Hør dog hvad de siger - Note-to-Self: Trials & Errors

der constant pressure from some of their neighboring communities, and went through diffe-
rent phases in a direction of getting more self-determination as communities, and even as na-
tions. With time, a common notion of ‘the Nordic’ started to emerge, when all of the Nordic
communities joined forces to reclaim the ideology they felt had once been. One concrete re-
sult of these strivings was the pan-Nordic Stockholm meeting in 1869, when a more focused
plea for ‘Nordicity’ in the sense of bringing the Scandinavian languages closer together was
explicitly commenced. 24 This meeting can be characterized as the culmination of the first wa-
ve of the Nordic project.
The Nordic project of the late 19 th century was an outgrowth of national romanticism. It
had special relevance for communities like Finland that were not independent at the time and
Norway with a relatively short history of independence; the concept of a nation-state with one
language clearly helped in establishing general support from the man and woman in the street
in the fight for national self-determination. But also among nations with a longer history of
independence, Denmark and Sweden, national romanticism was a reaction towards the threat
to independence and national identity from the more powerful southern neighbor Germany.
A second wave of Nordic nationalism sprang forth after WWII, partly as an Anti-German
movement, partly – and as a corollary to this – as a quest for a focus on the local. National-
locally, this was inter alia manifested in the establishment of language planning councils
(‘språknämnd’, ‘språkråd’) in the Nordic countries – for an overview, see Sandøy & Östman
(2004); cf. also Galberg Jacobsen (2005). 25 But there was variable interest in the Nordic pro-
ject; e.g., whereas in Norway the general interest was very warm, it was not always so enthu-
siastic in Denmark. The second half of the 20 th century has seen the creation of a vast number
of Nordic institutions and pan-Nordic committees, research projects and networks. 26 All of
these have been crucial in bringing the languages and people of the Nordic communities clo-
ser together, and have (variably, but clearly) succeeded in enhancing mutual understanding
between the communities and groups.
As Europe has become more integrated, not least in the advance of the European Union,
the Nordic societies have also undergone changes. Politically, there has been a constant shift
of political power between the right and the left, without ever reaching the extremes in either
24 Cf. Sudmann (1970) and other studies over the years in the journal Språk i Norden/Sprog i Norden.
25 It is the task of the language councils not only to give advice, but also to represent their respective communities
when their members negotiate with members of other councils about language planning issues. A good
overview of the cooperation between the Nordic language councils is given in Sudmann (1970); many articles in
the 1971 issue of the journal Språk i Norden / Sprog i Norden deal with the influences of one Scandinavian language
on another.
26 The MIN-project, and the INS-project that will be dealt with below, are good examples of this trend.
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