Scania
A Region in Europe
HELMER LÅNG
THE SCANIAN LANGUAGE
A Summary by SSF in English from the book “Skånska språket” ("The Scanian Language") 2002.
Helmer Lång has written his treatise because the leadership for ”Region Scania” has put the matter of the Scanian language on its agenda, referring to the request by the governmental Minority Languages Investigation that Scanian be acknowledged as a historical regional language. Although guidelines of the Council of Europe make a distinction between minority languages and regional languages and have the ambition to revitalize the latter, the Swedish government has made a unilateral decision to acknowledge only four minority languages (Finnish, Sami, Yiddish and Romany) while completely ignoring the existence of regional languages such as Scanian (the historical language of the Scania region, which includes the provinces of Scania, Halland and Blekinge as well as the Danish island of Bornholm) or Gutnian (the historical language of Gotland).
This deliberate suppression of a historical fact is in breach of the European Charter on Minority Languages, which Sweden has signed. It is part of a national policy dedicated to ethnic and linguistic uniformity throughout all Swedish territory. This policy conceals or marginalizes the fact that the Scania region bas a separate history which lasted until this rich and culturally important area was made part of Sweden by force of arms and a dictated peace agreement (the Peace Treaty of Roskilde 1658). Furthermore, it is consistently claimed that "Scanian is not a language but merely a southern Swedish dialect". This is a misconception – or a misrepresentation. Using an array of historical and linguistic facts, the author shows that Scanian is an independent language. Above all, it cannot t» called a "Swedish" dialect since the language was structured and codified long before Scania became part of Sweden. Conceivably, it could be called "Eastern Danish”. In a special chapter, the author discusses the relationship between "language” and ”dialect” and notes that the two words were originally synonymous. ”Whether one calls a vernacular a language or a dialect is a matter of definition. A dialect that is spoken and codified in a country receives the status of a language”.
For a thousand years, Scania was independent, originally as a number of separate ”kingdoms” before they were united. Then, in the l0th century, it became part of Denmark. Contemporary Danish linguists have established that until the l 7th century, when the Danish written national language emerged, there were three languages: Island Danish (the language of Zealand and the other Danish islands), Jutish (the language of Jutland) and Scanian or Skånelandish (the language of Scania. Halland, Blekinge and Bornholm). This means that from a historical perspective
Scanian is a distinct language within the Danish kingdom. Helmer Lång underlines the Scanian language’s decisive influence on the Danish national language.
In northern Europe two factors were paramount in the formation of a common written language: the law texts and the translation of the Bible. The SCANlA Law, which was in force from the 12th century until the late 17th century in the province of SCANlA (Scania, Halland, Blekinge and Bornholm), is the oldest of all the provincial laws in Denmark. It was also in force for almost a hundred years on Zealand and the other Danish islands and accordingly influenced the language when the "Zealand Law" was written and became one of the cornerstones of the official Danish language.
The other important influence on the formation of a common written language was Bible translations, particularly those of the New Testament. As early as 19l4 the Danish language professor Johannes Brendum Nielsen, in his dissertation Sproglig Forfatterbestemmelse, showed that the Danish translation of the New Testament (printed in 1524) was the work of three persons, Of those, one was from Juteland, but the other two were from Scania and hence were the ones who had the deepest impact on the translation. In other words, Scanian has also been very much present in the biblical influences at work during the formation of the Danish written language, and therefore on that of the national language. As late as the mid-17th century, a Danish grammarian warned against the strong influence that Scanian was exerting on "exemplary" Danish!
In various chapters, the author demonstrates that Scanian is an independent language, which has gone its own way – often a middle way – between Danish and Swedish. Scanians have their own intonation or prosody and a discrete pronunciation of words common to the Nordic languages.
These peculiarities clearly distinguish Scanian as a language apart from both Danish and Swedish, making a Scanian easy to identify even when he speaks standard Swedish. In Skåneland the spoken ”r" is uvular whereas it is apical in most other parts of the Swedish territory. The vowels are consistently subject to a more or less pronounced diphtbongisation, predominantly in the "a", "o" and "å” sounds.
Furthermore, Scanian has its own grammar and in a great number of instances a special sound development which separates it not only from the Swedish but in many cases also from the Danish. Such a sound development involves the combination "nn", which in some instances has come into being through the transformation of the sound "nd”. In both Swedish and Danish the original consonants have been preserved in written language, "rund” and ”hund", while the spoken pronunciation is "runn" and "hunn". In Scanian, the vowel "u' is rather similar to the German "u” hereas the "nn" has evolved into "ng"; the twv worda mentioned are pronounced as ”rong" and ”hong". The Swedish word "kvinna" ("woman") is "kvinde" in Danish but kvinga in Scanian, where it also has a special meaning of "wife" or "betrothed”.
