Language

Proficiency in English is both widespread and high-level in the Nordic countries, and there are legitimate historical and socio-political reasons for this. But it should not be assumed that everyone is equally proficient, nor that the power of the English language goes unquestioned.

Maintaining the language and identity associated with heritage languages in the Nordic countries can be challenging: Official policies and economic opportunities, together with the cultural pressure to assimilate, can create a language shift away from heritage languages towards more dominant ones.

Bengt Pohjanen is a multilingual author and translator best known for his work in Meänkieli, which has been vital in establishing a literary and linguistic heritage for the population of the Torne Valley and the Meänkieli-speaking diaspora elsewhere. A central element of Pohjanen’s work is the notion that Meänmaa is more than just a geographical area, but also a virtual cultural space with an imagined Tornedalian community, their common identity and a shared Meänkieli cultural heritage.

Sweden was the first country in the world to recognise deaf people as bilingual in 1979, and the other Nordic countries eventually followed suit. But new technologies and the policy of including deaf children in mainstream education has markedly reduced the use of signed languages in some of the Nordic countries in recent years.

There is a common understanding outside the Nordic countries that Nordic people can all understand one another’s languages, or at least the Scandinavians (the Danes, Swedes and Norwegians) can. However, this impression of linguistic unity is not wholly accurate.

Ingria is the historic name for the isthmus between the Baltic Sea and Lake Lagoda, connecting modern-day Finland with modern-day Estonia. Today, this region is dominated by the city of St Petersburg. Over the last four hundred years, Ingria has seen numerous invasions, annexations and changes to state boundaries, reflecting the major historical events of early modern Northern Europe. Ingria can be characterised as a region of political and ideological borders – at various times, constructed as the dividing line between Finland and Russia, capitalism and communism, East and West. These changes have had profound impacts on the Ingrian Finns, the seventeenth century Finnish-speaking settlers in the region and their descendants.

In this short video, Lill Tove Fredriksen, Associate Professor in Sámi Literature at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, discusses the Sámi language pre-, during and after Norwegianisation, taking four generations of her family’s women as a starting point.

Rinkebysvenska or Rinkeby Swedish is a contemporary urban vernacular (CUV) which has developed in multi-ethnic urban areas of Sweden including a suburb of Stockholm called Rinkeby. This speech variety is mainly used by young people in addition to other languages and language varieties depending on context, and its use is reflected in rap and fiction.

The scientific study of language form and meaning, including the specialised branch of runology, has been a prominent academic pursuit in the Nordics since the Middle Ages.

Yoik is the native Sami musical expression which is reminiscent of singing. It has layers of meaning as it holds identity markers and was traditionally very significant in how social interaction took place within Sami communities (and still is to a certain extent). It also had more practical purposes, such as calming reindeer.