Scanian ( sv, skånska , da, skånsk) is an East Scandinavian dialect spoken in the province of

Scania Scania, also known by its native name of Skåne (, ), is the southernmost of the historical provinces of Sweden, provinces (''landskap'') of Sweden. Located in the south tip of the geographical region of Götaland, the province is roughly conte ...

in southern

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

. Present-day speakers of "Scanian" speak the Scanian dialect of Swedish. Older Scanian formed part of the old Scandinavian

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of Variety (linguistics), language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are Mutual intelligibility, mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulat ...

and are by most historical linguists considered to be an

East Danish East Danish refers to dialects of the Danish language spoken in Bornholm (Bornholmsk dialect) in Denmark and in Blekinge, Halland, Skåne (Scanian dialect) and the southern parts of Småland in Sweden. After Scania, Halland and Blekinge came ...

dialect group, but due to the modern-era influence from Standard Swedish in the region and because traditional dialectology in the Scandinavian countries normally has not considered isoglosses that cut across state borders, the Scanian dialects have normally been treated as a South

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

dialect group in Swedish dialect research. However, many of the early Scandinavian linguists, including

Adolf Noreen Adolf Gotthard Noreen (13 March 1854, in Östra Ämtervik, Sunne Municipality – 13 June 1925, in Uppsala) was a Swedish linguist who served as a member of the Swedish Academy from 1919 until his death. Noreen studied at Uppsala University and ...

and G. Sjöstedt, classified it as "South Scandinavian", and some linguists, such as

Elias Wessén Elias Wessén (15 April 1889 – 30 January 1981) was a prominent Swedish linguist and a professor of Scandinavian languages at Stockholm University (1928–1956). In 1947, he was honoured with one of the 18 seats at the Swedish Academy (which f ...

, also considered Old Scanian a separate language, classified apart from both Old Danish and Old Swedish.

Status

There has been active campaigning from local Scanian interest groups to promote Scanian as a separate language on par with the official

minority languages A minority language is a language spoken by a minority of the population of a territory. Such people are termed linguistic minorities or language minorities. With a total number of 196 sovereign states recognized internationally (as of 2019) and ...

, though this has been rejected by Swedish authorities. Swedish linguists generally view Scanian as just one of many local or regional Swedish (or Scandinavian) dialects, some of which differ considerably from

Standard Swedish Standard Swedish () denotes Swedish as a spoken and written standard language. While Swedish as a written language is uniform and standardized, the spoken standard may vary considerably from region to region. Several prestige dialects have devel ...

but don't meet the criteria of a separate language. Scanian was originally classified as a separate

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...

ISO 639-3 ISO 639-3:2007, ''Codes for the representation of names of languages – Part 3: Alpha-3 code for comprehensive coverage of languages'', is an international standard for language codes in the ISO 639 series. It defines three-letter codes for ...

, but was declassified as a language in 2009. A request for reinstatement was submitted during the 2009 annual review process, but rejected on the grounds of mutual intelligibility; it is listed in

ISO 639-6 ISO 639-6, ''Codes for the representation of names of languages — Part 6: Alpha-4 code for comprehensive coverage of language variants'', was a proposed international standard in the ISO 639 series, developed bISO/TC 37/SC 2(International Organiz ...

with code scyr. Within the previous SIL International classification of Scanian were the dialects in the province of

, some of the southern dialects of

Halland Halland () is one of the traditional provinces of Sweden (''landskap''), on the western coast of Götaland, southern Sweden. It borders Västergötland, Småland, Scania and the sea of Kattegat. Until 1645 and the Second Treaty of Brömseb ...

( in Swedish), the dialects of

Blekinge Blekinge (, old da, Bleking) is one of the traditional Swedish provinces (), situated in the southern coast of the geographic region of Götaland, in southern Sweden. It borders Småland, Scania and the Baltic Sea. It is the country's secon ...

( or in Swedish) and the dialects of the Danish island of Bornholm ( in Danish). With the establishment of the Scanian Academy and with recent heritage conservation programs, funded by Region Skåne and the Swedish Government, there is a renewed interest in the region for Scanian as a cultural language and as a regional identity, especially among younger generations of Scanians. Many of the genuine rural dialects have been in decline subsequent to the

industrial revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

and

urbanization Urbanization (or urbanisation) refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change. It is predominantly t ...

in Sweden. The population of

make up around 13.5% of the total population in

History

Swedish and Danish are considered to have been the same dialect,

Old East Norse Old Norse, Old Nordic, or Old Scandinavian, is a stage of development of North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlement ...

