Response to interpellation 2025/26:42 on Scandinavian language understanding
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
L argues that the Nordic language declaration promotes linguistic cohesion and common identity 1. L emphasizes that the school should emphasize the need to learn Danish and Norwegian as well as the common cultural heritage 2. L believes that it is important to safeguard the Swedish language and understand Norwegian and Danish 3, while Sweden must have good instruction in English 3. L argues that investments in reading and real books are extremely important to guarantee the Swedish language 3 4. L believes that English cannot be banned and that children and young people must learn good English 4. SD believes that school instruction in Nordic languages must be given more space 5. SD argues that the status of the Swedish language has been neglected and that English makes a large intrusion into Swedish 5. SD wants to strengthen the position of the Swedish language at universities and colleges 5. SD emphasizes that language is identity, belonging, culture, and history 5 6. SD argues that it is important to preserve the Swedish language for future generations 7. SD wants to preserve a living language landscape where Scanian functions as a bridge to Danish and where Scandinavian languages can be understood without detours via English 6. SD hopes that the minister takes to heart that language understanding is social understanding 6. SD believes that one should not take for granted that people can speak English, as English has become a threat to the Swedish language and one must safeguard one's identity and Nordic ties 8. SD argues that one should continue to speak Swedish with Norwegians and return to speaking with Danes according to the old pattern 8.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Gymnasie-, högskole- och forskningsministern Lotta Edholm (L)
Mr. Speaker! Runar Filper has asked the Minister for Culture whether she and the government should work to strengthen Scandinavian linguistic understanding.
The work within the government is distributed in such a way that it is I who shall answer the interpellation.
During Sweden's chairmanship of the Nordic Council of Ministers last year, I and my Nordic colleagues signed a new Nordic language declaration aimed at promoting stronger linguistic cohesion in the Nordic region.
The new declaration, like the previous Nordic language declaration, addresses the importance of language for individuals, culture, and society, and the importance of the Nordic language community for our cooperation and for our Nordic identity. There, the social development and the challenges that, among others, digitalization and internationalization entail in the field are also considered.
In the new declaration, the importance of all Nordic languages is emphasized – from the Scandinavian languages Danish, Norwegian and Swedish to Finnish, Icelandic, Sami, Faroese and Greenlandic. Furthermore, it is stated that sign language, new mother tongues and a number of minority languages that have been spoken for a long time in the Nordic region hold a special status.
The language declaration states that all Nordic people shall be able to understand, read, and write the language or languages that function as society-sustaining in the area where they live, for example Swedish in Sweden, be able to communicate in at least one Scandinavian language – Swedish, Norwegian or Danish – and have knowledge of the other Scandinavian languages so that they can participate in the Nordic linguistic community.
With the new declaration, the foundation is laid for an overall, unified, long-term and effective language policy with continued society-sustaining, strong and living Nordic languages. It is important to strengthen democracy and participation and to continue the development of a common Nordic identity.
Runar Filper (SD)
Mr. Speaker! I thank the Minister for the answer.
We are going to talk a bit about Scandinavian language comprehension here. What makes Danish harder than Norwegian for us Swedes is not the language itself, since the written language is very similar to Norwegian. Reading Norwegian, the Danes usually say, is like reading Danish with spelling mistakes here and there. Instead, it is the pronunciation itself that we many times find very difficult.
According to the Swedish curriculum, all students shall receive instruction in Nordic languages. But school instruction in Nordic languages must be placed higher on the agenda and be given more space in the curriculum.
There is good teaching material in the Nordic languages to give younger generations a better understanding between the Scandinavian neighbor languages Norwegian, Danish and Swedish in a time when language confusion soon outweighs understanding. The elementary purpose of teaching in the Nordic languages should not primarily be to learn to speak Norwegian or Danish, of course, but to learn to understand and communicate with people who speak and write in another Nordic language.
Language understanding and communicating between languages should be included in Swedish teaching so that students learn to identify similarities and differences between the neighboring languages in speech and writing and be able to have exchanges with students from other Nordic countries. Perhaps this is what the new Nordic Language Declaration aims for – to promote stronger linguistic cohesion in the Nordic region, as the minister indicates in his interpellation response.
