Name of Scandinavian Language in United Scandinavia?
- Thread starter Tripledot
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- language scandinavia
Zagan
Donor
Sure, but the term was already in use during the period of romantic scandinavism so it would probably have been retained.
It depends how and when Scandinavian kingdoms are united. If it happens on 10th century probably Norsk. If Kalmar Union survives, probably Danish when Denmark is leader of the Union. And if Sweden manage conquer Denmark-Norway on 17th or 18th century, of course it is Swedish.
But if Scandinavian kingdoms unite on 19th century it might be Scandinavian or then they just talk about Swedish, Norweigian and Danish.
But if Scandinavian kingdoms unite on 19th century it might be Scandinavian or then they just talk about Swedish, Norweigian and Danish.
Skandinavisk seems most likely.
I do like the portmanteau nordensk as it suggests Norden.
Nordsmål? Skandsmål?
I do like the portmanteau nordensk as it suggests Norden.
Nordsmål? Skandsmål?
Depends on when Scandinavia was united. If it happened in more recent time you still would have Swedish, Danish and Norwegian. Further back and you might end up with either Swedish or Danish dominating depending on when unification happened and which country dominates politically.
No the languages would still exist. In the same way Catalan and Galician still exist in Spain. It would probably even be a situation where all 3 languages had status as official languages of the unified state. Because none of them are going to give up their language if unification happened within the last 200 years. Norwegian did not disappear under Danish and Swedish rule.
Zagan
Donor
You are mistaken here. The difference between Castilian and Catalan is orders of magnitude greater than between what we now call Scandianavian languages, while Galician is a dialect of Portuguese. If political Scandinavism had won in the 19th century and achieved the National Unity of the Scandinavian People, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish would have been even closer today than they are in OTL and it is certain that almost nobody would have considered them as independent languages.
My understanding has always been the reverse: Scandinavia is Denmark/Norway/Sweden while Norden is those three plus Finland and Iceland.
Kind of like how Scots (sorry, "North British") started being considered a dialect of English after the Union of the Crowns.
Yes.
But let look at it historical we have a few examples of what people called it. In the 18th century Denmark-Norway made a distinction between the Nordic speaking part of the empire and the German speaking one.
In the 19th century with pan-Scandinavianism it would be called Scandinavian.
Early than that it would depend on the country which united the Nordic countries, the language of a surviving Kalmar Union would be Danish, Sweden. Conquering Denmark-Norway in 1660 would result in it being called Swedish (through ironic I suspect such a conquest would result in the capital being moved closer to Copenhagen and the local dialect being the official Swedish dialect).
If Denmark, Norway and Sweden are unified at the height of Scandinavism, in the 19th century, I think someone might try to develop a standard language for the whole union from scratch, something that could actually be fairly easy to do since the Scandinavian languages are so closely related: the vocabulary of "standard Scandinavian" would almost entirely be based on Old Norse, but the grammar and the phonology would be developed by including only those features that the Scandinavian languages have in common, something that would result in some kind of Nordic "creole" or "Esperanto".
As for how such an union would look like, Oscar I of Sweden is probably the most likely Emperor of Scandinavia, but his reign over the whole North might become more palatable to Danes and Norwegians if he and his government gave up some Swedish land to Denmark (Skåneland) and Norway (Bohuslän, Idre & Särna, Härjedalen and Jämtland) in exchange for a Swedish sovereign and a Swedish capital (either Kalmar or Stockholm).
As for how such an union would look like, Oscar I of Sweden is probably the most likely Emperor of Scandinavia, but his reign over the whole North might become more palatable to Danes and Norwegians if he and his government gave up some Swedish land to Denmark (Skåneland) and Norway (Bohuslän, Idre & Särna, Härjedalen and Jämtland) in exchange for a Swedish sovereign and a Swedish capital (either Kalmar or Stockholm).
Funnythat is correct. Scandinavia only includes Norway, Sweden and Denmark, while "Norden" also includes Finland and Iceland (plus the Faeroe Islands). For some reason, in English, the term "Scandinavia" is used the wrong way. The name of the country would depend on the POD. Are we talking about a very early POD, leading to a common state or a late one? Scandinavianism was strong in the midt 1800s, but then Sweden and Denmark had already established their own written standards. I am not familiar enough with the linguistic history of Swedish and Danish to say what would be the best POD. An interesting year would be 1658, when Sweden took Scania (Skåne) and parts of Norway (the latter was lost two years later). Could Sweden have done better in 1658 and crushed Denmark altogether? I must admit it is quite some time since I read about this, so I cannot remember the details. With an even earlier POD, could the Kalmar Union have survived intact? This might perhaps have been more difficult. The exact name of a common language would perhaps depend on how Scandinavia was united.
I always took it to be Nordish/Nordisk, the people being the same, and the country as Norden. I'm also thinking of the 19th century here - Scandinavia(-n) is simply too cumbersome in the long run.
The trouble is that the term Nordic includes Finnish and Icelandic. Icelandic is related to the three Scandinavian languages, but is not understood by speakers of Norwegian/Swedish/Danish unless it is learnt. As a Norwegian, Icelandic sounds very familiar, but I do not understand enough to get the point in what is said. Icelandic is close to how people spoke in Scandianavia, and particularly in Western Norway, in the middle ages. The three Scandinavian languages (or four, if you consider the two varieties of written Norwegian to be separate languages) have been influenced by Low German and have to a large extent developed in the same direction. Finnish is totally unrelated to Scandianavian, as it is not Indoeuropean. Personally I see no problem with the terms Scandianvian (skandinavisk).
Depends on the time and condition of unification. The languages were pretty much identical around 1500 and as late as the second half of the 1600s the three languages had a great deal in common. Best bet would be Scandinavian as it doesn't offer institutional preference to either language.