, up until the 12th century. However, some scholars speculate that there might have been certain dialect differences within the Nordic language area as early as the

Proto-Nordic Proto-Norse (also called Ancient Nordic, Ancient Scandinavian, Ancient Norse, Primitive Norse, Proto-Nordic, Proto-Scandinavian and Proto-North Germanic) was an Indo-European language spoken in Scandinavia that is thought to have evolved as a ...

period.Ottosson, Kjartan (2003). "Old Nordic: A definition and delimitation of the period". In ''The Nordic Languages: An International Handbook of the History of the North Germanic Languages''. Volume 1. Eds. Oskar Bandle et al., p. 798. The term Swedish is not mentioned specifically in any source until the first half of the 14th century, and no standard spoken language had developed in either Sweden or Denmark before 1500, although some scholars argue that there may have been tendencies towards a more formal "courteous" language among the aristocracy. Scania Churchlaw

Scanian appeared in writing before 1200, at a time when Swedish and Danish had yet to be codified, and the long struggle between Sweden and Denmark over the right to claim the Old Scanian manuscripts as an early form of either of the two national state languages has led to some odd twists and turns. Two Scanian fragments dated to around 1325 were initially claimed to be (younger) Old Swedish, but further research in modern times has claimed that the language was not Swedish, but Scanian. During the 20th century the fragments were thus relabeled early Old Danish by Scandinavian linguists, and as explained by Danish linguist Britta Olrik Frederiksen, the fragments are now thought to "represent as such a newly claimed territory for the history of the Danish language".Frederiksen, Britta Olrik (2003). "The history of Old Nordic manuscripts IV: Old Danish". The history of Old Nordic Manuscripts VI: Old Danish, In ''The Nordic Languages: An International Handbook of the History of the North Germanic Languages. Volume 1'', Eds. Oskar Bandle et al., p. 823. Like the Scanian Law, one of the fragments, a six-leaf fragment (catalogued as SKB A 120), is written in the runic alphabet. The place of writing, according to Frederiksen, has been tentatively identified as the

Cistercian The Cistercians, () officially the Order of Cistercians ( la, (Sacer) Ordo Cisterciensis, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint ...

monastery at

Herrevad Abbey Herrevad Abbey ( sv, Herrevadskloster, da, Herrevads Kloster) was a Cistercian monastery near Ljungbyhed in Klippan Municipality, Scania, in the south of present-day Sweden, but formerly in Denmark until 1658. It is now a country house known as H ...

in Scania. The fragment contains a translation of Mary's lament at the cross. The other fragment (catalogued as SKB *A 115) is a bifolium with just over a hundred metrical lines of

knittelvers Knittelvers (also ''Knüttelvers'' or ''Knittel'') is a kind of Germanic verse meter which originated in Germany during the Middle Ages. In Knittelvers, consecutive lines rhyme pairwise (AABB) and each line has four stresses. "Strict" Knittelve ...

, a translation from Latin of the apocryphal gospel

Evangelium Nicodemi Evangelion refers to the gospel in Christianity, translated from the Greek word (, la, evangelium) meaning "Good News". Evangelion may also refer to: * Gospel account * Gospel Book * In Manichaeism, a major text known as the Evangelion ( syc, ...

about Christ's descent into hell and resurrection. In modern Scandinavian linguistic research, the assertion that Old Scanian was a Swedish dialect before the Swedish acquisition of most of old Skåneland is now seldom argued by linguistic scholars, although the comparative and historical research efforts continue. One of the artifacts sometimes referred to as support for the view of Scanian as separate from both the Swedish and Danish language is a letter from the 16th century, where the Danish Bible translators were advised not to employ Scanian translators since their language was not "proper Danish".

Language politics

After the

Treaty of Roskilde The Treaty of Roskilde (concluded on 26 February ( OS), or 8 March 1658) ( NS) during the Second Northern War between Frederick III of Denmark–Norway and Karl X Gustav of Sweden in the Danish city of Roskilde. After a devastating defeat, ...

in 1658, the former

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...

provinces of

and

became a

Swedish dominion The Dominions of Sweden or ''Svenska besittningar'' ("Swedish possessions") were territories that historically came under control of the Swedish Crown, but never became fully integrated with Sweden. This generally meant that they were ruled by ...

