Málfríður - 15.05.2002, Síða 27

Globalisation
Globalisation — and “the Less
Widely Used Languages”
The title of this paper refers to a term
used by the European Union for lan-
guages, e.g. the Nordic ones.The problem
I will state is:“What languages are becom-
ing ‘less widely used’ in our world of ever
more globahsation?” My thesis is that the
role of such languages as French and
German is changing rapidly. I will try to
show that it is equally important to be
concerned about foreign languages other
than English as about the mother tongue.
My belief is that this will have consider-
able consequences for the teaching of
other languages than English.
Danish in Iceland, Swedish in
Finland, German in the Nordic
Countries
My special background in this respect is
the experience we have had for the last
70 years in the use and teaching of
Danish in Iceland. The changing of the
role of Danish in Iceland can serve as a
paradigm for what is happening more
widely. The more or less success we
teachers of Danish have had in fighting
against the Icelanders’ forgetting Danish
totally can be an experience worth not-
ing for teachers of other languages.This,
of course applies to the teaching of
Swedish in Finland — and indeed discus-
sions with teachers of Swedish in Finland
have been my inspiration for this paper.
But it also applies to the teaching of
German all over the Nordic countries.
The students show less interest and ques-
tion the raison d’étre of teaching other
languages than English. Unless we under-
stand what is happening we will not be
able to cope adequately with this new
situation.
National languages
Let us take a look at history.
We can trace the notion of the modern
national languages to around 1700.Before
that — certainly in Northern Europe and
perhaps more widely — the use of lan-
guages was either international or local,
dialects. There was an international cleri-
cal community using Latin and an
international aristocratic community
using French.
Pétur Rasmussen.
Dialects — the vernacular
It was commonly assumed that the ver-
nacular, as it was called, the language of
the peasants, was unsuitable for literary
use, simply because the dialects, did not
have the words for things outside the inti-
mate sphere.The dialects were “uneducat-
ed” and they were “less widely used” in
two senses: You could not use them to
speak of complicated, higher, things, and
they were only used by a rather small pop-
ulation. In the neighbouring part of the
country there was another dialect.
The National State
The emergence of the national languages
is related to the birth of a class of non—
aristocratic, fairly rich people, the bour-
geoisie. In Denmark, e.g. the creation of
Danish as a national language is tradition-
ally connected to Ludvig Holberg who
wrote his comedies in the 1720’s.The cre-
ation of the national languages in Norway
and Iceland came later but the picture is
the same. It is not till after 1800 that the
Danish kings begin to use spoken Danish.
German was the main language in the
central administration until the 1770’s.
After 1800 we have the full idea of the
national language and then it is connected
to the new notion ofThe National State
— one state, one language — a new and
The students
show less interest
and question the
raison d’étre of
teaching other
languages than
English.
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