As one would expect, the top of the list is dominated by small, peripheral European nations. As a Norwegian, I'm painfully aware that both my country and my language is too small to matter to anyone else. If I wish to interact with people abroad, I will have to do so on their terms, in their language.
And I do have to interact with people aboard. If you have a national economy or a cultural ecosystem consisting of fifty or hundred million people – like France, Germany or Japan – there's rarely a real _need_ to talk to anyone on the outside. There are enough newspapers, books, movies and records being produced in Japan to satisfy the domestic market – and the imported stuff can be translated and adapted without adding too much to the cost for each consumer.
For a country and language with less than five million people – not so much. We produced a total of 20 movies last year, and the climate on this frozen rock made sure our crops yielded only half of the food we actually need. If we didn't talk to anyone else, we'd be bored and starving.
Which regional great power dominates our trade and cultural input has varied over time. Norway was in the Hanseatic League's sphere of influence from the 1300s, and German language and culture had the greatest influence for almost a millennium. The harbour area of my home town of Bergen is still named “the German Wharf”. And my great grandmother told the German soldiers approaching her in April 1940 to fuck off in perfect German.
During and after the war, the Anglo-american economic and cultural influence quickly surpassed the German. The Cold War brought us even closer to the US, despite the American culture being rather … incompatible with the Norwegian.
The stories are similar for most of the other small European countries. But how the English language influences the native tongue varies wildly from one country to the next. The differences are especially noticeable between Norway and Denmark.
Some more historical background first:
Norway is a very young nation-state. From 1380 to 1814, Norway was part of Denmark. From 1814 to 1905, Norway was in a personal union under the Swedish king. As of the 19th century, we didn't have our own written language. We spoke Norwegian, but wrote Danish. As Norwegian nationalism grew during the 1800s, a charming gentleman called Ivar Aasen set out to create a Norwegian written language. He traveled around the country, taking note of how people actually spoke. Dialects vary wildly between different parts of the realm (I haven't seen this much internal variation in any other country), but he did distill what he heard down to a set of grammar and vocabulary.
The adoption of Ivar Aasen's nynorsk (literally: New Norwegian), too, varied a lot from region to region. It was generally recieved well on the countryside. In the cities, the Norwegian upper classes had developed an amalgam dialect combining the original local tongue and Danish. They were greatly opposed to this uncivilized new language, and brought much of the urban working classes onto their team. So for the past 150 years, we've been been fighting, sometimes almost literally, about how to write. Today we have two official written languages – bokmål (literally: book language) and nynorsk. There was a stranded effort in the mid-1900s to unify them, but they have influenced each other a lot. Bokmål isn't very much like Danish anymore, and standard nynorsk is quite watered down.
The result of these struggles is that how a Norwegian speaks and writes is a significant part of his identity. The dialect shows which region you come from and which social class you belong to (or aspire to belong to), and each one comes with pride. Not chauvinism or jingoism, but genuine pride. I live in Oslo, but if I come home to Bergen and show signs of being influenced by the Oslo dialect, I will be ridiculed by friends and family. For real. (c:
Now, back to my point. The Danish language today is heavily influenced by English. The frequency of loan words is staggering. A number of English words have found their way into the Norwegian language too, but an order of magnitude less. I believe this is due to our history. The Danes were never colonized by anyone, and haven't spent much time philosophizing about how they speak or write. We have, and it shows.
(Other interesting tangents: Why have the Norwegian dialects diverged so much? Why can Norwegians understand Swedish but Swedes have a hard time understanding Norwegian? Why has Norway stayed out of the European Union? Why is the English influence of the Norwegian language more noticeable in the capital than elsewhere?)
Guessing as someone who has very little clue about Scandinavia:
Why have the Norwegian dialects diverged so much
A rugged and wast geography tends to isolate people, this leads to greater drift between local dialects? Sweden is big too, but I think Norway is much more mountainous?
Why can Norwegians understand Swedish but Swedes have a hard time understanding Norwegian?
Norwegians are used to listening for a wide range of dialects, Swedes not so much?
Why has Norway stayed out of the European Union?
What's the point of joining for a small yet well of country? If you're big like France and Germany you can guide the EU your way, if you're small but less developed like Spain, Portugal, all the new members, you hope for increased wealth. But if you're Norway, why join?
Why is the English influence of the Norwegian language more noticeable in the capital than elsewhere?
