Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1941, Blaðsíða 232

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LE NORD
ed? Part of the answer to this question has already been given
above.
Let us first turn our attention to spelling. Before 1906
we wrote the word hvad (“what”) in the same way throughout
Scandinavia. Now we have three different spellings, viz. Danish
hvad, Swedish vad, and Norwegian kva. This seems very in-
judicious, but it is unfortunately exactly the sort of thing which
has happened repeatedly in the past, and which will go on hap-
pening unless we are on our guard against it. The word for
“man” is written in three different ways, viz. Danish: Mand,
Swedish: man, and Norwegian: mann. In 1906 Sweden abolished
the silent h in hvem who, hvad what, hvit white, hvass, sharp,
etc., of course without giving a thought to any interest the other
Scandinavian countries might have in the matter. If this process
is continued, if the project of abolishing more of the so-called
“silent” letters is carried into effect, as e. g. in hjarta heart, Ijud
sound, Ijus light, djur animal, or of changing g into j, as in get
goat, gick went, giva give, göra do; or of introducing one single
sign for the tj-sound, as e. g. in kyrka church, tjugo twenty
(Danish tyve), and another single sign for the sj-sound, as e. g.
in sju seven (Danish syv), skjuta shoot, stjarna star, then the
result will be a considerable modification of the visual picture
presented by the text, which would greatly reduce its intelli-
gibility to other Scandinavians. These proposed reforms are there-
fore to be deprecated. In 1938 Norway introduced the spellings
etter after, and (as an alternative) sia since, for the older efter
and siden (Swedish sedan). In Denmark many people write osse
for ogsaa also, and lissom for ligesom as (Swedish ocksd and
likasom), and it is sometimes urged that these spellings should
be universally adopted. It is surely time to call a halt to such
ill-considered reforms.
But there is no reason why we should confine ourselves to
the negative attitude of merely preventing undesirable changes.
There are many cases where spelling can be improved from a
Scandinavian point of view. Perhaps this applies with special
force to Danish, which has a very conservative orthography. To
give only a few examples, it should surely not be impossible for
Danes to abolish the d in Kvinde woman and Mand man (Swedish
kvinna, man), and to substitute a k for the g in Magt power,
Fragt freight, Lugt smell, vigtig weighty, etc., as in Swedish. It