Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Sarcelles (talk | contribs) at 22:21, 20 April 2005 (→Dispute Neutrality). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Claiming that the Scaninan language is a separate language in itself is POV. Most linguists will hardly classify it as being more than Swedish dialect. Changing Mälardalen-r's to Uvular R's and adding dipthong's were other Swedes would not use them is not sufficient for it to be labelled a separate language. If the article is to maintain that there exists a separate language called Scanian which is different from the dialect of Swedish spoken in Scania this should at the very least be made more clear.—Gabbe 20:43, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)

• sigh* Every single language post in which this is debateable seems to have someone claim X is a dialect of Y. There is no such thing. Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish, could all easily be said to be dialects of Danish, and, I believe, have been, at some point or another. This does not make it right. Also, calling it a distinct language is also POV.

We could add "Whether Scanian is language or a dialect is disputed."

Dispute Neutrality

This article I do not believe is neutral. While I'm sure the author had good intentions, it classifies a separate language as a dialect, which it is not. There is a large ethnic group that speaks this language, and I'm sure Scanian Wikipedians would find this offensive. Swedes have long considered Scanian a dialect, so perhaps the author was misled?

Distinctions between "language" and "dialect" is controversial, as is pointed out in these articles. /Tuomas 07:01, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The totallydisputed-template was removed, it seems, by User:Karmosin. I can not see any agreement here to do so, which is why I returned the banner again. I would be tempted to revert at least some of his other changes, but refrain from doing that now. I leave this to someone with a better understanding of the issue.
Ruhrjung 16:17, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

Another problem is: the Danish article on Danish classes this as part of Danish. I have changed this about halt an hour ago in the article on the Danish language.

Sarcelles 21:10, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I also have added a list of Dialects the Danish article on Danish classes as Danish. This is not

only Scanian, which is an argument for considering Scanian as a dialect. Sarcelles 22:21, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Classification

Ethnologue report uses the classification Indo-European, Germanic, North, East Scandinavian, Danish-Swedish, Swedish. for Skånska; perhaps we should consider a classification using Danish-Swedish rather than only Swedish.

Also, we should probably note in the article that 100% of Skånska speakers read and write either Swedish or Danish; even though we in the Swedish case should note common spelling differences to Swedish. Right now however, the only spelling difference I can think of as common is fjor as opposed to Swedish fjol (means yesteryear). ✏ Sverdrup 18:13, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I am from Scania, and I guess I speak Scanian. I (and all my friends) certainly don't consider Scanian as a language, it's just a dialect. Spelling doesn't differ, and only old words that are only used by older people differ from "normal" Swedish (which in itself is extremely hard to define, since no one speaks it naturally). I'd say, but I'm no language expert, that it's Swedish spoken with a Danish accent. /Grillo 03:00, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

(Jag är också skånsk!); Visst finns det ord som skiljer som massor med folk använder. Fjor/fjol är ett reellt exempel (sydsvenskans stavning). Dessutom: Balle/Ballar är ett vanligt slangord som inte betyder samma sak på skånska som på uppsvenska. (I'm sorry for writing this-all in swedish, I just got into it) ✏ Sverdrup 01:47, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Also, it's pretty funny that the link above says that the first release of the "Scanian" bible was 1523, when that in fact is the first Swedish translation of the bible, done because of Gustav Vasa becoming king. /Grillo 03:03, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes this is very wrong. I think it's correct to say that the bible has never been translated to Skånska. ✏ Sverdrup 01:47, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

http://www.ethnologue.com/ is authoritative enough to be referred to, but I would hope that we don't try to avert from the NPOV policy. It's much better to state what different authorities argue, and (of course) to note that most linguists avoid making the distinction between language and dialect, than to elevate any of these authorities to the sole source of truth. --Ruhrjung 19:06, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)

I would really like to know which linguists actually consider Scanian as a dialect and Scanian as a variety of Standard Swedish to be the same thing.

Ethnologue is actually not always the best authority in these matters. A good example is Flemish, which is considered a seperate language by SIL while speakers of Flemish consider their language to be a dialect of Dutch. There hardly even seems to be any nationalist sentiment about it. I would recommend that ISO 639 should be used rather than SIL when defining what constitutes a language. Peter Isotalo 15:54, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)

Language or dialect?

I know that Ethnologue for some reason considers Scanian to be a seperate language with over a million speakers, but this would mean that every single major variety of Swedish would be a seperate language. That SIL has a seperate code for Scanian should not be taken seriously unless there is good evidence to support it. SIL has done similar classifications with dialects like Flemish. There would be at least two or even three other languages to describe and I shudder at the thought of having to decide which one should be considered to be the "real" Swedish language.

There have been comparisons to the other minority languages of Sweden in other articles, but this can be deluding, since Tornedalsfinska is in itself a good example of a dialect of Finnish that has been defined as a seperate language purely by a political decision. Though the decision is a very good way of protecting the rights of minority langauges, it should not be used as proof of proper terms in linguistic articles. It's just too POV to abide by political decisions of individual countries that have different purposes than to define linguistic terms.

The whole concept of Scanian seems to be one based almost entirely on politics. The amount of speakers that actually speak what Swedish linguists define as true dialects (variants with a history that dates back to Old Norse) are very few and are mostly older members of rural communities. The vast majority of Scanians speak a variety of Standard Swedish differing from other forms of Standard Swedish in pronunciations to some extent, but far less in either grammar och vocabulary. This is most likely true also for the speakers of dialects when they speak to members from other communities or social groups. Peter Isotalo 15:59, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)

The reference to Terra Scania is definetly not appropriate either. This would mean that the entire west coast including Gothenburg spoke Scanian, which is obviously wrong. Peter Isotalo 16:35, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)

I've been Googling a bit for any claims of Scanian as a seperate language, but I can't really find anything but nationalistic essays on the matter. This grammar section of this one is particularly entertaing. I think the discussion at Talk:Ethnologue pretty much sums up the reason not to rely on SIL on how to define seperate languages. Peter Isotalo 23:05, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

As someone pointed out, the distinction between language and dialect is disputed. I don't mind calling it a dialect, and I don't know who of my fellow Scanians that would mind. But if linguists do classify it as a language, be it only for formal reasons, then we have to mention this.

You also make some good points that I of course agree with since I put forth the same points in the article.

So in essence, I consider the article fine the way it is, everything is mentioned that should be mentioned and everyone's POV is taken into consideration. --Fred chessplayer 00:17, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I am happy to agree with Fred. (for once! :-)

Isotalo again reveals his lacking knowledge. Terra Scania did not include Gothenburg, but the language of Halland was of course East-Danish as in the rest of TS/Tuomas 09:09, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Terra Scania includes Bohuslän. Gothenburg is in Bohuslän. If you look at the map it runs along the entire west coast of Sweden. Either the map is inaccurate or it has to include Gothenburg, which is on the west coast.

That's not really the issue here, though. I'd like to know if there's anyone except SIL that actually considers Scanian a seperate language. Since SIL is not a reliable source (see Flemish and Talk:Ethnologue) for what constitutes a language, and since the vast majority of the inhabitants of Scania don't speak anything but a variety of southern Standard Swedish, I'd like to see a quote from a linguistic authority that actually agrees with SIL. If anything, the figure of 1 million+ speakers is just flat-out wrong, since SIL's figure is 80,000 and is obviously refering to the proper dialect rather than just the regional variety. Peter Isotalo 11:10, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

The idea that Terra Scania should have included Bohuslän is totally new for me. Where have you found that? Your term "proper dialect" seems also to be somewhat unusual to say the least. What would un-proper dialects be? Ebonics? Ruhrjung 16:27, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)