Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1941, Síða 238

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LE NORD
These are quite good words which fit very well into our voca-
bulary. Bestyrelse committee of management, betingelse condition,
mindretal minority, insmickrande ingratiating, stillfardig quiet
(for stillsam) are still regarded as Danisms. In writers from
Southern Sweden one sometimes comes across words and phrases
which are current in Southern Swedish speech or Southern Swe-
dish dialects, and which are also used in Danish, as e. g. det trangs
(it is needed), tranga till (need), sulten (hungry), etc.
As for Danish, there is no doubt that it could profitably
adopt many Swedish words. A fresh Scandinavian contribution
to the Danish vocabulary would no doubt constitute a useful
counterweight against the excessive influx of foreign elements.
As Erik Wellander used to assert: loans from our Scandinavian
sister languages ought to have preference before foreign words.
If in a Scandinavian language there already exists a word com-
mon to all of them, then that word ought to be given preference
before words which are not found in the others, if it is other-
wise satisfactory.
A class of words which deserves special attention is that of the
numerals, which plays such an important part in the affairs of
practical life. Swedes find it difficult to learn the Danish halv-
treds (50), firs (80), and halvfems (90) and rapidly to translate
them by their correct Swedish equivalents: femtio, dttio, and
nittio. The Swedish numerals are undoubtedly more practical
than the Danish, and they are, in fact, used by Danes in written
business language (on cheques, postal orders, etc.). The same
applies to the composite numerals of the type 25, 36, etc. The
Swedish tjugofem, trettisex, etc., with the digit representing the
multiple of ten pronounced before the digit representing the
simple figure, are decidedly preferable to the Danish and Nor-
wegian f em og tyve, seks og tredive (tretti), as will be immediate-
ly clear if one imagines these figures used in dictation to a person
who has to type them out. In such cases the transposition of the
figures which the latter will have to undertake involves a good
deal of trouble. Swedish has here, like English (twenty-five,
thirty-six), adopted a more modern and practical type, while
Danish and Norwegian have retained an antiquated system, like
German (fiinf und zwanzig, sechs und dreissig). The adoption
of the Swedish system by Denmark and Norway should not
offer any very great difficulties. It might be introduced by way
of the arithmetic instruction of the schools, where it would