In Old Norse there existed a consonant combination "hv" which was hard to pronounce. The respective Nordic languages found separate ways to economize. The Danish and the Swedish skipped the difficult "h", turning the Old Norse "hvad", "hvem”, "hvar", "hvarfore" and "hvart" into "va(d)", "vem", "var”, "varför" and "vart" in spoken language. This loss of the "h" was acknowledged in written Swedish in l906 through a spelling reform, but the archaic spelling still exists in written Danish. However, the Norwegian (or more precisely the Neo-Norwegian) chose to facilitate pronunciation by softening the "h" sound to a "k" sound: hence, the words are pronounced as "kva" (”vad"), "kvor" ("var”), ”kvem" ("vem") and so on.
The Scanian went the shortest route and retained the first consonant while dropping the "v". Even today, the Scanian core dialects say ha ("hvad"), hår (hvar") and håfför (hvarför").
Contemporary Scanian is also clearly distinguished from the Swedish by a sound development shared with the Danish. In the 12th century the Danish language underwent a sound shift, which entailed the transformation of the stops p, l, k within or at the end of words to b, d, g after a stressed vowel. That sound shift also took place in Scania, and possibly happened there first. Simultaneously, the vowel a was weakened to e in an unstressed syllable in Danish but not in the language of Skåneland. Accordingly, the Old Norse "gata", which was preserved in Swedish, turned into gade in Danish but gada in Scanian, and "gapa" became gabe and gaba respectivcly. The Swedish "äta" is eda in Scanian, a form rather similar to the original Indo-European one (Latin "edere") whereas the normal word in Danish is spise. In the Scanian, the transition t>d also took place in the definite form of neuter nouns: skabed (skåpet), lanned (landet). Scanian and Danish have a great number of other sound changes in common which are completely different form the way sounds evolved in Swedish.
Naturally, a lengthy chapter deals with 'The Scanian Word Treasury". In 1995, Helmer Lång and Sten-Bertil Vide published Skånsk-svensk-dansk ordbok ("Scanian-Swedish-Danish Dictionary”), an inventory of over 2,000 Scanian words and expressions. It does not include words that are held in common with the Swedish (and in most cases also with the Danish) but which have assumed a different form because they underwent other sound changes. Hence, one does not find words like liden (liten), kjarra (kärra), liasom (liksom), tafft (tappat). Neither does the book list words where the ”d” has been muted after an ”r", as for example Jor (Jord) or or (ord), even though the latter word is fairly different from the corresponding Swedish one in the definite form: ored (ordet). In the present tense of verbs, the Scanian has an ”a" instead of the Danish and Swedish "e", which means that words become significantly different when there have also been other sound changes, as for example in rögar (Sw, röker, Da. ryger). However, there are a number of words of this kind, for example vär (väder), definite form väred (vädret) which are so distinct that they have been included.
This means that the list basically contains words that exclusively or mainly exist in the Scanian. Naturally, most native Scanian words also exist in both Swedish and Danish or at least in one of the two languages. Of the 2,000 Scanian words and expressions that have been codified in "Skånsk-svensk-dansk Ordbok", about half are dialect words that only exist in certain Scanian dialects; however, the goal has been to only include those found in at least three of the 23 Scanian härader (traditional administrative districts). Even back in the Danish period, the language in Scania had diversified into dialects, a development that was speeded up after Scania was transferred from Denmark to Sweden.
The Swedish government deliberately split up Scania when it divided the land into two counties called Malmöhus and Kristianstad. (It was only in 1998 that the two halves were reunited into one single county and became ”Region Scania".) For this reason, one can observe considerable differences in pronunciation and even vocabulary between those two areas, The Swedish word "potatis" (which comes directly from the English "potatoes") is kartoffel (straight from the High German) in Danish, whereas the word used in southern and eastern Scania (more or less corresponding to Malmöhus County) is pantoffla (from the High German). In northern and northeastern Scania the term employed is pära, which can also be found in the dialects of Småland and other Swedish provinces. The term came into being because of the likeness with the fruit "päron" ("pears”), which had been known since the Middle Ages; and the tuber is known under that very name in the vernacular. Originally, the people of northern Scania differentiated between fruttapära, träpära (pear) and jorpära (potato).