, but they were allowed to keep their old privileges, laws and customs. However, from the 1680s, a process of Swedification was introduced, including a switch of languages used in churches and restrictions imposed on cross-border travel and trade. The situation in Scania was unique from a linguistic point of view; modern sociolinguistic studies often approach it as a way to study the roots of linguistic nationalism. As pointed out by the Norwegian scholar Lars S. Vikør, professor, Nordic and Linguistics Studies,

University of Oslo The University of Oslo ( no, Universitetet i Oslo; la, Universitas Osloensis) is a public research university located in Oslo, Norway. It is the highest ranked and oldest university in Norway. It is consistently ranked among the top universit ...

, in the 2001 book ''Language and Nationalism'', the "animosity between the two countries

weden and Denmark Veden or Weden may refer to *Veden Manor in Norway *'' Veden varaan'', a pop-rock album from the Finnish group PMMP *Sven Wedén (1913–1976), Swedish politician See also * List of hundreds of Sweden A hundred is a geographic division formerly ...

and the relative closeness of their standard languages (dialectal differences within each of the two countries were greater than etweenthe two standards), made it imperative to stress the difference between them in the standardization process". According to Vikør, the "Swedish treatment of the Scanians perhaps shows

hat A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...

the most important element of the inguistic nationalismideology is the desire to stress the difference from another linguistic entity that in some way may be considered threatening or challenging one's own autonomy." In Scania, the Swedish government officially limited the use of Scanian in 1683 by nullifying the self-rule granted in the

and the Malmö Recess of 1662, where Scania had been granted the right to a certain degree of autonomy including preservation of its old laws and customs. Scania became fully integrated into the Swedish Kingdom in 1719, and the assimilation has accelerated during the 20th century, with the dominance of

-language radio and television, urbanization, and movement of people to and from the other regions of Sweden. Bornholm was once part of Skåneland but rebelled and returned to Denmark in 1659. The Scanian dialect of Bornholm remained in use as a functioning transitional stage, but Standard

soon became dominant in official contexts, and the dialect is thought to be disappearing.

Historic shifts

The gradual transition to Swedish has resulted in the introduction of many new Swedish characteristics into Scanian since the 18th century, especially when it comes to vocabulary and grammar. In spite of the shift, Scanian dialects have maintained a non-Swedish prosody, as well as details of grammar and vocabulary that in some aspects differ from

. The prosody, pronunciation of vowels and consonants in such qualities as length, stress and intonation has more in common with Danish, German and Dutch (and occasionally English) than with Swedish. The degree of contrast between Scanian dialects and standard Swedish is sometimes in the popular press compared to the differences between

British English British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...

and

Australian English Australian English (AusE, AusEng, AuE, AuEng, en-AU) is the set of varieties of the English language native to Australia. It is the country's common language and ''de facto'' national language; while Australia has no official language, Engli ...

. However, as pointed out by the researchers involved in the project ''Comparative Semantics for Nordic Languages'', it is difficult to quantify and analyze the fine degrees of semantic differences that exist between the Scandinavian languages in general, even between the national languages Danish, Swedish and Norwegian: " me of the Nordic languages .re historically, lexically and structurally very similar. ..re there systematic semantic differences between these languages? If so, are the formal semantic analytic tools that have been developed mainly for English and German sufficiently fine-grained to account for the differences among the Scandinavian languages?" The characteristic Scanian

diphthong A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech o ...

s, which do not occur in Danish or Swedish, are popularly often to be signs of Scanian natives' efforts to adapt from a Danish to a "proper" Swedish pronunciation. However, linguists reject that explanation for the sound change, but there is no universally-accepted theory for ''why'' the sound changes occur. Research that provides a cross-border overview of the spectrum of modern dialects in the Nordic region has recently been initiated through the Scandinavian Dialect Syntax Project, based at the University of Tromsø, in Norway, in which nine Scandinavian research groups collaborate for the systematic mapping and studying of the syntactic variation across the Scandinavian dialect continuum.