The capital has a bigger economy, more trade, more people's work requires English, more tourists, even the non-UK and non-US tourists are more likely to communicate in English, more entertainment overall, and this means more foreign entrainment - music, movies - in English.
Thank you. As someone somewhat curious about Norway (and Scandinavia in general; "it" being part of my heritage), your description provides some detail I'd not heard.
The regional dialects remind me of my time in Germany. There is considerable variation between the coastal areas and the Alps. I recall being freshly arrived in Munich and having a "genuine" (here in the U.S., if we were were joking or a bit mean, we might say "hillbilly") Bavarian as a neighbor. I couldn't understand a word he said (unless he made a conscious effort, and even then...). (He was a really nice guy, BTW, and we go along fine, despite this.)
I spent a lot of time with students in Munich, a city and university system that attracted them from all over. And there were plenty of light-hearted comments about others' accents and where they must be from. I think I was fortunate to be amongst a younger population for whom such things were more curiosity than a divisive issue. Older Germans... plenty of genuinely nice ones, but also sometimes some very entrenched feelings. Like anywhere, I guess.
I had a question for you, if you don't mind. Norway, Sweden, and Denmark seem to have so thoroughly integrated English as a second language. Where do you, and do people in general, seem to find the boundary between their native language and English in their daily interactions?
I've heard, for example, that if one attendee in a meeting is not a native speaker, the meeting switches to English and that really seems to be no problem at all. In Montreal, Canada, amongst the young technologists I visited, conversations would switch between French and English, and back again, in mid-sentence.
I don't have a compelling reason for asking; I'm just curious.
> Where do you, and do people in general, seem to find the boundary between their native language and English in their daily interactions?
* If I speak to other Norwegians, I will speak Norwegian. Always. I make a conscious effort to keep the language free of any [recent] loan words.
* If I speak to Swedes or Danes, I will speak Norwegian. If I see they're having trouble following, I will speak slower and tone down my dialect. I will not switch to Swedish or to English. I understand them – they better do the effort of understanding me. (That's the 500 years as a colony kicking in. :)
* If I speak to a non-Scandinavian foreigner who doesn't understand or speak Norwegian, I instantly switch to English.
* If I speak to ten Scandinavians and one non-Scandinavian, I will instantly switch to English.
* If I speak to someone who has been in Norway long enough to understand the language but not long enough to be comfortable speaking it, I will speak Norwegian. I don't mind if he speaks English, but I'll stick to Norwegian if he actually understands it.
* If I speak to someone who doesn't really speak much Norwegian but tries hard to, I'll answer in Norwegian first – but usually switch to English when I see they're struggling.
All of the above apply within my own country. Abroad, I will try to speak the local language if I can. If not, I will ask, in the local language, if they speak English and then switch. If I'm spoken to in English, I will respond in English.
>If I speak to someone who doesn't really speak much Norwegian but tries hard to, I'll answer in Norwegian first – but usually switch to English when I see they're struggling.
I'm Norwegian, and had a neighbor from England. He said that it is hard to learn Norwegian because we tend to switch to English when talking to him. We often started the conversations in Norwegian, but (too) quickly moved to English.
In my experience as a foreigner in Scandinavia, Swedes are way way faster to switch to English, many do it almost as soon as I make a small mistake, whereas Norwegians are much more tolerant and will keep up unless I switch myself.
Reminds me of Quebecois French vs. Parisian French, for much the same reasons. In Paris, I can call an e-mail an e-mail. In Montreal? I've been told I have to use 'courriel'. The Quebecois are a little less secure about their cultural identity than the Parisians, so their resistance to loan words makes sense, despite a higher level of English proficiency.
Incidentally, I don't think that study does justice to Norwegians' facility with English. I never worry about being understood in any European capital, but in Norway everyone seemed near-fluent, even in the rural areas. We spent a couple of weeks driving around above the Arctic Circle, and I never had to whip out the phrase book once.
As an American living in Oslo, I can say that understanding spoken Norwegian is incredibly difficult. Even Norwegians admit that the divergence of some of the dialects creates problems for them as well. Bokmål's syntax and grammar is not actually that difficult to learn, but because the spoken language is really quite different - even in Oslo - it's very difficult to mentally map the spoken words to the written words. I'm also not sure that I would agree with you concerning the difference in English influence between, for example, Danish and Norwegian. Norway, much like France, does have a group dedicated to coming up with "Norwegian" words for new terms, but those words are often ignored, such as people saying dot instead of punkt when reciting a URL. There was also an article recently about the increasing tendency for Norwegians to say sorry instead of unnskyld or beklager.
