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

The trend is clearly that more contact with English correlates with being pro-English (or anti-
Scandinavian) in inter-Nordic communication. Speakers of Finnish are here the exception:
Finnish speakers have rather little contact with English but are highly in favor of English in
inter-Nordic communication. This can probably be explained by the status of Finnish as the
only non-Germanic of the Nordic languages analyzed.
Apart from this, one is struck by the sheer complexity of the issue. For example, it may
seem surprising that there is no simple connection between ‘contact’ and ‘competence’; wha-
tever slight correlation there is, is a negative correlation. However, this may not be as surpri-
sing when we bear in mind that competence as depicted in table 4 was measured among
youngsters, whereas results about contact were based on a representative sample of the popu-
lation.
One would also assume that a reason for preferring English in inter-Nordic communica-
tion would be a good knowledge of, and competence in English. This is not necessarily so,
though it may be a factor. We see that the Finland Swedes are among the most pro-
Scandinavian, along with having a fairly poor competence in Danish and Norwegian; at the
same time, they are among the most competent in English while being the most negative to-
wards global English. The Faeroes, by contrast, are also among the most competent in English
and maintain a pro-global English attitude, while opposing English in inter-Nordic communi-
cation; they also have the least contact with English. If we look at some of the least competent
in English, we find that Danes are comparatively pro-English both on a global level and in
inter-Nordic communication, whereas the Finns are pro-English in inter-Nordic communica-
tion but anti-global English. It seems that all combinations of competence in, and attitudes
towards English and the Scandinavian languages can be found in the tables.
Theoretically, what we have seen in this chapter is how the ‘ideology of the Nordic’ as
expressed through the use of Scandinavian in inter-Nordic communication is a multifaceted,
multidimensional entity. It is infused by, indeed based on, the understanding of other Scandi-
navian languages by Scandinavians and by non-Scandinavian speakers in the Nordic area, and
at the same time the very ideology of the Nordic supports understanding of the Scandinavian
languages. The same dialectic relationship can be assumed to hold for just about all other di-
mensions presented above.
In a more comparative sociolinguistic vein, we have seen that certain topics emerge: on
the one hand, there is a correlation between competence in Scandinavian and pro-
Scandinavian attitudes. Crucially however, this correlation is not a straightforward one, which
one might easily assume. On the other hand, there seems to be a core vs. periphery dichotomy
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