To care for one's language is to appreciate the fathers' tongue or, if one prefers, one's mother tongue. The status of the Swedish language has unfortunately become increasingly neglected. Norwegian and Danish, as has been said, have much in common with Swedish and can to a very high degree be understood by Swedes because the Scandinavian languages belong to the North Germanic, Nordic, language group to which Icelandic and Faroese also belong.
How much Norwegian one understands depends entirely on where in Norway the speaker comes from and also on where in Sweden one oneself comes from. We people from Värmland probably have it much easier to understand Norwegian than one might have in other parts of the country, because we live near the border and have very much exchange with Norway. Furthermore, the Norwegian language melody and Norwegian words and expressions in many contexts resemble Värmlänska.
If we distort our own language, we lose contact with our linguistic heritage and our origins. Language is identity and belonging.
English is making a very large intrusion into Swedish. We see this, not least, in the anglification of the Swedish language. Very many English words and expressions are coming in. It is going very fast. 20 years back in time, not nearly as much was influenced in the Swedish language as today. There are now sentences that have more English than Swedish words. Also, university literature is increasingly becoming English-language, and some courses completely lack Swedish literature.
It cannot be the intention that Swedish-speaking students in Sweden should have to accommodate education in their home country in a language that is not their own mother tongue. It is strange. I think we should strengthen the position of the Swedish language at universities and colleges and am interested in hearing what the minister says about that matter.
Pia Trollehjelm (SD)
Mr. Speaker! I want to begin by agreeing with the interpellant Runar Filpers' reasoning regarding the importance of safeguarding Scandinavian linguistic understanding. I also believe that it is important.
I was born in Helsingborg, where Denmark lies just a few minutes away across the Sound. As a Scanian, we had Danish as a natural part of our everyday life.
When I was a child and stayed at my grandmother's, it was a tradition that we "turade", that is, took the ferry over to Helsingør to shop or eat ice cream with piskefløde. In many ways, it was a living exchange between two very close and interacting cultures, which in broad strokes lives on today. But the linguistic understanding is being lost.
Living on the west coast of Skåne also meant that we had access to Danish TV via the analog terrestrial broadcasts. Switching between Danish and Swedish channels was completely natural because, at that time, there were not many other channels to watch. Understanding of Danish therefore came of itself. I could not speak Danish, perhaps more than a few Danish words, but we understood each other.
It was perhaps even the case that the Danes understood rikssvenska a little better than skånska because they obviously had the opposite situation in that they watched Swedish TV.
When terrestrial broadcasts were replaced by digital broadcasts just over 15 years ago, a very important part disappeared as the Danish channels vanished from our antennas. It may sound like a small technical detail, but in practice, a linguistic bond across the Sound was broken.
Instead of hearing Danish voices daily, many – especially the younger generation, as Filper also spoke about – began to be met with English.
I think perhaps it was not understood then that a technical shift would have such great effects on our language and affect our linguistic community as much as it did. It is fundamentally about a language that is part of the Skåningers' identity.
In Skåne, we have not only had the natural contact with Denmark but also our own language and our own cultural heritage, which stands very close to the Danish. Skånska bears clear traces of it – in words, pronunciation and expressions.
Mr. Speaker! I often meet Scanians who think that Scanian should be recognized as a minority language in Sweden. Regardless of how one views that question, it is important to mention how strongly our Scandinavian languages, cultures, and our common history are interconnected and how easy it is to lose such a living part of our heritage if it is not nurtured.
Mr. Speaker! Language is a part of our educational tradition, something that the school, the universities and the entire education system are involved in and uphold.
How does the Minister view the possibility of recognizing Scanian as a minority language in Sweden? What effects could such a recognition have in the school system regarding strengthening Scanian-Danish and, in the long run, also the Scandinavian linguistic understanding?
Gymnasie-, högskole- och forskningsministern Lotta Edholm (L)
Mr. Speaker! This is an incredibly interesting question. It is not only political. It might not even be primarily political, because it is about how the entire society develops and about how languages are constantly developing. But it is clear that we have something very valuable in the Nordic countries in our languages. They are very similar to each other. That makes it so that we understand each other in a different way than one does in many other neighboring countries around the world. I think it is incredibly important to guard this.
I myself remember how, when I was little, I was envious of relatives in Skåne who had additional TV channels. When we in Sweden only had two, those who lived in Skåne could watch more channels on TV. It was something that was desirable.
