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Analysis: Is
Swenglish a
threat to the
Swedish
language?
If you've spent time in Sweden,
you'll have noticed that English
(and Swenglish) is everywhere: in
adverts, on TV, in schools, and
probably in the responses you get
from well-meaning Swedes when
you're trying to practice Swedish.
But just how much of an impact has
English actually had on the Swedish
language – and on Swedish society
more widely? And is it a threat or
an opportunity?

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

Published: 22 May 2018 17:23 CEST

Updated: 29 July 2020 07:17 CEST

 
English has become the working language in many Swedish
companies. Photo: AP Photo/Alastair Grant

New English words enter

Swedish dictionaries every

year, and that's only the

tip of the iceberg: words
become part of everyday
speech long before
linguists have the chance
to document and define
them. Over the past
PROPERTY

decade, there has been a How to buy an apartment in

surge in the number Sweden, step by step
of Swedish schools POLITICS

teaching in English, and EXPLAINED: What do

proposed changes to Sweden’s
many hiring managers in
rental laws mean for tenants?
Sweden's booming tech
industry prioritise English
language skills over
Swedish.

Swedes are so used to

switching between the
two that they'll often
change how they
pronounce their own
names depending on
 whether they're
  introducing themselves to
an English or Swedish
speaker, so a David will
elongate the 'a' and soften
the 'd' sound for
Anglophone
acquaintances. 

Swedish has incorporated

elements of English (and
other languages) since the
1200s, and America's
enormous political,
economic, and cultural
power after the Second
World War increased the
dominance of English
worldwide. Since then,
globalisation and
technological advances
have improved access to
foreign languages as well
as strengthening the need
for a lingua franca,
speeding up the rate of
language change.

When people talk about

 the linguistic impact of
 
English on Swedish,
they're usually referring to
loan words, a misleading

term since the words

aren't simply borrowed
but often fully integrated
into Swedish. 

“The amount of loan

words is not as enormous
as people think, and
almost none belong to the
basic vocabulary – the top
1,000 words that make up
70 percent of Swedish
texts,” says Olle
Josephson, Professor
Emeritus in Scandinavian
Languages and former
head of the Language
Council of Sweden
(Språkrådet). 

(article continues below)

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 

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English words usually take

on Swedish
pronunciation, inflection,
and sometimes even
spelling as time goes on,
such as 'dejt' and 'strejk'.
It's relatively uncommon
that they replace a
Swedish word, with many
describing wholly new
phenomena ranging from
cultural concepts to
scientific discoveries.

Sometimes Swedish twists

 the words meaning to suit

  new concepts or linguistic

gaps in Sweden. The noun
'afterwork' appears
English but is wholly

Swedish, as is the term

'backslick', referring to a
slicked-back hairstyle. The
English-inspired verb
'snooza' has not replaced
the Swedish term for a
short sleep (dåsa) but
taken on the specific
meaning of sleeping in
after an alarm. Swedes say
'after ski' whereas English-
speakers typically use the
phrase 'après-ski', partly
because French is seen as
sophisticated in English
and because Brits often ski
in French-speaking
regions (this is itself a
mutated loan word; in
French, the term refers to
snow boots).

Loan words can also be

 productive, not just
  adapting but actively
contributing to the
Swedish language. For
example, after borrowing
the word 'gym' from
English, Sweden
developed the definitive
form 'gymmet' and the
verb 'att gymma' (to train
at the gym) – a verb which
doesn't exist in English. 

But Josephson points out

that lexical influence is
one of the most
'superficial' changes
languages undergo, and
that despite the influx of
new words, English has
caused little to no change
to Swedish grammar,
structural patterns or the
sound system. Those
kinds of change would be
deeper and more long-
lasting. The dominance of
English may be only
 temporary; it's possible
  that the current influx of
English words will slow
down in future
generations, in the same
way that inserting French
phrases into English was
popular among Brits some
years ago as a sign of
sophistication, but phrases
like 'vis-à-vis' now sound
outdated or overdone in
everyday speech. 

Describing food as “interesting” has slightly negative

connotations in English. 

Languages are robust and

undergo changes all the
time, some decreed from
above (such as the Du-
reform in the 1960s,
which simplified a
complex system of
 address) but most
  evolving naturally through
use, as the way we
understand the world and

interact with each other

changes. 

A few of the recent trends

in Swedish, as outlined by
language
watchdogs Språkrådet,
include a general tendency
towards informality; the
increasing use of the
gender-neutral pronoun
'hen'; and influence from
languages such as Arabic
and Sweden's national
minority languages as well
as English.

In the same report,

Språkrådet said that the
overall language system
remains highly stable.
Mutual intelligibility with
the other Scandinavian
languages strengthens its
 position, as do the many
 
books, films, and songs
created in the language
each year and the

newspapers and
broadcasters that use only
Swedish. The massive
popularity of Nordic
cultural exports
also inspire foreigners
with no other ties to
Sweden to learn the
language.

“Compared to the
influence of Low German
around the 14th and 15th
centuries, English
influence is fairly weak.
That German influence
really transformed the way
Swedish worked. There is
no threat to the Swedish
language in that it could
be successively consumed
by English, word for
word,” comments
 Josephson.
 
“I'd say Swedish is one of
the strongest languages in
the world, probably in the

top one percent globally.

The written language is
stable, it has a long history,
and is still used in all parts
of society: laws are written
in Swedish, parliament
uses Swedish – it passes all
the tests,” he adds.

Swedish is further
protected by a language
law, first introduced in
2009. This states
that Swedish is the
common language of
Sweden and that the
population must have
access to and be able to
use it in all areas of society.
Swedes are more or less
able to take it for granted
that they can use Swedish
when they wish to,
 whether at the doctor,
  supermarket, or at a
restaurant, and foreigners
are offered free Swedish
language classes.
But despite all that, there
are areas where Swedish
does run a serious risk of
extinction. 

English takes precedence

over Swedish “above all in
the business world,
advertising industry and
entertainment industry”,
says Swedish teacher Per-
Åke Lindblom. He set up
the website Språkförsvaret
(Language Defence) in
2002 and it has grown
into a grass roots
organisation with the
guiding principal
that “Swedish should be
used everywhere we can
use it; English only when
we have to”.

“The status of Swedish is

 no longer totally self-
 
evident; it is losing areas of
use,” he tells The Local,
explaining the

organisation's reason for

being.

English has become the

working language of many
companies, and is
increasingly used in
academia and education as
well as in adverts and
branding. The benefits are
clear, from a wider
availability of teaching
materials to international
recognition for Swedish
researchers, but the
potential pitfalls are often
overlooked.

Students in Sweden. Photo: Tina Stafren/imagebank.sweden.se

  From a linguistic point of
view, there's the risk of
Swedish terms in certain
sectors falling out of use,
or that the language won't
be kept updated in line
with new developments in
the field – anyone who
knows native Swedish
researchers may have
heard them say it's easier
to talk about their thesis
in English.

This phenomenon is
known as domain loss,
and this is what Lindblom
and many like him are
anxious to prevent.

He argues that the

language law – behind
which Språkförsvaret was
a driving force – is too
weak in its current form,
with too limited a scope
and no defined penalties.
The organisation
 highlights specific
 
instances when English is
used in Sweden
unnecessarily,

campaigning for example

against the obligation to
write some applications
for academic research
funding in English.
Getting ordinary
members of the
population more involved
in the fight to protect
Swedish and raising
awareness of language
issues are further key
goals.

In 2009, Sweden's Justice

Ombudsman ruled in its
favour when it reported
the government's English-
language e-mail addresses.
Lindblom also pointed to
examples of English used
over Swedish in regional
instances, for example
 Umeå Christmas Market
  and East Sweden. In the
latter case, a survey carried
out by a local newspaper
showed that 90 percent of
readers were against the
use of English in the
region's trademark.

These examples also

highlight one of the
peculiarities of the use of
English in Sweden. Linus
Salö, who holds a PhD in
Bilingualism and works
currently at KTH Royal
Institute of Technology,
describes English as  “the
language through which
Swedes express
modernity” and says that
in advertising and
business, “the assumption
is that English sells”.
Companies and schools
often announce their
switch to English as a
point of pride.
 This makes sense if there
 
is a goal of appealing to
international investors or
recruiting and welcoming

foreign workers, but in

many instances English is
used in a way that would
be incomprehensible to
non-Swedish speakers – so
why bother?

Many adverts, such as the

one below, include a single
English-language slogan or
phrase which will mean
nothing to Anglophones
who don't understand the
rest of the English text.
And there are lots of
brand names in Sweden,
such as Stockholm's Hobo
Hotel and the Stay Hard
clothing brand, whose
names have distinctly
negative connotations in
English.
 

In this slogan, the language change seems to be meant to convey

surprise, so it's interesting that the writers chose to start in

English and switch to Swedish.

Salö says the status of

English in Sweden is
“complex and certainly
understudied”.

“Clothing stores that have

SALE rather the Swedish
version REA are seldom
the high-end stores. The
posh stores have
'sommarpriser’ or
'realisation'. This means
that the question of the
status of English begs for
more attention,” he notes.

Under the language law,

public bodies including
state-run universities have
 “a special responsibility to
  see that Swedish is used
and developed”, but the
vagueness of this
statement means there's
no uniform university
language policy. One
measure aimed at
mitigating domain loss is
the requirement to
include a Swedish-
language summary with
English-language research,
in place at around a third
of universities.