Historic preservation

Scanian once had many unique words which do not exist in either Swedish or Danish. In attempts to preserve the unique aspects of Scanian, the words have been recorded and documented by the Institute for Dialectology, Onomastics and Folklore Research in Sweden. Preservation is also accomplished by comparative studies such as the Scanian-Swedish-Danish dictionary project, commissioned by the Scanian Academy. This project is led by Helmer Lång and involves a group of scholars from different fields, including Birger Bergh, linguistics, Inger Elkjær and Inge Lise Pedersen, researcher of Danish dialects. Several Scanian dictionaries have been published over the years, including one by Sten Bertil Vide, who wrote his doctoral thesis on the names of plants in

South Swedish dialects South Swedish dialects (Swedish: ') is one of the main dialect groups of Swedish. It includes the closely related dialects spoken in the formerly Danish but since 1658 Swedish traditional provinces of Scania (see Scanian dialects), Blekinge and sou ...

. This publication and a variety of other Scanian dictionaries are available through the Department of Dialectology and Onomastics in Lund.

Phonology

Scanian realizes the phoneme as a

uvular trill The voiced uvular trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , a small capital letter ''R''. This consonant is one of several collectively ...

in clear articulation, but everyday speech has more commonly a

voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies ...

or a

voiced uvular fricative The voiced uvular fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , an inverted small uppercase letter , or in broad transcription if rhot ...

, depending on phonetic context. That is in contrast to the alveolar articulations and

retroflex A retroflex (Help:IPA/English, /ˈɹɛtʃɹoːflɛks/), apico-domal (Help:IPA/English, /əpɪkoːˈdɔmɪnəl/), or cacuminal () consonant is a coronal consonant where the tongue has a flat, concave, or even curled shape, and is articulated betw ...

assimilations in most Swedish dialects north of

Småland Småland () is a historical province () in southern Sweden. Småland borders Blekinge, Scania, Halland, Västergötland, Östergötland and the island Öland in the Baltic Sea. The name Småland literally means ''Small Lands''. The Latinized fo ...

. The realizations of the highly variable and uniquely Swedish fricative also tend to be more velar and less

labialized Labialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels involve ...

than in other dialects. The

phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...

s of Scanian correspond to those of

and most other Swedish dialects, but long vowels have developed into diphthongs that are unique to the region. In the southern parts of Skåne, many diphthongs also have a pharyngeal quality, similar to

vowels.

Vocabulary

Scanian used to have many words which differed from standard Swedish. In 1995 Skånska Akademien released ''Skånsk-svensk-dansk ordbok'', a dictionary with 2,711 Scanian words and expressions. It should be mentioned however that not all of these words are in wide use today. While the general vocabulary in modern Scanian does not differ considerably from Standard Swedish, a few specifically Scanian words still exist which are known in all of Scania, occurring frequently among a majority of the speakers. These are some examples: * ''alika'', "jackdaw" (Standard Swedish: ''kaja'', Danish: ''allike'') * ''elling'', "duckling" (Standard Swedish: ''ankunge'', Danish: ''ælling'') * ''hutta'', "throw" (Standard Swedish: ''kasta'', Danish: ''kaste'') * ''hoe'', "head" (Standard Swedish: ''huvud'', Danish: ''hoved'') * ''glytt'', "very young boy" * ''glyttig'', "silly, frivolous" (Standard Swedish: ''tramsig'') * , "women, girl" (Standard Swedish: ''flicka'') * ''fjåne'', "idiot". (Standard Swedish: ''fåne'') * ''fubbick'', "idiot". * ''grunna (på)'', think about (Standard Swedish: ''fundera'' or ''grunna'', Danish: ''overveje'') * ''hiad'', "(very) hungry for" (Standard Swedish: ''(mycket) sugen på'', (poetic) Danish: ''hige efter'') * ''hialös'', "impatient" (Standard Swedish: ''otålig'', Danish: ''utålmodig'' or ''hvileløs'' (poetic)) * ''märr'', "mare" (Standard Swedish: ''sto'' or more unusual ''märr'', Danish: ''mare'') * ''mög'', "dirt; excrements" (Standard Swedish: ''smuts'', Danish: ''møg'') * ''mölla'', "mill" (Standard Swedish: ''(väder-)kvarn'', Danish: ''mølle'') ** This word is used in many geographical names – Examples **

Möllevången Möllevången, also called Möllan, is a neighbourhood of Malmö, situated in the Borough of Södra Innerstaden, Malmö Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden. It covered an area of and had 9,989 inhabitants in 2008, which increased to 10,527 in ...

, a neighbourhood in

Malmö Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal populat ...