Now, technical development has passed us in that regard. But it is still so, I believe, that an important part of this is that the Nordic countries do not dub their TV programs. It is incredibly important that it is subtitled, because it allows one to listen and read at the same time and thereby gain a certain understanding.
The declaration that I mentioned in the interpellation response is a new language declaration that aims to further modernize the old language declaration. As I said, a lot is happening. But the purpose is that we should also continue to be able to understand each other in the Nordic countries. Therefore, the school's role is important. It is about also continuing to have curricula, course plans and so on that emphasize the need to learn some Danish and Norwegian, above all, and that one gains insights not only into the language but also into our common cultural heritage.
We also have important exchange programs within the framework of Nordplus, where young people from the Scandinavian and Nordic countries can travel and study across borders. The Baltic countries are also included in that cooperation. It is of course important to point out.
Skolverket has produced support material so that teachers can work with this issue in their teaching. It is therefore no big difference from how it has been. Then it is clear that it is a national responsibility to follow up on how the new language declaration is followed.
Whether Scanian should be a separate language or not, neither I nor the government have any opinion on, in fact. It is a question that one should pursue in other contexts, I think.
Runar Filper (SD)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you for the answer, Minister Edholm!
I have followed the nationally renowned author Björn Ranelid in several debate articles. He is horrified by the decline of the Swedish language. He argues that many love to introduce English words when it is completely unnecessary and does not add anything of beauty, meaning, or creativity to the Swedish language. Why, for example, does one say that it is fine when it is wiser to say that it is bra, fint, or utmärkt? There are as many examples as one can count. I also realized that earlier.
The beloved sports journalist Jacob Hård, whom we all surely know who he is, is another celebrity who has criticized the intrusion of English. He argues that we must not forget our own language. One should not have to feel excluded in one's own country. He wrote: In what other country does one scrap the mother tongue and let all-powerful English take over? He further said: Firstly, people who are not comfortable with English are excluded. I am thinking primarily of the older generation.
He simply does not like that we are letting go of our language.
Many think it is hip with English. Therefore, they speak English many times instead of Swedish and take for granted that everyone is comfortable with it. But we must not think that, because there are plenty of people who are not comfortable with English and who do not even know English. It is obviously a generational issue, but there are also many younger people who do not know English.
It is, for example, a bit mocking when a comment in English appears on TV and it is not subtitled. One takes for granted that one does not need to subtitle so that people understand. But that does not apply to people in general – far from it.
How does the minister view the school's role here? How is Swedish actually nurtured there?
Our Swedish language is an irreplaceable part of our common cultural heritage, as I said. We must therefore preserve it for future generations.
The relationship between Swedish and Norwegian is largely the same as before. We speak Swedish with our Norwegian neighbors, and they answer us in Norwegian. It works quite well. We may sometimes need to slow down the speaking pace and increase the clarity of the articulation, as it is called. But that is something we always do when we speak with someone who does not have Swedish as a mother tongue.
In roughly the same way, it was in conversations between Swedes and Danes just a generation ago – yes, it is not at all long ago. Admittedly, most of us thought that Norwegian was much simpler than Danish, but it still worked quite well when we stuck to our respective mother tongues in the conversations.
That is no longer the case, and it is partly due to age. The older generation enters a Danish shop and speaks Swedish. The younger ones choose English. The older ones receive answers and follow-up questions in Danish. The younger ones receive answers in English. This departure from Scanian Swedish did not occur 50 years ago – or less time than that. In the 80s and 90s, most people did not speak English with Danes. But now, the language choice falls more and more on English, especially among the younger generation.
What responsibility does the school have here, or is it simply impossible to stop this development in the era of social media? That was another small question for the minister.
Pia Trollehjelm (SD)
Mr. Speaker! I thank the Minister for a good answer.
For me, as a Scanian, this is ultimately about preserving a living linguistic landscape, where Scanian is allowed to be the bridge to Danish as it always has been, and where Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish can still be understood without us needing to take a detour via English.
Language is not just words but so much more. It is culture, history and identity. Language is the very nerve of our community. To lose the natural linguistic understanding between us means that we risk losing something of our own identity as Northerners.