Salö argues that

universities need stronger
policies to remedy domain
loss. He says that it's
impossible for a Swedish
language summary of an
English thesis to achieve
the goals of both
introducing new
terminology to the
Swedish language and
making the research
 accessible to Swedish-
  speaking members of the
public.

“I think that state-funded

universities in particular
should draw up strategies
that are sensitive to
matters and language and
knowledge,” he tells The
Local. “The main thing to
remember is that language
matters are pretty much
never about language
alone.”

As well as the risk that

Swedish could lose its
status in some fields, the
overuse of English also
poses problems for non-
natives, even the highly
proficient Swedes. 

Using a second language

takes its toll,
and communication is
likely to be slower and less
 effective when Swedish
 
companies and
institutions switch to
using English. Researcher

John Airey found that at

several Swedish
universities, students
asked and answered fewer
questions when teaching
took place in English, and
struggled to obtain as
much information.
Teachers were affected
too, needing more time to
prepare materials and
sticking more rigidly to
them rather than
interacting spontaneously
in Swedish.

In 2017, Sweden's rural

affairs minister at the time
was criticised for spending
thousands of kronor on
English language help,
despite the fact he was
fluent in three languages
 already – and that even
  before his lessons, he
spoke better English than
higher-ranking politicians
in other European
countries. Some
opponents said fluent
English should be a
requirement for ministers,
a policy which, if ever
introduced, would shut
out a huge number of
people from politics in
their own country.

There are also

implications for Swedish
society. In academia,
publishing research in
English helps it get a
greater international
reach, but Salö points out
that universities “also have
certain national
responsibilities”.

“The Swedish state, for

example, needs scholarly
expert knowledge to
 sustain and develop
 
important features of the
welfare state,” he explains.
“In such cases, research

published in English
could obviously be
translated, but the risk is
that the pressure to
publish in English makes
certain nationally
important research
questions not worth
studying. That would be
bad in my view.”

No one is arguing for

English to be stripped
from TV screens and
university syllabuses. But
it doesn't make sense to
use English just for the
sake of it.

The leader of the Swedish

Moderates faced backlash
after stating in his
Christmas speech in 2017:
“In Sweden, we speak
 Swedish.” His argument
 
was not extreme – he said
“perfect” Swedish was
overrated but that

immigrants should make

an effort to reach a level of
comprehension – but
opponents were quick to
criticise him and point out
that 200 languages are
spoken in today's Sweden.

Photo: Ulf Kristersson gives the speech in Stockholm. Photo:

Henrik Montgomery/TT

That's true, and it's a great

thing, but unless everyone
in Sweden learns all 200 of
them, there's still a need
for a national standard,
and it makes sense that
should be Swedish.
 Over-reliance on English
  can also create problems
for foreigners.
Anglophones might find
it easier to settle in and
find work when they can
use their native language,
but the omnipresence of
English can also be an
obstacle to learning
Swedish and fully
integrating. Meanwhile,
immigrants with a native
language other than
English might find
themselves under pressure
to learn two new
languages in order to get
by and find work.

In some settings, there's a

clear practical advantage
to using English, if the
writer or speaker is
targeting the international
community. But
otherwise, it makes sense
to make decisions on a
 case-by-case basis, rather
  than letting English
become the default, as has
happened in some areas of

Swedish society, or using it

as the language of prestige.

“We can't have a one-

language society, we have
to find a balance between
English and Swedish,”
comments Josephson. As
for how that would best
happen, he says there is no
general formula.

“You would have to study

the special conditions in
each field, for example at
each level and area of
academia, and look at how
things are done day-to-day
to see what makes sense.
That's a hard task. The
first condition is
awareness of the problem,
then it's the task of finding
the balance, but this
 awareness isn't high
 
enough yet.”

Lindblom meanwhile has

a solution in mind. He
points out that an over-
reliance on English has led
to dwindling competence
in other languages, which
is damaging to Swedish
business and culture.
While Språkförsvaret
campaigns against the use
of English to the
detriment of Swedish, it
fully supports a
multilingual society and
has supported national
minority languages as well
as encouraging Swedes to
learn at least two foreign
languages.

“Too many Swedes and

too many Swedish
companies think it's
enough to know one
foreign language: English.
 Knowledge in German
  and French has become
worse. Swedish export
companies have worse
language skills than many
of their most important
competitors in Europe,
and you can sell best in the
buyer's language,” he says.

“Multilingualism, not
bilingualism, is the
solution.”

Article first published in

2018

Catherine Edwards
catherine.edwards@thelocal.com
@CJREdwards

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