One can safely estimate that about a thousand words are common to all Scanians and are understood by all even though not all of them are used in daily speech. About a hundred of these are not uniquely Scanian but originated in Old Norse and have disappeared in Swedish and Danish (sometimes they remain in Swedish and Danish dialects). Among these words are a great number of words for various domestic animals, particularly the horse. The common word in Old Norse was "hross”, which also appears in the Sanskrit as ”arusa" and in the English as ”horse” (it was introduced into the English by Scanian and Danish Vikings). In Scanian, the word hårrs still exists as a word for an old horse, with derivations such as hårrsahår, hårrsapära, hårrsascharra, meaning respectively "horsehair", "horse dropping" and "horse scarer”, that is to say a rattle with which to scare away or summon animals. Ordinarily, however, the Scanian term for horse is ög, which can also be found in older Danish and Swedish in the original form "ök”. In the Scanian countryside, the word for "mare" is still mär(r). This word has not been included in the dictionary since it can be found, without any mention of its being provincial or archaic, in "Svenska Akademiens ordlista” (the Glossary of the Swedish Acadamy, abbreviated SAOL) and in the dictionary of the ”Nationalencyklopedin", even though it is seldom heard outside Scania. The origin of this word is "marhi", a common Germanic word which may be derived from the Indo-European.
Other typical Scanian words can also be traced back to the Old Norse. One example is räli(g), which is listed in SAOL with the comment "provincial (southern Swedish)", that is Scanian. It is derived from the Old Norse "raedselig" which means "that which one rädes” (is afraid of), but in the Scanian it has been the origin of words such as rälia (an adverb meaning "hugely") and rälius (a nasty man). The typically Scanian hialöa is also listed in SAOL with the comment "provincial (southern Swedish)" and the translation ”nervously urgent, rushing, restless”. This word can also be traced back to the Old Norse in the original form ”hiklaus", which means excessive or bold. The Scanian also has the alternative form hied and the verb hia si (calm down). Another frequently used word is mög (manure, filth), from which several words are derived, among them möga (to spread manure, to dirty) and möged, mögi (filthy). The word also exists in combinations like möglålla (where the second half is the same word as the Swedish "lolla”, meaning an uncouth woman) and the male equivalent mögtokke, where the second half is the unique, onomatopoetic word for a cock: tokke. The word mög is from Old Norse "myki". Another Old Norse word is akava (brusque, sudden), corresponding to the Danish akavet.
A great number of distinct Scanian words refer to the weather, which used to be of great importance in Scania since much of it is old farmland. The already mentioned räli, räled is often used about nasty weather, but this phenomenon can also be referred to with the even more negative böst (from the Gerrnan höse) and the even stronger puged. The last adjective is derived from the general Nordic (and possibly Indo-European) word for an evil spirit or the Devil himself: ”puki”, later ”puke". Puged vär simply means ”bloody weather". The opposite process, in which the weather gets beautiful with a clear sky, is described with the expressive Scanian höjnar or håjjnar ("highens"), which of course come from the adjective "hög" (high), meaning that the sky "gets higher”.
From an international perspective there are interesting Scanian words such as putta (pronounced with a Scanian-”German" ”u" sound), which means ”push, give a nudge". It is clearly related to the English "put”, whether that word is indigenous or was introduced by Scanian Vikings. The same word is found in the name for the originally Scanian dish "pyttipanna", nowadays often abbreviated ”pytt". The older form is "putt i panna", that is to say, that which one "puttar” (puts) in the frying pan.
After having listed and discussed a great number of Scanian words, the author refers the reader to ”Skånsk-svensk-dansk Ordbok" for more detailed study. Thereupon he tells about "the forgotten Scanian literature", the literature of the ancient age, and how it was built upon in later days when Scania was Denmark’s most important cultural center and Lund was particularly important since the primas (archbishop) for Denmark, at times for all the Nordic countries, resided there. After that he goes on to old folktales and poems in the vernacular and the considerable literature written in various Scanian dialects from the end of the l9th century to the present.
The vernacular songs have enjoyed great popularity and have experienced a renaissance during the last decades. They help keep the Scanians together from a linguistic point of view. Another very important contributing factor in this context is the Scanian proverbs, which are still frequently beard, and to an even higher degree the anecdotes in Scania. The humor in Scania has a special character that contributes to Scanian cohesiveness more than anything else. There the language inherited from the past lives on, full of vitality and the joy of words.
© SSF