7.6.7 Scanian Language
Description
This article is from the Nordic countries FAQ, by Antti Lahelma and Johan Olofsson, with numerous contributions by others.
7.6.7 Scanian Language
Many people today think that the language spoken today is a dialect of
Swedish (and there are others who disagree saying it's a language of its
own), but there are many differences that are more or less noticable
depending on the speaker. For example:
* Intonation
* Scanians use a glottal stop (stød) though not as prominently as the
Danes.
* Pronunciation of the "r" is made by the root of the tongue in the
"French way". Like the Danes do it.
* When Swedes use t, k and p, Scanians often use d, g, and b. Like the
Danes.
* Like in Danish, t and k are pronounced very hard in beginning of words
whereas in Swedish, they are softer.
* None of the vowels are pronounced exactly in the same place of the
mouth they are in Swedish, and you could say that standard Swedish "o"
and "u" simply do not exist.
* Every long vowel in Swedish is a diphthong in Scanian. The Swedish
language lacks diphthongs entirely.
Very dialectal Scanian can be quite difficult even for Swedish speakers to
understand. There are also several examples of grammatical differences and
there are a few hundreds of local words still in use, also by young people.
Just ten examples:
hutta = throw (Sw: kasta)
klyddig = complicated (Sw: besvärlig)
lässa = load, put up (Sw: lasta, lägga upp)
mölla = mill (Sw: kvarn)
nimm = neat (Sw: praktisk, lätt)
påg = boy (Sw: pojke)
rälig = ugly, mean (Sw: ful, stygg, otäck)
sammedant = likewise (Sw: likadant)
titt = often (Sw: ofta)
töj = clothes (Sw: kläder)
There are no original ethnic minorities living in Scania but there are a few
dozens of thousand of Danes that have moved in after World War II. Some live
in Landskrona and others have houses in Northern Skåne. Of foreign citizens,
there are 9800 Danes, 8700 ex-Yugoslavs and 3150 Finlanders in Skåne. (These
are the three biggest groups.)
There are probably three things that are a salient for the Scanian
development today: membership in the European Union, the bridge over Öresund
(the sea between Sjælland and Skåne) to Denmark/regional cooperation with
Sjælland and Skåne becoming one region politically. These things are in
contrast to much of that of history and culture openly discussed and many
times pushed forward by local Scanian politicians:
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