Scania
 A Region in Europe

Chronological history of the Scanian Language

 

 
1. Period of the Danish Realm
 (811) - 1658

Three legal and linguistic regions.
Three regional Nordic languages.
No standard language.
Lund is the cultural center (to 1536).

   2. The Historic Language
 1658 - 1720
 Swedish occupation period

Skåne, Halland and Blekinge under Sweden.
Education in catechism in Swedish.
Church Mass in Swedish.
No noticeable effect on the daily spoken language.  

 
  3. Public Elementary School
 1850 - 1900

Scanian language in daily life.
Swedish as language in schools.
Swedish as the official language.


 

 4. Swedish Radio Period
 1900 - 1950

Spoken Scanian language in daily life with an increasing number of Swedish words.

  5. Swedish Television Period
1950 - today

Swedish is spoken with Scanian intonation and Scanian phonetics.
A considerable usage of Scanian words.

  6. Present Time

Some authors write in the Scanian language.
Scanian-Swedish in daily life.
Singing is performed in Svealand-Swedish in schools from young age.
 

 

The Future.

There are strong forces in the Swedish government for the total elimination of regional lingual variations. In the early 90’s all television stations in Sweden simultaneously started to dub to Svealand-Swedish foreign children programs, previously subtitled. The Government has an expert commission in progress investigating the possibilities of adding a paragraph to the Swedish Constitution making Svealand-Swedish the only official legal language in the country. Protests from regional or minority groups are at no avail. This development is contrary to the spirit of the Charter on Regional or Minority Languages.

Back
Main Page