Language under assault
Culture Minister Trond Giske worries that the ever-expanding use of English in Norway is threatening the very existence of the Norwegian language. He's preparing an official government declaration aimed at nothing less than ensuring its survival.
 Government minister Trond Giske feels a need to protect the Norwegian language from too much English interference. PHOTO: TOR G STENERSEN |
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Giske plans to put forth what's known as a stortingsmelding, or "white paper," on the Norwegian language at the end of next month. It won't merely be concerned with comma rules or grammatical matters.
Rather, it's the survival of the language itself that will be the subject of the declaration. Giske is seriously worried that Norwegian is being too heavily influenced by English, not least because of the Internet and the emergence of English as the common language of the globe.
"Languages around the world are simply disappearing, not being used anymore," Giske told news bureau NTB. "Norwegian is under entirely new pressure than it was just a few years ago, especially because of the development of the Internet and the media."
Giske, who hails from the left wing of the Labour Party, wants to make sure that a full Norwegian vocabulary is upheld within business and academia. Those are two areas that he feels are particularly subject to too much influence from English.
It's not unusual., for example, for business journals and people active in the business world to use the word "cash" instead of the Norwegian "kontant." Some companies in Norway already use English as a working language, and the use of English terminology is widespread.
At the same time, some classes at Norwegian colleges and universities are taught in English, not Norwegian. Students can be required to submit papers in both Norwegian and English, or simply English.
Giske himself was an education minister when the decision was made to allow classroom teaching in English, and he still feels that was unavoidable. "We have many more foreign students and teachers," he said.
But that doesn't mean Norwegian should be overlooked. He criticizes companies like airline SAS, for example, which stresses English on its website even though it's part-owned by the Norwegian government.
Sylfest Lomheim of the state language council known as Språkrådet says a government declaration on Norwegian will be the most important on the language in the past 40 years.
"It will represent an attempt to create a new language policy that we haven't had in the country before," he said. "In the 1900s, a declaration on language involved issues of how it was written. Now it involves how the language shall survive."
Nina Berglund/NTB
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