** Svanemøllen, a station in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

** ''Möllebacken'' (Scanian dialect) and ''Møllebakken'' (Danish) are names for countless number of hills, "Mill Hill" in English. * ''pantoffel'', "potato" (Standard Swedish: ''potatis'', Danish: ''kartoffel'') * ''påg'', "boy" (Standard Swedish: ''pojke'', archaic Danish: ''poge'' / ''pog'', standard Danish: ''dreng'') * ''rälig'', "disgusting", "ugly", "frightening" (Standard Swedish ''äcklig, ful'', ''skrämmande/otäck'', former Swedish ''rädelig'', dialect Danish: ''rærlig'' Danish: ''ulækkert, grim'') * ''rullebör'', "wheelbarrow" (Standard Swedish: ''skottkärra'', Danish: ''rullebør'', ''trillebør'') * ''romma'', "hit" (Standard Swedish: ''träffa'', Danish: ''ramme'' or ''træffe'') * ''tradig'', "boring" (Standard Swedish: ''tråkig'' or colloquial "tradig", Danish: ''træls''/''kedelig'') * ''tåcke'', "cock, rooster" (Standard Swedish: ''tupp'', Danish: ''hane'') * ''spann'', "bucket" (Standard Swedish: ''hink'' or occasional "spann", Danish: ''spand'') * ''skobann'' or ''skoband'', "shoelace" (Standard Swedish: ''skosnöre'', Danish: ''snørebånd'') * ''syllten'', "hungry" (Standard Swedish: ''hungrig'', archaic Swedish ''svulten'', Danish: ''sulten'') * ''tös'', "girl" (Standard Swedish: ''flicka'' or ''tös'' (archaic), Danish: ''pige'' or ''tøs'') * ''vann'', "water" (Standard Swedish: ''vatten'', Danish: ''vand'') * ''vindmölla'', "wind turbine" (Standard Swedish: ''vindkraftverk'', Danish: ''vindmølle'') * ''vång'', "meadow" (Standard Swedish: ''äng'', Danish: ''eng'' or (poetic) ''vang'') (as in

, Malmö, "Mill Meadow") * ''eda'', "to eat" (Standard Swedish: ''äta'', Danish: ''spise'' or ''æde'' (mostly used for animals)) * ''flabb'', "mouth" (Standard Swedish: ''mun'', Danish: ''mund'' or ''flab'' (an animal's mouth, but can also mean a mouthy person)) * ''fälleben'', "to fall, to trip" (Standard Swedish: ''krokben'', Danish: ''falde'' or ''spænde ben'')

Notes

References

* Bandle, Oskar & Kurt Braunmüller et al., eds. (2002–2003) ''The Nordic Languages: An international handbook of the history of the North Germanic languages.'' Vol I. Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 2002. xxvii + 1057 pp. * Basbøll, Hans. "Prosody, productivity and word structure: the stød pattern of Modern Danish." ''Nordic Journal of Linguistics'' (2003), 26: 5–44 Cambridge University Press * Hallberg, Göran, 2003: "Kampen om skånskan." I: ''Språkvård'' 3/2003. * Lång, Helmer (1991). "Den bortglömda skånska litteraturen" ''333-årsboken om Skånelandsregionen 1658–1991''. Eds. Assarsson & Broberg et al. Uddevalla: Settern, 1991. * Lång, Helmer ''Skånska språket'' (Klippan 2002) * ''Nordic Journal of Linguistics'' (2004), Vol 27, Issue 2. Cambridge University Press. . * Lång, Helmer & Vide, Sten-Bertil ''Skånsk-svensk-dansk ordbok från A! till Örrrk!'' (1995) * Noreen, Adolf (1887). ''De nordiska språken''. * Nordisk familjebok (1917
''article Skåne, page 1309''

Scandinavian Dialect Syntax
Project involving research groups at University of Tromsø, University of Iceland, University of Oslo, Norwegian University of Technology and Science (Trondheim), University of Aarhus, University of Copenhagen, Lund University, and University of Helsinki * Sjöstedt, G. (1936). "Studier över r-ljuden i sydskandinaviska mål". Dissertation, Lund University. * Sundquist, John D.(2003). "The Rich Agreement Hypothesis and Early Modern Danish embedded-clause word order." ''Nordic Journal of Linguistics'' (2003), 26:1, 233–258. Cambridge University Press. . * Vide, S.-B. (1966). ''Sydsvenska växtnamn.'' Landsmålsarkivet, Lund.

External links

– Scanian music, poetry and language

– Scanian comparison to Swedish, Danish and English {{Languages of Sweden Swedish dialects Danish dialects Scania