Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1941, Side 231

THE SCAND. COMMUNITY OF LANGUAGE 225
more, a Norwegian can use his own pronunciation in reading a
Swedish text without the result being unduly odd or unnatural.
On the other hand, a written text in Norwegian or Danish
presents approximately the same difficulty to a Swede, for the
Norwegian literary language still preserves many features in com-
mon with Danish in spite of the recent spelling reforms. The
Norwegians thus occupy an especially favourable position in the
Scandinavian language triangle, with good communications both
ways.
Co-operation within the Scandinavian area involves a number
of linguistic problems which cannot be shirked. If the movement
aiming at greater Scandinavian unity is ever to obtain a hold on
the public at large, if it is ever to become a really national issue,
then it must above all exploit to the full the tangible asset we
have in the common basis of our language, and it must endeavour
to conquer, or at least to reduce, the difficulties resulting from
centuries of linguistic separatism.
No language ever stands still. Every language is in a con-
tinual process of change. The trend of this development, as far as
the Scandinavian languages are concerned, has hitherto been away
from their original unity and towards increasing differentiation.
If this is allowed to go on, if the differences in pronunciation,
spelling, and vocabulary are accentuated, then there is no blink-
ing the fact that the present Scandinavian community of language
is in grave danger, and that we are heading towards a state of
things when it will be greatly reduced, or even destroyed. If our
languages continue to diverge more and more in pronunciation,
without any attempt being made to stop the process, and if our
orthographies continue to be reformed in accordance with pho-
netic principles, so that spelling is adapted to the pronunciation
without any regard to the Scandinavian sister languages; if we
go on borrowing large numbers of words from the great world
languages — often so that the three Scandinavian languages adopt
different words — then it will imperceptibly but inevitably
become more and more difficult for people of the Northern coun-
tries to understand their Scandinavian neighbours.
To prevent this process requires a deliberate effort on our
part; a serious endeavour must be made to preserve the asset we
possess in our community of language.
Towards what specific object should that endeavour be direct-