelling reform should be made in Sweden, a connected with spelling and with the codification of special reform bill must be passed: by the SWedish vocabulary. Since 1892, the Academy has been pub- parliament. -. lishing a comprehensiNe scientifiC dictionary of .,'; Swedish from the.1520 onwards,.calied the Svenska Language Planning Agencies in Scandinavia. Akaderfver2s ordbak over svenska spraket (SAOB: Swedish is closely related to Danish and NorAie- , the Swedish Academy's dictionary of the Swedish gian, and Swedish is the second offibial and national ' language). This dictionary uses a stientific and his- language of Finland (the'other ranguge, spoken by tonc approach. To date, it has reached the middle of the great majority ot Finns, is Finnish). Icelandic : th.e letter S (in 26 large volumes); it will be finished -.and Faroese, too, are related to the other Scandina- Some time around the year 2000. -van languages, most closely to Norwegian. There More important for Swedish usage and for, the are old and close political, ecOnomical, cultural, and general public 18 the "word-list" .of the Academy, social connect,ions between the Nordic Countries, Svenska Akademiens'ordl.ista over svenska pr.aket and the fairly good .mutuaLunderstandability be- (,SAOL), first p blished in 1874.: it's tenth revised tween Swedish. Danish and Norwegian (especially edition appear in 14,73. This word-lis .- ow con- in. writing) of course has bpen of the utrnost impor- tains abbut 15 .000 SIvedish.words, giving their tance for the relations betweenThese countries.. spelling, flexion, and to a certainextent pronuncia- These relations nowadays have their,special politi- tionDefinitions are offered rather sparingly. The cal platform in theMordic Council, an institution for book is wideli/ accepted as normative regarding cooperation between the Nordic countries on a gov- spelling and'flex ion. Many users also believe that ernmental and parliamentary levet. words not incl ded in the book must not be used in The question of 'cooperation between the Nordic good Swedisthis is certainlynot the case. A word- countries was Very much in focus during World War list of 'some 6,000 words, published once every U. and Nordic linguists were strongly interested in other decade! can of course not include all words in strengthening the connections between the Nordic use, especiat not terms from the more specialized Languages,.eSpeciallySwedtsh, Danish and Norwe- vocabulariesf the sciences and professions. gian. In the beginning of the forties there were Since $wPdish spelling was stabilized in the plans for establishing a common Nordic language' . 1800s, there has been one real and official reform commit(ee. These plans, however, Were algandoned of Swedish s elling, in 1906. This rather important at that time,. but they have been taken up again late- 4./ ly, Instea)d, in 1944°a Swedish language committee 'Professor M lde Is Director of the SwedIsh Language was founded (Namnden for svensk sprakvard 'the Committee e is. as well.a member of. the Edi.torral Board of Cultivation of the Swedish Language.: in Board of. theanguaqe Plannmq Newsletter (ContinOed on Page 3) - The national standardization organizations al- (Continued from Paget) so deal with terms and tryto standardize. terminol- ogy and usage in different, mostly technical fields. These organizations cooperate with the national 1974 the name-was changed to Svenska spraknarnn- language committees, and the centers of technical den, 'the Swedish Language Committee'). A special terminology.. committee for the cultivation of the Swedish lan- guage in Finland was founded two years earlier, in Private Language Associations 1942, and a Finnish language board was started in In most Of the Nordic Countries there are dif- 1945. ferent private drganizatiOns and societies interested Language. committees were established in Nor-, in language cultivation, and to a certain, extent lan- way.in 1954 (Norsk spraknamnd, 'Norwegian Lan- guage planning. Such a Swedish. society is Sprak- guage Comimittee'. since 1971 Norsk Sprakrad, vardssamfirndet (the Language. Cultivation Soci- ''Norwegian Language Council'), in Denmark in 1955 ety), in Uppsala. This society has a publication (Dansk Sprogna9vn, 'Danish Language Committee), ser0a-called Ord och stil (Words and Style), now and in Iceland in 1964 (Islenzk matnelnd, 'Icelandic containing six volumes, including a book on Swe-. Language Committee). The language committees of dish pronunciation and its regulation, and a volume Norway and Denmark were to a large extent orga- on methods and terms of language sociology. nized on the pattern of the Swedish committee. The Swedish Language Committee Also worth mentioning is the special language com- mittee for the Lappish population, of Norway, Swe- The Swedish Language Committee has about 30 den and Finland which was established in 1971. (Sa- members, representing the five universities of Swe- misk spraknamnd). den, the Swedish Academy and its dictionary,. the The national language committees of the Nordic Royal Academy of Sciences, the Royal Academy of countries now are the Official or (as in Sweden) Letters, 'History and Antiquities, the Swedish semi-official language 'planning agencies. of their schools, the Association of Teachers of Swedish, cuntriempespecially as regards general usage. But the Swedish Center of Technical TerminOlogy; the all of th are, in accordance with their