Danes and Swedes do not have nearly as wide a variety of accents, and I think that is why they have a much harder time understanding Norwegian than you have understanding them. Norwegians have to grow up learning two native languages, figuring out all the different dialects, and start learning English around the age of 7 or 8 (these days, at least). The affect this has on your ability to grasp languages does not surprise me at all.
Of course, I still find it rather annoying that some of my Norwegian friends expect me to be able to learn Norwegian quickly despite knowing that I work in an English language environment (I share an office with 4 other people, none of whom are Norwegian) and not having a Norwegian spouse or samboer. And, of course, that most of them spent around 10 years in school learning English, not to mention being exposed to it through TV, movies and music.
One last question, though... What's the point of Norway not being in the EU if they keep agreeing to everything the EU enacts? Such as, say, the DLD?
And I do have to interact with people aboard. If you have a national economy or a cultural ecosystem consisting of fifty or hundred million people – like France, Germany or Japan – there's rarely a real _need_ to talk to anyone on the outside. There are enough newspapers, books, movies and records being produced in Japan to satisfy the domestic market – and the imported stuff can be translated and adapted without adding too much to the cost for each consumer.
For a country and language with less than five million people – not so much. We produced a total of 20 movies last year, and the climate on this frozen rock made sure our crops yielded only half of the food we actually need. If we didn't talk to anyone else, we'd be bored and starving.
Which regional great power dominates our trade and cultural input has varied over time. Norway was in the Hanseatic League's sphere of influence from the 1300s, and German language and culture had the greatest influence for almost a millennium. The harbour area of my home town of Bergen is still named “the German Wharf”. And my great grandmother told the German soldiers approaching her in April 1940 to fuck off in perfect German.
During and after the war, the Anglo-american economic and cultural influence quickly surpassed the German. The Cold War brought us even closer to the US, despite the American culture being rather … incompatible with the Norwegian.
The stories are similar for most of the other small European countries. But how the English language influences the native tongue varies wildly from one country to the next. The differences are especially noticeable between Norway and Denmark.
Some more historical background first:
Norway is a very young nation-state. From 1380 to 1814, Norway was part of Denmark. From 1814 to 1905, Norway was in a personal union under the Swedish king. As of the 19th century, we didn't have our own written language. We spoke Norwegian, but wrote Danish. As Norwegian nationalism grew during the 1800s, a charming gentleman called Ivar Aasen set out to create a Norwegian written language. He traveled around the country, taking note of how people actually spoke. Dialects vary wildly between different parts of the realm (I haven't seen this much internal variation in any other country), but he did distill what he heard down to a set of grammar and vocabulary.
The adoption of Ivar Aasen's nynorsk (literally: New Norwegian), too, varied a lot from region to region. It was generally recieved well on the countryside. In the cities, the Norwegian upper classes had developed an amalgam dialect combining the original local tongue and Danish. They were greatly opposed to this uncivilized new language, and brought much of the urban working classes onto their team. So for the past 150 years, we've been been fighting, sometimes almost literally, about how to write. Today we have two official written languages – bokmål (literally: book language) and nynorsk. There was a stranded effort in the mid-1900s to unify them, but they have influenced each other a lot. Bokmål isn't very much like Danish anymore, and standard nynorsk is quite watered down.
The result of these struggles is that how a Norwegian speaks and writes is a significant part of his identity. The dialect shows which region you come from and which social class you belong to (or aspire to belong to), and each one comes with pride. Not chauvinism or jingoism, but genuine pride. I live in Oslo, but if I come home to Bergen and show signs of being influenced by the Oslo dialect, I will be ridiculed by friends and family. For real. (c:
Now, back to my point. The Danish language today is heavily influenced by English. The frequency of loan words is staggering. A number of English words have found their way into the Norwegian language too, but an order of magnitude less. I believe this is due to our history. The Danes were never colonized by anyone, and haven't spent much time philosophizing about how they speak or write. We have, and it shows.
(Other interesting tangents: Why have the Norwegian dialects diverged so much? Why can Norwegians understand Swedish but Swedes have a hard time understanding Norwegian? Why has Norway stayed out of the European Union? Why is the English influence of the Norwegian language more noticeable in the capital than elsewhere?)