I therefore hope that the Minister takes this conversation to heart as a reminder that language understanding is also social understanding, and that this understanding begins when we hear each other's language every day.
Gymnasie-, högskole- och forskningsministern Lotta Edholm (L)
Mr. Speaker! We are in complete agreement that safeguarding the Swedish language and the knowledge of the other Nordic languages is incredibly important. The Swedish language is a small language in terms of the number of people who speak it, and Danish and Norwegian are even smaller languages. It is important to master one's own mother tongue and to master or at least understand Norwegian and Danish. It is also important that young people get to look a little at Icelandic, which is part of our original language from the beginning.
When it comes to the school's role, there are curricula and syllabi that clearly state what should be taught in that regard. But I would like to point out one thing. Runar Filper moves over to the position of the Swedish language. I share the view that the Swedish language is, in many ways, threatened. On the other hand, one must also see that English functions as a way to communicate with people all over the world whom we otherwise would not be able to communicate with. Sweden as an internationalized country, one of the world's most export-dependent countries, must also have good education in the English language.
The major investments that the government and the assembly have backed concern the importance of reading in the Swedish school. We are now investing approximately half a billion kronor every year, including half a billion for fiction in school. It is primarily Swedish-language. Furthermore, approximately half a billion goes every year to proper teaching materials and non-fiction books. It is an incredible effort not only to strengthen reading in Swedish school but it is also needed because 20–25 percent of those who leave primary school in Sweden cannot read properly. Books have a completely decisive importance there. It is also a way to strengthen the Swedish language and spread Swedish-language literature to all our children and youth.
These two questions are connected. Curricula and course plans shall focus on young people's right and requirement to learn some of our Nordic neighbor languages, also linked to the Swedish language and reading.
Runar Filper (SD)
Mr. Speaker! I thank Minister Edholm again for the answers.
We had a very good seminar in the Second Chamber yesterday regarding reading comprehension and the promotion of reading. It is very important, just as the minister says.
Otherwise, I was going to get into football. When Jon Dahl Tomasson took office as the Swedish national team manager, he refused to speak Swedish because he wanted to be understood – even though previously, when he coached Malmö FF and won two SM-golds during those two years, he spoke Scandinavian with both players and journalists. But now he would not speak Danish because he wanted to be understood.
A significant portion of the football-interested Swedish audience was excluded here, not least the older generation. Just as I said earlier, one must learn to give a damn and stop taking for granted that people can speak English. They cannot, some not at all, some a little bit, and some quite fluently. It is a generational issue.
According to several Danish media outlets, for example the newspaper Bold – ball in Danish – which deals with football and handball, the biggest mistake Jon Dahl Tomasson made was speaking English at press conferences and with journalists in general. He distanced himself from the Swedish people. He could have won easy points with the Swedish people by speaking Scandinavian. Articulated Danish is easy to understand even for a Swede.
But as I have said, English is increasingly entering the Nordic linguistic community, and it is a change that has been ongoing for several decades. The almighty English has become a threat to the Swedish language, and it is important that we safeguard our identity and our Nordic ties.
We shall continue to speak Swedish with the Norwegians, and we must find the way back to the conversation with the Danes according to the old pattern. We understand each other – it is a matter of will. Otherwise, we will stand there in some generation and speak English with the Norwegians. On that day, the Scandinavian language confusion will have reached new dimensions.
Gymnasie-, högskole- och forskningsministern Lotta Edholm (L)
Mr. Speaker! I share the commitment to the Swedish language and to ensuring that there is good teaching in schools that makes it possible for our children and young people to gain an understanding of our neighboring countries' languages and to understand what is being said – even in writing.
Regarding the English language, it is important to distinguish what is the influence of English on the Swedish language, which I believe many experience as a problem, while at the same time we must understand that English is not something that can be forbidden and that it is about the language constantly evolving. But it should be separated from the fact that we Swedes should be proficient in English. It is an explicit goal for primary school that children and young people should learn good English. It is incredibly important for the society we live in, for Sweden as a prosperous nation and an industrial country, to be able to speak good English.
These questions do not always go together. The Swedish language has a special status. Furthermore, there is a language act which states that the Swedish language is the national language in Sweden. It is important to emphasize that. I believe that investment in reading and real books is incredibly important for us to guarantee the Swedish language.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.