From: nkjrm@taxus.uib.no (Rolf Manne)
Subject: Re: Home language - native language
Organization: University of Bergen
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 15:40:01 GMT

Reading still more contributions on this topic under other subject headings
I think that I should write something more about what languages are called.

First one should make a distinction between countries with only one
official language like Sweden and Denmark (I know nothing about the latter)
and countries which are officially multilingual like Finland (Swedish and
Finnish) and Norway (bokmaal and nynorsk). On purpose, I do not discuss
languages like the Saami languages, Tornedal and Finnskog Finnish, German (
in Slesvig) nor Romani(Gypsy language) which are all native languages in 
Scandinavia but which have had a weak official status if any at all.

When I went to school in Sweden in the 1940's and 50's I lived in a 
monolingual and largely monocultural society. There was subject taught at 
school, called "Modersmaalet" (I cannot send the correct "aa" from my PC) 
meaning "THE Mother Tongue". I don't know what it is called today, but
judging from the historical situation then I consider this use of language 
natural. In Finland the situation was different at that time since there
were two official languages. 

There were very few immigrants at that time, and one did not understand
the importance for foreign children to get training in their own languages,
nor the importance for all children to have stable relations to their
parents or other care-taker adults. I am thinking particularly of the
Finnish "war children" who were sent to Sweden to be fed and clothed but
quite often had serious problems. Not because they were treated badly 
but because they were up-rooted. I have had a similar experience as a small 
child so I know what I am talking about.

The immigration wave in the 1960's changed that. The schools had to provide
teachers of "Swedish as a Second Language", and eventually also native-
language teachers to immigrant children. In a society like Sweden and Norway 
such new subjects are taught only to a minority of children, by special 
teachers (not always very skilled). Irrespective of subject name, such 
special education easily gets a low status among the majority children. It 
is like that in Norway where one normally speaks about 
"Morsmaalsundervisning" meaning (immigrant) native language teaching. The 
distinction to the majority language is there anyway. Sometimes it is 
necessary to make such distinctions. Over time, the word denoting the
low-status concept gets a bad connotiation and is changed. Think of all
the different words used for mental hospitals or homes of the mentally
retarded. Here in Bergen one changed the name of the local psychiatric 
clinic "Neevengaarden sykehus" to "Sandviken sykehus" some 10 years ago. 
Both names are geographic!

In any case, it is difficult to be an immigrant anywhere, and the problems 
increase the more different languages and cultures are, and the less 
themajority is prepared to accept deviating cultural patterns from 
theminority. In this way, I am sure that the social acceptance of 
Finnishimmigrants in Sweden is much greater than it is of Pakistani 
immigrantsin Norway or of gypsies anywhere in the Nordic countries. I have 
even been told here at the University that as a Swede I am not really an 
"immigrant" (innvandrer) which of course I am. 

In Norway there has been a long fight about what the native Norwegian
language taught at school should be called. To radical proponents
of "nynorsk" the standard city language "bokmaal" was perverted Danish, and
should therefore not be allowed to be called "Norwegian". When I came here 
20 years ago I read letters to the editor deploring a country which had 
given up its own Norwegian language. God would most certainly punish those
people on the Day of Judgement for not honoring their parents. Anyway, 
Norwegian historical accounts tell that the term "Morsmaalet" solved this 
problem as far as school curricula go. I do not know which country started
using it.

Rolf Manne
e-mail: Rolf.Manne@uib.no
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic