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

find is indeed that the claim that ‘we are able to’ is not in opposition to ‘being able to use
English’. Instead, in Scandinavian contexts, to use English is described as ‘laziness’, whereas
using Scandinavian – irrespective of how hard it is – is merely a matter of ‘working at it’,
‘getting oneself together’, etc. In short,
(5) nu du spørger og jeg tænker mig om, så er der jo et eller andet grotesk i at man
står og øh... Sprogene er så tæt på hinanden og man taler et så fremmed sprog som
engelsk sammen (.) der er et eller andet grotesk i det. Jeg ved ikke om der er sådan
noget rent følelsesmæssigt i det men det virker lidt skørt
‘Now you ask and I think about it, there is something grotesque in one standing
there and um… The languages are so similar, and then one speaks a language as
foreign as English, there is something grotesque about that. I don’t know if it is
something purely emotional, but it seems a little crazy.’
In this Danish excerpts, we see how the choice of language is described as an ethical, and by
implication, as indeed an ideological one. We also see how the argument for using related dia-
lects is that we are in possession of related dialects; leading up to (at the face of it) circular
arguments such as that we should use Scandinavian in inter-Nordic communication so as not
to lose comprehension of the (other) Scandinavian languages.
In addition to the ‘common’ language, the common history and common traits of persona-
lity are brought up. Nordic people have ‘something’ in common – dating back to the Viking
age – and expressed e.g. in their similar ‘middle-way’ political systems, in a common state of
‘melancholy’, and in the abundance of pan-Nordic political bodies, etc. The use of Scandina-
vian languages reflects these similarities and this community, and simultaneously these simi-
larities reinforce the use of Scandinavian: if we do not make the effort of speaking Scandina-
vian, it is argued, we will lose the community we have.
The arguments are strikingly similar in the peripheral societies; the differences are more a
matter of quantity than of quality. In short, the practical arguments tend to win out in Finnish-
speaking Finland and Iceland, the ‘ideological’ being all but merely hypothetical due to the
(perceived) limited comprehension of Scandinavian. In the Faeroe Islands, where comprehen-
sion of Scandinavian is at a high level, the practicality of English tends to get played down.
The same goes for the Finland Swedes: their comprehension of Scandinavian is not as good as
that of the Faeroes, but this is outweighed by their more limited scope as well as by their very
pro-Nordic attitudes. Mattfolk (forthc. 2006) supports this analysis by showing that there is no
prototypical argument that is used by the Finland Swedes with respect to whether it would be
a good thing if everyone in the world spoke English. Rather, those who agree with this hy-
pothetical state of affairs use practical arguments (ease of communication, job-related and
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