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Scanian
This page was elaborated by Camilla Luise Dahl, historian at Copenhagen University, 2010.
Data on Scanian
Alternatives names: Skånsk mål, Skånelandsk, Skånelænska
Classification: Indo-European, Germanic, Nordic, East Scandinavian, East Danish.
Recognising Scanian as a regional language (as opposed to a Swedish or Danish dialect) remains a controversial topic.
SIL International classified Scanian as a regional language in their 2008 publication of Ethnologue. However, in 2009, Scanian was omitted from the list at Sweden’s request. Furthermore, the Bornholmian dialect of Scanian was classified as a Swedish dialect, and Bornholmians are henceforth defined as Swedish-speakers, bilingual in Swedish and Danish.
There has been some opposition to Bornholmian’s status, as Bornholm was never subject to any Swedification process, and Bornholmian therefore does not contain any traces of Swedish in its lexicon. In addition, Bornholmians do not speak Standard Swedish: while Scanian speakers in Sweden attend Swedish schools, Bornholmian speakers attend Danish schools. Although all Danish students do learn some Standard Swedish and Norwegian, these languages are treated as second or third languages.
Area: East Denmark (Bornholm), South Sweden (Scania, Halland and Blekinge).
The name Scania is to some confusion used for both the province of Scania (Skåne) alone, for the province of Scania (Skåne) including Bornholm as well as all four provinces together.
In recent times the term Scania is mainly used for all four provinces together while the province of the same name is referred to by its Scanian name Skåne.
Number of speakers: No data available.
Language status: Language of communication.
Vitality & transmission:
Written records of Scanian date back to long before the Swedish invasion, and have survived to today. Over time it has been heavily influenced by Swedish in the swedish part and lately been influenced by modern standard Danish in the Danish part.
Today, Scanian is mostly spoken by older generations in rural Scania, as Camilla Dahl explains: “I am born in Bornholm and speak both Bornholmian and Standard Danish. Nowadays I only speak Bornholmian with my grandmother.”
For this reason, Scanian is considered to be endangered, and is listed by UNESCO as a “vulnerable” language.
Media/Literature/Education:
In Sweden: no recognition of Scanian. Some music and poetry by Scanian artists. Some online dictionaries and wordlists compiled by non-scholars. A Scanian-Danish-Swedish dictionary was published in 1995.
In Denmark: TV-programs including a language program called “Sprogblomster”, literature, dictionaries, some schooling (for young people but only voluntarily), poetry, newspaper articles, schoolbooks/textbooks and music.
Historical & sociolinguistic observations
Scania (Scania, Halland, Blekinge and Bornholm) was conquered by Sweden in 1658, the island of Bornholm returned to Denmark.
In the Swedish part of Scania all Danish language was banned during the “Swedification” from c. 1680 to the 19th century.
In the early 20th century Scanian was still forbidden in school. Due to the isolation from the rest of Denmark the originally East Danish dialect has become a regional language no long